Although Hanna-Barbera's decline was one reason why Scooby content went into a lull after 1991, another lesser-discussed reason is a cultural shift with Saturday morning cartoons. networks phasing out cartoons on Saturday mornings due to governmental legislation. In 1990, the United States Congress passed the Children's Television Act, which required networks to broadcast at least three hours per week of educational content. This caused networks to begin shifting gears with how they approached Saturday mornings. In 1992, NBC got rid of Saturday morning cartoons and aired only live-action shows with "after school special" types of lessons, such as Saved by the Bell. Other networks didn't follow suit right away, but all switched their formats within the next decade. CBS changed to educational programming on Saturday mornings in 1997, and ABC extended the hours of their morning news show and got rid of cartoons in the early 2000s (airing the required three hours of educational programming at another time).
In a sense, this shift was natural with the creation of television networks targeted towards kids, such as Cartoon Network, Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. Saturday morning cartoons were originally created because there were no networks airing only children's content, but as channels specifically for cartoons were created, there was less need to have designated time for cartoons on otherwise adult-oriented networks. Of course, Hanna-Barbera's decline was the main reason for the lack of Scooby content following 1991, but arguably, the cultural shift is another small part of the reason that no new Scooby-Doo shows aired for a while after A Pup Named Scooby-Doo concluded. You can read more information on the larger cultural shift behind getting rid of Saturday morning cartoons in this article.
7 Comments
Matt
9/18/2023 07:22:35 pm
It's kinda funny though, even without much new content, the 90s were kinda a Golden Age or Renaissance for Scooby Doo
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9/18/2023 08:52:05 pm
It's really cool to think about how all those airings on Cartoon Network exposed a whole new generation of fangs to Scooby. In a sense, I liked the idea behind the Mystery Pups show because they made it similar to Paw Patrol, which is super popular amongst kids (or at least I think it is still is), and if it would have aired I would argue it could have exposed a whole new younger generation to Scooby. It's a shame that Cartoon Network and WB has been lacking at promoting the last couple Scooby shows, where they do a lot of promotion at first and then hardly at all by the second season.
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Greybishop
9/18/2023 07:42:20 pm
I am a man in his 50s. Whenever possible for the last several years, on my days off work, I make it a point to start the day with coffee and cartoons. Whoever the over-anxious parent was that led the charge to get cartoons off Saturday morning TV really deserves a special place in Hell in my opinion.
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9/18/2023 09:02:02 pm
That is awesome that you still find regular time to watch cartoons and keep up the tradition of watching them in the morning. I completely agree that it's really sad the tradition of Saturday morning cartoons stopped because of the requirement that they had to be educational.
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Mr Neither
9/19/2023 05:53:38 am
I think we all miss 90s gems like Swat Kats, Road Rovers, Where's Wally etc. modern cartoons are just to politically correct.
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scooooooooob
9/20/2023 04:48:20 pm
https://gizmodo.com/teen-titans-go-warner-bros-animation-crossover-clip-1850855245
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9/20/2023 06:15:48 pm
Thank you so much for the info scooooooooob! I just made a post about it!
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