"Saturday-morning cartoon" is a colloquial term for originalanimated series and live-action programming typically scheduled on Saturday and Sunday mornings in theUnited States on the"Big Three" television networks. The genre was a tradition broadly ranging from the mid-1960s to mid-2010s,[1] with its popularity declining over time due to changing cultural norms, increased competition from formats available at all times, and heavier media regulations.[2][3][4] In the last years of the genre's existence, Saturday-morning and Sunday-morning cartoons were primarily created and aired on major networks to meet"educational and informational" (E/I) requirements. Minor television networks, in addition to the non-commercialPBS in some markets, continued to air animated programming on Saturday and Sunday while partially meeting those mandates.[5][6]
In the United States, the generally accepted times for these and other children's programs to air on Saturday mornings were from 8:00 a.m. to approximately 1:00 p.m.Eastern Time Zone. Until the late 1970s, American networks also had a schedule of children's programming on Sunday mornings, though most programs at this time were rebroadcasts of Saturday-morning shows that were already out of production.[7][8] In some markets, some shows were pre-empted in favour ofsyndicated or other types oflocal programming.[9]
After theParamount Decree broke upblock booking practices, in the 1950s, animation production shifted from theatrical shorts to television animation.Jason Mittel analyzes the argues that by the end of the 1960s, this shift to television also unintentionally shifted popular understandings of animation. With the rise of the Saturday morning cartoon block, Mittel observes that animation transformed from "a mass-market genre with so-called 'kidult' appeal and became marginalized into the kid-only Saturday morning periphery."[10]
Beginning in the mid-1960s, the Saturday-morning time slot would feature a great deal of series appropriate for children, although most of these werereruns of animated series originally broadcast inprime time and adventure series made in the 1950s, as well as telecasts of older cartoons made formovie theaters.[11] Later in the decade, the slot would be dominated bysuperhero and action cartoon series, influenced by the success ofSpace Ghost.[12][13] These were heavily criticized by parents for their violence.[14]
By 1972, most action programming had been removed from the Saturday-morning slot, following pressure from parents' lobbying groups such as theAction for Children's Television (ACT).[15] These groups voiced concerns about the presentation ofcommercialism, violence, anti-social attitudes andstereotypes in Saturday-morning cartoons.[15] By the 1970s, these groups exercised enough influence, especially with theU.S. Congress and theFederal Communications Commission (FCC), that the television networks felt compelled to impose more stringent content rules for the animation houses.[16][17][18] In 1978, theFederal Trade Commission was openly considering a ban on all advertising during television programming targeting preschoolers, and severe restrictions on other children's program advertising, both of which would have effectively killed off the format; the commission ultimately dropped the proposal.[19]
The networks were encouraged to create educational spots that endeavored to use animation or live-action for enriching content,[20] including theSchoolhouse Rock! series onABC which became a fondly-remembered television classic, while CBS had the long-running children's oriented news series,In the News. In Canada concurrently, theNational Film Board of Canada produced a roughly equivalent domestic series calledCanada Vignettes, although they were intended to be aired throughout the usual broadcast day. With the 1970s came a wave of animated versions of popular live-action prime time series as well, mainly with the voices of the original casts, such asStar Trek: The Animated Series, as well as imitations of the highly successfulScooby-Doo[21] combining teen characters andtalking animals with supernatural mystery stories.
By 1982, under PresidentRonald Reagan, the FCC had loosened programming and advertising regulations,[22] leading to the era of "half-hour toy commercials", starting withHe-Man and the Masters of the Universe and continuing with such series asThe Transformers andTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. These were heavily criticized by ACT, but were nevertheless successful.[23] As well, several more lighthearted series appeared, popularized byHanna-Barbera'sThe Smurfs andJim Henson'sMuppet Babies.[24] These included series based on popularvideo games, such asSaturday Supercade.[25]
Beginning in the late 1980s, networks commissioned new series based on legacy properties that would appeal tonostalgia and to awhole family audience, including ABC's reviving theScooby-Doo franchise withA Pup Named Scooby-Doo[26][27] and commissioningThe New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh fromThe Walt Disney Company, both series being major successes.[27][28] The move was largely driven by the adoption of thepeople meter, which ABC believed that younger children could not operate and which ABC blamed for the network's poor viewership with its younger-skewing lineup featuring the likes ofThe Little Clowns of Happytown.[29] CBS likewise focused its content on established properties, bringing the comic stripGarfield (which had produced a number of successful specials already) to Saturday morning with what would become the long-runningGarfield and Friends and pairing the show with live-action children's series hosted by fictional characters originally created for adult audiences,Pee-wee Herman (Pee-Wee's Playhouse) andErnest P. Worrell (Hey Vern, It's Ernest!).[27]
Despite increased competition fromcable television networks (such asNickelodeon,Cartoon Network, andDisney Channel),[30][31][32] Saturday-morning andweekday cartoon blocks continued to remain popular in the 1990s. Examples included Disney'sDisney Afternoon in syndication,Fox'sFox Kids,UPN'sUPN Kids,CBS'sCBS Saturday,The WB'sKids' WB, andAmazin' Adventures (later Bohbot Kids Network) in syndication.
From 1992 however, the "Big Three" traditional major networks and their affiliates began replacing their Saturday-morning animated programming with weekend editions of theirmorning news programs,[33][34][35] and live-action teen-oriented series.[36] Multiple factors contributed to the change, among them an increasingly competitive market fueled by themulti-channel transition,[37][31] a boom infirst-run syndicated content[38] and the introduction ofhome video and video games; increasing restrictions on advertising andeducational content mandates;[1] and broader cultural changes stemming from an increase inno-fault divorces and the end of thepost-World War II baby boom.[32][1][39]
Attempting to pair the newscasts with the remaining cartoons was largely unsuccessful because the two program formats drew widely different audiences that did not lend themselves toleading in and out of each other, leading to viewership oddities (such asNBC's children's block having an average viewership age of over 40 years old);[40][41] by the mid 2010s, all of the major American networks had shifted to live-action documentary programming, ostensibly targeted at teenagers to meet the educational mandates but less likely to cause a clash with the newscasts as the programming was genericized as much as possible to resemblereality television programming for general audiences found on most cable networks (or in the case ofDr. Chris: Pet Vet, general reality programming from overseas re-edited to comply with American mandates).[41] This documentary programming also benefited from having less restrictive rules for advertising compared to programming targeted to children.[41]
Saturday-morning and Sunday-morning cartoons were largely discontinued inCanada by 2002. In the United States,The CW continued to air non-E/I cartoons until September 27, 2014;[1] among the "Big Three" traditional major networks, the final non-E/I cartoon to date (Kim Possible) was last aired in 2006.
This era continues to be satirized and paid homage to in popular culture. In the 1990s, manyGeneration Xers were nostalgic for the Saturday-morning cartoons of the 1970s and 1980s.[42] One such example was thetribute albumSaturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits (1995), where Saturday-morning cartoon themes such asScooby-Doo andFat Albert were covered byalternative rock artists.[43][44] TheNetflix animated seriesSaturday Morning All Star Hits! parodies the mid-1980s to early 1990s era of Saturday-morning animation, such asThundercats,Care Bears,ProStars, andDenver, the Last Dinosaur.[45] The science fiction animated seriesFuturama also spoofed 1970s and 1980s Saturday-morning cartoons in the episode "Saturday Morning Fun Pit".[46]
Do you think I'll keep putting those programs on the air? Little Clowns of Happytown, which is specifically for children under 6, has been canceled because it can't generate the people-meter numbers.
