Okay as I am sure most if not all of you know( it was pretty widely circulated in geek and animation circles) the last Saturday morning cartoon block the cw"s Vortexx died in September of 2014. And that there has been diddly since to the sad hearts of meany.
But in A surprising turn of event's on July 1st of this year A new block launched by Sinclair Broadcast Group named KidsClick.

Now I'm sure I know what you are thinking it's just reruns of old stuff but that's actually not the case they seem to be putting real money behind it.
The only 2 shows that overly old is Robocop alpha commando and Sonic X (which seems to have become A perennial filler show at this point).
Every thing else is something that's new enough it should cost.
Super 4 literally debuted on the block and Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir is getting A 2nd season( IE not dead and cheap).
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/KidsClick

[video=youtube;Mz2a-juSpEk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz2a-juSpEk[/youtube]

Now with this in mind anyone want to talk about Saturday or weekday cartoon blocks?
Or at least add A happy dance to the pile?

#happydance

Kinda blows me away that Saturday morning cartoons came to an end. As a kid in the 80s my favourites were always Looney Tunes, Robotech and Star Blazers. They've obviously aged the best too. Transformers, He-Man, G.I. Joe, a weird one I kinda remember called COPS are all unwatchable for me today.

Wow. I did not know cartoons got nuked. While I assumed live TV was mostly dead, I was extremely wrong.

Here's last year's numbers. Americans average 4.3 hours of live TV per day.
https://www.recode.net/2016/6/27/12041028/tv-hours-per-week-nielsen

Quote from: Voros;981242Kinda blows me away that Saturday morning cartoons came to an end. As a kid in the 80s my favourites were always Looney Tunes, Robotech and Star Blazers. They've obviously aged the best too. Transformers, He-Man, G.I. Joe, a weird one I kinda remember called COPS are all unwatchable for me today.

Yeah I was surprised personally till I thought about it then I realized that it probably more that the vortexx was A very anemic block.  
For the most part I agree though I find He-man and G.I joe aged okay my self though that may simply be that I watched A lot of much older things as A kid hana-barbara and the like. Which is funny in its own way as I was born in 93 then again I used to watch Walt Disney presents so I am defiantly an outlier for my generation.
When I started watching Saturday morning cartoons I was watching the foxbox later called 4kidsTV. Early on my favorites  where Cubix: Robots for Everyone, F-Zero: GP Legend (the us only got like the first 6 or 7 eps) , Kirby - Right Back At Ya! ,Mew Mew Power(Tokyo Mew Mew), Shaman King, Sonic X, Fighting Foodons (they only aired it once through) And last but not least the only show on this list to still have new content being made Winx Club. All of those aired before the name change to 4Kidstv.
I also liked One Piece which was the Only show I was ever specifically forbidden to watch as A kid (they came in in the middle of the first fight with Buggy the clown).

Later on I enjoyed G.I. Joe: Sigma 6, Chaotic and Chaotic. Both of which where after the name change though A lot of the older stuff stayed on the block.
Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh pretty much go with out saying.

I also used to watch Kid's WB's after noon block And at times inter wove it with my foxbox viewing.
Including Max Steel, Static Shock, Jackie Chan Adventures (sadly this turned in to there perennial filler but only the last season or so) , The Zeta Project(though I don't remember it very well) , X-Men: Evolution, Megaman NT Warrior (the reason I am A megaman fan and I still love the show), Transformers Cybertron( I thought it was pretty solid some of my friends not so much) , Spider Riders( the only new show they had at the time that I thought was worth A damn though I never saw Legion of Super-Heroes) ,  Iron Kid (never saw A lot of it but I liked what I saw) , And finely Magi-Nation though I actually didn't see it on the WB I saw it on This network A few years later though worth mentioning.

I Never got to watch World of Quest so No Idea what I would have thought of it.

Also I found something cool to share.
http://www.platypuscomix.net/kidswbyourself/index.html

Quote from: Spinachcat;981253Wow. I did not know cartoons got nuked. While I assumed live TV was mostly dead, I was extremely wrong.

Here's last year's numbers. Americans average 4.3 hours of live TV per day.
https://www.recode.net/2016/6/27/12041028/tv-hours-per-week-nielsen

Yep as much as some people will try and tell you TV is dead it's still doing fine I think because there's A lot of advantage to not have to go to the work of searching something out.

