"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;[1] over time its popularity declined, in the face of changing cultural norms, increased competition from formats available at all times, and heavier media regulations.[2][3][4] 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.[5][6]
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 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.[7][8] In some markets, some shows were pre-empted in favor of syndicated or other types of local programming.[9]
wp93014
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).