By Nelson Schneider - 10/12/14 at 02:42 PM CT
The first Saturday morning in October 2014 marked a depressing milestone for those of us who grew up and came of age in the 1980s and 1990s. It was the first Saturday morning to be completely bereft of cartoons on every non-cable broadcast network.
Sure, some of the networks still run a mixed block of animated and live-action children’s programming on Saturday mornings, but the majority of these shows are “edutainment” aimed at the pre-school crowd. The last holdouts in running Saturday morning cartoons were, for the most part, running popular shonen animes that are readily available on the cable animation outlet known as Cartoon Network. None of the last dregs of Saturday morning cartoons bear any resemblance to the once-great Saturday morning network exclusives that drove children to wake up insanely early on days when school was not in session.
The last remaining Saturday morning cartoons have been a pale imitation of the Silver Era for a long, long time. Looking back at Warner Bros.’ classic “Looney Tunes” and Disney’s great pre-modern shows like “DuckTales,” “Chip & Dale: Rescue Rangers,” and “Gargoyles” makes the later slice-of-life pre-teen-centered shows like “Doug” and “Rocko’s Modern Life” look even worse by comparison… don’t even get me started on the ADHD fuel that is “Spongebob Squarepants” or “Adventure Time!” I would love to watch some of those classic cartoons again, if only they were broadcast on the networks (cable isn’t available to me, and I don’t want satellite).
Of course, I can’t say I’m blameless in the loss of Saturday morning cartoons. I stopped watching “Looney Tunes” even when it was still running. Of course, I stopped not out of a dislike of the series – with its classic characters, witty humor, and clever juxtaposition of madcap antics and classical music – no, I stopped watching “Looney Tunes” because there were no more new episodes. When I was watching that particular show in the ’80s and ’90s, it was already an old franchise that had been re-running re-runs for decades, with no new episodes having been produced since 1969. I had seen these cartoons so many times, I had practically memorized every sketch involving Wile E. Coyote & The Roadrunner, Sylvester & Tweety, Bugs & Daffy, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Taz, and the rest. The later Disney cartoons, while actually made in the decade they were aired, also simply stopped after a handful of seasons.
I appreciate it when a franchise knows when to end its run instead of going on and on until the quality drops to complete crap. While none of these classic shows lasted long enough (even though “Looney Tunes” was in production for ~30(!) years) to spiral into the crapper, they did inspire spin-off franchises of wildly varying quality (“Animaniacs” = Awesome; “Loonatics Unleashed” = Awful).
“So, what do Saturday morning cartoons have to do with videogames?” I can hear the Trolls asking. Well, when I think of the death of Saturday morning cartoons and the fact that some of the greatest classics aren’t being broadcast anymore, I think of the sea change that has been rippling through videogames for the past several years.
Ask someone from my generation what they think of Betty Boop and they will likely respond with a blank stare. The same can be said of the younger generations when confronted with the likes of Porky Pig... or Super Mario. When classic pieces of media phase out of circulation, there is an even larger disconnect between generations of people due to the lack of shared cultural experience. Early on in the history of videogames, it was Nintendo franchises that served as the anchor of shared experience, with a few universally acclaimed titles by third parties available to break the core down into shared sub-niches.
Today’s youth, however, have no attachment to Mario, Link, Samus, or any of Nintendo’s other flagship characters. The cast of “Super Smash Bros.” is an enigma to them as much as the cast of “PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale” is an enigma to me (I recognize the characters, but question their status as ‘all-stars’). Today’s youth have no interest in Nintendo’s sequels because they have no connection with the source material. Instead, they are drawn-in by new, shallow franchises, like “Angry Birds,” or Disney-created advertising that panders specifically to their age group.
The youth want TV shows and videogames that are made to appeal specifically to them, while the old and washed-up want TV shows and videogames that are made to appeal specifically to them. There is no more audience for broadly appealing media that speaks to a huge swath of humanity at different levels when everything can be compartmentalized into ESRB-defined age groups. I find this change in audiences to be quite sad. We are already seeing gamers subdividing themselves into cliques that are practically at war with each other on Internet message boards. Without shared interests or shared experiences, nothing remains to tie-together the gaming community. How long will it be, then, before Nintendo games are relegated to the same dusty vaults as “Looney Tunes?”
Comments
Chris Kavan - wrote on 10/16/14 at 07:36 PM CT
I bet this winds up on those end-of-the-year list of "stuff the next generation is going to know nothing about" like rotary phones, walkmen and VHS tapes - man, every time that something from my youth is gone, it just makes me feel that much older. I hope the video game industry (not even Nintendo, bless their soul) is relegated to the dustbin of history. I don't think it's this bad yet, but we might be closing in on it.
