The Death of Saturday Morning Cartoons

4:30 AM.

At 4:30 AM, I would crawl out of bed at the mere age of 11, hop into the dining room where a TV was (there was one in my room and in the basement, but the dining room... well, it was just kinda cool). My grandma and my mom were asleep (sometimes not mom since she had trouble sleeping) and I would turn on NBC 3 (I think it was still 3 back then) and watch.... Dudley Do-Right!

The year is 1996, and I'm watching Saturday Morning cartoons as they start at 5AM. No, you didn't misread that: Five in the morning! It was Dudley Do-Right followed by Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales. So, in essence, the first hour the local affiliate would put on was left-over cartoons from 30 years ago. It didn't matter since they basically revived the entire Rocky & Bullwinkle thing not too earlier.

1996. My god... THAT was the golden year for me and animation!

When I was growing up, Saturday Morning was special, and I'm sure it was like that for millions of kids over a bunch of decades! Waking up, eating cereal, watching hours and hours of TV on end until noon, maybe even until 1PM if you were lucky (ABC would sometimes show an awesome little Saturday Matinee), then run around and have fun for the rest of the day. CBS, ABC, Fox Kids, Kids WB.... the only networks that didn't have stuff for you were NBC and UPN, but UPN came on on Sunday's, so it kinda made up for it.

What was the line-up back then? God, I couldn't tell you the full thing, but I do remember catching "The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat", "Project G.e.e.K.e.R.", and "Garfield" were on CBS. ABC... "The Bugs & Tweety Show", "ABC Weekend Special (Which was awesome because they made books into cartoons!)", and a bunch of shows that only lasted on season. Kids WB? WOW! "Animaniacs", "Pinky & The Brain", "Freakazoid!". And FOX? OH MAN I LOVED FOX KIDS! "Eek! the Cat", "The Tick", "X-Men", "Batman: The Animated Series"....

A lot of the shows back then didn't last. Project G.e.e.K.e.R. only made it for a season, which sucked because I loved how insane it was. A lot ohave been forgotten thanks to time and all that sugar rotting my brains, but it was a hell of a time to be an animated fan!

1996! My god, it's like the golden age of animation! Saturday Morning was packed with cartoons, and weekdays were just as great! Disney bought time on one of the UHF Stations and would show cartoons for 2 hours after school (Good Troop, Tale Spin, Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers), FOX Kids had a 2 hour block as well (Pretty much anything they could cram on there!). The Simpsons was still going strong, the world was introduced to King of the Hill, "Beavis & Butt-Head" were still going strong and the movie was being released at the end of the year... It was great! Toy Story had come out the previous year and was already effecting the way people did cartoons.

Meanwhile, MTV was giving a voice to animatiors the world over with shows like The Maxx, Liquid Television, Aeon Flux, and countless others. Duckman was born on USA, Cartoon Network was premering tons of cartoons! Oh, and Cool World was on HBO nearly once a day. That was awesome.

I think I watched more TV than anyone should, and I also read a lot. But you know what, I'm going away from the point of all of this.

Fox Kids has killed Saturday Morning Cartoons. Or, more acurately, Fox Killed Saturday Morning Cartoons. But I'll explain that in a munute.

From 1998 - 2001, animation peaked. There were dozens of new cartoons every month it seemed! There was a demand from networks like NBC to compete with The Simpsons. In return, David Spade got his own cartoon on NBC, another show called God, the Devil, and Bob premeried and proved to be a very adult cartoon that delt with amture themes, Clerks got an animated cartoon on ABC, and the Big 4 I mentioned earlier were still pumping out a ton of stuff. Unfortuantly, Clerks, God, the Devil, and Bob, and the David Spade cartoon I mentioned all had one thing in common: 2 weeks. As in, they aired for 2 weeks before getting cancelled.

The 1990's had seen something happen to animation that hadn't for years: Creators were in control. Thanks to the success of Disney, Nickeldeon Studios as well as Cartoon Network were able to roll the dice and create more and more original content. A market had been tapped that had existed, but due to the overt comemrcalism of 1980's cartoons, was restrained. John Kricfalusi, the man behind Ren & Stimpy , said it best; "The 80's was a dark time for cartoons because it was all about marketing. After I and a bunch of other guys left, we decided to make the cartoons WE loved. Nickelodeon was OK with it... eh, to a degree."

Animators were experimenting and growing during the 1990's! There was little, if any, restraint on what even the normally conservative studios would allow. Even Beavis & Butt-Head was rarely held back. Animators saw this as a chance to expand beyond what they thought was a "kids medium" and created things such as "Ren & Stimpy", "The Oblongs", "Aeon Flux", Batman: The Animated Series", among countless others. Animation variety shows popped up on MTV with Liquid Television and Cartoon Sushi, giving countless animators an outlet to express themselves.

