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Tom & Jerry And Network Affiliates

DToTheJ

DToTheJ

I've seen several listings from the 70's and 80's in areas where there was one independent station or less that aired cartoon programming, and couldn't help but notice that a great deal of the major network-affiliated stations chose "Tom & Jerry" for their children fare. For example, three stations alone - all VHF's, mind you - aired "T&J" at the same time at 4 PM on this day.

So was "T&J" the "toon du jour" amongst network affiliates back in the day, or could it just be a regional thing?
 
Tom & Jerry cartoons were first syndicated by MGM in 1977 (WPIX Channel 11 in New York first aired them in the 1977-78 season). I doubt the lineup of the 'toons shown by those three VHF's on that one day were exactly the same. I remember as pure as the driven snow, at least two 'toons in that package as aired on what was then "11 Alive" - the 1949 T&J short Hatch Up Your Troubles, and the 1953 Barney Bear endeavor Cobs and Robbers - were as aired on the 1965-72 CBS incarnation, with the opening and ending titles totally replaced and overhauled. (Cartoon Network and Boomerang ran both cartoons with their original opening and closing titles intact, however.)

Aside from WPIX, there were a few other indies that picked up T&J. WFLD Channel 32 in Chicago, for one. (The latter station was infamous for hacking off the MGM lion at the start of each 'toon.)
 
I'm sure in my collection of TV Guides, I'll find a listing for WFSB in Hartford-New Haven running Tom and Jerry at 4:00 around the same time.

Of course as they were fewer independents back then (or none in the smaller markets) it wasn't uncommon to find network affiliates airing some children's programs. Case in point: just as WFSB aired Tom and Jerry, the competition on WTNH programmed Battle of the Planets. Even later, in the summer of '87 I was visiting family in the Bluefield, W.V. area and I watched the Dennis the Menace cartoon on ABC affiliate WOAY-TV (Oak Hill-Beckley) at 4:00.

Or, perhaps the network stations that aired Tom and Jerry or the Looney Tunes shorts felt that they could attract adults as well as kids. Not a bad way of thinking.
 
Rollo-Smokes said:
I'm sure in my collection of TV Guides, I'll find a listing for WFSB in Hartford-New Haven running Tom and Jerry at 4:00 around the same time.

Of course as they were fewer independents back then (or none in the smaller markets) it wasn't uncommon to find network affiliates airing some children's programs. Case in point: just as WFSB aired Tom and Jerry, the competition on WTNH programmed Battle of the Planets. Even later, in the summer of '87 I was visiting family in the Bluefield, W.V. area and I watched the Dennis the Menace cartoon on ABC affiliate WOAY-TV (Oak Hill-Beckley) at 4:00.

Or, perhaps the network stations that aired Tom and Jerry or the Looney Tunes shorts felt that they could attract adults as well as kids. Not a bad way of thinking.
Click to expand...

Another Hanna-Barbera cartoon, Scooby Doo, used to air on then-ABC affiliate WREX in Rockford back in early-to-mid '80s, weekday afternoons (3pm) after General Hospital. I believe it only lasted a year in that slot, and at least one other surrounding market (either on Milwaukee's WVTV or Chicago's WGN) also airing Scooby simultaneously with WREX. WQRF, Rockford's independent station at the time, carried a lot of the popular syndicated cartoons of the era (such as Thundercats, Transformers, MASK, G.I. Joe, among others), but I don't remember them ever carrying the old theatrical shorts from MGM or Warner Bros., except possibly Universal's Woody Woodpecker/Chilly Willy shorts; you had watch them on cable (TBS, WGN) to get them.
 
@wbhist: I am sure that the same three cartoons aired on every single station at the same scheduled time were not in the exact order...

@Rollo: I was also assuming that in markets where there were indies, the network-affiliates would have first dibs on such programs, and "T&J" seemed to be a popular choice...

@Shawn: I've seen Scooby listed on many a network-affiliate in the listings herein, as well... none more often than "T&J," though, in my view... Heck, I wished Woody would have had more such affiliates back in the day! :D
 
wbhist said:
Tom & Jerry cartoons were first syndicated by MGM in 1977 (WPIX Channel 11 in New York first aired them in the 1977-78 season). I doubt the lineup of the 'toons shown by those three VHF's on that one day were exactly the same. I remember as pure as the driven snow, at least two 'toons in that package as aired on what was then "11 Alive" - the 1949 T&J short Hatch Up Your Troubles, and the 1953 Barney Bear endeavor Cobs and Robbers - were as aired on the 1965-72 CBS incarnation, with the opening and ending titles totally replaced and overhauled. (Cartoon Network and Boomerang ran both cartoons with their original opening and closing titles intact, however.)

Aside from WPIX, there were a few other indies that picked up T&J. WFLD Channel 32 in Chicago, for one. (The latter station was infamous for hacking off the MGM lion at the start of each 'toon.)
Click to expand...

T&J was a staple on WPIX for years. WWOR channel 9 pickup T&J in the early 90s.
 
WIS/10/NBC in Columbia SC aired Tom and Jerry from the late 70s thru the 80s, which I always thought was rather inappropriate. WIS was the dominate station in the market and T&J's slot was always between the afternoon soaps and afternoon talkers such as Merv Griffin or the Virginian. Of course, there were no indies in the market at the time and WTTG and WTBS were just beginning to make themselves known on cable there.
 
@Fortmill: I think you've just made me realize why I always thought network affiliates' scheduling of T&J was interesting to me: to see exactly what shows it would be scheduled alongside. Usually, cartoons would follow the soaps.
 
I don't remember Tom & Jerry being available anywhere in Memphis after it left CBS unless one of the independents had it at some time. I never got to see them again until they started showing up on Cartoon Network.
 
I would say the only time the classic T&J cartoons aired on a network affiliate in the St. Louis area was in the early 1990s on KDNL-TV, which back in the day was one of the charter affiliates of the Fox network. Before that, it had been an independent station.

For the record, before T&J found their way to KDNL-TV, KPLR-TV for a very long time had these theatrical shorts on its weekday kids lineup, which also at the time had other classic cartoons to boot (Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker, to name a few).
 
Although they were an independent station, KCOP had Tom & Jerry on their air for years, usually in the mornings, although there were years it was carried in both mornings and afternoons. Not only did they had the classic MGM shorts, but by the early '90s, they also had the shorts from the '70s and '80s TV versions (ones produced from Hanna-Barbera and Filmation). Those latter versions, especially the Filmation version, were nowhere near as good in quality as the MGM productions.
 
WYFF Greenville, SC and WXII Winston-Salem, NC also
carried T&J at 4, but both stations aired sitcoms afterwards.
Like WIS, both were and are NBC affiliates, so T&J followed
the soaps.

Interestingly, at one point in the late '70s/early '80s the ABC
affiliates in those markets (WLOS and then-ABC affiliate WGHP)
carried Bugs Bunny at 4, head-to-head with T&J. I don't know
which one won.
 
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