I reported yesterday over at The Land of Whatever that Retro is leaving my market after the end of business early Sunday. What that does for fans of classic children's programming is it leaves a gaping hole that isn't going to be filled any time soon.
Since the spring, Me-TV & Retro had shared some of the Filmation properties now owned by Classic Media, such as He-Man & The Masters of the Universe. The problem I had was the Me-TV's lineup starts at the unholy hour of 5 am (ET), which is where The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo has been slotted. Green Screen Adventures, which fulfills the FCC E/I requirements, fills 2 hours from 8-10 (ET), but Me-TV doesn't want to move their toon block further down into the morning daypart because they don't want to break up their Western block that starts at 11 (ET) with Nick Adams' The Rebel. After tomorrow, Me-TV has the classic cartoon landscape all to themselves in my area, aside of course from Boomerang, and their Saturday block, particularly Wacky Races & Perils of Penelope Pitstop, could stand a major overhaul. Considering the management at Boomerang, that right now is wishful thinking.
If I'm a programmer at Me-TV, I have to think about making changes to address an audience that is right on the verge of being under-served. Having Rebel trade places with Batman, for example, would be a step in the right direction.
2 comments:
The Boomerang programmers seem to make changes only about 2x a year, and tend to rotate the same toons each time. Aren't there any toons in the vault that they don't have to pay for they could air?
For heaven's sake Josie & The Pussycats are "Boomer Royalty" for the 5th time already!
I do think a retro style Saturday morning lineup definitely needs more than Mr. Magoo and He-Man/She-Ra, though it's a good start. Maybe if they choose a decade or specific year and use a lineup based on what a typical Saturday morning was like for kids back in the day?
1. As we both know, Boomerang & Cartoon Network are run by morons. They have too many shows in the vaults that they could use, but because of the acrimony between divisions of the same conglomerate (Time-Warner), you have the mess they're dealing with now.
2. They won't change the Boomeroyalty rotation, either, until they lose rights to certain of the toons in that rotation.
3. Classic Media supplies Retro & Me-TV with the programming they own (i.e. Mr. Magoo, Gumby, Filmation library). It's up to them and Me-TV to decide if they want to expand on their current toon lineup and/or move it into a more appropriate position.
To that end, TV Land experimented with a retro package back in '99 that wasn't chronogically specific, but considering that back in the day the networks would keep a 1-year series on the air to recoup the cost of buying the shows........!
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