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Pro tip: watching old cereal ads back to back showed me how fast Saturday morning went downhill
I got bored about a month ago and pulled up a bunch of Saturday morning cereal ads on YouTube, starting with 1984 and working forward to 1996. In one evening I watched maybe 40 of them and the change was not small. Early ones had real kids in real kitchens, slow camera moves, a mom in the background, and the jingle actually told you what the cereal was. By around 1991 every ad was fast cuts, neon colors, a cartoon character screaming, and about 6 seconds of actual food shown. The switch happened fast, maybe 2 or 3 years, and I think it was the toy tie-ins eating the whole budget. Same 30 seconds, way less cereal, way more mascot. It felt like the ads stopped trusting kids to just want breakfast. Curious if anyone else has gone back and watched a run of these, and where do you think the drop off really started for you?
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morgan.logan9d ago
I did the same thing a couple years back but I went the other direction, started at 1996 and worked backward, and the jump when you hit like 1990 was nuts. One thing that helped me was watching them with the sound off for a bit, because without the jingle you can actually see how much time each ad gives to the bowl itself. Early ones let the cereal sit in frame for a good ten seconds, later ones flash it for basically a blink before cutting back to the mascot doing a skateboard trick. What stood out most was the kitchens, because around 89 or 90 the real house just disappears and everything moves to cartoon worlds and ski slopes and space. My drop off was 1989, that was the last year the ads still felt like they were selling food instead of a toy with a cereal attached. Trying the sound off test might show you the same thing on a second run.
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