This is a message from my pal Jerry Beck, following up on this post about how the TV networks used to decide what shows to cancel on their Saturday morning schedules, which ones to renew and which ones to revamp. Here's Jerry…
Great answer, Mark — informed as always by your inside knowledge of the industry and your personal role as a producer and writer for that daypart.
My answer about there being "new" programming each year on Saturday morning (the "one season thing") was always based on my observation as a viewer – and being 3000 miles away from the Hollywood cartoon factories. I actually think we are saying the same thing — though you added more insight from your end.
This all first occurred to me the year CBS put on Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space (in 1972). I didn’t think about it that much at the time, other than "why would they change the series format so drastically?" The following years brought forth the likes of a re-titled The Think-Pink Panther Show (1975), and the expanded Tarzan and the Super 7 (1978), as well as various Saturday renewals (though each year under a new name) of The Flintstones, Scooby Doo, Superfriends and The Archies.
Bottom line: Putting a new title on a popular series made sense for Saturday morning marketing — especially in those annual centerspread advertisements in Marvel, DC, Archie and Harvey comic books. There were a few exceptions to the rule — a popular show was occasionally renewed for a second season under its original name, but usually with a smaller order of new episodes (six?) for that second year. Star Trek: The Animated Series is one of those that comes to mind.
Of course, Garfield and Friends was a major exception to everything I said here.
I probably need to explain why Garfield and Friends was a major exception before I get a ton of e-mails asking me why and how it was. That show went into production with a two-season guarantee, which was very rare for Saturday morning. They ordered two seasons of thirteen episodes each and they also gave us more lead time than a new series usually got. Our producers could make this deal for a number of reasons, the main one being the extraordinary popularity of the character in his prime-time specials, the sale of his books and other merchandise…and the fact that Jim Davis and Lee Mendelson (two of our exec producers) said in effect, "Either we get this deal or we don't do the show."
Most cartoon studios couldn't say that — or if they did, they were bluffing. I don't think Hanna-Barbera ever said to an offer, "No, that's not enough money to do the show properly" or "No, that idea you want us to animate is a terrible idea for show."
When you had a studio that was set up to produce one or more weekly shows, you had this massive overhead of a building and a business and all the people you have on staff, many of whom have contracts and can't be laid-off if you don't sell a show or two one year. More than once, a studio was in the position that if they didn't sell X number of shows — sometimes even just one — they'd have to close down. It would be like trying to maintain a big restaurant when you don't have a single customer for a year.
But Jim and Lee had no studio. They had a relationship with Film Roman which was then a small operation doing mostly prime-time specials including the Garfield specials. Film Roman could have easily survived if the show didn't sell or didn't sell that year. When it did, they expanded their operation, hiring on new people and eventually moving to a larger building in order to produce it. It also mattered that Lee Mendelson had that long, mutually-prosperous relationship with CBS over the Peanuts specials and other prime-time productions.
So they got the deal and they gave me a two-year contract to do the twenty-six half-hours. When we went on the air, the ratings were so strong and the show reran so well that CBS came back and said, "Can we make it an hour?" So the second season, instead of being thirteen half-hours was thirteen hours…and as we were finishing those, they gave us an order for Season #3 and shortly after that, for #4. No one ever came to us and asked, "Can we freshen this by putting it into outer space or adding in Baby Garfield or anything?" We wound up producing 121 half-hours of what was basically the same, unfreshened series…and it could have gone on for longer but with the annual raises built into the contracts, it got too expensive for the network. And there were a few other reasons.
Thanks for the message, Jerry, and I'll tell everyone reading this that, first of all, you'll be appearing on March 8 here in Los Angeles on a program called "The Genius of Jay Ward: Rocky, Bullwinkle, Rarities and More." It's free and it's in connection with U.C.L.A. and ASIFA and details about it can be found here.
And I'll also tell them that you'll be at WonderCon Anaheim and that one of the many things you'll be doing there is appearing on a panel on the history of Hanna-Barbera with our friend Greg Ehrbar and me. That'll be on Friday right after a panel I'm hosting on "How to Write for Animation." I'll be posting a schedule of all the panels I'm doing there when we get closer to the convention.
And lastly, I'll also tell everyone that Jerry and I are part of the committee that is arranging for a memorial/celebration of life for our dear friend Mike Schlesinger who left us on January 9. We think we have a time and place for it and will be announcing it soon. It should be a great event all about a great guy.