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Saturday morning cartoons died on this day in 1992

So long, Smurfs. Adios, Alvin and the Chipmunks. Hello, "Saved by the Bell."

Ethan Alter · Senior Writer, Yahoo Entertainment
Tue, September 12, 2023 at 8:00 AM EDT · 5 min read

On This Day: September 12, 1992

The Happening

If you were a kid in the 1980s, you'll remember this hallowed ritual. Every Saturday morning, you'd wake up at the crack of dawn (yes, even though school wasn't in session), pour yourself a heaping bowl of sugar-laden cereal (preferably of the Ralston-Purina variety — the Donkey Kong box was especially choice) and park yourself in front of the television to watch multiple hours of toy commercials passing as animated entertainment. In between bites of frosted puffs in various shapes and sizes, you'd belt out theme songs about singing chipmunks, transforming robots and bouncing bears hooked on something called "gummi berry juice," and track which new toy-ready characters and vehicles you'd be adding to your birthday and/or holiday wishlists.

But unless you're Peter Pan — and not the Robin Williams version — childhood has to end sometime. And the beginning of the end started 31 years ago when NBC banished cartoons from its airwaves as a new Saturday dawned. Instead, the former home of Alvin and the Chipmunks, Captain N: The Game Master, The Smurfs and The Snorks decided to go all-in on teen-oriented live-action series, using its own hit, Saved by the Bell, as a new creative North Star for the Saturday morning audience. NBC also programmed a Saturday edition of its venerable morning show Today, in the hopes of attracting parents as well as their teens.

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What Happened Next

With cartoons gone from the lineup as of Sept. 12, NBC's Saturdays instead kicked off with a two-hour block of Saturday Today starting at 8 a.m., followed by the dreams-come-true reality series Name Your Adventure at 10 a.m.; the Saved by the Bell knock-off California Dreams at 10:30 a.m.; the Saved by the Bell spin-off The New Class at 11 a.m.; and Running the Halls — aka Saved by the Bell on the East Coast — at 11:30 a.m.. In accordance with the Children's Television Act, NBC classified those shows as "educational and informational" programming... even though the amount of education and information they imparted was questionable.

While the other networks didn't follow NBC's example right away, the cartoon writing was on the wall. In 1997, CBS revamped its Saturday morning lineup as Think CBS Kids, replacing shows like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Garfield and Friends with Sports Illustrated for Kids and The New Ghostwriter Mysteries. ABC kept the party going into the early 2000s with cartoons like The Mighty Ducks and Recess, which were made by the network's parent company, Walt Disney. But by 2004, those series were largely gone as well, replaced by news shows and local programming.

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