Saturday Morning Commercials

I just put down an article on the soon to be unsheathed Transformers movie. An interesting fact that came up, of which I was previously unaware, was that the reason we had shows like Transformers, He-Man, Lone Star, Silverhawks, and their like is that in 1981 Ronald Regan eliminated many of the restrictions on children's programming that had been in place since the late 60's. The restrictions were put into play by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) and included limitations such as a shortened allotment for commercials in children's programming (nine and a half minutes versus sixteen) as well as regulating the content of shows to ensure they were not simply the half hour long commercials as my generation would come to know and love. They went so far as to cancel the show Hot Wheels under that same provision. They even considered banning the advertising of that blight of the nation sugar.


However, at the beginning of the Regan era, all of those regulations went out the window. The doors were opened to the market and the Children's Television Act (which would have reinstated many of these limitations) was vetoed. Companies were given unrestricted access to young minds. We, of course, all know the result. Our whole generation grew up worshiping and collecting (or forcing our parents to buy) every single object with a price tag these poorly animated talking advertisements touched. Because of television deregulation in the early 80's valuable space in my brain is occupied by every name of every character from Thundercats and He-Man. At least Regan lost his mind too.

Via Everything 2