Once television animation became associated with children, the producers of animated shows began writing down to their presumed audience, which made animation outside the age ghetto less profitable than animation inside it.
This mindset often results in bad cases of Executive Meddling. note The decline in quality of big names like Tom and Jerry and The Road Runner is directly down to the television companies buying out the rights and forcing lower qualiy production values on the shows With many adults uninterested in the consequent low quality of many of these, and thus only kids being able to tolerate it, as well as television at the time being marketed as a way of keeping kids quiet and the rise of parental groups arguing for more government regulation on the content of these programs. As cinemas declined in importance, the big theatrical animations of The '30s and The '40s transferred to TV - but TV demanded faster production in greater bulk done more quickly. There are many sociological theories as to how and why this trope originated, but one of the most common theories is that it's a by-product of the rise of animation on television in the '50s and '60s. Animation has the reputation of being a frivolous medium suitable primarily for children, under the age of 12.