Sadly, all things must end.

With 2001, a few things happened: We got a new president, we saw the birth and rise of the Internet, we faced 9/11, we saw the beginnings of an economic problem, and we saw the same thing that hampered development in the first place: Corporate control.

By the year 2000, a deal that gave exculsive broadcasting rights to Time/Warner media to broadcast Looney Toons was finally realized and Looney Toons went off the air on ABC, Nickelodeon, and soon even the WB. CBS began cutting back it's once legendary cartoon line-up, instead relying on Nickeldeon cartoons, and later Nick Jr. and other Viacom properties. In 2002, NBC also began showing cartoons on a block called "Discovery Kids". The block was basically them fufilling a federal requirement to have 2 hours of educational children broadcasting a week.

Countless others would follow suit.

ABC had been stripped of any and all original programming, replaced with simply replaying cartoons from The Disney Channel, which had begun cutting back on it's cartoons. Cartoon Network would soon begin breaking a promise of "All Cartoons, All the Time, Forever and ever, until the End of Time!" by airing live-action movies and producing live-action segments. Nickeldeon also began cutting back on it's animated programing, with Nicktoons being cut back and, by 2006, closing all operations in Orlando, FL, and leaving it entirely in California.

Fox Kids, lated The Fox Box and finally 4Kids TV, was almost the last man standing. By 2005, Kids WB! was still showing cartoons and introducing new shows that pushed kids imaginations while 4Kids TV did just the same. In 2006, the CW was born and in 2007 swallowed Kids WB. In 2008, 4Kids TV bought airtime on the CW, merging it's shows and productions with that of the former Kids WB.

In 2008, we are now left with, on network TV, the following:
CBS: KEWlopolis - A 3-Hour block of E/I-Friendly TV
ABC: ABC Kids - A 4-Hour block with 3 hours of E/I-Friendly TV and an hour of Power Rangers
NBC : Qubo - 3-Hour block of, you guessed it, E/I-Friendly TV
My Networks: Nothing, up to local affiliates to meet 3-hour E/I requirement
Fox: 4Kids TV - 4-5 Hours of cartoons
CW: 4Kids TV - 4-5 Hours of cartoons


Well, today, Fox did the unthinkable: THEY ARE ELIMINATING SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS FOR INFOMERCIALS!

God, that took forever for me to get to, didn't it? Well, I had to make sure you understood the history, how we got here, and.... well, what this means.

It mean's only the CW will show cartoons. REAL cartoons. Not this education crap! Not this, "Let's have a moderate amount of fun while learning how to be freinds!" CRAP! None of this weak cartoons in order to preach to our kids because we're too fucking lazy as parents to! NO! IT MEANS THERE'S ONLY ONE NETWORK WITH BALLS TO ACTUALLY FUCKING ENTERTAIN YOU! TO MAKE YOU LAUGH! TO MAKE YOU HAPPY!

Fox Kids meant something to me! It wasn't just cartoons, they actually had awesome contests, prizes, and got you involved! They had polls, fun things to do, and a lot more. It... it was just plain awesome! Even today I kinda envied kids because 4Kids TV actually did a lot to keep promoting this stuff and getting kids entertained and happy.

Cable television saved animation... until it destroyed it over the last 5-7 years.

Cartoon Network has only about 8-10 animated shows they air, Toon Disney and Nicktoons TV have both cut back on airing reruns of older and classic shows, and now we're down to, in essence, only one network showing original content. Boomerang even stopped showing Looney Toons last year and the greatness of such animators as Tex Avery are being lost.

We have a generation that is being deprived stuff like Daria and Futurama. We're taking away their chance to know how much fun there is in animation and that world of fantasy. We're taking away that joy of waking up on Saturday morning, eating cereal, and having fun. Some people have said cartoons today are too violent. So far, I'm not seeing it. The roughest shows I can think of are Ben 10: Alien Force, Clone Wars, and Total Drama Island, all of which are Y7 and are fairly tame (save Total Drama Islan, which carries a TV-PG ratining and... yeah, don't let your kids watch this).

It could be argued that kids today have the internet and and creating their own new traditions. We can also say that there are more options now, such as video games, DVD's, the internet, and countless other distractions. Kids are pressured to do a lot more now and participate in more events and activites.



As far as I'm concerned, the current economic crisis, along with the one in 2002-03, and the rise of Flash animation, killed the cartoon as we know it. In 2003 - 2006, it could be argued, successfuly, that Flash ccould actually save Animation, giving more and more artists a chance to do something interesting and neat. And, in fact, that has happened more times than I can count. But it has, thus far, been used to create very cheap and poor-looking animation for Boardcast networks and rarely get's to the same levels traditional hand-drawn animation ever had.


