Back in the old days

Like most people my age, I watched tons of cartoons as a kid every Saturday morning. I only really stopped because by the time I was a teen in the 70s, Saturday morning cartoons totally sucked. But some time in the early 90s I discovered Saturday morning cartoons were good again, and I've been watching the best of them since then, particularly the various superhero series like Batman Beyond, Static Shock and Justice League Unlimited.

So with fall upon us, I thought I'd see what new cartoons had arrived. Looking at the TV schedule, it looked like there weren't many, but I still googled for reviews of cartoons in 2006. What I found instead was an article in Animation World Magazine telling me that Saturday Morning Cartoons are dead. Except, that is, for a couple of the network that recently became CW.

This is one of those disconcerting moments where you realize that stuff that seemed like a normal and permanent part of life was transitory and that your childhood experiences are fundamentally different than those of the current crop of kids. There are no Saturday morning cartoons. Candy bars are no longer 10 cents. I think there's still trick-or-treating on Halloween, but I'm not sure; it sounds like paranoia is killing it off (from what I've heard, kids really don't find razors in apples on Halloween, but the perception is terrifying parents anyway).

Damn whippersnappers.