December 15, 2025 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, for decades, Saturday morning cartoons defined how studios reached their youngest audiences. The block emerged during a period when television was limited, expectations were consistent, and advertisers knew how to hold attention. Over time, new regulations, new technologies, and new viewing habits loosened its grip. Mark McCray, author of The Best Saturday of Our Lives, explains how these shifts reshaped the medium and why the familiar rhythm of Saturday morning slowly disappeared.
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Transcript
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 mcgaye 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 (00:49):
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 Day Morning
have 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
(01:12):
December tenth, nineteen fifty five, with the Mighty Mouse Playhouse.
Hi Boys, Girls, here we go, rocketing into a fun filled,
exciting cartoon show. 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
(01:37):
again it was nineteen fifty five, and it wasn't a
lot of strategy, and the trend would continue through the
nineteen sixties. You had a lot of primetime cartoons like
The Flintstones.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
And Top Cat and Alvin and the chent Monks.
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 move those shows to Saturday morning.
So in the beginning, Saturday morning sort of became like a.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Dumping ground for the networks.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
And once those shows were placed on Saturday morning, guess what,
they just became a huge, huge success. Fast forward to
the nineteen sixty six season and there is a young
executive at CBS named Fred Silverman who really wants.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
To make changes.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
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 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.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Was.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Doing huge ratings and that there was this huge superhero
trend that was going on, and Fred Silverman knew that
creating any type of superhero series and bringing that series
to Saturday Morning would would definitely elevate CBS's Saturday morning schedule.
(03:27):
So he worked with a fledgling new company called Filmation
Associates and they produced the New Adventures of Superman during
the nineteen 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
(03:51):
produced huge, huge ratings, bigger ratings than anyone had ever
seen previously on Saturday Morning. The year before, there was
a Beatles 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.
(04:14):
Not only did Superman do really well during this time period,
the series created what every network wants, which is a
halo effect.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
So that means that not only did.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
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 ABC had the Beatles cartoon, and so people
(04:48):
started thinking, you know what, we can actually start making
big money on Saturday morning cartoons.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
And so the following year you had the.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Industry just grow with Hannah Barbera producing like six new
superhero shows and ABC realizing that they lost to Superman.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
There was an executive there.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
His name was Ed Vane, and Ed Vane 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
(05:34):
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 Archies, which was based on the
Archie comic book series, those ratings outbeat Superman, and the
next thing, you know, everyone wanted to see teenagers.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
And rock 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 Globetrotters
had music associated with Saturday Morning cartoons. And then in
nineteen seventy four you had your first live action superhero series, Shazam,
(06:17):
which really drew big ratings. And another company called Sidne
Marti 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.
(06:40):
And so the sponsorships were there, 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 of full exciting and fun and animators were being
(07:04):
employed and people were working in the industry and everything
was just growing and flowing. 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
(07:24):
were concerned that there was too much violence on television.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
You have to remember this is the age of Vietnam.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
The Vietnam War was going on and 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, that
(07:55):
was sort of the logical answer that things.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Need to be toned down just a bit.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
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, 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.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
And by the.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Way, we tell stories like this all the time, especially
art stories. All this creativity often coming from a business
environment and a business 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.
(08:59):
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
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.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Story and make changes.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
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 for their mascot
Sebastian to hide in a pot. And when Action for
Children's Television got a hold of that story, they decided, no,
(10:55):
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 in the kitchen,
(11:15):
all of the Josine 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.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
So that was the compromise.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
The compromise was that Sebastian would already be in the
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.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
For NBC.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Hope do now as we are.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
And the Smurfs actually create a halo effect for NBC
Saturday Morning after that network was in third place for
a long time, so you sort of have this cutesy
era happen in the eighties along with toy shows, along
with game shows like Hubert and Donkey Kong being brought
(13:09):
to Saturday Morning as well. Dungeons and Dragons was a huge,
huge hit for CBS that was made in the eighties
as well, and the trend pretty much continued through the
early digital age of the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
And so in the fall of nineteen ninety two, NBC.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
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 version of the Today Show.
This decision was mainly done because there was a new
law that was passed called the Children's Television Act. And
(13:50):
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 on the weekend. 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
(14:25):
that was reduced time for advertisers on the weekend, and
that also meant reduced revenue for the networks. So there
were a lot of 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
(14:46):
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, 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.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Creating a halo effect and.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
It sort of put CBS and ABC on notice that
they need to start readjusting their schedules and getting shows and.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Programming to compete with Fox. So when Fox got.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Into the game, they totally dominated Saturday morning and they
created a real destination for kids again.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
And so the nineties, in my opinion, was.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
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. Plus,
you know, you had the day. You know, Nickelodeon have
been around for a while with the twenty four hour
Network that was very successful. In nineteen ninety two, Cartoon
(15:51):
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 of Saturday Morning. Because if
(16:14):
you're a kid and you can watch cartoons all day,
every day, why would you wait just to watch on
Saturday morning. It's almost like the appeal of 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
(16:37):
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 and the WB Networks. They also
start creating new shows like the Legion of Superheroes. And
after the WB's Saturday Morning went away, there really hasn't
(17:23):
been any Saturday Morning again. I mean, I feel like
the broadcasters threw in the towel and that was the end.