So, what can save Animation? What can save Saturday Morning Cartoons for a new generation? Anyone who goes out there and demands to create a great cartoon. Show you have a market, show you have drive, and show that you KNOW you can create something incredible! Disney, Viacom, Time/Warner... they may all be afraid right now of going back into the land of television and putting on shows, but you have to try.

To the animators of tomorrow, I urge you all to do one thing: Read Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. He will show the way.


If you would like to learn more about Saturday Morning Cartoons and the E/I standard, please check out these links:
Saturday Morning Cartoons: A Short History
The E/I FCC Requirement
Weekday Morning Cartoons

Bushisms

Well, the sun is about to set on the Bush Dynasty, and while the last 8 years have seen Bush and his friends rape and pillage this nation, you've got to admit one thing: It's going to suck not being able to make fun of him as much as before.



So long, and thanks for the shoes.

Copyright Issue: Are Photos of Cars the Property of the Car Maker?

Toyota is asking a website to take down any and all photos of their cars. As Jalopnik points out, this doesn't seem legal:

The automaker clearly owns the car images it created, such as press photos and catalogs. However, Toyota loses some authority over these works when they disseminate them tot he public at large. But let's ignore that for a moment and focus on the other side of content — works created by individuals of Toyota products owned by individuals. An automaker doesn't posses the copyright far a painting of a Toyota Camry produced by an individual and uploaded to the site. They don't have the copyright on an image of a Toyota as shot by someone else, like this shot of someone's personal Highlander.

Toyota Fights Web Site To Take Down User-Generated Desktop Backgrounds

So the question posed here is does Toyota have any legal right to request this? It isn't a full-blown official thing, but it's still troubling.

Zune Paint

It's so... so... it's so beautiful and disturbing at the same time. My god... it's... it's almost worst than Tub Girl, yet as beautiful as a dove.... I can't look away.




Zune Paint from Sibling Rivalry on Vimeo.

Finally Watched "Red Dawn"

So with all the references and seemingly talk about this 1984 film, I decided to pick it up since I saw a new copy for $6. With the seemingly huge impact it had (The U.S. Military called the capture of Saddam "Operation Red Dawn"), and the idea of the U.S. being invaded by a foreign nation... I thought it was an awesome concept.

The movie... the movie left a lot to be desired.

Admittedly, on my part, it most likely because I had fairly high expectations.

The film uses an overall "less-is-more" technique in a few areas. The setting of the film is Kansas and the movie seems more like a bunch of guys going into the woods to make a film, using a few abandoned blocks in a small town to create the idea of a Soviet state, and a ton of explosions lying around. I was having a hard time imagining an actual Soviet Invasion since the full extent of what I saw was a small detention camp, 4 blocks of a town, and a bunch of tanks.

Then again, I'm being fairly picky. The film is less about the invasion and the conflicts and story surrounding it and more about what American's, normal everyday Americans would do in a situation where they were the rebelling army against their imposers for the first time in over 100 years. Granted, 2 of them have survival and hunting tactics, but it still works well. The idea of seeing a group of 10 -12 teenagers rebel against a massive army, losing more and more people along the way, their families, their homes... it's fairly deep stuff.

The problem, though, is that in the end it was less about telling an interesting story that revolved around developing these characters and more about the actual violence. It's worth noting that this film was made in 1984 when the MPAA finally came out with the PG-13 film rating. Because of this, the film may have been in a sort of limbo where either film maker of the studio wanted to get either a PG or R rating. So we get a film that was considered one of the bloodiest at it's time while trying to mix a sense of realism in the characters and how they would function.

But to say there was none to little character development would be wrong. There is some, but not much. One example is when the troop picks up two girls who were put into hiding. Their transformation into members of the group is never actually explained, and their history and path is shrouded in too much secrecy for you to connect with. One of the main characters goes from being scared, to drinking deers blood, to being one of the strongest of the group. His transformation isn't fully explored, but the information we get works and make sense. With so much going on, I can understand the need to cut out certain parts.

There is, though, a lot of the film that works well. The initial 25 minutes of the film, where we see the Soviets paratroopers land and invade Kansas, the getaway by the band of high schoolers, and heading to the shop for ammunition and food while all they know and love is being destroyed... eventually arriving in the woods and creating their new order. It was nothing short of great to watch it and the fact that the rest of the film only had small highlights harmed it in my eyes.

