a recalcitrant TV station -- the 40th President of the United States.

flourish.

Ronald W. Reagan did not much care for any regulations that unduly hindered business, and the selling of products to an entire nation of children was a big business indeed. When Reagan appointed Mark S. Fowler as commissioner of the FCC on May 18, 1981, children's television would change dramatically. Fowler championed market forces as the determinant of broadcasting content, and thus oversaw the abolition of every advertising regulation that had served as a guide for broadcasters. In Fowler's estimation, the question of whether children had the ability to discriminate between the ads and the entertainment was a moot point; the free market, and not organizations such as ACT would decide the matter.

Twelve years before Fowler tookoffice, the ABC network featured a Saturday morning cartoon show called Hot Wheels. The show was ostensibly about a car racing club, but it was noted that Mattel toys sold a line of miniature racing cars known as "Hot Wheels." The FCC, past lessons in mind, considered the show to be an extended commercial for the toy cars and threatened to pull the series from the air. ABC argued that the toys were never actually advertised, but the show, under continual scrutiny for two years, was cancelled. Hot Wheels was to be the last controversy the FCC would face; under Fowler's new hands-off policy, the issue never would have been contested.

The changes wrought by deregulation did not happen immediately. The televisions cartoons of 1981-82 were seemingly bound by