R.I.P. Saturday Morning Cartoons
 

Today marks the end of Saturday morning cartoons. One of the best part of my childhood in the 90s' was getting up early and watching cartoons and related programs from 7am until noon. For close to a decade now the main networks have done away with their Sat AM programming blocks. The merged WB! and UPN had a package of repeats from Kids WB!'s library it ran until today. Its something that we have had since the late 1950s with Rocky & Bullwinkle and Yogi Bear among others to wake up to on the weekends. Part of this is the 1996 overhaul of the Children's Programming Act and lack of products to take off following the decline of the Japanese dub popularity circa 1998-2002. I feel bad for these kids today not getting to appreciate something that for a little over half a century entertained more than three generations of children. Sure Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon have their share of cartoons,mostly 3-D and air on Friday nights instead of Saturday mornings for the most part but its not the big three Fox and WB! airing kids programming that was pure fun and not focusing on the unnecessary educational aspect. :(
http://www.cinemablend.com/televisio...ete-67543.html

Kids of today have online streaming services and youtube, stuff that wasn't around back in the 90's or early 2000's when we were kids. That's why Saturday Morning cartoons aren't relevant anymore.

More and more people are watching cartoons on the internet rather than on TV, or through devices like netflix or hulu. People don't actually sit down to watch shows on TV at certain times like they used to.

We are relics from the 90's and that's why it seems odd to us. I remember using a VCR to tape shows on TV that I wasn't home to watch.

Saturday morning cartoons are still on Cartoon Network and some channels like Hub (Now Discovery Kids).Just becuase "muh precious 90s shows" aren't running, doesn't mean cartoons are dead.

The news article confirms this Saturday is the last Saturday for the CW cartoon block. It ends this Saturday which is why the article calls it the death of Saturday mornings on non-cable neworks

Sad to see Saturday Morning Cartoons ending, We been spoiled by watching Cartoons everyday on channels like Cartoon Network.

Too bad most modern cartoons are terrible:

- CN's cartoons have gone downhill and the good shows they had get canceled early

- Nick has nothing outside of TMNT and Korra

- All current Marvel/Disney cartoons are awful. The new Star Wars cartoon could go either way.

Based on what we've seen so far, Rebels isn't looking good either.

I heard it was amazing. Give it a chance.

Personally, Saturday mornings died when the Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show was canceled. 40 years! I still remember when it was on CBS prior to becoming the Bugs & Tweety Show on ABC. Seriously, for me this was something I thought would always be around.



I'm glad I grew up in the 80s and 90s where it was fun to wake up Saturday mornings. I still remember back in 80s going between CBS, ABC, and NBC with a bowl of either Apple Jacks, Apple Cinnamion Cheerios, Life, Kix, or Berry Berry Kix. Very precious memories.

Weird! I just watched a bunch this morning with my nephew. I guess everyone outside of the "pathetic adults who desperately cling to their childhood" demographic didn't get the memo.

I've seen maaany cartoons come and go, and although I hate to type this, I could tell that most cartoons have been done away with on the local stations. Gone are most of the Saturday morning cartoons and the weekday cartoons also went away. There may still be some cartoons showing, but they air really early in the morning -3 AM till 5 AM- *on one local channel that I get here* and most of them are just reruns.

Sad to see an awesome era die off but it's nice to see some DVD's of those old cartoon series hit the store shelves.
Sort of bittersweet but better than nothing. *Way less commercials too.*

Good Lord, I remember that show too.

The 90's and the early 2000's were the best time for cartoons. So many now classic and loved shows originally aired from around 1990-2006 or so.

This. CN has nothing but cartoons on as early as 7am.

Not that big a deal with the internet, DVDs and 24 hour cartoon channels.

Besides I never got up at 7-8am on Saturday's. Never understood this type of schedule. Why would kids get up that early on weekends...its time to sleep in after a week of school.

I used to record shows. Used to get up sometimes for Sonic SatAm but went back to sleep afterwards. :lol:

With me, it was just always something that would happen even when I had nothing to do. I wouldn't even need to set the alarm. Not sure why that is though.

Oh, well also from the networks standpoint, why would they want to give kids a reason to get up early on weekends? Some cartoons started even earlier at 6 and 6:30am.

Maybe its just me but its something that never made sense imo.

You know, I was about to say there was something fishy about this because I watched Vortexx CW with my mom yesterday morning and nothing seemed off.

Then I googled it just to make sure I wasn't like, dreaming or something, and it turns out that was the last Vortexx CW broadcast.

...Kinda saddening since that was the only channel we had that had any access to cartoons at all.

How sad... Saturday mornings used to be fun. Now they're just an excuse to watch more YouTube.

Even though I work on Saturday mornings, I'm still kinda sad to see this go. I have lots of great memories of this, especially with ninja turtles.

Toonami aquired the DBZ Kai rights. Its still going to be airing.

There was nothing worthwhile on their line-up anyways...no wonder it fell

Wow..... I can remember how exciting saturday was because of 2k3 and spectacular spider-man.... Heck, I remember when abc family showed the 90's spider-man,Hulk,X-men shows.... So much for that....

But this is about the Saturday morning cartoons, which is a different thing. But at least Toonami finally got those rights.

[Not that it matters because I don't have cable anyway.]

I thought that Toonami evolved from a week day afternoon block with exclusive Japanese anime into a three year run of a Saturday night block of action cartoons. That was back in the mid 2000s though. Did Cartoon Network bring it back in some form?

"This morning, The CW’s Vortexx programming block is airing episodes of Cubix, Sonic X, Dragon Ball Z and Kai, Digimon Fusion, Yu-Gi-Oh! and more for the very last time."

