August 25, 2023 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Mark McCray is the author of The Best Saturdays of Our Lives. Here he is to tell us the story of Saturday morning cartoons... and answer the all-important question: what happened to them?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American stories and up next. Mark McCrae
from The Bronx, New York was a programmer at Cartoon Network.
He also was a part of a team that helped
launch another Cartoon Network channel, Boomerang. He's now a programmer
for another Cartoon Network channel, Adult Swim. Mark mcgraae is
(00:30):
the author of the Best Saturdays of Our Lives. Here
he is to tell the story of Saturday Morning cartoons
and answer the all important question, what happened to them?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Where are you now?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
I know that many of us have memories of waking
up on Saturday morning and with a bowl of cereal
and you know, watching our favorite cartoons. Saturday Morning had
been around for a long time, you know, really at
the beginning of the television age, and the first official
Saturday Morning cartoon dates all the way back to December tenth,
(01:13):
nineteen fifty five, with the Mighty Mouse Playhouse.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Hi, Boys and Girls, here we go, rocketing into a
fun filled, exciting cartoon show.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
So these were theatrical shorts featuring Mighty Mouse. CBS had
bought the library and repackaged all of these old Mighty
Mouse cartoons into a Saturday Morning show. But again it
was nineteen fifty five, and it wasn't a lot of strategy,
and the trend would continue through the nineteen sixties. You
(01:46):
had a lot of primetime cartoons like The Flintstones.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
And Top Cat and Alvin and the Chipmunks.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
All right, now, boys, how about a little dinner music.
Some of those shows were not as successful in primetime,
and the networks would, instead of just taking them off
the air completely, would.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Move those shows to Saturday morning.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
So in the beginning, Saturday morning sort of became like
a dumping ground for the networks. And once those shows
were placed on Saturday morning, guess what, they just became
a huge, huge success.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Fast forward to the.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Nineteen sixty six season and there is a young executive
at CBS named Fred Silverman who really wants to make changes. However,
you know, CBS is the number one primetime network. They're
number one in the daytime where all the soap operas
and game shows are airing, and so the only thing
(02:50):
that he was allowed to really fiddle with was Saturday morning.
And he knew that the Batman series that was airing
over on ABC featuring Adam West was doing huge ratings
and that there was this huge superhero trend that was
going on, and Fred Silverman knew that creating any type
(03:16):
of superhero series and bringing that series to Saturday Morning
would would definitely elevate CBS's Saturday Morning schedule. So he
worked with a fledgling new company called Filmation Associates and
they produced the New Adventures of Superman during the nineteen
(03:36):
sixty six sixty seventh season. Also airing that same year
was Hannah barbera Space ghost series, as well as the
Lone Ranger cartoon. The New Adventures of Superman produced huge,
huge ratings, bigger ratings than anyone had ever seen previously
(03:57):
on Saturday Morning.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
The year before, there was a Beatles.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Cartoon that was based on the famous rock band that
had the biggest ratings, but Superman's ratings blew those ratings
away and people were just amazed by it. Not only
did Superman do really well during this time period, the
series created what every network wants, which is a halo effect.
(04:23):
So that means that not only did the kids stick
around to watch Superman, they watched Space Ghosts, they watched
the Lone Ranger, and the entire CBS Saturday Morning schedule,
and the network went from number three to number one,
sort of upsetting the previous year winner ABC because the
(04:44):
ABC had the Beatles cartoon, and so people started thinking,
you know what, we can actually start making big money
on Saturday morning cartoons. And so the following year you
had the industry just grow with Hannah Barbera producing like
six new superhero shows and ABC realizing that they lost
(05:07):
to Superman.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
There was an executive there. His name was Ed Vane,
and Ed Vaine.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
I'd give props to Ed Vain because Ed Vane immediately
commissioned Marvel shows Spider Man the Fantastic Four to go
up against DC inspired Superman, and in my opinion, that
was like the best counter programming move ever from the
nineteen sixty seventh season.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
And then of.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Course, following all of that, you know, the industry started
to change. And the next thing, you know, the Archies
came in and the Archiees, which was based on the
Archie comic book series. Those ratings outbeat Superman, and the
next thing, you know, everyone wanted to see teenagers and rock.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Bands on Saturday morning.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
And then Josie and the Pussycats and Scooby Doo came along,
and the Jackson five. Following that, even the Halem Globe
Trotters had music associated with Saturday Morning cartoons. And then
in nineteen seventy four you had your first live action
superhero series, Shazam, which.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Really drew big ratings.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
And another company called SIDNEMRTI Croft Productions, they got into
the Saturday morning game with puppetry and live action producing
shows such as hr Puff and Stuff, Liddsville and the
Land of the Loss which was a huge hit for
NBC Saturday Morning as well. And so the sponsorships were there,
(06:43):
There was scheduling, there was ratings, there was programming strategy.
