Saturday morning cartoons for Teens, has anybody even attempted it?

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themistermanguy

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Saturday morning cartoons have always been associated with children's programming aimed at kids 6-11. Often times in the 80s these were merely just 22 minute marketing ploys and nothing more. But as animation began targeting wider demographics in the early 90s, has anyone attempted a saturday morning cartoon lineup for 12-17 year old adolescents? The closest I can think of is Toonami's Rising Sun, but seeing as how Toonami also targeted the Tween demographic (9-14 year olds) in addition, I don't think it really counts.
 

Rosiv

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What would actually appeal to this demographic thought in terms of cartoons? Do cartoons even appeal to them? I mean i imagine teenagers to be 15-19 to stop watching cartoons and be more into "adult" stuff, like MTV or Comedy/late night shows.

To answer the question, i wouldn't really know. With video on demand services like netflix and the internet, computer savvy teens dont even need to wake up early to watch TV. I remember when i was younger, i would hate to miss my morning cartoons, it would just ruin my day.
 

MysticSlayer

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When I was a teenager, pretty much every show that came on on Saturday morning seemed good enough for a teenager, minus some of the shows on Disney XD. Sure, they could also appeal to children and/or adults, but most of them seemed to target a larger age range than just 6-11 year olds.

But anyways, teenagers tend to have a reputation for being night owls, especially on weekends. As a result, it isn't particularly profitable to run teenage-specific shows in the morning. That's why they tend to run those shows at night, when teenagers actually will care to watch them.
 

Frezz

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Tons of teens are into that stuff (I've only recently left that age group, and god knows I was), but I can't imagine a morning timeslot being very successful, given that very few are going to wake up early just to watch cartoons, and like rosiv said, if they have an internet connection and much brains, they wouldn't have to even if they liked the show.

"Teens/Adolescents" are a tough audience to target because people change dramatically over that time period, and at very different rates. Some are going to hang on to "kid's" stuff forever (especially as long as "ironic nostalgia" is the hip thing) and some are going to gravitate toward books and movies aimed more at adults and the college crowd. In fact most people will do a bit of both. Teens are a huge and varied group, and while their disposable income makes corporate execs drool, it's nigh-impossible to appeal to all of them at once, so it can also be pretty elusive.

The animation age ghetto is also still pretty strong in the US, if less so than it used to be, so while importing stuff like anime for that age group makes sense, actually backing the complete production of a show is still a very risky proposition. Animation ain't cheap, and young kids are the only really reliable audience, since few of them have easy, unrestricted internet access, but finding what they want on TV is simple. So the shows that succeed are either aimed at them (with the possibility of the smart ones having massive broad appeal a la adventure time), or they're produced as cheaply as possible by necessity (see adult swim shows). Content-wise, what succeeds with teens tends not to be the shows "aimed" at them, but the ones that focus on being good or funny or... whatever they are that appeals, and bringing some subset of the age group into the audience.

It's not like producing good animated shows aimed at teens is impossible, plenty of anime have been doing it for years, and A:TLA/Teen Titans were things, but I can't imagine them being nearly as successful if they'd aired on Saturday morning, when most teens are asleep if they don't have a good reason not to be.

tl:dr; few/no western producers would do something as risky as backing a for-teens show that could alienate the younger audience (A:TLA toed the line , but still made some obvious concessions to that effect, as do most action cartoons made in the west). And even if they did, it would be crazy to only air that only on a Saturday morning time slot.
 

Soviet Heavy

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Well, there was the Starship Troopers cartoon. Although that one jumped between stupid humor (like outright saying "Really Deep Doo-Doo), to having government sanctioned mind rape and battlefield amputations.
 

Lilani

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TheMisterManGuy said:
Saturday morning cartoons have always been associated with children's programming aimed at kids 6-11. Often times in the 80s these were merely just 22 minute marketing ploys and nothing more. But as animation began targeting wider demographics in the early 90s, has anyone attempted a saturday morning cartoon lineup for 12-17 year old adolescents? The closest I can think of is Toonami's Rising Sun, but seeing as how Toonami also targeted the Tween demographic (9-14 year olds) in addition, I don't think it really counts.
Because teens don't know what "Saturday morning" is. There's Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and then Saturday night. The only other thing between those is possibly a very groggy midmorning snack or quick Facebook check before snoozing some more until about 1 or 2 PM.

