I always pegged Saved By the Bell as the instigator for the decline of network Saturday Morning Cartoons since, even at the time (given that I was already in my teen years when it started), it felt like something NBC was airing because it was cheaper than animation. I mean, obviously, there had been other live-action shows on American network Saturday mornings before, in my era the most obvious example being Pee-Wee's Playhouse, but a show like Pee-Wee's Playhouse despite being non-animated (aside from the Penny cartoons and the old copyright-lapsed cartoons the King of Cartoons showed), still had a cartoon-like vibe about it. Saved By the Bell just felt like it was a cheapass sitcom too shabby to be on in prime time.
These days, I know the real reason for the decline of network Saturday Morning Cartoons was that original animated shows were being produced both for cable channels like Nickelodeon and also for syndication leaving fewer reasons for kids to get up early on Saturday mornings due to network television no longer being the only game in town for original animtion, and also because of the resurgence of home video game consoles after the mid-1980s video game crash, but Saved By the Bell still feels to me like a symbol of the erosion of Saturday morning network TV being for cartoons first and foremost.
Or maybe I was just too old for it... I mean, I was already 14 by the time Saved By the Bell started airing, not that I wasn't still interested in watching Saturday morning cartoons as insipid as most of them were if I'm being honest.
