Classic Cartoons: Rating Killers?

[Antiyonder]

It's been said on some post that Cartoon Network had dumped most of their classics, because classic cartoons cause low ratings for the network.

How can the higher ups at the network be sure it's not the particular show as opposed to it being classic?

I'm pretty sure Flintstones, Jetsons and Superfriends would do good rating wise.

[Sketch]

I would like to believe that but the sad reality is that 6-11 doesn't care much for vintage animation. That's why Boomerang could very well become a pre-school channel. Classic animation is dead to American television and so is pretty much anything that aired before 2000. It's just sad.

[Antiyonder]

I would like to believe that but the sad reality is that 6-11 doesn't care much for vintage animation. That's why Boomerang could very well become a pre-school channel. Classic animation is dead to American television and so is pretty much anything that aired before 2000. It's just sad.
Look at Disney for example: Monsters Inc., and Finding Nemo were both successful animated movie. The higher ups at Disney assume that's due to them being 3-D, when in truth it was due to Good Storytelling, Well writen script and interesting characters.


So how can the people at Cartoon Network be sure those cartoons were killing the ratings? Some of those classic cartoons were crap when they first premiere, and they're still crap today.

Some proof to back my theory:
Scooby Doo and Tom & Jerry are still on the air, and they're classics.

Why did Disney bother to make sequels to their classic movies? Obviously those "Classic Movies" still hold up well today.

[Jave]

Some proof to back my theory:
Scooby Doo and Tom & Jerry are still on the air, and they're classics.CN gets a profit for airing Scooby and T&J (don't ask me why, I know they do).

I'm 100% positive that if they got profit from classic Looney Tunes, they would air them as well.

[JCorey3rd]

seeing how the former classic cartoon blocks ran from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. - it's hard to get a real audience - at my house it was set the VCR and wake up to a fresh tape full. Is there really a massive audience for Powerpuff Girls at 4 a.m.? Cartoon Network is slitting their own wrists by not throwing us the tiniest of bones by yanking off the hour of Looney Tunes and an H-B title at 7 a.m. on Sat and Sunday. Oh well, bring on the DVDs.

[Chris Wood]

I find it odd that older cartoons would be "ratings killers." When I was growing up in the 80s my friends and I were always riveted to the TV whenever Looney Tunes was on. It's timeless.

[Donald Duck 12]

Anything that gets a fair chance would get killer ratings. Now classics may not do as well as C&C's or AS, but I think the ratings were good. Classics were cut on CN because Turner wants people to get Boomerang. Still...

[Prism]

In the 80's to early 90's classic cartoons were very popular otherwise Who Framed Roger Rabbit? wouldn't have been a blockbuster or the classics wouldn't have been Sat AM staples. But things have changed with the greater availabity of satellite or digital cable,stricter FCC guidelines,political correctness and the anime craze.Not to mention figuring out who the properties belong to. But if given a chance the classics could get the ratings. Shoot most of the kids I know love watching Woody Woodpecker,Pink Panther,Smurfs and several other classics but their getting scarce. And a lot of it is due to poor advertising.

[CookieS]

I don't think classic animation is a total ratings killer at all. To the contrary, old cartoons have a nastalgia factor that brings in many ages, and had great merchandising appeal as well. The problem comes in when cable companies have objectives that simply don't include these classics.

For example, Cartoon Network, the Disney Channel, and Nickelodeon are targeting kids for the most part. While kids will get into old cartoons, creating their own series, gives each network a chance for full ownership and a different "spin" on to their shows. Personally, I think older cartoons are an easier sell, but the networks want full, license-free ownership of their properties.

Plus you can't deny that having something new gets the "quick fix" viewers. If I'm faced with a new cartoon vs. an old cartoon at the same time, I think I'd might be inclined to watch the new one more than the older one, only because its new. I'd figure that I have watched the older one before. Its a tricky game and in the end, no one is going to be happy by any decision.