So this the way the age ends. Now with a bang, but with a dub-over.

I do love that the cinemablend obituary ran a shot of the old Turtles at the top. Who would have thought the Turtles would outlive the tradition of Saturday morning cartoons on networks? :tlol:

Shouldnt this be in the rip forum?with all the ways kids can watch cartoons Saturday morning cartoons they just aren't watching them over the air and the ratings for SatAM cartoons have been declining for over a decade now which is why the programing blocks have slowly stopped over the past 10 years. It's not like its the end of cartoons, you can watch cartoons 24/7 if you have cable and with Netflix and the internet kids just weren't watching them SatAMs anymore not to mention they have more distractions with computers/tablets/video games/etc. But that isnt as click baity as "the death of SatAM toons" we live in different times.

Saturday Morning cartoons were dead for years anyway.

They sure don't make shows like these anymore. :(

(Same applies for music, too.)

Oh god now this thread just got spooky.

I worked hard during the week as a kid so I could play hard on weekends. So cartoons were a big deal for me. I certainly recorded enough of them on VHS back in the day. It's sad to see this tradition end, although I thought it had ended a long time ago, really. Fox was like my be all end all for great toons, so when they started canceling their shows I pretty much stopped watching Saturday morning toons. I didn't have CTN as a kid unless I was over at my grandma's. In the early 2000's it was TMNT 2k3 and I think Justice League and JLU were on Saturdays. That short lived He-man series starring Cam Clark was another one I frequently watched. Our cable provider had CTN while I was in college so that was cool. Loved all of these, but glad to be able to relive them any time. Kids today are spoiled when you think about it. I think I would have gladly traded Saturday morning toons to be able to watch them any time. I guess I did with all the shows I'd recorded and completed on VHS. I guess one could create a Saturday morning lineup if they've accumulated enough shows on DVD and/or vod for the sake of nostalgia. Me, I like sleeping in these days, but I definitely miss those new Fall shows we got every Saturday. Especially the Fox Kids premieres.

It sucks I can't find any rips of the original version of Cubix

the Korean version is much better...figures it was ruined by 4kids

Look at this dude giving Avatar:Legend of Korra some love :lol:

In the mid-90s, Cartoon Network used to have a block called "Saturday Japanime". Use to air Saturday nights. Only thing I remember though is Voltron which was pretty nostalgic, but I didn't watch the block much in general.

Toonami used to air weekday afternoons. Never knew it was on Saturdays at one point.

Oh, Saturday. Even during my aging years, I remember all the great times waking up early to watch what cartoons were available on the electric box, which has now evolved into flatter boxes, and are more clearer to see (though I don't think all the old shows/games are able to synch with the new tech that is HDTV).

Not only were the cartoons a big part of my childhood, but those commercials were pretty entertaining. From the advertisement of different items, to deep words of wisdoms from people/characters, even those horrific PSA commercials dealing with smoking, violence and homeless had a big impact on me.

Those were the good old days where they dare tested our emotions to structure our hopes of the future.

After the DBZ led lineup left its 1995-2002 weekday afternoon slot (which Batman:TAS was always apart for awhile) it moved to Saturday nights from 8-11. Justice League seasons 2-5 all aired on it in either the lead off or the 10pm slot.

The death of Saturday Morning Cartoons was a long and slow one, with one of the most notable signs was when CBS was the first major network to ditch most of its non-educational Saturday Morning Cartoon line-up at around 1997-1998 for The Early Show. (NBC was already showing gradual signs of Saturday morning cartoon decline with more teen-oriented programs, but nothing as abrupt as having an adult-news program in the middle of the morning like CBS had with The Early Show.)

To me, the whole Children's Television Act of 1990 (associated with the stricter enforcement in 1996) seemed more like a band-aid approach for the improving the education of America's youth through casual television viewing rather than tackling the more pertinent and pressing issues about America's crumbling public school systems and a family's environment and attitude toward valuing a child's education. I'm not saying there aren't some good educational children's shows, but the fact there has to be mandated educational programming when there were already educational children shows on PBS, is over-the-top.

From what I understand, the Children's Television Act was fostered after concerns of commercialism, violence, etc. in cartoons from parental groups, but in hindsight it seems unfruitful considering how much America's children can access through cable/satellite/internet usage and found those interests elsewhere outside of network television. Of course the whole decline of Saturday morning cartoons is far more complex with network changes, animation company changes, on-demand viewing of television episodes, legalizing informercials, expanding college football on television, offshoring animation, rise of teen sitcoms (i.e. Saved By the Bell), and other factors too, but as I said before, this particular legislation seems overreaching when the landscape of the television market was already dramatically changing, for better or worse.

CBS in my area fazed it out prior to 1997. I want to say round about season 7 of the OT. Maybe season 6. I'm sure I saw later eps in reruns on the USA Cartoon Express. They were showing things like Martha Stewart, and this made me dislike her because they weren't showing my CBS shows!

The 80s Saturday morning and kids programming in general was one long commercial. Quite a few shows seemed to have been created from toylines. lol Carebears, He-Man, Popples, Wuzzles, Pound Puppies, GI Joe, and My Little Pony comes to mind. lol

The UK still air a Saturday Morning kids schedule on regular television, though the line-up is less than riveting. They tried to revamp the classic "Saturday Morning Magazine Show" format in early 2014 with "Scrambled" but it died a death and was replaced by a regular magazine show aimed at the moms who stay home while the dads all work.

Ah to get up every weekend for Batman: TAS, Animaniacs, and Bro and Bro

Vortex is the one that was playing Dragonball Kai and The Amazing Spider-Man or whatever it's called right? My kid liked that Spider-Man show.

That be the one. I used to watch that on and off as well.