Back in the day, Saturday morning was the best time of the week.
You'd get up early, pour yourself a huge bowl of sugar disguised as breakfast, and let your
TV assault you with animated adventures until noon.
But nowadays, none of the big broadcast networks offer Saturday morning cartoons.
Why?
Who's to blame?
Here's a look at the real reason why Saturday morning cartoons disappeared.
The government did it
In 1990, Congress passed the Children's Television Act, requiring broadcasters to air a minimum
of three weekly hours of programs that had educational or informational merit.
Naturally, the networks totally ignored this, but in 1996, the FCC forced compliance.
As a result, networks had to quickly throw some learnin' material on the air.
The solution was an unending series of travelogues hosted by overly energetic young hosts and
shows about how interesting animals supposedly are.
And since most affiliates decided to air these shows in Saturday mornings, cartoons started
getting pushed off the air.
Thanks, Uncle Sam.
"I can't pull free!"
Advertising regulations
Another part of the Children's Television Act increased regulations on advertising to
children, limiting ads to no more than 10.5 minutes per hour, rather than the previous
16.
That was a double whammy for the networks: not only did it make half hour cartoons longer
to produce — since they now had to be 25 minutes long instead of just 22 — it severely
cut into the revenue stream generated by advertisements.
"Hulk Hogan doesn't eat nuts and honey!"
"Take this!"
And since network television isn't a charity, they began looking for cheaper alternatives
to cartoons so they could keep on making fat stacks of greenbacks.
Sports and news
In 1988, NBC president Brandon Tartikoff noticed that Saturday morning cartoon ratings were
slipping, even for juggernauts like The Smurfs.
So, he began exploring other options for the time period and found that it would be much
cheaper to air news programs.
Four years later, in 1992, that's exactly what NBC did.
The network also realized that it could run sports on Saturday mornings.
In 1991, the network signed a five-year deal with Notre Dame to air the college's home
football games on Saturdays.
The contract cost NBC $38 million, which works out to a little over $1 million a game.
That's still cheaper than producing six hours' worth of cartoons, which would've run networks
around $3.6 million.
Plus, NBC could run more ads, and charge more for adult ads like beer and cars than it could
for kids ads like dolls and gummy bears.
So long, Smurfs, hello, Rudy.
Syndication
By the early 2000s, neither ABC or CBS was producing their own Saturday morning content
at all, leasing out the time period instead.
ABC replaced its "One Saturday Morning" block with reruns of shows that had already aired
on Disney Channel, before eventually ditching even that in favor of syndicated travelogues
and animal shows.
CBS handed off its Saturday to Nick Jr.'s shows for preschoolers and babies.
Fox held on until 2008, when it gave over a big part of Saturday mornings to the "Weekend
Marketplace," an umbrella title for a block of infomercials.
Sorry kids, no more X-Men, but you won't believe how this mop cleans!
"Made in Germany, you know the Germans always make good stuff."
By 2014, the only channel with its own branded Saturday morning content was the CW with "Vortex,"
a block of shows like Sonic X and Dragon Ball.
But soon, it too disappeared in favor of "One Magnificent Morning," which is, of course,
a bunch more animal shows.
"Jeez!"
Afternoon delight
In the '50s and '60s, shows for kids were few and far between, and strictly a morning
affair, with most networks airing soap operas and talk shows in the afternoons.
So the Saturday morning cartoon block was a rare, weekly treat.
But as more channels became available, the TV landscape changed.
By the early '80s, cartoons like He-Man, G.I.
Joe, and Thundercats were available every weekday right after school, convincing legions
of impressionable children that their lives just would not possibly be complete with a
kung-fu grip on every action figure.
"Yo Joe!"
Saturday mornings were simply no longer the only game in town.
Blame cable TV
By the mid-1990s, the majority of American homes were equipped with a magical box that
provided dozens of new channels, including multiple ones that showed nothing but cartoons
and other kid stuff all the time, without the need to sit through boring animal shows
any more.
With its almost endless offerings, The Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon
made every day feel like Saturday morning, all day long.
It's the Internet's fault
Today, all of those cable channels continue to churn out animated material, but the world
of TV and how it's consumed continues to evolve.
An endless number of cartoons are now available on low-cost streaming services like Hulu,
Netflix, Amazon Prime, and the cable networks' own websites and apps.
Kids and adults can watch cartoons whenever they want, wherever they want.
They don't have to be parked in front of a TV on Saturday morning at 8 a.m. sharp to
see their favorite shows — they can watch on their phones without even getting out of
bed.
Sorry, Saturday morning cartoons: you just can't compete with the American Dream.
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