Everything that Primetime already had on television, everything that regular
daytime already had, Saturday Morning had finally joined the big
time and it was one full exciting and fun and
animators were being employed and people were working in the
(07:06):
industry and everything was just.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Growing and flowing.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
However, there was also a Saturday Morning backlash that occurred.
So with all of the superhero programming, a lot of
Christian groups and parent groups were concerned that there was
too much violence on television.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
You have to remember, this is the age of Vietnam.
The Vietnam War was going on, and.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
The Vietnam War was being played on the six o'clock
news every night, and people were concerned that kids were
seeing the news as well as watching violent Saturday morning cartoons.
And so when the archies came in and demonstrated huge ratings,
(07:55):
that was sort of the logical answer that things need
to be toned down just a bit. This also sort
of created a little bit of censorship on Saturday Morning
as well, because a group that was created called Action
for Children's Television. They sort of became the Censorship group,
(08:16):
a grassroots group that lobbied in Washington to try to
have certain laws change regarding children's programming.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
And you've been listening to Mark McCrae talk about, well,
the advent and development of Saturday morning programming and Saturday
Morning cartoons. And by the way, we tell stories like
this all the time, especially art stories. All of this
creativity often coming from a business environment and a business
(08:46):
schemanic we need to go catch viewers. And the next
thing he says, we have animators working. Business is humming
and this is the miracle of free enterprise, and that
cuts right to even our sports and entertainment worlds. And
that's why we tell stories about them, because well, without
these opportunities and freedoms, where do these animators get jobs?
When we come back, more of Mark McCrae's story about
(09:11):
Saturday morning cartoons and Saturday morning television. Here on our
American Stories, and we're back with our American stories and
(09:41):
Mark McCrae telling the story of Saturday Morning cartoons. He's
also the author of the Best Saturdays of Our Lives.
Now back to Mark with the rest of the story.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
A group that was created called Action for Children's Television.
They sort of became the Censorship Group, a grassroots group
that lobbied in Washington to try to have certain laws
change regarding children's programming, and for a long time they
wielded a lot of power over Saturday morning television. For example,
(10:20):
if a story was written for a Saturday Morning cartoon,
then they had the right to look over the story
and make changes. But for example, there was an episode
of Josie and the Pussycats where the villain is chasing
the Pussycats through the kitchen and the original scene called
(10:43):
for their mascot Sebastian to hide in a pot. And
when Action from Children's Television got a.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Hold of that, story.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
They decided, no, we can't show a cat hiding in
a pot, because some kid at home might actually try
to put their own pet cat in a pot. I
don't know if I necessarily agree with that assessment, but anyway,
the scene was changed so that when the villain ran
(11:14):
in the kitchen, all of the Josie and the Pussycat's
cast was hiding and suddenly you see Sebastian jump out
of the pot and start to run because the cat
thinks it's going to be discovered. So that was the compromise.
The compromise was that Sebastian would already be in the
(11:34):
pot when the villain showed up in the kitchen looking
for the kids on.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
That particular show.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
So a lot of this went on for a long
time through the seventies and through the eighties, where you
had a lot of superhero shows which had a lot
of action but no one could actually throw a punch,
and that trend would really continue all the way through
the nineteen nineties. But anyway, not trying to jump ahead,
(12:03):
but you know, you had all this exciting programming in
the seventies, and then when you hit the nineteen eighties,
things sort of change. Again, there's sort of this deregulation
during the Reagan era, and the toy show is born.
