Culture

Sorry Kids, No More Saturday Morning Cartoons on Fox

by Jarrett Martineau | November 25, 2008 at 12:12 pm

1045 views | 16 Recommendations | 7 comments

Fox doesn't care about children — at least, that's how kids will likely react to the news that the American television network will be cancelling its block of Saturday morning cartoons in favour of infomercials.

Cartoons may well be "no longer viable" as Fox suggests, but there's simply no way that kids are going to curl up on the sofa in their pj's and with a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, to take in back to back episodes of the Magic Bullet and Hip-Hop Abs.

After terminating a deal with 4Kids, an independent producer of children’s programming, the Fox network closed down its Saturday morning block of cartoons on Monday, and became the first major broadcast network to agree to sell a part of its schedule to producers of infomercials.

Fox executives said that children’s programming was simply no longer viable on network television — mainly because of competition from cable channels.

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JeffHuang

at 12:27 on November 25th, 2008

I'm not sure if Samurai Pizza Cats was on FOX, but I used to watch that every Saturday morning.

hero-haven

at 14:04 on November 25th, 2008

This is really sad to hear, Saturday morning toons on network tv is such a tradition for the young and old. Network TV without toons on a weekend is like cereal with the milk, shame on you Fox!

Can Tran

at 19:32 on November 25th, 2008

First Cartoon Network does away with Toonami... Now Fox does away with the Fox Box...

I can feel my childhood being drowned in the bathtub. Then again as a huge anime fan, I never cared that much for 4Kids.

Blue Crush

at 20:55 on November 25th, 2008

Oh no! Isn't this the only channel with TMNT? : (

Cartoon LOONEY (not verified)

at 01:06 on November 29th, 2008

What? What are they thinking! I'm in my 30's and I still watch cartoons. Don't get me wrong I'm not "one of those guys" who won't grow and take responsibility. I own my own company. Anyway. You know part of me has always been sad about losing The Bugs Bunny & Road Runner show. That was my childhood. Every Saturday I got up got my lucky charms or capt n crunch sat down in front of the tv in the living room and I'd be there until lunchtime watching Saturday Morning Cartoons. This is a great injustice to kids. Don't the networks make enough off the commercials directed at kids about toys and cereals and whatnot? GREEDY GREEDY NETWORK EXECS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jaime A. (not verified)

at 20:43 on December 2nd, 2008

I find it annoying that Fox takes out from their schedule toons as popular as Animaniacs used to be.

In the other hand, 4Kids ruins EVERY SINGLE cartoon they lay their hands on.

90's cartooner (not verified)

at 07:44 on February 7th, 2009

FOX. its not surprising that a group of tv Executives would decide this. all they care about is Money.

But dont worry, times change, and a time will come for Fox to see once more that providing a Saturday morning block is a viable source of money making.

I hope next time Fox chooses another producer of childrens programming , to give some variety.