The REAL Reason CBS Killed A 60% Share Hit...On Purpose!

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The Real Reason CBS Killed A 60% Share Hit...On Purpose! - Why The Herculoids FAILED!

In 1967, a Saturday morning cartoon about a barbarian family defending their planet with a slingshot pulled a 60 share — three times what Sunday Night Football pulls today. Joe Barbera bragged about the number in his autobiography twenty-five years later. One year later, CBS killed it. The show was The Herculoids, designed by Alex Toth, the comic book artist who had already created Space Ghost. The two men who wrote most of the episodes, Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, were called into Joe Barbera's office in late 1968 and told to invent a show that would never get a complaint letter. Seven days after Zandor's final broadcast in September 1969, their replacement premiered in the same time slot. You have already seen it. It became the longest-running cartoon franchise in television history. The original title was House of Mystery. CBS president Frank Stanton rejected the first version of Scooby-Doo for being too scary.

These are 10 weird and hidden facts about The Herculoids (1967) — the highest-rated cartoon in Saturday morning history, killed not by ratings but by the political climate of 1968, designed in secret by a moralist who hated violence, and replaced in seven days by the same writers who had built it.

⏱ TIMESTAMPS

• 0:00 - Intro
• 01:30 - Herculoids Fact 1: The 60 Share Nobody Talks About
• 02:45 - Herculoids Fact 2: Alex Toth's Seven-Page Hate Letter
• 04:00 - Herculoids Fact 3: The Slingshot Paradox
• 05:15 - Herculoids Fact 4: The 1968 Body Count
• 06:30 - Herculoids Fact 5: Peggy Charren's Living Room
• 07:50 - Herculoids Fact 6: How Vietnam Killed Saturday Morning
• 09:10 - Herculoids Fact 7: The Seven-Day Replacement
• 10:00 - Herculoids Fact 8: Scooby-Doo Was Too Scary
• 11:15 - Herculoids Fact 9: Don Messick Walked Across the Hall
• 12:30 - Herculoids Fact 10: Thundarr the Failed Resurrection