He Man in the Masses of the Universe and Gi
Joe become huge hits, and you're getting first run syndication
(12:25):
in the afternoon.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
The Smurfs also show up on Saturday Morning.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Which was a successful Belgian comic book as well as
animated series in the past, and they do huge ratings
for nbcrit.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Hope you don't now as we.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
And the Smurfs actually create a halo effect for NBC
Saturday Morning after that network was in third place for.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
A long time.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
So you sort of have this cutesy era happening in
the eighties along with toy shows, along with game shows
like Hubert and Donkey Kong being brought to Saturday Morning
as well. Dungeons and Dragons was a huge, huge hit
for CBS that was made in the eighties as well,
(13:18):
and the trend pretty much continued through the early digital
age of the nineteen nineties. And so in the fall
of nineteen ninety two, NBC drops out of the Saturday
Morning game and they decided that they could make more
money through advertising and revenue by having a Saturday morning.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Version of the Today Show.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
This decision was mainly done because there was a new
law that was passed called the Children's Television Act. And
what this Act said, it was an FCC ruling that
said that all networks had to have three hours of
educational television.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Running on the air.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
The other ruling also said that the Television Act reduced advertising.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
On the weekend.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
So during the week advertising could be like anywhere from
twelve minutes, but on the weekend advertising could only be
ten minutes, and so that meant that was reduced time
for advertisers on the weekend, and that also meant reduced
revenue for the networks. So there were a lot of
(14:35):
changes and for the most part, the networks just ignored
the changes. And as NBC exited, Fox Kids came into
play by creating their own Saturday morning block. The block
was created by a woman named Margaret Lesh and she
created the X Men series that premiered in nineteen ninety two,
(14:56):
as well as Power Rangers. And when those shows took off,
the next thing you know, Fox Kids is number one,
and they are also creating a halo effect and it
sort of put CBS and ABC on notice that they
need to start readjusting their schedules and getting shows and
programming to compete with Fox.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So when Fox got into the game.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
They totally dominated Saturday Morning and they created a real
destination for kids again. And so the nineties, in my opinion,
was sort of like the last hurrah for Saturday Morning.
But because of the rules that were imposed by the FCC,
it became increasingly harder for networks to compete on Saturday morning.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Plus, you know, you had the day.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
You know, Nickelodeon had been around for a while with
the twenty five hour.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Network that was very successful.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
In nineteen ninety two, Cartoon Network launched and they had
mostly the Hanna Barberia, MGM, and Looney Tunes Library. So
the competition was getting really tight on the kid's side
of the business, and networks were increasingly being squeezed out
(16:12):
of Saturday Morning. Because if you're a kid and you
can watch cartoons all day every day, why would you
wait just to watch on Saturday morning.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
It's almost like the appeal of.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Saturday Morning was sort of going away, and it was
it was becoming an old idea and the kids growing
up in the nineteen nineties and early two thousands, they
were their viewing habits started to.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Change, and you know, so waiting.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
For a show to come on Saturday wasn't that big
of a deal, whereas you know, back in the day,
kids waited all week just to see their Saturday Morning cartoons.
So we start to roll around the night around the
two thousands, and Saturday Morning is still going.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
It's holding on by a thread.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
And you have a new player into the game, and
it's the WB Network.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
And the WB Networks.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
They also start creating new shows like the Legion of Superheroes.
And after the WB's Saturday Morning went away, there really
hasn't been any Saturday Morning again. I mean, I feel
like the broadcasters threw in the towel and.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
That was the end.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
I mean, it was regulation from the FCC with the
Children's Television Act, less revenue that can be made on
the weekend, also a sort of destroyed Saturday Morning, and
the network's not being able to compete with the cable
(17:53):
networks that had kids programming on twenty four hours a day.
So I feel like those are the three things that
killed Saturday Morning programming. However, the silver lining is that
it wouldn't be a kid's twenty four hour kid Network
unless Saturday Morning didn't prove itself as a money making
(18:16):
revenue driver strategy programming a production on the networks every
week for thirty to forty years.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
So but these.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Guys, these amazing men and women working in the animation industry,
still managed to inspire and entertain. And that's why I
always take my hat off to them, because they were
probably working under the you know, like crazy conditions, you know,
having to deliver a cartoon in a week, you know,
(18:51):
like during the theatrical days. So like a Tom and
Jerry back in the nineteen forties, they had a boatload
of money to make the.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Car and they had up to a year to make it.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
These guys didn't have a year to make one cartoon,
and so there were a lot of things working against them.
And I feel like sometimes when you know you don't
necessarily have all the bells and whistles to make your
creative cartoon or animation, I feel like it makes you
work harder because you have to step up to the
(19:24):
challenge and find new ways to tell stories and animation
or live action.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
And great job as always to Greg Hangler and to
Mark McCrae for telling this story. And by the way,
you can go to his website. The initials are tbsool
dot com TB soo l dot com and his book
is The Best Saturdays of Our Lives. And what a
great story about innovation and creativity.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
During those thirty or forty years, we.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Got all that content so people could watch it when
they want and where they want. You get some good
and you get some with technology. But we're never going back.
