Saturday morning cartoons on US Network TV are now a thing of the past

[Jeremy]

Nostalgia can be a sad thing. Apparently today was the last day that the CW showed their Saturday morning cartoon lineup, ending network TV's Saturday morning cartoons after half a century. The other channels cut their cartoons over the last several years.

The FCC is partially to blame for the decline since they forced the networks to show "E/I" (educational) shows, which no one really watches by the way. Perhaps the government thought that kids enjoy watching TV for the sake of watching it, rather than watching TV for the shows themselves.

So what cartoons did you grow up with? I didn't have cable TV as a kid, so I usually watched cartoons on Saturday mornings and after school on the WB. I remember watching Pokemon, Recess, Doug, Jackie Chan's Adventure, X-Men: Evolution, Batman Beyond, Yu-Gi-Oh, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot more that some of you will remind me of.

 

[spCrossing]

That is sad, although I don't watch the CW, I do remember all of those shows as a kid.
Ah....good times....good times...

 

[mayor_zoe]

Oh my- that is really sad news. I always enjoyed them.

I remember watching Nick quite a bit. And Cartoon Network when I was wee little and they still showed shows like Johnny Bravo and Cat-Dog. c:

 

[Jeremy]

Oh my- that is really sad news. I always enjoyed them.

I remember watching Nick quite a bit. And Cartoon Network when I was wee little and they still showed shows like Johnny Bravo and Cat-Dog. c:

Those channels still exist. Network TV is CW (formerly The WB), Fox, NBC, ABC, and CBS.

 

[Aradai]

let it r.i.p.

awww. I remember waking up at 7:00 AM to watch cartoons like Animaniacs and Looney Toones.

 

[oath2order]

Another example of how everything has to be cleaner up and safe for the kids.

I dont remember cartoons i watched

 

[Gideon]

I watched varying channels, but my favorite for a long time was WB (17). I also watched Cartoon Network at times, and on occasion Nickelodeon or Disney. WB was my main Saturday morning channel once I found it, as it was one of the few channels I could watch in my own bedroom (I didn't have satellite in my room, just an antenna, the rest of the house had Dish Network.) There were a lot of good memories from those days...

 

[spCrossing]

I grew up more on the Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and Toon Disney side in my childhood.
I barely watched Kids WB as a kid.

 

[Beleated_Media]

Another example of how everything has to be cleaner up and safe for the kids.

I dont remember cartoons i watched

Actually have you seen some of the dark themes of cartoons now adays? For example atleast HALF the cartoons i thought where child friendly actually contained DEATH.

 

[Amissapanda]

Wow, that's a shame. I remember getting up early just for Saturday morning cartoons when I was young.

I used to watch a ton of them. Animaniacs, The Tick, Freakazoid, Looney Tunes, Tiny Toon Adventures, Pokemon, Digimon, Rugrats, The Wild Thornberries, Rocket Power, Doug, Hey Arnold!, The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, Garfield and Friends, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Inspector Gadget, Beetlejuice, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers... and there's still more that I'm sure I missed. A couple of those might not have been Saturday morning specific, but they're shows from my childhood that I remember fondly from that time.

 

[spCrossing]

Actually have you seen some of the dark themes of cartoons now adays? For example atleast HALF the cartoons i thought where child friendly actually contained DEATH.

That's mostly on Cartoon Network nowadays, though.

- - - Post Merge - - -

I]Animaniacs[/I], The Tick, Freakazoid, Looney Tunes, Tiny Toon Adventures, Pokemon, Digimon, Rugrats, The Wild Thornberries, Rocket Power, Doug, Hey Arnold!, The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, Garfield and Friends, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Inspector Gadget, Beetlejuice, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers

Any Disney Afternoon show such as Darkwing Duck, Goof Troop, and Ducktales was my jam as a kid.
Also I found the Care Bears TV show a guilty pleasure as a kid...even though I'm a dude....whoops...

 

[Manzanas]

Anyone remembers Silverhawks? I don't, but the opening was amazing for the time. Dat animation...

I think it was animated by the same studio that did Thundercats.

 

[Isabella]

So sad The cartoon I remember the most watching on Saturdays was Pokemon. I didn't miss one episode. Sometimes I had other stuff to do so I'd record it on my vcr to watch later. I just looked this up and saturday morning cartoons have been a thing since the 60s. It just reached its peak in the 90s-00s. People used to talk crap about how bad 4kids TV was when it was on every Saturday but I remember those good days. I used to watch that Kirby show, One Piece, and some other shows I can't remember now.

