Hi! As a huge fan of oldie cartoons I subscribed to Boomerang quite a few years ago, because CN would only occasionally show any, and other cartoon channels never showed any classics. Boomerang I could always depend on to have something on that would boost my mood. Also, I could show my kids what cartoons really used to be about when they were in their heyday. Now, where I live, Boomerang has gone down the drain, as in FLUSHED DOWN THE DRAIN. All we get is Cartoonito and Puppy in my pocket, and only very rarely half an hour of real Tom and Jerry. All the oldies are gone. Flintstones grace the screen maybe once a week (if I'm lucky enough to catch it), no Wacky races, no Yogi, no Popeye, no nothing. I'm planning to unsubscribe Boomerang pretty soon because I don't see any sign of improvement. Why would the powers-that-be fail their audience in such a pathetic way?
Sorry, but Boomerang is never going to go back to being old Boomerang, and here's why.
Simply put, the audience who's clamoring for predominantly or exclusively 1940's to 1980's nostalgia is now far too narrow a market for a niche channel devoted solely to that to work anymore. The thing is, even to be the hodgepodge channel it is currently, Boomerang could be doing a lot more than what they're doing now.
Beyond being Cartoon Network's recycle bin, Boomerang serves no purpose.
And in regards to Da Boom mostly airing shows from the 1980s and 1990s now, well, the 1990s were 20 years ago and the 1980s were 30 years ago. The viewers who were kids back then are now adults and they want to see the shows that they grew up with also. Even an oldies channel has to move with the times.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that the 1940s to 1979 shows can't or shouldn't be airing on Boom at all. I'm just saying that it's now the 21st Century, and 1990s programs are considered "old school" now. Us middle aged folks will just have to learn to share. 24 hours is enough time for Boom to devote certain hours of the day and night to certain eras.
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Procrastinators unite....tomorrow.
(This post was edited by SpaceDemon on Jan 13, 2013, 9:40 PM)
All I can say is this...maybe there'll be some of those H/B Classics on Hulu and Netflix. (These broadcasting services I believe are bringing cable and satellite to its knees).
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Thank God for kids who love obscure things-Lee Hazelwood (1929-2007)
All I can say is this...maybe there'll be some of those H/B Classics on Hulu and Netflix.
There are already plenty of other outlets for viewing old Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Many of them are available on DVD or can be found on the internet. It's not like Boomerang is the only place one can view these shows.
Personally, while I can understand peoples' frustration with the current Boomerang, I can't say that I can relate to it because I'm not a nostalgic person. Never have been. While I remember the shows from my childhood and don't mind revisiting some of them some of the time, on the whole I much prefer watching new cartoons. The only so-called oldies cartoons which have any replay value for me are the Looney Tunes, some of the MGM shorts, some of the Jay Ward shows and some of the Disney stuff.
To be honest, I never thought those HB toons like The Flintstones and Yogi Bear were all that good, even as a kid. To speak the truth, the only HB cartoons that I felt were above middling-to-average were the post-Cartoon Network era stuff like Dexter's Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls and Johnny Bravo, and even those shows had their share of ups and downs.
I've never understood the whole "golden age/back when cartoons were in their heyday" rhetoric. I could never lock myself into a particular era because no era is perfect. If a show interests me, I watch it, and if it doesn't, I don't. That's how I've always been.
Yeah, it's a thing called change that's taking charge now. A lot of the really old cartoons from up to and including the disco era (you get the idea) are doing badly in ratings because a lot of those kids from back in the day are in their 40's or older. The popularity of Saturday morning cartoons was declining in the 1980s, if I read somewhere correctly. It turns out that Boomerang is transitioning into a network that will devote primary focus on 1990-early 21st century era cartoons. If I remember correctly, there was hardly any Saturday morning cartoons airing in the 1990s. NBC was the first network to drop its Saturday morning cartoon block in August 1992 - all of the Saturday morning lineup - except for Saved By The Bell, a teen sitcom - was replaced by a Saturday edition of The Today Show. CBS followed suit a few years later, and ABC was the last of the original big three networks to drop its cartoon lineup in 2004, though the only cartoons ABC airs nowadays are the scattered Charlie Brown specials. FOX was the last network to drop its Saturday morning cartoon lineup in 2008 - the only major cartoons we see on TV nowadays are The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, and American Dad - all of which are targeted to adult audiences.
And Boomerang is not alone in this trend. GSN (Game Show Network) doesn't air a lot of classic game shows anymore. Before 2009, the oldest shows that aired were Black & White shows from as early as the 1950s. Now, the earliest show that airs regularly is Match Game from as early as 1974! If there is demand for classic shows, it's most likely demand for game shows from 1975 through the 1990s. Most of GSN's schedule is filled with nothing but 21st century garbage! Every time I turn on GSN, it's always Family Feud overkill from 2002 and beyond. And on weekends, except for Password Plus (1979 episodes) starting off the broadcast day, everything else airing that day is from no earlier than 2002. Though they do air $100,000 Pyramid from 1986 to 1988) in late nights on Sundays.
But it seems as if the generation that grew up with The Flintstones, older Scooby-Doo cartoons, The Jetsons, Yogi Bear, Looney Tunes, and a slew of others have made way for the generation who had exposure to The Smurfs, Richie Rich, Pac-Man, Alvin & The Chipmunks, and other cartoons many of which lasted only one season, maybe two max. The generation that grew up with The Flintstones, Looney Tunes, and pre-1980 era cartoons are probably nearing the end of their life cycles, or old enough to be grandparents now.
If only Boomerang could possibly pick up different cartoons from the 1980s that would appeal to the 30 to 45 year old generation, but it seems as if the variety is lower than we think. I don't think The Little Rascals animated series will work - it would last a few weeks on Boomerang, and then it would be yanked in a heartbeat. If only Boomerang can try such series for just two full runs, and then take it off the air, I would be happy for that. But then again, after hearing mixed speculations about ownership conflict issues with CBS Television Distribution, as well as the lawsuit brought on by the actor who played Porky in the B&W run, my hopes of seeing such cartoon series in this day of age - on TV or on DVD - are shattered - unless the full series or most of it appears on YouTube.
Agreed 100% with the above post. Boomerang isn't "failing". The problem is that Da Boom's original target audience has gotten older and is now no longer the prime audience demographic. People who were kids in the 1960s to 1980s are now in their 40s to 60s. The 80s and 90s kids who are now adults didn't grow up watching The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Popeye and Wacky Races; they grew up watching Smurfs, Snorks, Muppet Babies and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The people who grew up on the so-called "classics" of Boom's original lineup are now middle aged adults to grandparents. The fact of the matter is that Boomerang still does cater to the nostalgia crowd, for the most part, but just for a new generation of nostalgia.
To say that Boomerang has "forgotten it's purpose" would suggest that Boom ever had a purpose to begin with. I personally doubt that Turner (by which I mean Turner Broadcasting, not Ted) ever had a real plan for Boomerang. Boom was created to move the old shows off from Cartoon Network so that there would more room on CN's schedule for new and original programming. That's it.
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Procrastinators unite....tomorrow.
(This post was edited by SpaceDemon on Jan 17, 2013, 8:03 AM)