[Steve Carras]

In the 80's to early 90's classic cartoons were very popular otherwise Who Framed Roger Rabbit? wouldn't have been a blockbuster or the classics wouldn't have been Sat AM staples. But things have changed with the greater availabity of satellite or digital cable,stricter FCC guidelines,political correctness and the anime craze.Not to mention figuring out who the properties belong to. But if given a chance the classics could get the ratings. Shoot most of the kids I know love watching Woody Woodpecker,Pink Panther,Smurfs and several other classics but their getting scarce. And a lot of it is due to poor advertising.Smurfs a classic? That's like saying ANimaniacs is! SMurfs was a FFC approved show.It deserves to be forgoten,just my opinion.(The show looked like Chuck Jones at his 70s ws worstr,allwe needed was thorn-loking lashes)

[JCorey3rd]

all it takes is for one cable beancounter to look at the merchandise cash flow off Spongebob and the idea of "classic cartoons" is thrown out the window. yes it is a loss of entertainment heritage, but hopefully these beancounters will throw us a bone with complete DVD sets.

[anime fan]

IN THE UK BOOMERANG GETS HIGHER RAITINGS THAN CARTOON NETWORK NOW THAT THE CLASICS HAVE GONE.
AND YET CARTOON NETWORK STILL DUMPS THE STUFF THEY USED TO SHOW.:mad:
IT PISSES ME OF HOW THESE CARTOON GREATS GET TREATED.

[David Gerstein]

CN gets a profit for airing Scooby and T&J (don't ask me why, I know they do).
I'm 100% positive that if they got profit from classic Looney Tunes, they would air them as well.You're right on the money.
CN, as a subsidiary of Turner, owns Scooby and T&J in their entirety. That means that the cash flow from merchandising the characters goes directly into CN's pocket.
Looney Tunes, on the other hand, are owned by WB Consumer Products, and CN only gets a small percentage (if anything) of whatever merchandise sales they drum up.

With their self-created properties, Scooby, and T&J, CN has managed to turn itself from a ratings-driven entity into a very powerful merchandising-driven entity. In this new scheme of things, Looney Tunes being successful no longer has much to do with whether CN has any reason to keep it on the air. From a business point of view, I don't blame them.
Frankly, the thing for WB to do would be to remove Looney Tunes from CN's umbrella, but I have no idea whether they can. It may be like the USA network being contractually given Terrytoons for a ten-year period, as they were around 1992. They ran them for one year and then locked them up. Viacom could do nothing but watch its property wither and die, and they had nobody to blame but themselves.

[Brainatra]

Agree with the above remarks on how "vertical integration" (in the business world, referring to most, if not the entire, means of production of a product) has changed children's TV (and the adult TV world, as well, IMO)---now it seems as if, with a few exceptions, everything a network runs has to be owned by it in some way.

My unfounded guess as to another reason (besides the very good ones mentioned above) why shows like Looney Tunes might get short shift: Slapstick humor, with a few exceptions, doesn't seem to be as popular as it used to be for cartoons. Seems like all cartoons produced in the last decade or so involve a more plot-oriented or character-oriented focus---- shows about middle-schoolers having wacky antics as pre-teens, shows about some sort of quest to stop demons/forcing freakish-looking electrified rodents to fight each other/a guy in a bat-costume fighting an insane larcenous clown (and with a flock of fans dubbing this as "realistic" ;-) )/etc. etc....you get the idea. A heavy (or even main) focus on just slapstick-style humor, as seen in many older/theatrical cartoons, seems to have waned in popularity over the last decade in favor of these type of plot-oriented shows (the 90's-era Warner Bros/Spielberg-produced shows like TTA or A! might be exceptions).

Perhaps a few other reasons for this change might include the increasing scrutiny in violence on kids' TV, (as noted by others) the explosion in the last decade in original cable programming, and the influence of groundbreaking shows like "The Simpsons" and "Batman: the Animated Series" on animated cartoon writing---with the Simpsons' emphasis on verbal wit over slapstick-type gags and B:TAS' introducing a more "modern" style of writing to action cartoons.

