... what was actually going on here. The republicans are against lots of government regulation. They just don't like it in general.
Definitely true in corporate and financial interests. Not as true for women, minorities, and immigrants.
Actually, in the '60s and '70s all of that was Saturday morning fare. It was bundled up into an hour long show with a small bit of newly done 'glue' to hold it together. It was re-runs, but all new for the audience they targeted. The various cartoons came and went, but the Warner toons were a constant.
The Flintstones and Jetsons were both originally prime time animated sit-coms in the early 60's. Later they were either moved to morning or syndicated in re-runs and re-made as basically totally different kid-centric shows.
And all of the early Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc (Hannah Barbara) cartoons were created for and first shown in the theater as shorts. Not only that, the first appearance of Bugs Bunny, etc on TV (which was the old cartoon with some new "glue", as you said) was an ABC *prime time* show called "The Bugs Bunny Show".
Sure, they were eventually syndicated, then even later remade for kids, and moved to Saturday mornings. But the point is these "great Saturday morning cartoons" everyone is talking about were NOT at all created as such. Which is probably why they were so good. Generally entertainment created specifically for kids is awful, since the adult writers don't write "for" them, they write "down to" them. And kids are much more perceptive than they think, so they notice it.
I guess another way to think of it is the "Era of Saturday Morning Cartoons" is not just recently dead as the article states, it's just recently *buried*. It limped into the 90's and died at some point in that decade after they cancelled the last few smart generation-spanning shows like The Tick, X-Men, Animatiacs, Pinky and the Brain, etc.
As far as their original content, seems like Netflix has had the perfect combination of risk-taking, intelligent choices, and a bit of luck.
I read an interview with Kevin Spacey where he said after pitching House of Cards to all of the network and cable channels with lukewarm reception, Netflix jumped all over it. Not only that, when they said, "ok, we'll go film a pilot", Netflix said, "pilot? Forget that, here's $100M, go film a full season. Oh, and we won't mess with your creative vision, we trust you."
Just like more and more traditional "movie" actors are doing TV because HBO, Showtime, AMC, etc have allowed TV to be smart and edgy (and the filing schedules and promotions are mud mrs relaxed, etc), if you give producers and actors support and creative freedom they are going to start experimenting a lot more with streaming original content.
Then again, Netflix has basically stated they want to be the next HBO (and HBO is becoming a significant streaming service). Wouldn't be surprised if 5 years from now you couldn't tell the difference between the two - $10-15/mo subscriptions with a mix of original and licensed content...
Well, there are a *lot* of problems with this model, not saying it's great, just the way it currently works
Though there are still a lot of titles out there which aren't available just because they have not yet been remastered for digital streaming, or they have not sorted out all of the various licensing and copyright agreements. Amazingly, streaming often requires getting completely different licensing/royalty agreements from all involved parties like the musical score, poster artwork, screenwriters, actors, etc. It's pretty insane. And even more insane is that often has to be done separately for EACH country it's released in.
So if I were to point to the #1 cause of content not being available, it's studio shortsightedness (they don't realize they can make more money in volume by making things cheaper) and massive licensing/copyright bureaucracy.
Yep. Just goes to show you the best and most enduring children's/young adult entertainment is usually when adults don't specifically try to "write for" children (which usually means "write down to" them). Just as true now (Harry Potter novels, Pixar movies) as it was back then...
created for Saturday Morning Cartoons
No it wasn't. *From* the Wikipedia page: "The show premiered on September 30, 1960, at 8:30pm, and was an instant hit.".
Sept. 30, 1960 was a Friday. And 8:30pm isn't what most people would call "morning".
What you were watching was reruns or remakes, not the original Flintstones. So I think my point still stands. The original was targeted to adults in the early 60's (they even had the cartoon characters advertising cigarettes!) which may be why kids didn't really understand it that well. And the remakes/etc, were mostly crap spewed out for kids (with none of the more mature references or Honeymooner parodies), but that shouldn't detract from the original.
Tom & Jerry's violence would never be shown today, too much violence in them.
Eh, maybe not on Saturday morning, but have you ever watched the Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, etc? It's still there...
But I agree and am saddened by the loss of the true Saturday morning cartoon today. Hell, even after I was beyond-college-age I still liked to drag my ass out of bed on Saturday in the 90's to watch The Tick, X-Men, Pinky and the Brain, and the few other cartoons that kept the faith.
Why does everyone keep using the Flintstones as an example of (good or bad) Saturday morning cartoons!?
Flintstones was a prime time ABC show in the early 1960's. If you think of it in *that* context is was a trend-setting and brilliant forerunner to the current (and mostly over the hill) prime time family-unit cartoons like The Simpsons and Family Guy...
I would *still* be willing to sit down for a morning of road runner, bugs bunny and crew, daffy duck, foghorn leghorn, jetsons, flintstones, pepe le pew, and so on.
Most of that was never actually Saturday morning cartoon fare (except occasionally in reruns). So I'm not sure how qualified you are to comment on it
But I agree that the Internet did not kill Saturday morning cartoons. It was a coincidental two-pronged attack of 24-hour kids/cartoon cable channels and the horribly sad but true fact that Saturday morning informercials just paid better.
The issue is with studio contracts and provider risks. The studios want $4-6 per rental of their new releases and aren't willing to negotiate a (reasonable) flat rate to subscription providers. Netflix wants to keep their costs down and isn't willing to take the risk of offering a more expensive service and hoping customers don't abuse it.
People who are expecting this situation to eventually get sorted out are going to wait a LOOONG time. The fact is the studios have a model that is designed to pay for their $200M+ production expenses: theatrical release, premium VOD and Blu-Ray release, HBO/premium cable release, and finally (possibly 2+ years later) library release to subscription services. Negotiating flat-rate for the movie just isn't going to happen until it's at the end of that pipeline...
This subthread is really about eating their own species. Chimps [animalplanet.com] have been observed doing so and it's common knowledge that lions will kill and eat offspring that isn't theirs. Just killed (wah) your first two points.
No, you haven't really. Well, my "absolutely", statement sure, that was obviously silly, but it's pretty obvious there is an evolutionary instinctual element to many species not preferring to eat their own. That's why all of these anecdotes are so "shocking" (i.e. why the media covers it in "nature" specials) and why the pack-oriented species are still around...
The market for $8 "all you can eat" streaming? It's very saturated in many senses of the term. Basically, you get what you pay for at that price.
And you can in fact stream (almost) any movie you want, you just have to be willing to pay what the owner of the movie wants to charge you for it, which for new releases is not part of "$8 all you can eat". You want better/cheaper? Fine, but that's not something in the hands of the companies like Netflix or Redbox, it's entirely in the hands of the studios who own the content...
Interesting anecdote, but just because Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy murdered and mutilated dozens of people, that doesn't mean it's a genetic trait.
Despite the adage, exceptions rarely prove the rule, and given the extensive study of chimpanzees over a century or more, these anecdotes are the exception. If there was *no* selection against cannibalism you would see it every day, not a few anecdotes.
"I didn't know it existed..."
I think you answered your own question in the subject...
Competing with Netflix is "easy" - if you are willing to outspend them on advertising and content while offering streaming at a lower price, and somehow stealing their mostly satisfied customers in a near-saturated market. Doing it *profitably* is another story - which is why the giants like Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc haven't bothered trying...
...not to eat any animal that specifically asks me not to.
You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred. -- Superchicken
