The End Of KidsWB?!?!?!

[crimsonquill]

Just when I had hopes that the new Spider-Man cartoon and Wolverine & The X-Men cartoons were planning on appearing on regular Saturday Morning TV there comes news that is another blow to animation...

CW announced that they would be dropping Kids WB! on Saturday mornings for the 2008-2009 season and replacing it will 4Kids Entertainment syndicated shows since they are geared to a more younger audience which favors more educational elements. The reason CW came to this decision was vague until this was reported:

The primary cause of this decision was simple: ratings and advertising revenue. An inside source confirmed what Variety reported that Kids WB! was losing a substantial number of viewers to cable networks including Nickelodeon, Disney and the Time-Warner owned Cartoon Network. According to the trade, the final blow came when a major sponsor, cereal manufacturer Kellogg’s, announced it was withdrawing all its advertising due to recent government pressure regarding child-oriented breakfast foods.

Warner Brothers Animation and it's parent company made an announcement that Kids WB! fans shouldn't panic that they would be losing their favorite cartoons as they are quickly persuing deals with other networks to air the shows (possibly without their syndication block) including various family cable channels. Plus there would always be the Direct-to-DVD market for those who might not recieve the channels that their shows find a new home on.

The original link is on Newsarama.com here: http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=131642

- CrimsonQuill

[zuludelta]

As much as I'm lukewarm to a lot of the stuff on KidsWB (Legion of Superheroes, the stereotype-laden Xiaolin Showdown), it's still a level above the horribly dubbed and "sanitized" anime (Pokemon, One Piece) and Western-market tailored, low quality anime (Yu-Gi-Oh, GI Joe Sigma 6) that 4Kids shows on Fox affiliates. Also, there seemed like a lot of hope for better output from KidsWB with the announcement of the new X-Men and Spider-man cartoons and recent episodes of The Batman.

Hopefully the superhero-centric cartoons get a new lease on life on a different network (Maybe Canada's YTV or Teletoon will pick them up).   

[Previsionary]

I kinda foresaw this coming considering all of WBs staple cartoons started appearing on other channels (Xiaolin showdown, Pokemon, Yugioh) and their lineup now is...blah to me, but it's nowhere near as bad as Fox's lineup (which is full of 4kids crap + Ninja turtles) and ABC (which is basically disney lite these days).

Anyway, I would assume that most of kids wb's shows (especially the hero oriented cartoons) would start showing up in the CN lineup. That's how it's been since the early 2000s anyway.

[MJB]

I have not watched a single episode of The Batman. If it aired on Cartoon Network, at a decent time of day, I may get the chance to see it. Same goes for Legion.

-MJB

[Silver Shocker]

I read about this. It's quite interesting but sounds bad. I never really liked that Fox's saturday morning cartoon lineup became exclusive to 4Kids shows (though I LOVE the new Ninja Turtles) and I can't see this happening on Kids WB being a good thing.

For the record I've been impressed with both The Batman and Legion of Superheroes. Both shows have had episodes I didn't care for, but there isn't a show I've watched that doesn't do that at least once or twice.

[Flying_Infant]

Well, heres hoping the good stuff ends up on CN.

[Sword]

We knew this day was coming, though. Eventually, anything even remotely good would be written off the air because they can't keep the budget for it.

TO my mind though, SatAM tv died when Disney bought the right to Power Rangers. From then on, it all went downhill.

[Doctor Voodoo]

TO my mind though, SatAM tv died when Disney bought the right to Power Rangers. From then on, it all went downhill.

I would have to agree wholeheartedly. Now Power Rangers is just a hodge-podge of replayed story lines except they change to a new group of Rangers every year and I'm not sure(don't quote me on this) but I don't think Saban is affiliated with them anymore either.

I also miss from my youth plopping down on the couch after a hard day at school and turning on the tube to some quality afternoon cartoons on FOX. Batman was always on, and I kind of had a love/hate thing with it when I was younger, but as I got older I respected it more. Probably because I could understand the plot at that point :P

[crimsonquill]

TO my mind though, SatAM tv died when Disney bought the right to Power Rangers. From then on, it all went downhill.

Saturday Mornings really started going downhill when "edu-ma-tainment" started becoming the priority staple of programming ANY show that aired on Saturday mornings. Sure back in the '70s and '80s most cartoons were commercials for toy companies but the majority of them spawned a fanbase large enough to make them classics (Transformers, G.I. Joe, Jem, Smurfs, etc) and so many voice actors and writers from that time period went on to bigger and better things. I enjoyed Schoolhouse Rock and how they used it's syndication rights to air between shows on various networks to teach thru catchy music and not hit you over the head with it. Maybe it was the overload of fluffy toon clones that come along which made it impossible for anything but sports programs to maintain the ratings for justifying the expence of that block of time. That was the first sign of the Saturday Morning death march.

Of course parental groups pushing against the networks for more "edumatainment" and less violent programming (these are the same folks who watched G.I. Joe and Transformers with their kids and started squirming at the new anime adaptations of the '90s) and the recent anti-breakfast cereal campaigns that are nailing the lid shut once and for all. Watch smart, eat smart, and excercise more is what the "popular opinion" is pushing us to achieve with our kids but are filling prime time with brainless reality show disfunctionality for the adults. And it's a pity that everything they are aiming for is removing the fun of being a child that most of us of the "toon generation" wanted to pass on to our children. At least we still have our DVD players, VCR collections, and a handful of cable channels to keep these fandoms alive until they are ready to be discovered once again.

- CrimsonQuill

[Glitch Girl]

Ah, more managing brilliance from Warner Brothers*.  Lovely.

(*- I just read the thread on WB and female leads.  Right now WB management is high on my "Hit with a 2X4" list)

[Sword]

May I join you? I don't have a 2 by 4, but I do have a spiked flail*

*not really.