[5] The ACT was founded by Peggy Charren, Lillian Ambrosino, Evelyn Kaye Sarson and Judy Chalfen in Newton, Massachusetts in 1968.
[7] ACT's initial focus was the Boston edition of the syndicated Romper Room, a children's show which promoted toys tied into or branded with the program to its viewers.
In the late 1960s, ACT also targeted Saturday-morning cartoons that featured superheroes and violence, including The Herculoids, Space Ghost, Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Lone Ranger, Super President and Fantastic Four.
The group influenced, through pressure it exerted upon the U.S. Congress and the Federal Communications Commission, the networks to remove those shows from the air by the start of the 1969-70 television season, and the programs were replaced by the likes of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, H.R.
[9] When this tactic failed, in subsequent years, it sought a more limited prohibition, namely eliminating commercials for specific categories of products.
[11] In 1973, responding to concerns raised by ACT, the National Association of Broadcasters adopted a revised code limiting commercial time in children's programming to twelve minutes per hour.
That era also saw the debut of many toy-inspired programs, which ACT contended were nothing more than program-length commercials: G. I. Joe, My Little Pony, The Transformers, M.A.S.K., He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and the controversial Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future.
[13] This represented a rare instance at the time of the FCC departing from its ideologically driven program of reversing broadcasting regulations imposed in the 1960s and 1970s.