Poll: When Did Saturday Mornings "Jump the Shark?"

[TMC]

*NBC stops showing cartoons in favor for more by the numbers, formulaic teen oriented sitcoms.

*Disney totally takes over ABC's programming so that they can bring us "One Saturday Morning."

*The WB suffers from an overindulgence with Pokemon.

*Nickelodeon actually threatens to gain more viewership than the broadcast networks.

*The FCC susposedly gets much more involved with dictating the programming in order to make it more "PC."

*CBS totally dumps its programming in favor for tiresome informational and religious programming.

[Tobias Christopher]

For some reason, all of these are contributing factors to the death of Saturday mornings.

NBC jumped the Saturday shark a while before dumping the cartoons. NBC jumped the shark when they cancelled Smurfs, Alvin and the Chipmunks and their other classic shows.

ABC jumped the shark a year before Disney took over. I think it was around the time that Doug and the Goliath Chronicles hit the schedule.

WB jumped the shark after it's second season when they started ditching their good shows. (Earthworm Jim, Freakazoid, Animaniacs, etc.)

Nickeledeon jumped the shark when they started doubling up on their shows on weekend mornings. One of each is enough, plus they don't even consider showing Ace Ventura, Pinky and the Brain, or ZIM on Saturdays.

The FCC's always been a pain in the ass. I blame them for the horrific treatment of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when CBS picked up the series.

And finally, CBS jumped the shark the season they dumped all their shows in favor of news shows, wildlife programs, and Nick Jr.

[Steve Carras]

Originally Posted by Tobias Christopher

For some reason, all of these are contributing factors to the death of Saturday mornings.

NBC jumped the Saturday shark a while before dumping the cartoons. NBC jumped the shark when they cancelled Smurfs, Alvin and the Chipmunks and their other classic shows.

ABC jumped the shark a year before Disney took over. I think it was around the time that Doug and the Goliath Chronicles hit the schedule.

WB jumped the shark after it's second season when they started ditching their good shows. (Earthworm Jim, Freakazoid, Animaniacs, etc.)

Nickeledeon jumped the shark when they started doubling up on their shows on weekend mornings. One of each is enough, plus they don't even consider showing Ace Ventura, Pinky and the Brain, or ZIM on Saturdays.

The FCC's always been a pain in the ass. I blame them for the horrific treatment of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when CBS picked up the series.

And finally, CBS jumped the shark the season they dumped all their shows in favor of news shows, wildlife programs, and Nick Jr.

Well, none of the shows mentioned about were cartoons--just liver shows animatred and dictated by suits--I mean the Chipmunks didn;t have any GD HUMOR like the 1960s one about which I['d posted--where was Clyde CRASCHCUP (voiced by that actor, Shepherd Menken who did the California based Western Airlines bird commercial for planes-THE ONLY WAY TO FLY )

Jumped the shark the eighties when NO funny carooons were done and even Fat Albert started to look good by compariosn (HEY HEY HEY,saw the flick from Fox last night and it was funny,by the way-gotta gety that obligatory rhyme there today!)

[GARFIELDKOOL]

the early 90s.

[W.J. Griffin]

Saturday mornings for me stopped being special when the parents groups decided that Space Ghost, The herculoids and uncensored Looney Tunes were detrimental to my mental health.

The onslaught of heavy-handed pro-social messages started during the late 1960s and got progressivly worse as time wore on, so that an enjoyable series like "Archie" and especially "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids" got preachier and preachier to the point that i no longer cared about the protagonist.

And it was a lot worse for adventure shows, where the narratives depended on dramatic tension, and, of course, dramatic tension was eliminated because parent groups didn't want their children to repeat the acts that their favorite cartoon characters did in the shows on their little sister....

So, you got a bunch of cartoons that were designed to, little by little, wear away a child's natural craving for imaginative playtime, as each show has the atmosphere of an oppressive Sunday school lesson (skipping over the more exciting tales of The Great Flood, Exodus and The Nativity, and instead drilling unconnected and out-of-context scriptures into the minds of innocent children to forward an all-encompassing Judeo-Christian fundamentalist political agenda*, but I digress)...small wonder little Jonny suffers from attention deficeit syndrom...there's nothing for him to get excited about!

* Yes, this is a BAD thing!

[bronxgirl]

What really killed saturday mornings when someone got the brilliant idea to market directly children (you know the ones that actually would play with the toys the cartoons based on( Strawberry Shortcake, GI Joe, JEM, etc ) remember these? And the all the concerned parent groups felt that kids weren't smart enough to know the difference between a commerical and an actual cartoon. Not to mention that they felt it was an outrage to market directly to children (the nerve of all those evil ad execs gear a commercial directly to an 8 year old girl who would want a Barbie doll dream house ) . After years and years of the then 3 big networks getting hammered by these groups about when and how long the commerical could show during childrens programming they said forget it and just droped the format completly, and as mentioned before with cable comming into more homes put the brakes on Saturday Mornings as we used to know it.

[musicradio77]

I remember years ago, Saturday mornings had the best cartoons on. I remember the "Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show", "New Kids on the Block", "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo", "Fat Albert", "Hammerman", "Get Along Gang", "Kidd Video", "Mr. T" and a bunch of other stuff that have never been forgotten. RIP to two networks NBC and CBS. I missed the Saturday mornings show. I hope it will be put out on DVD soon. I have two of the DVD's that had been on Saturdays "Looney Tunes Golden Collection - Vol. 2" and the "60 Classic Cartoons" on 2 DVD's with both sides. Now I can watch the older cartoons that had been before my time. Lots of great memories of Saturday mornings.

