# A Question Or Two About Saturday Morning Cartoons. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 17, 2005, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-or-two-about-saturday-morning-cartoons/285136 "2005-01-17T02:30:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2005, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-or-two-about-saturday-morning-cartoons/285136/1 "2005-01-17T02:30:17Z")
Why Saturday morning? When did Saturday morning programming get dedicated to kids? Who started this? Why? And finally, what was the first animated cartoon series to specifically be produced for television? (No live segments.) ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2005, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-or-two-about-saturday-morning-cartoons/285136/2 "2005-01-17T02:36:38Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > Why Saturday morning? > When did Saturday morning programming get dedicated to kids? > Who started this? > Why? > And finally, what was the first animated cartoon series to specifically be produced for television? (No live segments.) I can’t answer your first, fourth, or fifth questions, but, with the others: Saturday morning programming has been aimed at children since the days of radio broadcasting, and I believe that it was started by local radio stations. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2005, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-or-two-about-saturday-morning-cartoons/285136/3 "2005-01-17T03:00:12Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > Why Saturday morning? Because every other morning the kids were in school or in church, except in summer. ---
**Author:** ![don\_Jaime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b4bc9f/32.png) [@don\_Jaime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_Jaime)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2005, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-or-two-about-saturday-morning-cartoons/285136/4 "2005-01-17T04:54:10Z")
I believe the first made for TV cartoon was _Crusader Rabbit_ by Jay Ward’s company. They went on to make _Rocky and Bullwinkle_. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2005, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-or-two-about-saturday-morning-cartoons/285136/5 "2005-01-17T06:38:58Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor > Why Saturday morning? > [@Colibri](#): > > Because every other morning the kids were in school or in church, except in summer. Maybe I’m the only one who remembers this but in the late 60’s and early 70’s, there were attempts by the networks to set up blocks of children’s programming on Sunday mornings (in particular, I recall seeing _Bullwinkle_ shown then). ABC had the biggest block of shows (although that was likely due to the fact that, unlike NBC and CBS, didn’t have broadcast rights to show pro football on late Sunday morning during the fall). However, the practice never really caught on and soon Sunday morning became the exclusive province of religious shows, news and commentary programs like \*This Week \* or _Meet the Press_, and the NFL. ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2005, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-or-two-about-saturday-morning-cartoons/285136/6 "2005-01-17T16:25:38Z")
> [@](#): > > …Saturday mornings in the late fifties were relaitvely deserted. Only about a quarter of the total network programming for children could be found on Saturdays in 1958 as compared with over 50 percent a decade later. On NBC in 1959 and 1960, one could find _The Howdy Doody Show_, _Ruff and Reddy_, _Fury_, and _Circus Boy_. ABC had _The Soupy Sales Show_ at noon and nothing more. CBS had _Captain Kangaroo_,_Heckle and Jeckle_, _The Mighty Mouse Playhouse_, _Sky King_, and in 1960, _The Magic Land of Allakazam_ and _Deputy Dawg_. Early animated characters who appeared in syndicated programs included Crusader Rabbit, Colonel Bleep, and the hilariously inept Clutch Cargo, all of whom were prone to show up on Saturday schedules at some stations. > > \ > > Some of the shows that would later be associated with Saturday viewing made their first appearances during this period between 1958 and 1961 - but not on Saturday mornings. The first cartoon characters to come out of a new animation studio founded by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera were a host of anthopomorphic animals - Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Quickdraw McGraw, Snagglepuss, Augie Doggy, Dixie and Pixie. The Flintstones also made their first appearance at this point. At their inception, most of these characters were syndicated via the Kellogg’s Corporation and typically appeared in the late afternoons or early evenings before mixed audiences of adults, teenagers and children, just like the Terrytoon characters Heckle and Jeckle, who had originally appeared on television in the early evenings during the mid-1950s. Of the earliest Hanna-Barbera offerings, only _Ruff and Reddy_ initially appeared as a network offering on Saturday morning. > > The first Hanna-Barbera programs for television were intended to be the televisual equivalent of the animated short films that had preceded movies for many years, which is unsurprising given that both William Hanna and Joseph Barbera worked for MGM’s animation department for many years. With _The Flintstones_ and then, in 1961, _Top Cat_, Hanna-Barbera went even further: these animated shows were intended to air on an equal basis with other prime-time programming. Nor was Hanna-Barbera alone in this ambition. In 1961, Kayro Production’s animated _Calvin and the Colonel_, a thinly disguised version of _Amos and Andy_, appeared on ABC during prime time. > > And yet, when _The Jetsons_ appeared on prime time in 1962, it lasted only a season there, countered by solid ratings for _Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color_ and the live-action _Dennis the Menace_. _The Jetsons_ was moved to Saturday mornings, thus beginning the exodus of animated programming from the evening hours - an exodus that was completed when _The Flintstones_ finally left prime time in 1966. There were a few appearances of prime-time cartoons between _The Jetsons_ and the move of _The Flintstones_ - most notably _The Adventures of Johnny Quest_, which appeared there for a season in 1964 - but by the time _The Flintstones_ finally moved to Saturday mornings in 1967, all three networks were iaring a densely packed assortment of cartoons (and a few other types of shows) from 8 A.M. to noon. Many of these cartoons were produced by Hanna-Barbera. By 1968, this new and concentrated form of children’s television - Saturday morning - was becoming profitable and would likely become more so. -from Saturday Morning Fever: Growing Up with a Cartoon Culture, by Kevin and Timothy Burke, 1999 Required reading for the curious. The authors go on to describe the effect of advocacy groups on television, and in the initial dismissal of children’s programming as inherently harmful, it made sense initially to put the kid’s shows on at a time when the adults were unlikely to be awake to see them. ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2005, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-or-two-about-saturday-morning-cartoons/285136/7 "2005-01-17T16:28:56Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > And finally, what was the first animated cartoon series to specifically be produced for television? (No live segments.) IMDB’s vote is for [Crusader Rabbit](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0042097/) (check the trivia link) ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2005, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-or-two-about-saturday-morning-cartoons/285136/8 "2005-01-17T17:32:28Z")
Thank you all for your kind assistance. 🙂