I'll be trying to keep up with dumping URLs into the downloading script. Right now, we do have a couple series in mind of the TV shows from our childhood, back when kid cartoons weren't meant to push merchandise; it should last for a little while :).

Taking off my nostalgia-colored glasses, every cartoon I remember watching as a kid pushed merchandise in some form or another, even if it was only the licensed character figures and graphic tee-shirts.

It has been a long while since I have seen Woody Woodpecker, Chilly Willy, or Tom and Jerry in stores, though. I hated The Flintstones and The Jetsons, and never watched reruns of them. By the time we got GI Joe, MASK, Jem, Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, He-Man, Care Bears, Thundercats, Voltron, etc. they were just wall-to-wall toy ad. That saturation ad-bombing backed off as cable TV ramped up, because then you could get Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.

Classic Looney Tunes; Tiny Toon Adventures; The Real Ghostbusters; Robotech; Animaniacs; Batman: the Animated Series; Rugrats; Doug; Hey, Arnold!; Rocko's Modern Life; CatDog; Ed, Edd, and Eddy; Dexter's Laboratory; Cow and Chicken; I Am Weasel; Ren and Stimpy; Powerpuff Girls; Freakazoid; Spongebob Squarepants; Avatar: the Last Airbender; Ducktales; Rescue Rangers; Adventures of the Gummi Bears; TaleSpin; Darkwing Duck; Goof Troop; Phineas and Ferb; Gravity Falls; The Proud Family; Kim Possible; Star vs. the Forces of Evil; Homestar Runner; Wallace and Gromit.

Those ought to keep anybody's kids off YouTube.

> Taking off my nostalgia-colored glasses, every cartoon I remember watching as a kid pushed merchandise in some form or another, even if it was only the licensed character figures and graphic tee-shirts.

I'll guess that's because you lived in the US :). I grew up in a post-Soviet country; for all the downsides they had, at least our cartoons were really top-notch and not yet touched by commercialization. You can bet that Reksio the dog, or Krecik the mole, or Filemon the cat weren't pushing any merchandise. They were just relaxing cartoons for children.

(In the 90s we had some western classics in private TV stations too; I watched plenty of Dexter's Lab, Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, Tom&Jerry, Wile E. Coyote & the Road Runner, etc. Somewhere around pre-teens we got access to Nickelodeon/Fox Kids, and I got my fair taste of Marvel & DC-based animations too. Most of that I'd consider a-ok for my kid.)

I'm wondering what ages both of you have in mind. Up to some point, they seem to be happy to watch the same season of their favourite series in a loop.

I know some adults who at 21 and 30 y.o. are still happy watching the same couple seasons of Friends on a loop, day in, day out, so this may not always depend on age :).