RFP for Exhibition Design Services: “Saturday Morning Cartoons”

Toys & Miniatures Blog

| 06.08.2026
Saturday Morning Cartoons: Toys and Advertising in the 1980s logo

RFP for Exhibition Design Services | Saturday Morning Cartoons

Care Bears, He-Man, Alvin and the Chipmunks, DuckTales, The Smurfs, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers… the 1980s were a golden age of Saturday morning cartoons. Animated characters leapt from television screens into toy boxes, shaping how a generation played and imagined. For many children, cartoons didn’t end when the TV was turned off; they continued on the living room floor through expansive, imaginative worlds brought to life through toys.

Saturday Morning Cartoons explores this pivotal moment in American childhood, when television, toys, and marketing converged in powerful new ways. Drawing from T/m’s nationally recognized collections, the exhibition examines how cartoons and toys worked together to create immersive play experiences, blurring boundaries between entertainment, advertising, and imagination.

T/m invites qualified exhibit designers or exhibit design firms to submit proposals by July 5, 2026, for the design and development of the exhibition, scheduled to open in May 2027. The selected consultant will collaborate closely with T/m staff to create an immersive, accessible, educational, and visually compelling exhibition that aligns with T/m’s mission, interpretive goals, and audience needs.

Download the RFP