September 12, 1992- The Day Saturday Mornings Cartoons died

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On This Day: September 12, 1992


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.

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Truthfully, it was a move that had been a long time coming. NBC first contemplated killing off its cartoons in the early '80s when ratings were on the wane as the previous generation of younger audiences outgrew '70s staples like Super Friends and Josie and the Pussy Cats. But then those blue Belgian creatures who lived in mushroom houses came along and revived the network's Saturday morning fortunes. The Smurfs coincided with a general boom in Saturday programming, as animated shows that were either based on — or created — '80s pop culture phenoms like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Pac-Man and Mr. T connected with kids whose parents had disposable income.

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