TVSquad

For many of us the rite of passage that was Saturday morning cartoons died years ago. The following news just puts a final nail in its coffin.

Last week The CW announced that it was dropping the 13-year-old Kids WB! franchise at the end of this season. Replacing it will be content from 4Kids Entertainment, which has been providing FOX with Saturday morning programming for the last six years. Leasing the space made "the most business sense" according to Bruce Rosenblum of Warner Brothers TV Groups. Despite high ratings, Kids WB! was losing viewers to cable networks like Nickelodeon. Currently, only 10 staffers remain with Kids WB!. A spokesperson for The CW said that they would try to find new positions for these people at the network.

I am about to do something that is against all of my beliefs: I am going to give The CW network some credit. Not for the way they have handled their first season on the air, because it frankly stunk. I'm going to give them credit for keeping the Saturday morning block of cartoons that used to air on the WB, aptly named Kids' WB!, after that network and UPN merged to become one. Not only did they keep it but they added new programs such as Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue that have become favorites.

Now, they are about to add another animated program that will probably become an instant favorite. According to Betsy McGowen, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Kids' WB!, a new Spider-Man cartoon will be gracing Saturday morning television screens in early 2008. Titled Spectacular Spider-Man, the series will focus on a 16-year-old Peter Parker has he juggles his new role as super-hero with the daily pressures of teenage life. The series will be produced by Culver Entertainment, a division of Sony Pictures Television.

There are some cartoon characters that have a permanent shield of double-thick steel around them. When you think they're finally gone, they come back in a new form.

Take our pal Scooby-Doo, for example. Scooby and his Mystery Inc. friends have been with us since 1969. That's 37 years, kids; 259 in dog years (you knew I had to throw in that joke, didn't ya?). Since then he's been paired with Fred, Daphne, and Velma, the Scooby-Doobies (From Laff-a-Lympics), Dynomutt, Vincent Price and, ahem, Scrappy-Doo. After leaving Saturday mornings in the late '80s, he returned with the entire Mystery Inc in What's New Scooby-Doo for the Kids WB.

Now he's back again in this fall's 'Kids WB on the CW' (catchy, ain't it?) in Shaggy and Scooby-Doo Get a Clue. In this show... well, perhaps you should jump to find out what it's all about, and also see some of the other new series premiering next fall on Kids WB.

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• Blue Collar TV - Season 1, Volume 2
• The Electric Company - Best Of
• Emergency! - Season 2
• Grounded for Life - Season 1
• Growing Pains - The Complete 1st Season
• Hearts Afire - Season 3
• The Lost World - Vol 01; Vol 02
• Moonlighting - Season 3
• One Step Beyond - One Step Beyond Collection
• Pet Alien - Vol 4: Spaced Out
• Poltergeist: The Legacy - The Complete 1st Season
• Sex and the City - Sex And The City Essentials: Breakups; Sex And The City Essentials: Lust; Sex And The City Essentials: Mr. Big; Sex And The City Essentials: Romance
• The Simpsons - Kiss & Tell
• Survivor: Pearl Islands - The Complete Season
• Teen Titans - The Complete 1st Season
• Touched by an Angel - The 3rd Season - Volume 1
• Wildfire - Season 1
• Wire in the Blood - The Complete 3rd Season