A few weeks ago The CW pulled the last standing Saturday morning cartoon off the air. For people our age this feels like losing a dear friend. Sure, we haven't visited the friend in a very long time; but knowing they were around on Saturday mornings was comforting. Friday was the day where we didn't have homework, stayed up late, only to wake up the next morning in pajamas with a bowl of sugary cereal, milk, and our favorite animated friends for some mind-numbing entertainment. School was a full-time job and Sundays meant getting up and going to church...so Saturday was our only day to be a kid all day and what better way to set things off?
One of the major reasons for this change in network programming was FCC regulations. Someone felt that Saturday morning programming should be educational or something like that. That's dumb and whoever came up with this idea must not remember what it is like to be a child. Hell, as an adult, I think too much, read, and write all day for a living so I like my entertainment to be mind-numbing. I don't want to be titillated, kept in suspense, or have to think too hard (so I like my music ignorant and what I watch to be ratchet and full of ridiculousness). It was the same with the cartoons. As a parent, my mother could enjoy shows like Animaniacs with me because there was a layer of adult humor that went over my head and that made it enjoyable (Beethoven: I'm a pianist. Yakko: Goodnight, everybody!)...awesome.
Saturday morning cartoons haven't disappeared. There's cable in which there are whole channels dedicated to cartoons. Nickelodeon has a few, Disney has one for preschool kids, and PBS has sprout. My daughter and nephew would watch these channels all day if I'd let them so there is nothing special about the four-hour block where all of the latest toy commercials appear and they get ideas about what they want for Christmas. It's on their minds at 6pm like it is at 8am. That actually makes me a little mad because I'm constantly hearing about some new thing that they want. There are even channels with older cartoons on them in which I have tried to have some semblance of nostalgia with my little ones and they aren't interested. There was a simplicity to Tom and Jerry that just doesn't appeal to this generation's need for constant stimulus.
You know what? That's exactly what it is. The need for constant stimulus has made our friend go away. There is no need for anticipation to build because everything is already available. If one channel doesn't have a cartoon on that they like, then they can flip to another, and another. If nothing is on TV, there's Netflix and HULU. If I say that I want to sit and watch football or the Knicks my three-year-old daughter will find my iPad, turn it on, slide her fingers to the Disney Jr app, and watch Doc McStuffins episodes to her heart's content.
The truth is our dear old friend isn't gone; they just evolved. We got older and so did they. There's still a part of all of us that is still a kid internally and from time to time is seeps out. In fact, our friend is more available to us than it has ever been. I can easily pull up some of my favorite moments and relive being nine years old again by searching for that moment that blew my mind on YouTube and playing it. If I really felt up to it, I could do it any night of the week once the kids are asleep.
The post The Saturday Morning Cartoon Didn’t Die… It Grew Up appeared first on MommyNoire.
