I recall when I was a wee little shaver, we’d have cartoons in the morning from 6:30am to 8am and then after school from 3pm - 5pm there was always cartoons. The afternoons had cartoons as well. This was Chicago so we had Bozo’s Circus, which showed cartoons.
Then on Saturday mornings we had the network cartoons.
We had everything from Looney Tunes, Pink Panther, Flintstones, Krazy Kat, Popeye, Woody Woodpecker, Bullwinkle & Rocky, Tennessee Tuxedo, Banana Splits, Mr Magoo, Yogi Bear etc etc.
But now there are no cartoons on anymore, except PBS which has Arthur and a few others which are OK but too educational for my adult taste. I mean when are we gonna see Arthur drop an anvil on DW’s head? And it’s not like she doesn’t so deserve this.
But question to parents, do kids just not watch cartoons, or do they watch them on DVDs or is there more on cable I don’t get?
Do you think there are more cartoons or less for kids to watch now? I mean when you figure in DVDs, cable and the Internet.
Nickelodeon shows a lot of cartoons in the mornings and afternoons. There are also Toon Disney, and NickToons, which are usually on a digital tier of cable channels and not included in the basic package. And there’s Boomerang, on which Cartoon Network shows older Hanna-Barbera cartoons such as Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound and which apparently isn’t going to be on my cable system in my lifetime.
Are you kiddin’ ? With a DVR and cable, kids can (and sadly do) watch cartoons all day. I think there’s about 100 hours right now of cartoons all recorded and available instantly on the set my son watches.
And we’re actually in another golden age of cartoons, in my opinion. There’s more animated stuff being produced these days, much of it pretty good, than there’s ever been. Some of the old stuff (WB) ruled, but a lot of it didn’t, and now you can choose what to watch when.
I’m from a slightly later generation than the OP but I to remember watching cartoons on the networks when I was kid, (80’s early 90’s), in the mornings before school and the afternoon after I got home. It disappoints me to know that my own traditions aren’t being observed anymore.
To reitereate, there are a half dozen cable channels now dedicated to cartoons, (both classic and contemporary), so I imagine that’s what most kids avail themselves of. Combined with DVRs, “on demand” options and the ubiquitousness of DVDs I’m sure they’re not missing out on anything. If there had been cheap complete season sets of things like Ghostbusters, Ducktales, or Batman when I was a kid I wouldn’t have felt deprived.
I don’t have children myself but most of my friends do and I know they make extensive use of cheap DVDs and filling up their DVRs with stuff to keep the kids occupied.
Saturday morning cartoons aren’t a big deal because kids can watch animated programming24 hours a day on cable channels Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Toon Disney and Nicktoons, and make up a big part of Nickelodeon and Disney Channels’s schedules.
Cartoons vanished on the networks in the 90s because Nickelodeon began beating CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox in the ratings on Saturday mornings. This was back when losing to cable was so unheard of that the networks were insulted and said to hell with it. They then found that they can get better ratings by airing weekend editions of their morning news shows in the place of cartoons.
I was part of the generation that migrated from the networks to Nick and Cartoon Network for my cartoon pleasures. Before my family had cable, I would watch Saturday morning cartoons on the networks just because I loved cartoons so much and it was my only option. But then we got cable and Nickelodeon began stuff like Doug and Rugrats wich were so much BETTER than what was on the networks. I mean, I was in elementary school at the time and even I could see than the networks didn’t care about the quality of their children’s shows. But Nickelodeon had some real amazing standards back then. Warners Brothers were making a lot of really great stuff like Batman and *Tiny Toons *and Pinky and the Brain for Fox and the WB, but even that all migrated to Cartoon Network a few years ago.
