The big difference was deregulation in the 80s that led to an explosion of such advertisements as entertainment as well as additional advertisements aimed at children. As I understand it, the producers of Thundercats made deals with local television stations to cut them in on a percentage of toy sales in their area. One of the reasons I don’t get upset at reboots, reimagining, or new versions of the cartoons I grew up with (besides being an adult who isn’t upset by change) is that I just can’t bring myself to get mad that someone is messing with the “sanctity” of advertisements.
I’m glad you mentioned Hot Wheels. I was the right age and the right demographic, and I loved the show. All 17 episodes. Seemed like more at the time…
It wasn’t like I needed any encouragement to by Hot Wheels cars anyway.
As much as I love the movie, they were a bit unfair to Annie and Ovaltine. The actual decoded messages were about the upcoming episodes.
Don’t know what the big deal is, though. Back in the day actors of the show you were watching would hawk cigarettes, beer, laundry detergent, etc.. If a company is paying for a show to air why shouldn’t they be able to include promotions for the products the sales of which bring in the money for paying for such shows.
If you don’t want your kid having G.I. Joe toys or eating sugary cereals don’t freaking buy them and folks should monitor what their children are watching on TV if they are so concerned about advertising effects.
How about the good old days when your beloved children’s show hosts stayed in character to shill the sponsors’ products?
My vote is Guess Who!. It’s a fun board game. The original ad, however, made it look like it contained animation and recorded voices. In fact, the game consists of flat pieces of plastic with stickers on them. Later ads added ‘toy does not actually talk’
A lot of concerns are related to diet. Very few childrens’ commercials promote vegetables. If obesity is a problem, it is up to the parents to set an example. But this does not mean there should be no restrictions, in number or permitted hours, for commercials. Toys have less of an effect on health. Maybe it is a bad idea for commercials to promote booze or tobacco during Romper Room.
But that would not have been funny.
Reminds me of Calvin’s breakfast go-to: Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs. Helps explain how he had the energy for his adventures with Hobbes … or how Hobbes came to life for him. 
My young stepdaughter was obsessed for a while with a YouTube channel called “Shot of the Yeagers” (or “SOTY”), featuring truly inane videos made by the Yeager family (who have four or five kids, most of them under the age of 12). Many of their videos feature the kids playing with toys they received as promotional items. In a few of the videos, they went a step further and had the kids actively shilling for the toys, with a way to order the toys as a hyperlink on the screen.
This show was literally the reason why the regulations against advertising to children were put in place, which lasted until Reagan removed them in the early 80s and we got hit with GI Joe, Transformers, MASK, etc. Frankly its one of the best things he did, those things made my childhood a happy one.
Pokemon cereal
Interestingly, stations couldn’t show commercials for toys during the time that the toy’s show was on so G.I.Joe ads would air during Transformers and Transformers ads would air during G.I.Joe.
They would also get around it by airing ads for the GI Joe comics during the GI Joe cartoons and the comics would obviously have ads for the toys.
Transformers - When the movie came out in 2007 people complained there was too much Shia LeBeouf and Megan Fox. The movie needed that so it had a plot. Those people don’t remember as adults the show was really just a 30 minute commercial for toys.
I vaguely recall back in the mid to late 80s, some cable network had a filler show in between movies (when the movies didn’t end on an even half hour) where they would buy toys and try to get them to do what they actually did in the toy’s commercial. It usually involved adding electronics or a motor to the toy to duplicate the cool moves shown in the commercials
I think Roger Ebert pointed out that it was odd the movie required the two humans to tell the story when the cartoon from the 80s managed to tell the stories using the robot characters.
Yeah, I don’t get his “it needed humans for a plot” argument, why? why can’t the plot be about robots?
I think Ebert was pointing out that they didn’t need all those humans for the plot because the robots were able to carry it just fine in the cartoon. I suspect the producers added humans either to save on the effects budget or they didn’t think the audience would relate to the robots.
When I was growing up, Star Wars toys were exceedingly popular. But that was because every kid knew every line of the first two or three movies, which were groundbreaking. It’s not like the movie was made to promote toys.
In fact, product placement was vanishingly rare. It was subtle in the Bond movies. I remember watching The Goonies and thinking how ridiculous a fridge full of Pepsi was. And having cans in every scene. How could I know even that was subtle compared to what would be?
Entire movies devoted to Lego or Transformers or whatever. Once you hit a certain threshold for shamelessness the details don’t matter much. “The rest is silence”. Or sequels. Selling. Or selling out.
I do have a question- why the toast as part of this complete breakfast"? I mean the cereal gives you starches/carbs, etc.