Quote from: Voros;981242Kinda blows me away that Saturday morning cartoons came to an end. As a kid in the 80s my favourites were always Looney Tunes, Robotech and Star Blazers. They've obviously aged the best too. Transformers, He-Man, G.I. Joe, a weird one I kinda remember called COPS are all unwatchable for me today.

Robotech is almost unwatchable for me today. I can stick it out, but the dialogue is so terrible. It did give my group of friends a lot of in-jokes though.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;981384Robotech is almost unwatchable for me today. I can stick it out, but the dialogue is so terrible. It did give my group of friends a lot of in-jokes though.

To be honest personally I have never actually seen robotech and have no intention to not till harmony gold stops being A group of imbeciles  pretending to own something they don't.

[video=youtube;kWzQkhLQYr8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWzQkhLQYr8[/youtube]

Postscript edit:On A related note did any one hear that they are remaking the original macross with the budget they wished they had had back in the 80s?

Quote from: Ratman_tf;981384Robotech is almost unwatchable for me today. I can stick it out, but the dialogue is so terrible. It did give my group of friends a lot of in-jokes though.

I watched a couple of old episodes and they're goofy but reasonably enjoyable. Obviously not the masterpieces a lot of Looney Tunes are. The Popeye cartoons are also awesome. In general I prefer the cartoons made for the cinemas in the 40s overmost TV cartoons. Until you get to cartoons straight up for adults like Ren and Stimpie.

To be clear, weekend programming largely died long ago when broadcasters realized that rather than pay for content (old movies, reruns, cartoons) they could instead make money showing infomercials all day. Given the availability of content from other sources (internet, dvd, watching taped shows at a more convenient time, entire networks devoted to cartoons), there's no reason for Saturday morning cartoons to be a thing any more. My kids have never watched a cartoon on a major  TV network on Saturday morning. They get all the cartoons they need from other sources.

What I miss is seeing old movies I'll never otherwise encounter.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;981384Robotech is almost unwatchable for me today. I can stick it out, but the dialogue is so terrible. It did give my group of friends a lot of in-jokes though.

I enjoy the first generation aside from the horrible music of Lynn Minmay. The subsequent generations , not so much.

Quote from: Dumarest;982686To be clear, weekend programming largely died long ago when broadcasters realized that rather than pay for content (old movies, reruns, cartoons) they could instead make money showing infomercials all day.

It's actually a little more complex than that, especially since the big networks do offer Saturday Morning fare and not infomercials.  Several factors killed the SMC, including what you mentioned, the rise of the cable networks.

Tastes changed--NBC was the first to replace the Cartoon with Live Action TV shows.  While there's were always live action shows (think Sid/Marty Kroft), they used to be the minority, but apparently kids liked sitcoms.  Saved By The Bell became the new standard in kids TV, and they skewed a bit older.  With Disney and Nick finding success in the teen or tween sitcom, that became some of the fare shown on Saturdays.

Networks valued news more, and while SMC held off what had happened with Captain Kangaroo at the end of the 70s, networks had at least 1 hour of Saturday and Sunday versions of their news programs (Today, GMA, CBS This Morning).  This took time away from those shows as well.

There was also legal reasons for the change.  In 1990 the Children's Television Act came out, which required at least 3 hours/week of Educational and Informative shows, which means that you needed to aim shows at Children (16 and under) with some educational value--and there's a LOT of channels that must do this--even PBS and those digital channels like the Retro TV network need to provide at least 3 hours/week of this content--you have to be really specialized like Turner Classic Movies or QVC to be exempt from this.  A lot of this meant that the perfect time to show this stuff was Saturday Mornings, so you have more educational shows showing up, and restrictions on tie-in merchandise.  That's why there are programs aimed at this market on Saturday mornings provided by the networks aimed at this audience, but they can skew a bit older and are usually live action now--stuff that deals with nature, history, etc.

Wikipedia has a good rundown of the changes and when they occurred under their Saturday-morning cartoon entry.

I fucking hated garbage like Saved by the Bell. I guess I was just old enough to realize how shitty it was.

I agree about Infomercials replacing late night movies, I assume it did the same to Saturday and Sunday afternoon movies that tended to be more for kids.

That all happened because government regulators loosened the requirements, turning late night TV into an infomercial wasteland. You don't know what you've got til it's gone.

