However, in its second season, "Gentle Ben" failed to consistently make the top 20 and was cancelled. Its decline in popularity has been attributed to its young target audience growing older and losing interest in animal shows, and also to its timeslot forcing it to compete with "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color" for its target audience. A letter-writing campaign to save the show (even read into the "Congressional Record") resulted in 2600 letters being sent to the network, but was not successful.