Of course, there's a very select few exceptions to this trend---"SpongeBob Squarepants" might be the most slapstick-emphasizing cartoon currently produced, and is certainly Nickelodeon's most popular show at the moment (complete with a movie coming out), including being many adults as well. So perhaps this might show that there's still quite an audience for slapstick-oriented humor...

-B.

[ktoriyama]

Anything that gets a fair chance would get killer ratings. Now classics may not do as well as C&C's or AS, but I think the ratings were good. Classics were cut on CN because Turner wants people to get Boomerang. Still...
I doubt it. Although I am a big fan of the classics, being 18 I never saw them when they came on originally, I doubt many people feel the way I do about them.

[Merilee]

That's just dumb ad stupid!! Then again, when has Cartoon Network done ANYTHING smart these past two years?! :mad:
I'm pretty much boycotting Cartoon Network (or as my friend refers to it, The CRAP Network) and only watching if 'Scooby' comes on. I V-Chip the rest until tey come to their senses (which i don't think hey will). I'm just waiting for Boomerang to coem to regular cable.
I know, I know, I got a LOOOOOOOONG wait! :(
Anyway, ifya wanna know more about how I feel you can go to The Story Board and check out my parody!
Merilee
:cool:


[Cool, Smart....and Blonde!']

[Lost_July]

It's sad that a few genrations of kids will never know the classic cartoons like all the warner bros cartoons. But if you think about it, Disney did basicly the same thing, they pulled all the classing Micky, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, Dasy ETC. cartoons off thier channel (I don't get Toon Disney so I don't know if they would have it. But I saw it in a hotel, it looks like it's mostly cartoons like Tail spin and Bonkers and the like.) The only thing micky on there now is House of mouse that sometimes plays old cartoons.....but not all the time.

I think the only reason that the classic Disney movies (Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, and what not) are doing well is because they come out with these re-release DVDs with pop stars sining unreleased songs on them as extras, So that may be why people are still buying those up. Because they are puting poular music stars in there to make people buy them.

But back on track here. Tom and Jery, fine, a good classic cartoon. But it's not right to have just 1 or 2 classics. I remember when they had the Tex Avery show or the Bugs and Daffy show or the Acme hour. They could rearange some stuff to fit those in. Or take off boring shows that they play like 8 to 10 times aday and put in classic things. But they won't.

If I had to guess, it IS the rateings. Because kids today (Oh god! I'm 15 and using that line AHHHHH! :ack: ) are brought up on shows that their parents think will make them "Learn" And that's something that the classic cartoons don't have. So those parents don't let there kids wach. It is eather that or they are too politicly incorrect. Or both....Given the world today......

[Merilee]

Now that's just plain sad. :( I mean, what IS this political corectness I've heared so mucn about?! And, I mean, sheesh, the old Bugs Bunny cartoons can't be HALF as bad as that Pokemon and animae CRAP that's on TV today!
I mean, a talking rabbit tricking a talking duck into being hunted down, or kids that look human teaching their pets to kill each other with graphic visuals and gigantic bombs rather than one bang, you tell me what's worse! :mad:
I mea, even when I was three I knew rabbits and ducks couldn't really talk! So I knew Daffy wouldn't be hurt with the gun. after all ducks and rabbits can't talk, so it wasn't real!
Nowadays you have charatcers that are supposed to be human hurting each other.
I mean, I dio miss all the great 70's cartoons, maybe the animation wasn't all that great (hey, have you SEEN Hi Hi Puffy Ami Umi, or however you pronounce that? Enough said..) but they had good stories, they drew ou into the stories...and they weren't violent!
I know what you mean, either it has to be violent, animae crap, or soooooooo educational it's coming out of our ears!~ I wouldn't expose MY kids to half that educational crap..Elmo..nuff said. I mean, in our days there was good educational shows that didn't force things down your throat and didn't make you feel you HAVE to watch it. (Magic Garden).
But yeah, hate these sister staions it takes forever to get (Disney Channel begats Toon Disney, Cartoon Network has Boomerang, Nick At Nite has TV Land..althought TV Land now comes in the cable package so..). Why do they DO this?! It's terrible!
Merilee
:cool:


[Cool, Smart....and Blonde!]