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Toy to Toon: Commercial Cartoons and How They Affected Saturday Morning
by Dark Star
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Why Do We Need the Kids Anyway? by Perceptor II
What's Your Outlet? by Coyotek
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"Why should it be wrong if the toy inspired the program and not the other way around? We evaluate programming on entertainment value and not on its merchandising ability." Said George F. Schweritzer, a CBS Broadcast Group Vice-President. And Miss Lois Hanrahan, an executive of Tonka at the time had to agree. "What difference does it make if the toy comes first? Our business is kids. You find out what kids want." Added Joe Morrison, a senior vice-president at Mattel: "Children don't have a broad range of interests. One of the things their interested in is toys. The net of it is, if its good entertainment they'll watch it. If it's a good toy they'll probably buy it." (Waters & Uelhing)
This battle seems to still be happening in lower tones though over shows such as Pokemon, Power Rangers, and other "violent" cartoon shows. Even though this all happened, the 80s ended on a low note though even for the some of the most successful commercial cartoons. When the shows first came out they stared out doing a thirteen episode season for a network, then over time to consolidate costs the owners decided to produce the shows in syndication which allowed for a package of sixty-five half hour shows which were sent to different networks. Yet by the time 1986 rolled around the commercial cartoon was dropping in the ratings. GI Joe went from being a number one syndicate run to being only separated from Go-bots which was 18th in the Neilsen ratings by 2 ½ points.
Thundercats which debuted in 1985 had the highest production value of it's time, a whopping $15 million dollars to produced the show. To ensure the profits were made back Telepictures, the maker of Thrundercats, made 45 deals as of 1985 around the county with stations to air the show. This deal allowed the station to make profits off the show when it debuted, the deals were stopped after a court battle in 1986 with the FCC. This actually began the fall of the cartoon shows, and the start of more "High class" syndicated Cartoons to take the interested of the kids.
Disney created Ducktales, Gummi Bears, and the Wuzzlies for it's Saturday morning cartoon block labeled Disney's Saturday morning show, then later it expanded to the afternoon with shows like Tale spins, Darkwing Duck, and other cartoon shows. Other companies followed suite with shows such as the American Tale show, Saturday morning Book club, and numerous other syndicated Cartoons that were made by "Top of the line" animation houses. Yes there was syndication but it was of a very different sort in the late 1980s and into the early 1990s.
The drop off lead for a number of cancellations on prime stations, and soon most of the series were gone. Though some were captured by cable, they never really did take off on the cable outlet stations during the late 80s and early 90s. It wasn't until recently with the addition of Cartoon Network, and other shows such as Beast Wars that the old commercial cartoons began to re-surge back on the air. Even though the original shows were no longer on that didn't mean that the idea of commercial cartoons didn't occur on the television during the 1990s, there just wasn't a lot of them on. Though by 1993 and into 1994 new syndicated shows, such as Dragon Flyz, Sky Dancers, and the like were showing up on the air once more, and they were only on for a season or so to market the toy, but they started the resurrection of the old commercial cartoon.
Tune into Fox Kids on Saturday and you'll see a number of shows that are like the syndicated toy cartoons of the 1980s. Action Man, who is like a extreme sports He-man, Beast Machines, the latest in the Transformers line, Digimon, and others fill in the time slots in the mornings to capture the attention of kids of this era. The new generation of kids will get hooked just as their brothers and sisters did back in the 80s and will become new consumers for the toy makers, and the cycle will repeat it self again and again no matter how much the watch dog groups try to stop it from happening.
In short Commercial cartoons are not a bad things, though people may not be thrilled with having shows that are just big commercials, the kids more then likely are. And if that is what captures their imagination and creates happy memories of Saturday mornings, then I say let the toy makers continue to make the shows and keep us kids at heart waiting for the Saturday morning sun rise to rush to the set and watch as our own hero becomes a Master of the Universe.
Sources:
Kanfer, Stephan. Serious Business: The Art and Commerce of Animation from Betty Boop to Toy Story. (Scribner Press, 1997, New York).
Solomon, Charles. Enchanted Drawing: The History of Animation.
Waters, Harry F and Mark D Uelhing. "Toying with Kids' TV". Newsweek. May 13, 1985.
Wikies, John, Lois Therien, Amy Dunkin and Mark N Vamos. "Are The Programs Your Kids Are Watching Simple Commercials?" Business Weekly. March 25, 1985.
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