Yeah the cartoon channels took over which I don’t mind most of the time but damnit I want to watch Saturday morning cartoons on the network channels. They only stopped doing this the last couple of years. Now the only things that are on are an episode or two of Sonic the Hedgehog then several episodes of Degrassi High (or whatever) then one episode of TMNT. And that is on one channel all the others have weekend news. It sucks. It literally was just a couple of years ago where I would get up at 6 and watch cartoons on the networks until noon. These days I watch the BBC on weekend mornings.
My kids get their cartoons from PBS and Qubo mostly. Qubo has some decent shows, but it’s also got it’s share of crap. Qubo is in Chicago on either channel 38-2 or 38-3.
In addition, we have and rent DVDs and watch stuff online at Netflix or wherever else. I love cartoons and I kind of miss the Saturday morning thing, but there are options out there.
I remember watching an interview at the time with Nickelodeon’s program director. They had just recently changed direction to more animated shows and she looked like the cat who ate the canary. Then she started talking about a new cartoon they had in development but hadn’t aired yet. It was about a cartoon sponge that lived on the bottom of the ocean, and her smile just got even bigger. She knew the ratings juggernaut she was about to unleash.
I liked her; the network is a pretty impressive success story.
PBS (or at least a PBS station in Georgia) runs a bunch of cartoons on weekend mornings, as I’ve learned when I’m home and my going-on four year old nephew is around.
Plus he’s probably seen Cars 1000 times. Good thing DVDs don’t wear out like VCR tapes used to.
there are specifically 3 cartoons that i miss.
1 - animaniacs. brilliant in their humor and wacky enough to keep kiddies interested. enough jokes went WHOOSHING over my head a few years ago to make rewatching it an entirely new experience.
2 - tiny toons. sophisticatedly wacky, if that makes any sense. a nice blend of the more vaudvillian loony toons but with a modern twist. notable bits: plucky duck in music videos of Yakkity Yak and Istanbul (not Constantinople). Awesome dichotomy of evil with Max and Elmira.
3 - The critic. Sensible, real world satire in a cartoon show that doesn’t rely on gimmicks, shock value, or cameos for laughs. possibly the only role that i find jon lovitz riotously funny in. it was truly an animated sitcom - much moreso than the simpsons. the arrested development of the cartoon world imo.
all the other stuff is pretty much trash. cheezy 80’s action cartoons (thundercats, gi joe, transformers) fading into gross potty 90’s cartoons (ren and stimpy, beavis and butthead, rocko’s modern life) and giving way to Disney channel’s endless stream of teen-in-relatable situation cartoons (phineas and ferb, kimpossible, jake long, etc.)
I’ve been watching cartoons on TV since I was a kid in the 60’s and I have to say, both in volume and quality, we’re in the middle of a golden age right now. From the 70’s through the 90’s, most of kid’s television was crap (with an occasional gem like Animaniacs or Freakazoid). Now there are a whole slew of hilarious, well-written, ORIGINAL cartoons for kids – not just recycled theatrical shorts. Phineas and Ferb, Spongebob, Flapjack, Chowder, Fanboy and Chum Chum … all of these are great shows. And that’s not even counting adult-oriented shows on late at night like The Venture Brothers, Metalocalypse, or Robot Chicken.
I’m with all those who say this is a GREAT age for cartoons. ftr I am 48 and saw some decades with really piss-poor kids shows - e.g., I have NEVER understood the love for scooby-doo. I am thrilled to be able to watch Sponge-Bob, Phineas & Ferb, and my favorite show of all time, animated or otherwise: Futurama. These 3 shows are pretty much the only shows that the whole family agrees on. Our 6-yr-old watches all of these with us, including seeing the Simpsons movie in the theater when she was 4.
My two year old cousin has been watching Youtube versions of her fav. songs and such as well since she was around one or so. Her parents know which videos she wants and she just gets her fix there- basically just clips or fav. songs that she’s got, but besides that she uses the DVR feature and gets to watch cartoons anytime she wants (So I’ve gotten to see the Dora X-mas special about 10 times in the last few days while she’s visiting).
