Originally published at: The rise and fall of Fox Kids | Boing Boing
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One nice thing about the decline of the Saturday Morning Cartoon ritual is that the writing for kids’ cartoons got a lot better after the medium started getting decoupled from the commercials for tie-in toys and merchandise.
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Toy Galaxy is a great channel. Though their Boba Fett collection is just an grotesque display of riches.
And writing for all shows that were created with streaming in mind has been freed up from the rigid constraints of total runtime and breaks in the storytelling for commercials. I like that a lot of streaming shows have episodes of varying lengths because not all stories are best told in exactly 22 or 44 minutes. Less good bits end up on the cutting room floor, and they also don’t need to pad stories for length if a slightly shorter episode does the job for a given story. I don’t miss broadcast television at all.
Also nice that networks don’t need to worry about losing sponsors if a show does something a bit edgy or controversial like having a popular main character come out as gay or whatever.
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If any of y’all get the MeTV network, they do Saturday morning cartoons now. Looney Tunes, Popeye, and Tom & Jerry.
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I was definitely a working grown-up during this time, but I remember watching some of these shows on tape when getting together with college friends. Animaniacs and the excellent Batman cartoon in particular.
I think it was Fox Kids that had a wonderful show called Nightmare Ned, about a fearful kid bedevilled by supernatural threats. As best as I can recall!
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