Quote from: Voros;981242Kinda blows me away that Saturday morning cartoons came to an end. As a kid in the 80s my favourites were always Looney Tunes, Robotech and Star Blazers. They've obviously aged the best too. Transformers, He-Man, G.I. Joe, a weird one I kinda remember called COPS are all unwatchable for me today.

Star blazers....damn there's a show that could do with a reboot and good animation.

Quote from: Voros;981429I watched a couple of old episodes and they're goofy but reasonably enjoyable. Obviously not the masterpieces a lot of Looney Tunes are. The Popeye cartoons are also awesome. In general I prefer the cartoons made for the cinemas in the 40s overmost TV cartoons. Until you get to cartoons straight up for adults like Ren and Stimpie.

Personally while I greatly enjoy the old short specimen cartoons I personally prefer something with A little more in the way of story and character hence I tend to prefer children's cartoons to adult cartoons at least when it come to western animation. With anime I have been known to watch any thing and every thing.

Quote from: JRT;982857It's actually a little more complex than that, especially since the big networks do offer Saturday Morning fare and not infomercials.  Several factors killed the SMC, including what you mentioned, the rise of the cable networks.

Tastes changed--NBC was the first to replace the Cartoon with Live Action TV shows.  While there's were always live action shows (think Sid/Marty Kroft), they used to be the minority, but apparently kids liked sitcoms.  Saved By The Bell became the new standard in kids TV, and they skewed a bit older.  With Disney and Nick finding success in the teen or tween sitcom, that became some of the fare shown on Saturdays.

Networks valued news more, and while SMC held off what had happened with Captain Kangaroo at the end of the 70s, networks had at least 1 hour of Saturday and Sunday versions of their news programs (Today, GMA, CBS This Morning).  This took time away from those shows as well.

There was also legal reasons for the change.  In 1990 the Children's Television Act came out, which required at least 3 hours/week of Educational and Informative shows, which means that you needed to aim shows at Children (16 and under) with some educational value--and there's a LOT of channels that must do this--even PBS and those digital channels like the Retro TV network need to provide at least 3 hours/week of this content--you have to be really specialized like Turner Classic Movies or QVC to be exempt from this.  A lot of this meant that the perfect time to show this stuff was Saturday Mornings, so you have more educational shows showing up, and restrictions on tie-in merchandise.  That's why there are programs aimed at this market on Saturday mornings provided by the networks aimed at this audience, but they can skew a bit older and are usually live action now--stuff that deals with nature, history, etc.

Wikipedia has a good rundown of the changes and when they occurred under their Saturday-morning cartoon entry.

Yes very much so The Children's Television Act had A exceedingly large effect. Whats rather hilarious is how ineffectual it is at actually increasing the quality of children's programing. Considering the lack in quality of most IE programing and the fact that kids tend to avoid the vast majority of it I would rather say it had the opposite effect. I only know of one IE program that was any good and pbs only aired it once through likely because it didn't yes man there politics.  
[video=youtube;KmCxPjNgX6A]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmCxPjNgX6A[/youtube]
Then again the big problem with most IE programing it that they know that someone is going to buy it because of the IE requirements.

Quote from: Voros;982875I fucking hated garbage like Saved by the Bell. I guess I was just old enough to realize how shitty it was.

I agree about Infomercials replacing late night movies, I assume it did the same to Saturday and Sunday afternoon movies that tended to be more for kids.

That all happened because government regulators loosened the requirements, turning late night TV into an infomercial wasteland. You don't know what you've got til it's gone.

Yeah I never got in to most of that ether A little bit of brotherly love when I was young but that was the extent of it for me.
As to the Infomercial comment unless you had A station near an exceedingly large city(think the twin citys of newyork) you didn't have much in the way of late night movies any way as it simply wasnt profitable enough to make it worth staying on the air and they simply signed off for the night. Hell the only reason they don't show test patterns all night now is because they Infomercial money will pay the cost of running the station.
[video=youtube;NxKVUd0OOjY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxKVUd0OOjY[/youtube]
I chose the fox 6 sign off as its from my state.

It didn't need to be a huge city, in the Pacific Northwest in the 80s we watched lots of late night movies on our local, Vancouver and Seattle TV stations. Seattle stations were the best with shows like Night Owl Theatre that featured a lot of 70s horror films and the like.