The Decline of Western Civ

Are Saturday morning cartoons a dying tradition?

Animation World Magazine analyzes the situation:

Six key factors have led to children watching less Saturday morning cartoons: more recreational sports, the introduction of cable and satellite TV, the Internet and video games, a poorer quality of animation, and a greater emphasis on family time. These factors are rather self-explanatory with the exception of the latter: the divorce rate of Americans now stands at 49 percent, and time on the weekends has become more precious for children as many commute between parents? houses. For parents who only have limited access to their children due to either divorce or career advancement, plopping them down in front of the television for five hours on a Saturday morning is no longer a viable option. Among most parents, divorced or not, there is a new emphasis on "quality" time.

Quality time. Ptttoooey.

Link via Robot Wisdom.

Comments

[D.Quail]

This just goes to show that Western Civilization is rooted in traditional marriages (i.e., the nuclear family.) Take heed, Murphy Brown.

[Todd Fletcher]

They aren't watching them on Saturday because cartoons are on all the time now, what with Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. And as for declining animation quality, everything now beats what I was forced to watch in the mid-70s (Star Trek cartoon, anyone?).

On the other hand, quality time really *is* B.S.

[Mona Ryan]

So please tell us, Mr. Fletcher, what is the alternative to quality time?

If you know that this day will not ever return . . .

If you won?t invest your time in your most important product: your offspring . . .

Then who, or what, will?

[Anonymous]

"If you won?t invest your time in your most important product: your offspring . . .

Then who, or what, will?"

That's easy: the Mattel-Nestle Chocobot Power Hour

[Madog]

The conflict between Saturday morning cartoons and family quality time once knocked two of my teeth out. It's a dangerous mix...

(I fell while throwing a temper tantrum over my parents making me go to a fair instead of watching cartoons at age 5).

[David]

Ruh-roh.

[Todd Fletcher]

"So please tell us, Mr. Fletcher, what is the alternative to quality time?"

Unplanned, spontaneous fun.

[Mona]

OK, fine. You've convinced me. Let the boob-tube be the new baby sitter. Who cares if tongue-bejeweled kids get their values from TV (i.e., the other adults out there who create cartoons) rather than the adults that are emotionally closer to them (i.e., the parents.)

After all, the other adults out there know better than we do, don't they? No wonder it's so easy for governments to justify that child-rearing is part of their purview. Maybe Hillary WAS right: "It Takes a [Video] Village," no?

[Frenk]

HEY HEY HEY IT'S FAAAAAAAAAAT ALBERT!

Man! Those were days. I don't know about this quality time business; we did most of our cartoon watching between 6 and 9 a.m., when my parents were still sleeping. There was plenty of time for boring family stuff afterwards.

Back in the 70s, TV was still a fairly new thing; the way that people relate it has naturally changed many times since ("reality" TV anyone?). Computers and computer games no doubt have a part. Societal expectations also play a part. There has been a shift in American society's view of childhood, away from "Kindheit" and toward a sort of sad Mini-me thing. People want to foster the growth of their little prodigy Mini-me, and cartoons don't come into that mix.

[Jon B.]

TV was new in the 70's? People are too busy programming their kids for cartoons to intrude? That isn't the universe I live in. Neither is the one where Sat. morning is subverted by sports or parent swapping. Kids have more choices than ever, and more than ever they revolve around the TV. My satellite system has at least two channels of cartoons 24/7, not to mention videogames, computers, the other several hundred channels, more access to phones, internet chat groups, etc. All that's happened is that the island of kids TV that Saturday morning was in the 70's has been traded for an ocean of ubiquitous kids activities, mostly sponsored by marketing to kids whose parents try to buy their love and only wind up ruining them. Many parents have only traded plopping them in front of the tube for a few hours on Saturday for letting them live there.

[Jon B.]

re: DragonBalls

Are they really draggin'? I've never seen the show.

[Lazarus Long]

When are they making "Communist Superman" a cartoon:

http://www.canada.com/entertainment/story.asp?id=F5F0F86D-B9E3-4682-A240-0C1B0877C991

I can't wait to see the Man of Steel disentegrate millions of kulaks with his super heat vision.

[julian]

"If you know that this day will not ever return . . ./If you won?t invest your time in your most important product: your offspring . . . Then who, or what, will?"

Good lord, was that lifted from one of those posters with a kitten and a toddler on it? Anyway, I think the objection to "quality time" was that it's a feel-good excuse for "quantity time." As in: "you don't have to feel bad about not spending time with your kids, as long as it's 'quality time. "

[julian]

whoops... for [not spending] "quantity time."

And I hope this goes without saying, but that comment's obviously not aimed at those parents who really have to work grinding hours to make ends meet.

[Madog]

Isn't Superman by his very nature just the sort of thing communism would abhor? How can you have an equal society when some people are obviously transhuman?

[Douglas Fletcher]

Mona, are you feeling guilty about something -- like maybe you're neglecting your kids somehow?

I happen to visit the Todd Fletcher household regularly, being as I am a blood relative of his, and I can attest that he has three kids that get as much attention as any kid would want from his parents.

So get off my brother's back. He knows what he's talking about.

[Frenk]

Jon--Although TV as we know it was invented in the 1920s, it was not until the 1950s that it became the kind of social phenomenon it is now. So, in the 1970s, TV was still "fairly new."

[Chuck]

"Good" cartoons (according to my definition, which of course is the one that matters 🙂 ) are making a comeback. I grew up with Bullwinkle, Underdog, George of the Jungle, and Bugs Bunny/Road Runner, but for my money Space Ghost Coast-to-Coast beats them all. IF you think of it as a cartoon...

[scott]

I had to watch the old original UltraMan; a guy in a silver suit you could see the zipper on. After that it was Speed Racer, then Johnny Socko. So I started watching ballgames, which made me want to go outside and actually play ball...

[Jim]

Maybe it's a product of divorce, or high numbers of dual income families, or all the constant 'our children are in danger' bullshit that contradicts all the available evidence, but it my humble opinion parents these days are far more involved in their children's lives than when we grew up. Every parent I know spends two to three nights a week and many weekends doing activities with their kids. When I was a kid I just spent most of my time in the streets playing with the other neighborhood kids. Even as an only child I rarely played with mom and dad. I played basketball for a while (forced to do it by my parents and hated it) and took guitar lessons for many years, the one activity outside of school that I was indulged in. My wife, on the other hand, was involved in numerous activities (as were her siblings) that her parents apparently viewed as free babysitting time that they did not have to spend with their children. Also, fathers are expected to spend a lot more time 'bonding' with their children than those of our parents' generation.

I'm not complaining about the way I was raised; I think it's stupid however to complain about how children are raised now - they have it better, in my opinion. Everyone should stop complaining about it.

[dude]

Speaking of bad 70s cartoons - you think that Star Trek cartoon was dire - anyone else remember the Super Harlem Globetrotters cartoon?

[Phil]

Sara, that "49 percent" figure on divorce rates is nonsense, and I would expect better from Reason. Statisticians who like to toss out scary numbers simply divide the number of marriages each year by the number of divorces, but that figure is useless, for a very obvious reason.

Such calculations ignore the enormous number of marriages that already exist prior to the calculation. They also ignore "serial marriers" like Donald Trump or Liz Taylor, who alone can account for several marriages and divorces over several years.

The figure is tossed out there to imply that families are breaking down left and right, and that children are therefore in crisis, but it simply isn't so. Some of those divorces occur among childless couples (in fact, some occur *because* the couples are childless), and some occur much later in life, when any children are long since grown and out of the home.

When marriages and divorces are tracked over time, the true figure turns out to be that around one-fourth of marriages will end in divorce -- and many of those will occur among couples for whom children are not an issue. Not nearly as scary.

[Evan McElravy]

I dunno, when I think back on the cartoons I grew up watching, I'm not sure the '80s were such a Golden Age, either. (Not to mention that all the old '70s ones were still on too.) Real Ghostbusters, anyone? How about Dinosaucers?

[Evan McElravy]

Of course, there were also Duck Tales and Chip & Dale, which made up for a lot. Gosh, whatever happened to Disney, anyway?

[Madog]

I just realized that since I still like watching cartoons, when I have kids I can combine cartoons and quality time into one fun activity! I could even turn it into a learning experience by having the little tyke review each episode and post it on a webpage we make together!

Since I'm obviously just a big nerd, I really hope that any kids I have enjoy computer games, scifi, and cartoons, because they're not going to get me involved with sports. 🙂

[Charles]

When I was a child, it was the time of Smurfs, Fraggles, Go-Bots, Transformers, and Voltron. Ohh, yes: Voltron. Give me a choice between Voltron and spending time doing what my parents think is interesting, and to this day I'll still pick Voltron.

[Mark S.]

Ahhh Voltron. I used to love that show until the local UHF station got a hold of Robotech. Thanks to those shows, I am what I am today: A hopless anime freak.

[Anonymous]

Madog has it right - the best quality time is watching goofy cartoons with your kids. I had many a hilarious hour watching Dragonballs with my son. We used to kid aruond making up alternative names for the characters (it all started when he called Vegata "vegetable"...)

[Patrick]

Psssst! Newby! In case you're scratching your head over those shows -- all these commenters live in St. Petersburg, FLorida. They don't realize you're part of the SpongeBob Squarepants generation.

[Gutterbrain]

Jon B. -- You cracked me up! (Still wiping the tears from my eyes.) "Draggin Balls . . ." Oooh, that was so funny!

And "a silver suit you could see the zipper on. After that it was Speed Racer, then Johnny Socko. So I started watching ballgames, which made me want to go outside and actually play ball..."

Which reminded me of when I started watching porno, which made me want to go out and actually ... (never mind.)

[David]

And not just cartoons, people...how about "Land of the Lost" and "The Bugaloos" and "Lidsville" and other such Krofft Bros. magic?