The story of Saturday Morning cartoons a great era in
American television.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Here on our American Stories
This is our American stories and up next. Mark McCrae
from The Bronx, New York was a programmer at Cartoon Network.
He also was a part of a team that helped
launch another Cartoon Network channel, Boomerang. He's now a programmer
for another Cartoon Network channel, Adult Swim. Mark mcgraae is
(00:30):
the author of the Best Saturdays of Our Lives. Here
he is to tell the story of Saturday Morning cartoons
and answer the all important question, what happened to them?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Where are you now?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
I know that many of us have memories of waking
up on Saturday morning and with a bowl of cereal
and you know, watching our favorite cartoons. Saturday Morning had
been around for a long time, you know, really at
the beginning of the television age, and the first official
Saturday Morning cartoon dates all the way back to December tenth,
(01:13):
nineteen fifty five, with the Mighty Mouse Playhouse.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Hi, Boys and Girls, here we go, rocketing into a
fun filled, exciting cartoon show.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
So these were theatrical shorts featuring Mighty Mouse. CBS had
bought the library and repackaged all of these old Mighty
Mouse cartoons into a Saturday Morning show. But again it
was nineteen fifty five, and it wasn't a lot of strategy,
and the trend would continue through the nineteen sixties. You
(01:46):
had a lot of primetime cartoons like The Flintstones.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
And Top Cat and Alvin and the Chipmunks.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
All right, now, boys, how about a little dinner music.
Some of those shows were not as successful in primetime,
and the networks would, instead of just taking them off
the air completely, would.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Move those shows to Saturday morning.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
So in the beginning, Saturday morning sort of became like
a dumping ground for the networks. And once those shows
were placed on Saturday morning, guess what, they just became
a huge, huge success.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Fast forward to the.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Nineteen sixty six season and there is a young executive
at CBS named Fred Silverman who really wants to make changes. However,
you know, CBS is the number one primetime network. They're
number one in the daytime where all the soap operas
and game shows are airing, and so the only thing
(02:50):
that he was allowed to really fiddle with was Saturday morning.
And he knew that the Batman series that was airing
over on ABC featuring Adam West was doing huge ratings
and that there was this huge superhero trend that was
going on, and Fred Silverman knew that creating any type
(03:16):
of superhero series and bringing that series to Saturday Morning
would would definitely elevate CBS's Saturday Morning schedule. So he
worked with a fledgling new company called Filmation Associates and
they produced the New Adventures of Superman during the nineteen
(03:36):
sixty six sixty seventh season. Also airing that same year
was Hannah barbera Space ghost series, as well as the
Lone Ranger cartoon. The New Adventures of Superman produced huge,
huge ratings, bigger ratings than anyone had ever seen previously
(03:57):
on Saturday Morning.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
The year before, there was a Beatles.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Cartoon that was based on the famous rock band that
had the biggest ratings, but Superman's ratings blew those ratings
away and people were just amazed by it. Not only
did Superman do really well during this time period, the
series created what every network wants, which is a halo effect.
(04:23):
So that means that not only did the kids stick
around to watch Superman, they watched Space Ghosts, they watched
the Lone Ranger, and the entire CBS Saturday Morning schedule,
and the network went from number three to number one,
sort of upsetting the previous year winner ABC because the
(04:44):
ABC had the Beatles cartoon, and so people started thinking,
you know what, we can actually start making big money
on Saturday morning cartoons. And so the following year you
had the industry just grow with Hannah Barbera producing like
six new superhero shows and ABC realizing that they lost
(05:07):
to Superman.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
There was an executive there. His name was Ed Vane,
and Ed Vaine.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
I'd give props to Ed Vain because Ed Vane immediately
commissioned Marvel shows Spider Man the Fantastic Four to go
up against DC inspired Superman, and in my opinion, that
was like the best counter programming move ever from the
nineteen sixty seventh season.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
And then of.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Course, following all of that, you know, the industry started
to change. And the next thing, you know, the Archies
came in and the Archiees, which was based on the
Archie comic book series. Those ratings outbeat Superman, and the
next thing, you know, everyone wanted to see teenagers and rock.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Bands on Saturday morning.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
And then Josie and the Pussycats and Scooby Doo came along,
and the Jackson five. Following that, even the Halem Globe
Trotters had music associated with Saturday Morning cartoons. And then
in nineteen seventy four you had your first live action
superhero series, Shazam, which.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Really drew big ratings.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
And another company called SIDNEMRTI Croft Productions, they got into
the Saturday morning game with puppetry and live action producing
shows such as hr Puff and Stuff, Liddsville and the
Land of the Loss which was a huge hit for
NBC Saturday Morning as well. And so the sponsorships were there,
(06:43):
There was scheduling, there was ratings, there was programming strategy.