Some other choice parts? The emotional exchange between the father and two brothers at the detention camp, watching them come back to the occupied town, and the meeting of the Soviet leader to his men when he declares the Wolverines are to be hunted were great scenes. They took on the idea, the concept, and the emotion's that one would expect during World War III.
If anything, the overt patriotism was lost on me. I found it cheaply used in the film because, as I've stated before, the film barely gave you an idea of the full scope of what was going on. The interaction between other freedom fighters was minimum, same with those who were captured. Admittedly, again, I have to take into account that this film was released in 1984 when American was in the middle of another "Red Scare" and this film would have been, in a sense, a call to arms or a somber reminder that freedom isn't free.

I'm going to give this film a 3 out of 5 skulls. In the end, the film doesn't entirely disappoint. The ending left a bit to be desired because I didn't feel the film build up to it, but the your left with a feeling of wonder and intrigue about both the plot and what you would do if you were put into a similar situation. Would you be able to hunt and kill your own food? Would you be able to take another life if it meant surviving? The film is worth the price of admission, but don't put your hopes to high.

I Wish I Was Kidding: Anti-Obama Shirt Sales UP After Election

Well, first gun sales went up after Obama, and now my "False Messiah" shirts are doing better NOW than during the election!

Here's a disclaimer: I actually voted for Obama!

Since he won the election, I've sold 6 shirts, 2 of them within the first 24 hours of his win.

It's interesting to see the reaction to the win across the board; some places are like this:



Other places are like this:



In other words, mixed.

Myself? Well, let me at least try to explain myself, my position, and my upcoming actions:

I voted for Obama for one simple reason: If I had to choose between Obama, McCain, Nader, Bob Barr, and the crazy bitch who ran for the Green Party... I'm stuck with Obama. Why? Because McCain has Sarah Palin, Nader wound up calling Obama an "Uncle Tom", Bob Barr helped to Impeach Clinton but not Bush, and the Green Party Nominee is A CRAZY BITCH! Also, Obama's tax cuts and overall plans are actually OK save a few things I don't feel like explaining right now.

But, despite that, I'm still going to be critize him whenever I can. Why? Because you have to! The time to ask questions is when NO ONE is asking questions, and right now all dissenters are being labeled as "right-wing", "conservative", and, yes, "unpatriotic". The same harsh criticism that was used to label people who critized Bush is now being done when you critize Obama, and frankly, I will not let that stand!

In fact, it's gotten so bad that my "False Messiah" piece is now rated "Mature" on DeviantArt because of the criticism!

So, well... you know, look for some more pieces soon. It should be interesting.

Blasphemy! - Albums I Think Suck But People Love

Over the past year, I've been listening to my entire CD collection and I started trimming the fat since then. I think I sold off about 50 CD's, or about 5-7% of my collection.

So right now I'm kinda cutting to the bone because I have a few albums I've been keeping if only because there is so much damn praise around them. I've never said, "Wow, I gotta put this on!" or put it on willingly.

With that said, here are some albums I think suck:

Annihilator - Schizo Deluxe
Seriously, why? Why the hell did they release this? I bought it back in 2006 when Tower Records was going under after hearing some praise for it. My relationship with Annihilator in general has never been good; I never got into Alice in Hell, but thought Never Ever Land was pretty sweet. This album takes a few steps all over the metal map but winds up being unlistenable.

Bad Brains - I Against I
Blasphemy? You betcha! I keep reading how important and great this album is, but the reality for anyone just picking it up now, someone who may even know the history of it and the impact it had... it falls flat. It's been hailed as a marvel of punk and, oddly enough, metal. The reality is that the first/title track is the best one on the album and lives up to what you hear, but the rest of the album falls flat. It's a reggae album with one punk/metal song. No thanks!

Bathory - Hammerheart
If you thought me bad mouth Bad Brains was bad, if your a die-hard black metal fan, or even one who knows their stuff on the subject, you know that Hammerheart is a legendary album for being, to many, the first viking metal album and one of the first black metal albums. Unfortunately, it goes on far too long, gets boring, and "Blood Fire Death" is better.

Behemoth - Demonica
Generic black/death metal. Behemoth went on to become the leaders of the blackened death metal movement, creating a brand of metal as brutal as Nile but still keeping traces of the same song structure and, yes, melody of thrash. Demigod is nothing at all like that. Two re-recordings are on here that are simply incredible, but the rest of this two-disc set wanders through.

Another Awesome New Interview!

Actually, this interview is old by a month. It's my own fault for not posting it sooner, but with work and getting the site re-launched, I hope you can forgive me for not posting it sooner. SheVibe Magazine did an interview with me after seeing some of my pieces and I'm pretty glad to get the attention! Check out the awesome interview, "The Larry West Interview".

I've Relaunched My Website! AWESOME!

I've actually had my website finished for a bit now, at least November 1st. I've been insanely busy lately with the relaunch, the election, and a few other things.

So the website is now up and this may become my "official business blog". Thought I would add that.

Just click on the image to get there: