" Saturday-morning cartoon " is a colloquial term for the original animated series and live-action programming that was typically scheduled on Saturday and Sunday mornings in the United States on the "Big Three" television networks . The genre was a tradition from broadly the mid-1960s to mid-2010s; over time its popularity declined, in the face of changing cultural norms, increased competition from formats available at all times, and heavier media regulations. In the last years of the genre's existence, Saturday-morning and Sunday-morning cartoons were primarily created and aired on major networks to meet "educational and informational" (E/I) requirements . Minor television networks, in addition to the non-commercial PBS in some markets, continued to air animated programming on Saturday and Sunday while partially meeting those mandates.
33-492: ProStars is a cartoon television show featured on Saturday morning cartoon that aired on NBC from September 14 to December 7, 1991. Three famous and popular professional athletes from that era appear in the show in live action and as fictional super hero characters: Michael Jordan , Wayne Gretzky , and Bo Jackson . The series was produced by DIC Animation City and Reteitalia, S.p.A. , in association with Spanish network Telecinco . Originally intended to air on ESPN ,
66-640: A 1993 Canadian English re-dub of Osamu Tezuka 's Kimba the White Lion (originally shown in Japan in 1965), The Secret of the Hunchback , The Secret of Anastasia , Young Pocahontas , The Secret of Mulan , Moses: Egypt's Great Prince , The Adventures of Tarzan , and Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid (originally released in Japan in 1975, removing approximately 2 minutes of footage containing shots of topless nudity in 2001). UAV also had
99-447: A custom built 100,000 square feet headquarters housing manufacturing, distribution and all sales and marketing functions. In 1994, the company began to produce several original titles that were made for videocassette, which included a line of fitness videos starring Kathy Ireland , as well as a line of children's animation videos. Also that year, UAV invested into their own CD-ROM technology and four new animated titles were introduced at
132-470: A little girl he kidnapped. Episodes also touched upon kids in gangs, where an Australian village is being held captive by Gargantus' motorcycle gang and a little girl's brother joins the gang thinking they are macho to which Michael Jordan tells the little girl she cannot stop having faith or love in her brother. One episode dealt with the larceny of the Stanley Cup committed by Clockwork Delaronge (which
165-589: A schedule of children's programming on Sunday mornings, though most programs at this time were repeats of Saturday-morning shows that were already out of production. In some markets, some shows were pre-empted in favor of syndicated or other types of local programming . Beginning in the mid-1960s, the Saturday-morning timeslot would feature a great deal of series appropriate for children, although most of these were reruns of animated series originally broadcast in prime time and adventure series made in
198-494: Is a personal issue for Wayne Gretzky as his name is carved on it four times) and he tells kids of the history and prestige of the award. DIC Video originally released three single VHS tapes of the series in 1991 containing the episodes "Knightmare Riders", "Short John's Revenge" and "The Slugger's Return". In the same year, BMG Kidz, through the DIC Toon-Time Video series, released three single VHS tapes with
231-495: The Schoolhouse Rock! series on ABC which became a fondly-remembered television classic. With the 1970s came a wave of animated versions of popular live-action prime time series as well, mainly with the voices of the original casts, as well as imitations of the highly successful Scooby-Doo combining teen characters and talking animals with supernatural mystery stories. By 1982, under President Ronald Reagan ,
264-562: The Action for Children's Television (ACT). These groups voiced concerns about the presentation of commercialism , violence, anti-social attitudes and stereotypes in Saturday-morning cartoons. By the 1970s, these groups exercised enough influence, especially with the U.S. Congress and the Federal Communications Commission , that the television networks felt compelled to impose more stringent content rules for
297-923: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had loosened programming and advertising regulations, leading to the era of "half-hour toy commercials", starting with He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and continuing with such series as The Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles . These were heavily criticized by ACT, but were nevertheless successful. As well, several more lighthearted series appeared, popularized by Hanna-Barbera’s The Smurfs and Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies . These included series based on popular video games , such as Saturday Supercade . Despite increased competition from cable television networks (such as Nickelodeon , Cartoon Network , and Disney Channel ), Saturday-morning and weekday cartoon blocks continued to remain popular in
330-543: The " Bo Knows " ad campaign, including the line "Bo knows everything". Each character on ProStars has one stand-out character trait, especially the ProStars themselves: In nearly every episode the ProStars would get a message by teleconference from a child explaining the situation such as a little boy from an island in the South Seas who said his village's treasures were being stolen by Short John Silver. Most of
363-419: The 1950s, as well as telecasts of older cartoons made for movie theaters . Later in the decade, the slot would be dominated by superhero and action cartoon series, influenced by the success of Space Ghost . These were heavily criticized by parents for their violence. By 1972, most action programming had been removed from the Saturday-morning slot, following pressure from parents' lobbying groups such as
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#1732801401552396-465: The 1960s and 1970s as performed by alternative rock artists. The Netflix animated series Saturday Morning All Star Hits! parodies the mid-1980s to early 1990s era of Saturday-morning animation, such as Thundercats , Care Bears , ProStars , and Denver, the Last Dinosaur . The science fiction animated series Futurama also spoofed 1970s and 1980s Saturday-morning cartoons in
429-504: The 1990s. Such examples included Disney's Disney Afternoon in syndication, Fox 's Fox Kids , UPN 's UPN Kids , CBS 's CBS Saturday , The WB 's Kids' WB , and Amazin' Adventures (later Bohbot Kids Network) in syndication. From 1992 however, the "Big Three" traditional major networks and their affiliates began replacing their Saturday-morning animated programming with weekend editions of their morning magazines . and live-action teen-oriented series. Multiple factors contributed to
462-593: The Summer Consumer Electronics Show . In late 1998, UAV rebranded its home entertainment division under the Sterling Entertainment Group name, although UAV was continued to be used as a legal name for the company. In 1999, UAV added 210,000 additional square feet to its headquarters with over 250 associates. In 2002, UAV was sold to a private equity firm . On June 14, 2006, the private equity firm lost control of
495-487: The United States, The CW continued to air non-E/I cartoons as late as 2014; among the "Big Three" traditional major networks, the final non-E/I cartoon to date ( Kim Possible ) was last aired in 2006. This era continues to be satirized and/or spoofed in popular culture. The tribute album Saturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits was released in 1995, featuring covers of Saturday-morning cartoon themes from
528-406: The animated segments of ProStars , their animated counterparts were voiced by voice actors instead of their actual selves. When the show first came out, the original theme song, "We Are ProStars", was an homage to the song " We Will Rock You ", by the rock group, Queen . In later episodes, the song was slowed down, and the chorus was reduced to "ProStars! Show staaaars!" The lyrics also reference
561-561: The animation houses. In 1978, the Federal Trade Commission was openly considering a ban on all advertising during television programming targeting preschoolers, and severe restrictions on other children's program advertising, both of which would have effectively killed off the format; the commission ultimately dropped the proposal. The networks were encouraged to create educational spots that endeavored to use animation and/or live-action for enriching content, including
594-453: The change, among them the introduction of people meters that children found difficult to operate in the mid-1980s, an increasingly competitive market fueled by the multi-channel transition , a boom in first-run syndicated content and the introduction of home video and video games , increasing restrictions on advertising and educational content mandates , and broader cultural changes stemming from an increase in no-fault divorces and
627-438: The company to the lenders and UAV filed, laying off over 300 employees, claiming payroll funding had been cut by its lenders. A week later, the total number of layoffs had increased by approximately 100 extra. On June 30, ContentFilm announced its intent to acquire Allumination Filmworks as well as certain assets from UAV Corporation and UAV Holdings. The acquisition was completed that September. In 2017, Content Media Corporation
660-400: The complete series or even release the episodes separate on DVD or digital for reasons beyond WildBrain 's control. Saturday morning cartoon In the United States, the generally accepted times for these and other children's programs to air on Saturday mornings were from 8:00 a.m. to approximately 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time Zone . Until the late 1970s, American networks also had
693-581: The defunct VidAmerica , which was eventually rebranded as Sterling Entertainment Group, and later began releasing a line of MTM Enterprises titles through the MTM Home Video label. Sterling will be located on the old VidAmerica headquarters. In 1993, UAV created a video gift pack that was designed specifically for all holiday stores under the Video Gift Pak brand line. In 1996, UAV relocated from Charlotte to Fort Mill, South Carolina , into
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#1732801401552726-417: The end of the post-World War II baby boom . Attempting to pair the newscasts with the remaining cartoons was largely unsuccessful because the two program formats drew widely different audiences that did not lend themselves to leading in and out of each other , leading to viewership oddities (such as NBC's children's block having an average viewership age of over 40 years old); by the late 2010s, all of
759-571: The episode " Saturday Morning Fun Pit ". Sterling Entertainment Sterling Entertainment Group (formerly United American Video (or in short: UAV ) Corporation , and more commonly known as UAV Home Video or UAV Entertainment ) was an American independent entertainment company founded in 1984 as a small local company originally located in Nashville, Tennessee , then, from late 1986, Charlotte, North Carolina . Its headquarters would later relocate to Fort Mill, South Carolina in 1996. UAV
792-602: The episodes "Roll to Victory", "The Perbots of Dr. Lobe" and "The Valley of the Snow Falcon". In October 2003, Sterling Entertainment released a DVD called "Slam Dunkin' with the Airman", containing the episodes "Gargantus and the Highway of Doom", "Knightmare Riders" and "Roll to Victory". This DVD was reissued by NCircle Entertainment in 2007. These sets went out-of-print in 2012. As of today, NCircle has yet to release
825-490: The major American networks had shifted to live-action documentary programming, ostensibly targeted at teenagers to meet the educational mandates but less likely to cause a clash with the newscasts. This documentary programming also benefited from having less restrictive rules for advertising compared to programming targeted to children. Saturday-morning and Sunday-morning cartoons were largely discontinued in Canada by 2002. In
858-421: The prerecorded music and PC software businesses. In 1991, it entered into an agreement with Viacom Enterprises to license titles of The Andy Griffith Show onto videocassette. The company had operated different sublabels like Gemstone Entertainment, Hep Cat Entertainment and Ovation Home Video to release videocassette titles and Karaoke Bay to release record label titles. In 1992, UAV acquired 150 titles from
891-413: The public domain, original productions and exclusive licenses, as well as a full line of music and computer software. Under their UAV Gold banner, Sterling (which was known as UAV during the time) also distributed original production animated fairy tale adaptations, often released around the time of more popular and widely known theatrical releases by Disney or other major studios . Notable releases featured
924-428: The show centers on Michael Jordan , Bo Jackson and Wayne Gretzky fighting crime, helping children, and often protecting the environment as well. These three were chosen to represent the pinnacle of all four major American professional sports in the early 1990s. While Jordan and Gretzky are broadly associated with their respective sports, Jackson was included since he could represent both football and baseball and
957-405: The skits before the episode. Most of the live-action parts by the athletes dealt with things such as morality. In one episode they explained ghosts stating that even they get scared sometimes, and that fear is a normal human emotion. In an episode with robot athletes, they explained how such an idea will never come to reality, as it goes against the dedication men put into their sport. However, during
990-506: The villains were standard cartoon fare and had often done villainous acts akin to cartoons of the early 1990s (such as Captain Planet and Free Willy ), namely environmental irresponsibility such as strip mining , coastal pollution, or deforestation of the rainforest . Other times, a villain might hold a child for ransom, such as a mad scientist named Dr. Lobe who demanded the ProStars play his line of robot athletes in order to release
1023-521: Was a high-profile celebrity off the field as well. A reference to his " Bo Knows " Nike ad-campaign was worked into almost every episode. The stars appear in live-action sequences before the show, in which they would tell kids about the upcoming episode, and often answer questions from kids at the conclusion. Normally this is done solely by Gretzky and Jackson—often in separate sound stages and edited to appear as if talking to each other. Jordan's filmed bits were almost always one line or two, and not part of
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1056-654: Was acquired by Kew Media Group, which was later liquidated and collapsed in 2020, and the Kew Media Distribution library was later acquired by the Quiver Entertainment division of Quiver Distribution in the same year. Quiver is the current rights holder for most of UAV's original productions, while properties licensed by UAV are now owned by other distributors. Most of the products produced by Sterling Entertainment Group were VHS and DVD releases of movies, cartoons and TV shows that are now in
1089-443: Was the longtime competitor of GoodTimes Entertainment , Anchor Bay Entertainment and Celebrity Home Video and many other sell-through discount home entertainment companies. United American Video began in 1984, by "The Pettus Family" with four employees, 50 public domain titles and 200 professional grade VHS and Betamax recorders. The founders changed the name a few years later to UAV Corporation to better reflect its entry into
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