[slackermonkey]

Late 90s. Kids' blocks were dying off, the remaining ones were showing Japanese imports and lame educational shows. The only decent Saturday morning block at the time was Kids' WB, with shows like Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain and The Batman/Superman Adventures, then it got devoured by Pokemon reruns and became crap instantly.

[greenlaser5555]

FOX Kids had jumped the shark during it's 2001-2002 season while adding dumb shows & making that dumb Digimon season 3 with that whiny leader Takato, who thinks it's all real, & the show got really close to getting cancelled that year for it's low ratings. And also shows like Moolah Beach, Galidor, Alienators: Evolution Continues, Mon Colle Knights, Transformers: Robots In Disguise, & especially that most ridiculous show to ever air on FOX & Adult Swim, "The Ripping Friends". And I'm so glad that adult swim no longer carries it. But the only show that I would prefer was Medabots. To me, Medabots was the best show to ever air on FOX & ABC Family, and was the highest rated show of FOX Kids's last season. And it's sad to see it off the airwaves. But in the Fall of 2002, 4Kids Entertainment had bought FOX Kids & changed it's name to "The FOXBOX" , which is alot better than the final FOX Kids season from 2001-2002.

So R.I.P.
FOX Kids: 1990-2002

[LucyCompanyPhan]

When pokemon went under attack and the wb showed it 45843534 times a morning. When the WB canceled animanics, pinky & the brain & tiny toons. After that went under, most hope for anything decent was gone.

I actually liked ABC One saturday mornings in the beginning. Doug wasn't that bad and Pepper Ann was great but then Sabrina and other shows were created and it went down hill.

That was just the time period when I was watching cartoons in the morning.

[GARFIELDKOOL]

I just wish Saturday Mornings were what they used to be. Before FOX became a network, ABC, CBS, and NBC were real competitive. In the 80s, when I grew up, NBC had Smurfs, Snorks, Shirtales, Gummi Bears, Punky Brewster, Foofur, Lazer Tag Academy, Mr.T, Alf, Fraggle Rock, Turbo Teen. CBS had Muppet Babies, Hulk Hogan's Rock n' Wrestling, Teen Wolf, Galaxy High, Bearstein Bears, Pee-Wee's Playhouse, Popeye and Son, Mighty Mouse, Dungeons and Dragons, Ragedy Ann and Andy. ABC had the Flintstone Kids, Slimer! and The Real Ghostbusters, Pound Puppies, Care Bears, Ewoks, The Littles, Droids, The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show. To me, this was Saturday Morning at its best. Does anyone remember these cartoons?

[MacLeaper]

Awesome!!! In reply to the last post, that would have been circa 1984 and that was an awesome time to be a child!!! I remember all those cartoons and grew up loving many of them. I'd say Saturday mornings jumped the shark at about the early 90s. There were still a few holdovers from the 80s on, but somewhere along the line they died off and the end of a great era came about. You can't beat the 1980s for great Saturday morning cartoons!

Yo Joe!!!
Transformers, Transform and roll out!
Hold on, TigerSharks!
Tally Hawk!
Eyes of the Hawk! Ears of the Wolf! Strength of the Bear! Speed of the Puma!
It's Crime Fighting Time!
Spider-Friends, Go for it!
Thunder, Thunder, Thunder, ThunderCats, HOOOOO!!!!!

If any of those phrases mean anything to you, then you remember some of the greatest cartoons ever! And they're all from the good old 1980s!!!!!!

[robby76]

The Paw Paws (pawpaw bears), MASK, Jem, Monchichi's, The Biskitts, Meatball & Spaghetti... as well as the above mentioned Ewoks, Care Bears, Shirt-tales, GI Joe, He-man and so on.

I agree with Garfieldkool.

The last truly great Saturday mornings were circa 1992... after that it mostly went downhill... especially with the Japanese cartoons and the "trying to be too wacky" cartoons.

[theshark8777]

Originally Posted by GARFIELDKOOL

I just wish Saturday Mornings were what they used to be. Before FOX became a network, ABC, CBS, and NBC were real competitive. In the 80s, when I grew up, NBC had Smurfs, Snorks, Shirtales, Gummi Bears, Punky Brewster, Foofur, Lazer Tag Academy, Mr.T, Alf, Fraggle Rock, Turbo Teen. CBS had Muppet Babies, Hulk Hogan's Rock n' Wrestling, Teen Wolf, Galaxy High, Bearstein Bears, Pee-Wee's Playhouse, Popeye and Son, Mighty Mouse, Dungeons and Dragons, Ragedy Ann and Andy. ABC had the Flintstone Kids, Slimer! and The Real Ghostbusters, Pound Puppies, Care Bears, Ewoks, The Littles, Droids, The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show. To me, this was Saturday Morning at its best. Does anyone remember these cartoons?

I remember most of those shows, and watched most of them. NBC also had a show with the strange name of Kissyfur. And don't forget Hey Vern, Its Earnest!

We must be close to the same age.

[ClassicComedyFan2]

CBS and NBC when they stopped creating their own Saturday Morning programming.

FOX reversed jumped, and is now the enjoyable 4Kids TV with good shows like Sonic X, Ninja Turtles, and Kirby.

WB isn't nearly as good as it used to be, but has managed to avoid completely jumping the shark thanks the still-enjoyable Pokemon.

ABC jumped when they finally took of Recess and Buzz Lightyear.