I feel like these educational shows aren't worth anything, do kids actually even learn from them? School is for learning, let them enjoy some entertainment on tv and have a break for once lol. Like so many schools already had this thing with taking recess away from them or making it way less, no fun for them ):

 

[spCrossing]

Anyone remembers Silverhawks? I don't, but the opening was amazing for the time. Dat animation...

I think it was animated by the same studio that did Thundercats.

I was too young to remember that show, but it's a trend with these Japanese-animated 80's shows that have awesome animation at the opening but...kinda crappy in the show itself.

- - - Post Merge - - -

So sad The cartoon I remember the most watching on Saturdays was Pokemon. I didn't miss one episode. Sometimes I had other stuff to do so I'd record it on my vcr to watch later. I just looked this up and saturday morning cartoons have been a thing since the 60s. It just reached its peak in the 90s-00s. People used to talk crap about how bad 4kids TV was when it was on every Saturday but I remember those good days. I used to watch that Kirby show, One Piece, and some other shows I can't remember now.

I feel like these educational shows aren't worth anything, do kids actually even learn from them? School is for learning, let them enjoy some entertainment on tv and have a break for once lol. Like so many schools already had this thing with taking recess away from them or making it way less, no fun for them ):

I did watch a lot of 4kids as a kid, though I was watching them just for Kirby Right Back at 'ya and Sonic X.
And yeah, the educational shows did absolutely nothing for learning, that's what school is for.

 

[Amissapanda]

Any Disney Afternoon show such as Darkwing Duck, Goof Troop, and Ducktales was my jam as a kid.
Also I found the Care Bears TV show a guilty pleasure as a kid...even though I'm a dude....whoops...

I loved Ducktales (Woo-ooo!). I used to watch the Care Bears sometimes, too. I had both of the movies on VHS.

 

[spCrossing]

I loved Ducktales (Woo-ooo!). I used to watch the Care Bears sometimes, too. I had both of the movies on VHS.

Every day they're out there making Ducktales! (Woo-ooo!)
I had both of the Care Bears movies on VHS as well, though I also had both of the DiC and Nelvana series on DVD.
I prefer the DiC series for that 80's Japanese charm.

 

[oranje]

I mostly watched shows from Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and WB. Toonami's lineup was my favorite thing to come home to after school. I really loved watching Batman:The Animated Series and Sailor Moon. I also liked that Cartoon Network used to play cartoons from the 60s,70s, and 80s because then I could talk about the cartoons with my mom who had also seen them when she was a child. Plus Looney Toons was a lot of fun to watch too.

This is what I remember watching when I was a kid:

Nickelodeon- Hey Arnold! (a personal favorite), Rugrats, The Wild Thornberries, Rocket Power, Fairy Odd Parents, Catdog, Spongebob, Rocko's Modern Life.

WB- Jacky Chan Adventures, Static Shock.

Cartoon Network- The Justice League, Johnny Bravo, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, Freakazoid, Powerpuff Girls (I used to watch this religiously as a kid), Dexter's Lab.

 

[baileyanne94]

As an animation hopeful and enthusiast, it's really sad to see the overall decline in integrity, quality and overall amount of cartoons. I'll probably just get DVDs of old stuff for my kids. My favorites when I was younger were The Powerpuff Girls (my #1!!), the old episodes of Spongebob, Hey Arnold!...that's all great stuff to watch nowadays even. It's timeless, just like stuff like Rocko's Modern Life, Ren & Stimpy, Rugrats, and I'm sure many other favorites that have been and will be mentioned here. Stuff that's animated isn't just crap made to shut your kids up, it's an art, and a very trying one at that. The 90s I believe was truly the greatest era for cartoons. There were issues with content and regulation in the days of stuff like The Flinstones and other 'classics', but the 90s was a wonderfully ruthless era, and everyone who grew up with those shows is happy they did. I don't know if that era will ever be topped, but here's hoping cartoons and animation can continue to thrive. It's already a true shame that Disney has supposedly ceased 2D animation. Just...wow.

 

[spCrossing]

The only 2D animation we have left is anime and some TV shows...
I really want to see 2D animation on the big screen again....but that's not going to happen anytime soon. :C

 

[Radda]

I use to wake up everymorning to watch Yugioh,Pokemon,and this weird witch ball anime thing and Dragon Ball Z Kai,