Everything that Primetime already had on television, everything that regular
daytime already had, Saturday Morning had finally joined the big
time and it was one full exciting and fun and
animators were being employed and people were working in the
(07:06):
industry and everything was just.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Growing and flowing.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
However, there was also a Saturday Morning backlash that occurred.
So with all of the superhero programming, a lot of
Christian groups and parent groups were concerned that there was
too much violence on television.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
You have to remember, this is the age of Vietnam.
The Vietnam War was going on, and.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
The Vietnam War was being played on the six o'clock
news every night, and people were concerned that kids were
seeing the news as well as watching violent Saturday morning cartoons.
And so when the archies came in and demonstrated huge ratings,
(07:55):
that was sort of the logical answer that things need
to be toned down just a bit. This also sort
of created a little bit of censorship on Saturday Morning
as well, because a group that was created called Action
for Children's Television. They sort of became the Censorship group,
(08:16):
a grassroots group that lobbied in Washington to try to
have certain laws change regarding children's programming.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
And you've been listening to Mark McCrae talk about, well,
the advent and development of Saturday morning programming and Saturday
Morning cartoons. And by the way, we tell stories like
this all the time, especially art stories. All of this
creativity often coming from a business environment and a business
(08:46):
schemanic we need to go catch viewers. And the next
thing he says, we have animators working. Business is humming
and this is the miracle of free enterprise, and that
cuts right to even our sports and entertainment worlds. And
that's why we tell stories about them, because well, without
these opportunities and freedoms, where do these animators get jobs?
When we come back, more of Mark McCrae's story about
(09:11):
Saturday morning cartoons and Saturday morning television. Here on our
American Stories, and we're back with our American stories and
(09:41):
Mark McCrae telling the story of Saturday Morning cartoons. He's
also the author of the Best Saturdays of Our Lives.
Now back to Mark with the rest of the story.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
A group that was created called Action for Children's Television.
They sort of became the Censorship Group, a grassroots group
that lobbied in Washington to try to have certain laws
change regarding children's programming, and for a long time they
wielded a lot of power over Saturday morning television. For example,
(10:20):
if a story was written for a Saturday Morning cartoon,
then they had the right to look over the story
and make changes. But for example, there was an episode
of Josie and the Pussycats where the villain is chasing
the Pussycats through the kitchen and the original scene called
(10:43):
for their mascot Sebastian to hide in a pot. And
when Action from Children's Television got a.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Hold of that, story.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
They decided, no, we can't show a cat hiding in
a pot, because some kid at home might actually try
to put their own pet cat in a pot. I
don't know if I necessarily agree with that assessment, but anyway,
the scene was changed so that when the villain ran
(11:14):
in the kitchen, all of the Josie and the Pussycat's
cast was hiding and suddenly you see Sebastian jump out
of the pot and start to run because the cat
thinks it's going to be discovered. So that was the compromise.
The compromise was that Sebastian would already be in the
(11:34):
pot when the villain showed up in the kitchen looking
for the kids on.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
That particular show.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
So a lot of this went on for a long
time through the seventies and through the eighties, where you
had a lot of superhero shows which had a lot
of action but no one could actually throw a punch,
and that trend would really continue all the way through
the nineteen nineties. But anyway, not trying to jump ahead,
(12:03):
but you know, you had all this exciting programming in
the seventies, and then when you hit the nineteen eighties,
things sort of change. Again, there's sort of this deregulation
during the Reagan era, and the toy show is born.
