MeTV Launching Toon in with Me- A Saturday Morning Cartoon Revival

Cure DragonEagle 255
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MeTV Launching Toon in with Me- A Saturday Morning Cartoon Revival

Post: # 96Post Cure DragonEagle 255 »

On Monday, January 4, at 7AM | 6C, it's time to… Toon In With Me! Who needs caffeine when you have cartoons and comedy?

MeTV's Toon In With Me is a new, original weekday hosted morning show for audiences of all ages. The show promises to brighten everyone's day by combining witty original characters, quick comedy sketches, special guests, surprises, and more.

It's all wrapped around the greatest classic theatrical cartoon shorts ever made. Spend your mornings with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, the Road Runner, Elmer Fudd, Sylvester, Tweety, Tom, Jerry, Droopy Dog, Popeye, Olive Oyl, and many, many more!

Much like the hosted cartoon shows you remember growing up, now updated with the MeTV fan in mind, Toon In With Me is a morning show for everyone.

Let's take a look at some of the new friends you'll meet on MeTV's Toon In With Me!

Super Special AWESOME! This is from the wild days of TV when kids stuff roamed the Big 3 Networks and their affiliates! If you love cartoons and live in the USA you CANT MISS THIS!
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The Other Jason
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Re: MeTV Launching Toon in with Me- A Saturday Morning Cartoon Revival

Post: # 101Post The Other Jason »

Thanks for the heads-up! It looks like MeTV is going to have two separate programs featuring classic cartoons. Saturday Morning Cartoons starting on January 2, 2021 and Tune In With Me on January 4.

They both sound like fun and I'm going to try to take a look when they start (or at least catch them on my DVR). With all the cartoons they want to run... I wonder if anyone would be up for a petition or fan letter-writing campaign to ask them to look into showing Battle? :D
Cure DragonEagle 255
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Re: MeTV Launching Toon in with Me- A Saturday Morning Cartoon Revival

Post: # 102Post Cure DragonEagle 255 »

I had the exact same idea! I hope it happens one day! I already suggested it on the Me TV comment section.
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The Other Jason
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Re: MeTV Launching Toon in with Me- A Saturday Morning Cartoon Revival

Post: # 112Post The Other Jason »

I ended up recording the Saturday morning cartoon blocks, and first day of Tune In With Me on MeTV and finally got a chance to look over them today.

I was pretty happy that the Popeye and Friends block showed mostly black and white cartoons. I'm a huge fan of the Fleischer Studio Popeye shorts and it was nice to see them on the air. I can't say I'm really a fan of Betty Boop cartoons, although I appreciate their history, and they did show the one that introduced the animated version Popeye, so that was nice.

The Tom & Jerry and Friends show was okay, although I don't care as much for the later Chuck Jones and Gene Deitch shorts they focused on. I'll have to try to check out future editions to see if they go back further in their catalogue. It was nice to see some Droopy and Barney Bear though!

The Tune In With Me show seemed to feature stronger cartoons. Hopefully the host will get enough time to develop a 'character,' or some sort of hook to make his segments more interesting. Either that, or just forget the original content and give us nothing but cartoons. That would be better. :-) It seems like they're keeping the "A-list" cartoons for this show. The major Warner Bros. stars, the best Tom & Jerry, etc.

The picture quality on just about everything looked good. I wondered if they were going to be showing more recent remasters and it appears so. The biggest disappointment to me is that MeTV is showing all these cartoons reformatted to better fit the 16:9 aspect ratio. I would much prefer to see the cartoons shown as created, with as much of their original compositions visible as possible. Especially on a station like MeTV that shows nothing but older programming created in the 4:3 ratio.

I know it's always a judgment call for programmers in situations like this, and I think MeTV reformats their other programming to fill, or nearly fill the 16:9 format, so I wasn't shocked to see it in the cartoons as well. It was just disappointing. Heck, they showed One Droopy Knight in one of the blocks, and that cartoon was created in 2.35:1 CinemaScope. They could have taken advantage of that one at least. But it too was cropped to 16:9 and lost some of the gags off the sides of the picture.

I guess it's kind of a mixed bag for me. I'm not happy to see the way the cartoons are presented, but I am very glad to see cartoon blocks on the air. I was hoping to see some series, like early Hanna-Barbera or Filmation shows, but I've no complaints about theatrical cartoon shorts. Especially black and white cartoons which haven't been on TV much in the past few decades (except for Turner Classic Movies channel, which shows them in the correct aspect ratio!). So it was nice to see some of them represented in the Popeye and Friends block. I'll have to keep looking to see what other surprises might show up.
Cure DragonEagle 255
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Re: MeTV Launching Toon in with Me- A Saturday Morning Cartoon Revival

Post: # 120Post Cure DragonEagle 255 »

https://www.nexttv.com/news/turning-10- ... t-10-years

RATINGS TIME!

The block averaged 500,000 VIEWERS!

BTW are there ratings date for BOTP?
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The Other Jason
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Re: MeTV Launching Toon in with Me- A Saturday Morning Cartoon Revival

Post: # 121Post The Other Jason »

Hi Cure DragonEagle,
Cure DragonEagle 255 wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 11:01 pm https://www.nexttv.com/news/turning-10- ... t-10-years

RATINGS TIME!

The block averaged 500,000 VIEWERS!

BTW are there ratings date for BOTP?
That's not too bad at all! Good for them, it sounds like a solid programming choice!

I've got some Neilsen (NSI) and Arbitron (ARB) ratings reports for Battle, but they're sporadic and for North America only. I don't have an overall average for the series across all syndicated programming. But do have reports of Battle's performance among children's programming from its first five years.

If there's anything you're curious about for the ratings, let me know and I'll see what I can find.
Cure DragonEagle 255
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Re: MeTV Launching Toon in with Me- A Saturday Morning Cartoon Revival

Post: # 123Post Cure DragonEagle 255 »

That is more than enough! Please share if you can!
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The Other Jason
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Re: MeTV Launching Toon in with Me- A Saturday Morning Cartoon Revival

Post: # 124Post The Other Jason »

Sure! I'll see what I can find that I can share and that makes sense. Most of the ratings information I have is sporadic, relating to specific markets for specific ratings periods (usually to indicate market growth, to present to potential buyers). I'll probably start a new thread for whatever I can post.
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The Other Jason
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Re: MeTV Launching Toon in with Me- A Saturday Morning Cartoon Revival

Post: # 128Post The Other Jason »

Hi Cure DragonEagle,
Cure DragonEagle 255 wrote: Sun Jan 10, 2021 4:18 pm That is more than enough! Please share if you can!
I've created a thread about Battle's ratings.
Cure DragonEagle 255
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Re: MeTV Launching Toon in with Me- A Saturday Morning Cartoon Revival

Post: # 158Post Cure DragonEagle 255 »

This delightful yet typo filled article is a heartwarming retrospective look at Astro Boy... Which also implies MeTV might be looking to air anime. Battle Of The Planets is a shoe in for it! BIG TEN!


https://www.metv.com/stories/astro-boy- ... zhOEv0tQRc
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