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EARLY SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS Although the Saturday morning timeslot had always featured a great deal of children's fare before, the idea of commissioning new animated series for broadcast on Saturday mornings really caught on in the mid-1960s, when the networks realized that they could concentrate kids' viewing on that one morning to appeal to Advertisers . Furthermore, Limited Animation , such as that produced by such studios as Filmation Associates and Hanna-Barbera Productions , was economical enough to produce in sufficient quantity to fill the four hour time slot, as compared to live-action programming. The experiment proved successful, and the time slot was filled with profitable programming. CRITICISM Although this broadcasting convention meant steady work for animation companies, most animation fans consider the resulting cost to American animation to be ruinous to the art. In their view, this programming block "ghettoized" animation programming and severely harmed the artistic reputation of American animation, portraying it as a substandard art fit only for children. They cite the fact that children, specifically ages 6-11, were not considered an attractive audience demographic by the networks due to their obvious lack of disposable income. As a result, the programming presented in that time had typically low budgets, which critics complained meant poor production values and animation. They also complained that network practices aggravated the situation by typically only commissioning or renewing their series at the beginning of the year, which meant a 6 month schedule at best to produce hours of animated programming. The critics conclude that this tight schedule allowed for extremely little time for refinement, let alone experimentation in the material. The result, in their opinion, was rushed and often poorly written and animated productions. A high-quality theatrical feature may use 24 different drawings ''per second'' of finished film, sometimes even more, if several characters are on the screen simultaneously. Saturday morning cartoons are produced with a minimum amount of animation drawings, sometimes no more than 3 or 4 per second. In addition, the movements of the characters are often repeated, very limited, or even confined to mouths and eyes only. This led to the derogatory term "Illustrated Radio" for these cartoons. WATCHGROUP BACKLASH Another damaging factor to the artistic quality critics cite was the growing influence of concerned parents lobby groups like Action For Children's Television . These groups appeared in the late 1960s to voice their concerns about the presentation of violence, anti-social attitudes and stereotypes in Saturday morning cartoons. By the 1970s, these groups exercised enough influence that the TV networks felt compelled to lay down even more stringent content rules for the animation houses. Critics have complained that this proceeded to the point where the very depiction of conflict and jeopardy, the basic elements of Drama and Suspense , was severely restricted and the artists were left with few avenues of expression. Even more disconcerting to detractors was that the prohibition against the depiction of anti-social elements often prompted conformist stories, such as in the '' Smurfs '' series, where almost any individual initiative often resulted in trouble for the group and therefore had to be avoided. As a result of these factors, Saturday morning animation programming was restricted to certain clearly defined types of shows:
In a more constructive direction, the networks were encouraged to create educational spots that endeavoured to use animation for enriching content. Far and away the most successful effort was the '' Schoolhouse Rock '' series on ABC , which became a television classic. DECLINE The decline of the timeslot began in the mid 1980s due to a variety of factors. Among them was the rise of First Run Syndication animated programs, which usually had a greater artistic freedom and production values (such as '' GI Joe '', '' Robotech '' and '' Ducktales ''). There was also the increasing popularity of Home Video ; this made quality animated productions (like the Walt Disney Company 's classic animated features) easily accessible, which encouraged unfavourable comparisons with typical television animation. Finally, there was the appearance of Cable TV channels like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network which provided appealing children's entertainment throughout the week, making Saturday morning timeslots far less important to viewers and advertisers. CURRENT STATE OF SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS In current times, while animated production is still present on many regular TV networks on Saturday mornings, it has been noticeably reduced. NBC abandoned its Saturday morning cartoon lineup in 1992, replacing it with '' The Today Show '' and teen-oriented shows like '' Saved By The Bell '' (they have since replaced the teen-oriented shows with kid-friendly live-action programming from the Discovery Channel , but this agreement expires in September 2006). CBS eventually followed suit, programming '' The Early Show '' in the first two hours of its lineup. Then in 2004 , ABC finally faced reality and began programming '' Good Morning America '' in the first hour of its lineup. It should be noted that in much of the '' and '' Animaniacs '', came out of these afternoon programming blocks, and some later appeared on their networks' Saturday morning programming blocks. At certain points in the 1990s, The WB also ran Sunday morning animated programming, as did the cable television channel Fox Family, which still airs such programming under its current name of ABC Family . After being purchased by Disney in 1996, ABC began airing their Saturday morning cartoons in a programming block titled '' Disney's One Saturday Morning '' before switching to a block of live-action and animated programs titled '' ABC Kids ''. Many of the block's shows are produced by Disney and also air on The Disney Channel or Toon Disney . CBS followed suit, and airs a programming block of shows from fellow Viacom subsidiary Nickelodeon. However, this block will be replaced by '' CBS's Secret Saturday Morning Slumber Party '', produced by DIC Entertainment , beginning in Fall 2006. The WB airs Kids WB , which includes mostly imported cartoons from Cartoon Network. The Kids WB block will be absorbed into the CW Network 's lineup, however the name of the block has yet to have been announced. Fox, meanwhile, airs 4Kids TV (formerly Fox Box), a partnership between itself and 4Kids Entertainment . SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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