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
(17:46):
the network's not.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Being able to compete with.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
The cable networks that had kids programming on twenty four.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Hours a day.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
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
revenue driver strategy programming a production on the networks every
(18:24):
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 cartoon and they had up
to a year to make it. 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
(19:16):
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 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. During those thirty or
(19:53):
forty years, we 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. 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 mcgaye 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 (00:49):
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 Day Morning
have 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
(01:12):
December tenth, nineteen fifty five, with the Mighty Mouse Playhouse.
Hi Boys, Girls, here we go, rocketing into a fun filled,
exciting cartoon show. 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
(01:37):
again it was nineteen fifty five, and it wasn't a
lot of strategy, and the trend would continue through the
nineteen sixties. You had a lot of primetime cartoons like
The Flintstones.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
And Top Cat and Alvin and the chent Monks.
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 move those shows to Saturday morning.
So in the beginning, Saturday morning sort of became like a.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Dumping ground for the networks.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
And once those shows were placed on Saturday morning, guess what,
they just became a huge, huge success. Fast forward to
the nineteen sixty six season and there is a young
executive at CBS named Fred Silverman who really wants.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
To make changes.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
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 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.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Was.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Doing huge ratings and that there was this huge superhero
trend that was going on, and Fred Silverman knew that
creating any type of superhero series and bringing that series
to Saturday Morning would would definitely elevate CBS's Saturday morning schedule.
(03:27):
So he worked with a fledgling new company called Filmation
Associates and they produced the New Adventures of Superman during
the nineteen 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
(03:51):
produced huge, huge ratings, bigger ratings than anyone had ever
seen previously on Saturday Morning. The year before, there was
a Beatles 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.
(04:14):
Not only did Superman do really well during this time period,
the series created what every network wants, which is a
halo effect.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
So that means that not only did.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
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 ABC had the Beatles cartoon, and so people
(04:48):
started thinking, you know what, we can actually start making
big money on Saturday morning cartoons.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
And so the following year you had the.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Industry just grow with Hannah Barbera producing like six new
superhero shows and ABC realizing that they lost to Superman.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
There was an executive there.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
His name was Ed Vane, and Ed Vane 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
(05:34):
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 Archies, which was based on the
Archie comic book series, those ratings outbeat Superman, and the
next thing, you know, everyone wanted to see teenagers.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
And rock 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 Globetrotters
had music associated with Saturday Morning cartoons. And then in
nineteen seventy four you had your first live action superhero series, Shazam,
(06:17):
which really drew big ratings. And another company called Sidne
Marti 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.
(06:40):
And so the sponsorships were there, 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 of full exciting and fun and animators were being
(07:04):
employed and people were working in the industry and everything
was just growing and flowing. 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
(07:24):
were concerned that there was too much violence on television.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
You have to remember this is the age of Vietnam.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
The Vietnam War was going on and 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, that
(07:55):
was sort of the logical answer that things.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Need to be toned down just a bit.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
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, 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.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
And by the.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Way, we tell stories like this all the time, especially
art stories. All this creativity often coming from a business
environment and a business 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.
(08:59):
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
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.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Story and make changes.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
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 for their mascot
Sebastian to hide in a pot. And when Action for
Children's Television got a hold of that story, they decided, no,
(10:55):
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 in the kitchen,
(11:15):
all of the Josine 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.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
So that was the compromise.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
The compromise was that Sebastian would already be in the
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.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
For NBC.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Hope do now as we are.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
And the Smurfs actually create a halo effect for NBC
Saturday Morning after that network was in third place for
a long time, so you sort of have this cutesy
era happen in the eighties along with toy shows, along
with game shows like Hubert and Donkey Kong being brought
(13:09):
to Saturday Morning as well. Dungeons and Dragons was a huge,
huge hit for CBS that was made in the eighties
as well, and the trend pretty much continued through the
early digital age of the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
And so in the fall of nineteen ninety two, NBC.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
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 version of the Today Show.
This decision was mainly done because there was a new
law that was passed called the Children's Television Act. And
(13:50):
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 on the weekend. 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
(14:25):
that was reduced time for advertisers on the weekend, and
that also meant reduced revenue for the networks. So there
were a lot of 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
(14:46):
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, 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.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Creating a halo effect and.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
It sort of put CBS and ABC on notice that
they need to start readjusting their schedules and getting shows and.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Programming to compete with Fox. So when Fox got.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Into the game, they totally dominated Saturday morning and they
created a real destination for kids again.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
And so the nineties, in my opinion, was.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
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. Plus,
you know, you had the day. You know, Nickelodeon have
been around for a while with the twenty four hour
Network that was very successful. In nineteen ninety two, Cartoon
(15:51):
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 of Saturday Morning. Because if
(16:14):
you're a kid and you can watch cartoons all day,
every day, why would you wait just to watch on
Saturday morning. It's almost like the appeal of 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
(16:37):
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 and the WB Networks. They also
start creating new shows like the Legion of Superheroes. And
after the WB's Saturday Morning went away, there really hasn't
(17:23):
been any Saturday Morning again. I mean, I feel like
the broadcasters threw in the towel and that was the end.
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
(17:46):
the network's not.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Being able to compete with.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
The cable networks that had kids programming on twenty four.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Hours a day.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
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
revenue driver strategy programming a production on the networks every
(18:24):
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 cartoon and they had up
to a year to make it. 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
(19:16):
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 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. During those thirty or
(19:53):
forty years, we 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. Here on our American
Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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