That time slot works for little kids because they're usually up and all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed way before their parents want to be on Saturdays, so the TV acts as a nice diversion for them while everybody else in the house prepares to become conscious for the day.
 

Rebel_Raven

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Teen Titans, Young Justice, Green Lantern, the Thunder cats reboot, Symbionic Titan, Justice League (unlimited), and so forth don't count?
Teen Titans, and JL had the best run out of them, and reruns on boomerang, but by, and large, there's more than a few articles about why execs don't want to cater outside of their comfort zones. Due to a desire to not cater outside of certain areas, shows not aimed directly at children tend to get abruptly ended.

I could argue Batman TAS which had a heavy influence on my knowledge of batman as I grew up, too. Heck, for a while ,I thought Catwoman was always a blonde. <.<

Sci-fi chanel used to have saturday morning anime with the likes of Demon City Shinjuku, and so forth.

I dunno, I kinda need more of an idea of what's aimed at teens.

Lilani said:
Because teens don't know what "Saturday morning" is. There's Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and then Saturday night. The only other thing between those is possibly a very groggy midmorning snack or quick Facebook check before snoozing some more until about 1 or 2 PM.

That time slot works for little kids because they're usually up and all bright-eyed and bush-tailed and way before their parents want to be on Saturdays, so the TV acts as a nice diversion for them while everybody in the house prepares to become conscious for the day.
I completely agree with this. They're probably more likely to get a DVR to record what they want out of the morning, and sleep in late.
 

Risingblade

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What teenager is awake on a saturday morning? We all know the real reason we stopped watching saturday morning cartoons was because we hated waking up at such an ungodly hour.
 

Flutterguy

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I'll be honest, after I could afford my own laptop I stopped watching TV, especially morning TV. My warcraft characters weren't going to grind themselves.
 

FPLOON

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It's been done, kinda... But, due to the wrong demographic watching it (usually due to either age difference or, dare I say, gender difference[footnote]Dammit, CN![/footnote]), they didn't really last that long in the morning time slot, anyway... You were better off trying the evening hours timeslots more than anything else if you really wanted some kind of teen demographic watching your animated show targeted at teens specifically...

With that said, I think you would be better off making a cartoon that you would enjoy watching and then have the demographic go from there... Those are the shows that are more than likely to hold up the most over time, anyway...
 

themistermanguy

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zehydra said:
Wasn't Invader Zim meant for tweens and younger teens?
First, Invader Zim wasn't a Saturday morning cartoon, it always had new episodes airing in prime-time. Second, you are correct, Nick wanted an edgy Nicktoon for 10-14 year olds, but they ended up marketing it at the brands' usual 2-11 demographic instead.
 

Julius Terrell

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TheMisterManGuy said:
Saturday morning cartoons have always been associated with children's programming aimed at kids 6-11. Often times in the 80s these were merely just 22 minute marketing ploys and nothing more. But as animation began targeting wider demographics in the early 90s, has anyone attempted a saturday morning cartoon lineup for 12-17 year old adolescents? The closest I can think of is Toonami's Rising Sun, but seeing as how Toonami also targeted the Tween demographic (9-14 year olds) in addition, I don't think it really counts.
Oddly enough a few of those shows were quite mature. Back in the 80s I made sure I got up. sometimes as early as 06:00 hrs. I hated getting up but some of those shows were worth waking up for. I miss watching Thundar the barbarian and the animated star trek show. It came on early but it was a good watch. Not to mention that some of the good stuff came on early during the week before school. Like King Author and the knights of the roundtable.

It makes me thankful to have been born when I was. During the 80s and early 90s. That was the time to enjoy animation here in the US. I don't think it will ever be that good ever again.