All week long, you
had to be chased out of bed to get ready to go to school. But, on Saturday, you
were up at or before 8AM without the aid of an alarm. You were already filling
a bowl with your favorite cereal and preparing to sit in the living room and watch
television for the next four hours.
Saturday mornings
were a special kind of time when you were a kid. For many of us growing up, it
was the only time to see programming geared specifically towards us on a continuous
basis. Especially in the days before cable and internet streaming.
Saturday morning
television was initially comprised of reruns of programs the three (that’s
right, THREE) major networks broadcast during the week, or of cancelled
programs that had run their course. It wasn’t until the 60s programmers saw the
value of creating original programming for the time period, namely that they
could target more kids for advertisers, and commissioned new shows.
As the 60s rolled
into the 70s, parent groups began criticizing some of the content seen on
Saturday mornings. Too violent. Too commercial. Too stereotypical. Basically, a
lot of the same things you hear brandied about today. Their influence grew and
networks generated content rules for the studios producing their shows.
Educational content was also slowly worked into the programs, with shows either
working lessons into their plots, delivering a lesson at the end, or focused entirely
around educating the viewers. Regardless, Saturday mornings continued to thrive
well through the 80s.
In the 90s, things
began to shift. The Federal Communications Commission enforced a new rule in
1990 that a network was required to broadcast three hours of educational
content per week, as well as tie-in merchandising during children’s hours. Many
networks chose to air those three hours on Saturday mornings, replacing more popular
shows in some markets with educational ones. First-run syndicated programs were
subject to looser rules and standards, allowing more creative freedom and more
adult-oriented content than programs designed for Saturday mornings. Cable,
originally designed to provide television to those in far-off rural areas,
began to become mainstream and new stations made available to everyone. This
led to a rise in children-oriented stations such as Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon
and the Disney Channel, making Saturday mornings a bit redundant. And
prime-time cartoons made it okay for adults to like cartoons again.
Many networks opted
to discontinue their Saturday morning programming in favor of infomercials or
local programming, like news. Some continue to show reruns of old cartoons or
imported programs, or have opted to show their content on Sundays instead. For
all intents and purposes, Saturday morning television is dead.
But, we remember, don’t
we? We may not remember vividly, but we remember. All it takes is an image, a
sound clip, seeing part of an episode and suddenly we’re transported right back
to our living rooms sitting in front of the TV and watching those programs
again for the first time. With the rise of television released on home media it’s
easier to recapture those memories than ever before, and those memories are
what we’re here to celebrate.
Saturday Mornings
Forever will endeavor to chronicle every show that ever had an original episode
air on Saturday between the hours of 7AM and 1PM. Here, you’ll not only get the rundown of what the show was about, but
whatever behind the scenes information is available, original airdates
(including both American and whatever country of origin for imported shows) and
a complete episode guide. We’ll explore the creation and legacy of these shows
and share in the rekindled memories they might bring. And, in fact, I invite
YOU to share some of the memories it might rekindle in you with us. We have a
comments section—use it!
Welcome back to the best
day of the week. I’m not sure what kind of schedule I’m going to follow in
terms of getting things posted as each entry takes a while to research,
compile, write down and proofread. But, I’ll try to keep it frequent and consistent.
Thanks for reading, and I look forward to experiencing Saturday mornings with
all of you again!
--Chris Buchner
No comments:
Post a Comment