This is really sad, and I dont mean the quality of the cartoons today, i just mean how few there are in general on a saturday morning. I remember even a few years ago, you could watch cartoons on Fox, the WB, Disney, Nickelodeon, and Fox Family. Channel 18 even used to have the rarely seen stuff like Starship Troopers, get along gang, and sometimes even starcom. Not to mention ABC had their own block of cartoons, what happened? It seems like the new "CW" is basically all there is, with a few cartoons from 8-1130. It honestly feels like cartoons are going to be a thing of the past  

 

yah Saturday mornings have become crap since i was a kid! I can't believe Today's kids like the crap that on these days.

 

The need for cartoon specific programming has declined with the advent of all cartoon channels. Sad, but it is what it is.

 

it isn't profitable for television stations to air cartoons anymore. Cartoon Network and their bretheren make it really difficult to compete.

 

If Weekend morning cartoons nowadays were like good old shows like Courage the Cowardly Dog and Samurai Jack, then I'd be more concerned about the decline.

But nope, instead it's crap like Chowder and Flapjack, both of which I fail to see as "funny" in the least. Good "new" cartoons are so rare these days...

 

Chowder and Flapjack feel like the last bastions of hope I have for cartoons.

 

SMC's have declined for many reasons.
The FCC has put regulations in place that demand networks (NBC, CBS, FOX, ABC) to air more educational/Informative programming and sadly, the cartoons i watched as a kid don't meet those standards.

Shows like Lilo and Stitch, Fillmore, Phineas and Ferb have a "message" or lesson in them to meet those standards.

the regular networks are hurt by CN and Nick (Boomerang and Nictoons, too) in a unique way- the pressure's off of them to HAVE to have a kid's block anymore. they can risk losing that small audience on weekends in favor of more sports or talk shows like weekend editions of the Today show.

last, local tv stations are stepping in with their own programming, although in my area, it is mostly infomercials or paid half hour adverts from car dealerships, etc.
one of my local stations on saturdays runs a 2-3 hour block of pre-recorded church services.

SMC's have been dying since the mid 90s, imo and it's not entirely the cartoons' fault. yep, there are craptacular toons out there, but they have a lot of circumstances working against them as well.

 

I blame the soccer moms. DAMN THOSE BEAUTIFUL SOCCER MOMS!!!!  

 

^This. Canada has 3 regular kid/youth oriented channels (YTV, Treehouse and Teletoon). And a few more digital ones. The three of them show almost nothing but cartoons. And they have special weekend morning cartoon programming blocks. Making saturday morning cartoons on big networks obsolete.

 

If you ask me, it's just another sign of the fall of society. I'll be surprised if that generation of kids don't all grow up to be sociopaths.

 

Seconded. Chowder is the closest thing we're getting to the earlier seasons of Spongebob.

 

The voices on Chowder are abrasive to my ears.

 

College Football/Basketball > Toons

 

What I missed is the afternoon block of cartoons like Animaniacs.

 

I can agree with whats being said about CN and Boomerang and etc. removing much of the need for the networks need to run Saturday morning Cartoons. Now if Chowder and Flapjack are considered top of the heap in cartoons these days, its a sad state of affairs.

I Do not get Cartoon network now and i don't really miss it, I do get Boomerang and I find the cartoons from the 60's,70's and 80's much more enjoyable than most of the stuff made from 1990s onward. The only Modern cartoons I have cared for are Courage, Samurai Jack and Ghost in the shell Stand alone Complex.

(Transformer Cartoons excepted from this of course)

 

All nostalgia aside, it's sad that the options have dwindled for the children now a days. On a Saturday or any morning back in the day you had so many options, now, not so much.

 

I guess I never liked the other cartoons that most like, such as Courage, Ed Edd and Eddy (I loathe that show), or even oldies like Tom and Jerry and Scooby-Doo.

But, my son loves Tom and Jerry (calls it "Cat Mouse") and Scooby-Doo (calls them Woo-Woo and the guys) and so I let him watch them.

When I think of Saturday Morning Cartoons, old school TMNT comes to mind, as well as The Uncanny X-Men.

 

Cartoons are on 24 hours and on multi channels so I can't really agree on their decline.

Problem with cartoons isn't the cartoons themselves. It's the adults still watching that expect some unrealistic level of quality based on nostalgia. Cartoons will never be as good as when we were kids. It's a sad reality.

 

Every generation thinks their tv shows/childhood was best. They're wrong.

 

We have a winner.