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https://tv.yahoo.com/blogs/tv-news/satur...-192052477.html So, I was potty training my daughter this past Saturday. Going outdoors was not in the cards -- I wanted (needed!) her within 20 feet of a potty at all times. But what to do? How to entertain an ornery toddler for hours in a city apartment on an unseasonably warm day?
And then it hit me -- Saturday morning cartoons.
I turned on the TV only to discover that the beloved product-placement-heavy 'toons of my own youth were no longer on the big networks. In fact, they weren't anywhere. While the cartoon exodus has been going on for years, this past Saturday morning was the first weekend in 50 years with no morning cartoons of any kind on American television's major networks. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
Why? The FCC's rules regarding required educational programming played a big part, Gizmodo reports. In the '90s, the FCC started requiring networks to air several hours of educational programming per week. NBC and CBS buried their cartoon efforts in the '90s. ABC held on until 2004, before giving up the ghost. The CW was the final holdout with The Vortexx.
Via Gizmodo:
Networks afraid of messing with their prime-time slots found it easiest to cram this required programming in the weekend morning slot. The actual educational content of this live-action programming is sometimes debatable, but it meets the letter of the law.
Cable television and specialty channels also contributed to the extinction, offering kids-focused entertainment 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Think Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network.
Before you start singing "Goodbye, Scooby Doo" to the tune of "Candle in the Wind," there are (and probably always will be) cartoons a plenty on cable television and streaming devices.
But for Gen Xers who loved waking up at 6:00 am on Saturdays, eating chocolate cereal and then vegging out in front of the TV while your parents begged you to go outside, those days are but a memory.
How you doin'?
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Joined: Jun 2003
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Before you start singing "Goodbye, Scooby Doo" to the tune of "Candle in the Wind,". That would be cool if someone made that!
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I only became aware that the Saturday morning cartoons were gone from all the networks two or three years ago. I turned on the TV one Saturday, and planned to re-live an old tradition, but there were none on any channel!
The one I miss most is the Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour, and the other Warner cartoons. They still run the Warner Bros cartoons on Cartoon Network, but it's still not the Bugs Bunny Road Runner Hour.
Another I miss being aired is the original Johnny Quest TV series (20 episodes). That one I had the good sense to get on DVD about 12 years ago.
I loved that on Saturdays from 6AM to 12noon, we as kids ruled all the networks. And often after 12 noon in the 70's, they ran adventure movies, and shows like the Tarzan TV series, plus Space 1999 and other shows. It was a great time to be a kid.
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McGurk here actually suggested that in addition to the Cartoon network, they really need a Classic Cartoon Network that gives air-time to all the great cartoon shows of the 1970's-and-prior eras.
As with non-childrens' programs, even those that were most popular in their time are often not aired anywhere in the last decade or so, such as Ally McBeal, X-Files, The more recent Battlestar Galactica series, Rockford Files, Simon & Simon, Magnum P.I., Silk Stalkings, and other great shows.
I wish that I'd had the good sense to record the Up All Night movies hosted by Gilbert Gottfried and Rhonda Shear.
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Isn't Boomerang old cartons?
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Boomerang?
Is that a cable channel? It's not one I ever heard of.
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Thanks. Apparently it's not a channel available in my part of the country. S o M was good enough to provide a Murphy Anderson image of the character sharing the same name. I mix Captain Boomerang up with a nearly identical villain for Marvel, that I first saw in IRON FIST 13 (a Claremont/Byrne issue): 
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From what I've heard, Boomerang's no longer a classic cartoon channel and is now just a dumping ground for the shows that CN no longer wants to run on the main channel.
It sucks that Saturday Mornings are gone, but thank goodness for DVD and Youtube, the right combination of classic t.v. and vintage commercials to keep the spirit alive.
"What kind of scary ass clowns came to your birthday?"
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