History Main / AdBumpers

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** Creator/{{NBC}}'s main themes during the late 1970s were "Fun Machine" and "Saturday Morning Fever." In the fall of 1979 and through most of the 1980s, generic introductions were used, featuring Creator/CaseyKasem saying, "[Show x] will be back after these messages]." By the late 1980s, medium blending – including miniature sets and animated figures among them – were used in the bumpers. Also in the mid-1980s, popular characters from several of NBC's (primarily) situation comedies would often announce the out-ros and intros. Going into the 1990s, NBC used stop motion for a "Secret Saturday Morning Club" with three performers trying various acts for kids with different results. After that came the Creator/KlaskyCsupo made "Perpetual Grinning Man" ads which were a mix of stop-motion and traditional animation. That would last until the final years when cartoons would be on the network with Chip and Pepper, a pair who had their own Saturday morning show that would do some silly activities in-between shows.

** The music played during Adult Swim bumps bear mentioning as well. The music, largely instrumental hip hop, trip hop and other relaxing, low-key electronica, has a large following (if you search "bump music" on Website/YouTube, most of your results will have something to do with the Adult Swim bumps and no others), and many people who came to like the "bump music" enough to seek out those genres more generally.

* From the 1980s until the early 1990s, Creator/DisneyChannel had claymation bumpers usually depicting [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2swge5kyNCE Mickey Mouse logos]] hounding WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vaw3zfO1hg the daily exploits of Mickey Mouse]], or simply an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z6TJD-jrok interesting visual that eventually turns into the Disney Channel logo.]] '80s kids have been known to break down into tears of nostalgia upon seeing these on Website/YouTube for the first time since childhood.

* European television channels have bumpers as a matter of course, usually showing a channel ident plus the local word for "commercials" (e.g. "Publicité/Pubblicità/Publicidad" in Romance languages, "Werbung" in German, "Reklam" in other Germanic and Slavic Languages plus Turkish[[note]]the word is basically the same, changing only according to local orthography - such as Turkish Reklâm, Dutch Reclame, or Polish Reklama[[note]]) to show the division between programme and adverts.

* Central and Eastern European television has bumpers as a matter of course, usually showing a channel ident plus the word "Reklama" (the word is basically the same, changing only according to orthography, throughout the region) to show the division between programme and adverts.

*** The most famous was a series of Claymation bumpers where the characters would sing the line "After these messages we'll be right back!" (One of the most catchy can be seen here: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vI0UcUxzrQ "After these messages... we'll be riiiight back!"]].) The sets – which ran from 1987-1990 and again from 1992-1994, included a doo-wop group, a dog and fire hydrant, and a cowboy.

* From 2009 to 2015, Creator/{{Sprout}} had ad bumpers featuring "Sproutoramas," dioramas [[OfficialFanSubmittedContent sent in by viewers]] that would be animated when on TV.

* ''Series/TheGoodNightShow'': In the first four seasons, the ad bumpers were the same as the opening.
* ''Series/TheSunnySideUpShow'': From 2007 to 2009, the show began commercial breaks with the camera zooming out of the Sunshine Barn, revealing the show's logo, as male singers sang "Don't go away, we'll be right back on ''The Sunny Side Up Show''!." After commercial breaks ended, the camera zoomed into the Sunshine Barn as male singers sang "Welcome back to ''The Sunny Side Up Show''!."
* ''Series/TheSproutSharingShow'': From 2008 to 2009, the ad bumpers were on an easel with an instrumental of the show's theme song and a child announcer telling the viewers when the show was to continue.
* ''Series/SproutsWigglyWaffle'': In the show's first broadcast month, ad bumpers had kids pretend to prepare food. These were also used in [=ABC2=] broadcasts.

* Some top-rated shows on CBS in the 1980s had ad bumpers before or during the mid-point commercial break, notably ''Series/{{MASH}}'' and ''Series/SixtyMinutes''.

* Creator/MTV practically turned this into an art form. This was mostly due to creative director Fred Seibert's belief that these short bumpers could be "the album covers of the new generation of music fans". Plenty of cartoonists (such as Danny Antonucci and Joe Murray) got their start animating short 5-10 second MTV bumpers before they went on to create cartoons of their own.

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** Around 1992, Fox Kids introduced [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTjSQChrJ1I bumpers featuring its character]] Dynamo Duck. However, ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' and ''WesternAnimation/XMen'' each had [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mteDcIvNM3A special]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I5IHkGw7O4 exclusive]] bumpers for its "Fox Action Theater" lineup; the former featuring a hand (presumably Robin's) shining a flashlight and a shadow of Batman walking by in the background, while the latter featured Wolverine walk over the credits while Jubilee popped up in front of the logo.

*** It's gotten to the point where characters from other Disney franchises might show up, i.e. [[WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse Mickey looks at himself in a mirror and draws his head]]; [[Franchise/DisneyFairies Tinker Bell creates a machine that draws the logo]]; [[WesternAnimation/ToyStory Rex can't find a wand so he uses Mr. Potato Head's arm]] etc. There was even occasions where Franchise/TheMuppets got to try it out, and one bumper featured [[Franchise/StarWars BB-8]].

* All of Disney's syndicated shows in ''WesternAnimation/TheDisneyAfternoon'' featured exclusive commercial bumpers. ''[[WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987 DuckTales]]'' and ''WesternAnimation/ChipNDaleRescueRangers'' both featured new still frames of artwork for their original runs in syndication in the 1980's, but once ''The Disney Afternoon'' started airing all shows merely featured bumpers that showed brief clips from the show along with some exclusive Disney Afternoon bumpers. However, some later reruns of ''DuckTales'' and ''Rescue Rangers'' on syndication post-Disney Afternoon went back to using the still artwork.

*** The most famous was a series of Claymation bumpers where the characters would sing the line "After these messages will be right back!" (One of the most catchy can be seen here: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vI0UcUxzrQ "After these messages... we'll be riiiight back!"]].) The sets – which ran from 1987-1990 and again from 1992-1994, included a doo-wop group, a dog and fire hydrant, and a cowboy.

* From the 1980s until the early 1990s, Creator/DisneyChannel had claymation bumpers usually depicting [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2swge5kyNCE Mickey Mouse logos]] hounding WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vaw3zfO1hg the daily exploits of Mickey Mouse]], or simply an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z6TJD-jrok interesting visual that eventually turns into the Disney Channel logo.]] '80s kids have been known to break down into tears of nostalgia upon seeing these on YouTube for the first time since childhood.

** Actually, they had a ton of these with different characters, Wilby just being one of them. Others included two aliens watching a TV, two military ox doing training drills and would often flub them, an ''actual'' fox doing various activities, a British deer and a Cajun lamb couple doing various household chores, an incompetent superhero called Fox Man who would mess up his saves or end up doing something embarrassing, an owner trying to get his dog named Loafie to do tricks, an old lady who would be constantly annoyed by a fly, a man trying to do karate which would end with him doing something embarrassing or his strikes not doing anything effective (often hurting himself in the process), a pair of children dressed up in 50's wear dancing and hanging out, a very brief one with another superhero name Sloth Man who as he name suggests does things very slowly, and another superhero this one named Pre-Historic Man who would try save the day in caveman times and of course would flub it. Action shows also had their own bumpers often depicting generic character doing something action-y (Climbing a building, jumping their car over a gap, riding a rocket, etc).

** While they're usually cut during reruns, the home video releases of WesternAnimation/TheTransformers, [[WesternAnimation/GIJoeARealAmericanHero G.I. Joe]] and WesternAnimation/{{Jem}} all retain theiir original bumpers. This even happened when those shows aired on Creator/TheHub Network.