He Man in the Masses of the Universe and Gi
Joe become huge hits, and you're getting first run syndication
(12:25):
in the afternoon.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
The Smurfs also show up on Saturday Morning.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Which was a successful Belgian comic book as well as
animated series in the past, and they do huge ratings
for nbcrit.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Hope you don't now as we.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
And the Smurfs actually create a halo effect for NBC
Saturday Morning after that network was in third place for.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
A long time.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
So you sort of have this cutesy era happening in
the eighties along with toy shows, along with game shows
like Hubert and Donkey Kong being brought to Saturday Morning
as well. Dungeons and Dragons was a huge, huge hit
for CBS that was made in the eighties as well,
(13:18):
and the trend pretty much continued through the early digital
age of the nineteen nineties. And so in the fall
of nineteen ninety two, NBC drops out of the Saturday
Morning game and they decided that they could make more
money through advertising and revenue by having a Saturday morning.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Version of the Today Show.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
This decision was mainly done because there was a new
law that was passed called the Children's Television Act. And
what this Act said, it was an FCC ruling that
said that all networks had to have three hours of
educational television.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Running on the air.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
The other ruling also said that the Television Act reduced advertising.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
On the weekend.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
So during the week advertising could be like anywhere from
twelve minutes, but on the weekend advertising could only be
ten minutes, and so that meant that was reduced time
for advertisers on the weekend, and that also meant reduced
revenue for the networks. So there were a lot of
(14:35):
changes and for the most part, the networks just ignored
the changes. And as NBC exited, Fox Kids came into
play by creating their own Saturday morning block. The block
was created by a woman named Margaret Lesh and she
created the X Men series that premiered in nineteen ninety two,
(14:56):
as well as Power Rangers. And when those shows took off,
the next thing you know, Fox Kids is number one,
and they are also creating a halo effect and it
sort of put CBS and ABC on notice that they
need to start readjusting their schedules and getting shows and
programming to compete with Fox.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So when Fox got into the game.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
They totally dominated Saturday Morning and they created a real
destination for kids again. And so the nineties, in my opinion,
was sort of like the last hurrah for Saturday Morning.
But because of the rules that were imposed by the FCC,
it became increasingly harder for networks to compete on Saturday morning.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Plus, you know, you had the day.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
You know, Nickelodeon had been around for a while with
the twenty five hour.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Network that was very successful.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
In nineteen ninety two, Cartoon Network launched and they had
mostly the Hanna Barberia, MGM, and Looney Tunes Library. So
the competition was getting really tight on the kid's side
of the business, and networks were increasingly being squeezed out
(16:12):
of Saturday Morning. Because if you're a kid and you
can watch cartoons all day every day, why would you
wait just to watch on Saturday morning.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
It's almost like the appeal of.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Saturday Morning was sort of going away, and it was
it was becoming an old idea and the kids growing
up in the nineteen nineties and early two thousands, they
were their viewing habits started to.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Change, and you know, so waiting.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
For a show to come on Saturday wasn't that big
of a deal, whereas you know, back in the day,
kids waited all week just to see their Saturday Morning cartoons.
So we start to roll around the night around the
two thousands, and Saturday Morning is still going.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
It's holding on by a thread.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
And you have a new player into the game, and
it's the WB Network.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
And the WB Networks.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
They also start creating new shows like the Legion of Superheroes.
And after the WB's Saturday Morning went away, there really
hasn't been any Saturday Morning again. I mean, I feel
like the broadcasters threw in the towel and.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
That was the end.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
I mean, it was regulation from the FCC with the
Children's Television Act, less revenue that can be made on
the weekend, also a sort of destroyed Saturday Morning, and
the network's not being able to compete with the cable
(17:53):
networks that had kids programming on twenty four hours a day.
So I feel like those are the three things that
killed Saturday Morning programming. However, the silver lining is that
it wouldn't be a kid's twenty four hour kid Network
unless Saturday Morning didn't prove itself as a money making
(18:16):
revenue driver strategy programming a production on the networks every
week for thirty to forty years.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
So but these.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Guys, these amazing men and women working in the animation industry,
still managed to inspire and entertain. And that's why I
always take my hat off to them, because they were
probably working under the you know, like crazy conditions, you know,
having to deliver a cartoon in a week, you know,
(18:51):
like during the theatrical days. So like a Tom and
Jerry back in the nineteen forties, they had a boatload
of money to make the.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Car and they had up to a year to make it.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
These guys didn't have a year to make one cartoon,
and so there were a lot of things working against them.
And I feel like sometimes when you know you don't
necessarily have all the bells and whistles to make your
creative cartoon or animation, I feel like it makes you
work harder because you have to step up to the
(19:24):
challenge and find new ways to tell stories and animation
or live action.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
And great job as always to Greg Hangler and to
Mark McCrae for telling this story. And by the way,
you can go to his website. The initials are tbsool
dot com TB soo l dot com and his book
is The Best Saturdays of Our Lives. And what a
great story about innovation and creativity.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
During those thirty or forty years, we.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Got all that content so people could watch it when
they want and where they want. You get some good
and you get some with technology. But we're never going back.
The story of Saturday Morning cartoons a great era in
American television.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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