The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

[Guest daeudi_454]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

All I picked up is that it's OK to shuffle your schedule around and cancel good shows without warning. Oh' date=' and when you cancel shows, you can still use pictures and characters from them in your ads.[/quote']

Hmm... Same management as the Sci Fi Channel?

 

Daniel "Where the frell is Farscape!!!!" Dixon

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

All I picked up is that it's OK to shuffle your schedule around and cancel good shows without warning. Oh' date=' and when you cancel shows, you can still use pictures and characters from them in your ads.[/quote']

Not entirely true. Cartoon Network, as an arm of one of the largest and most powqerful media conglomerates on Earth (Time-Warner) owns most of its domestically-produced content outright. Even a series that has been out of production for a very long time and no longer airs independenly will usually be shown regularly as part of the ongoing compilations.

 

That is one of the other advantages of catering to the juvenile market -- no matter how old your content is, every three to four years you get a new infusion of your core audience that has never seen it.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

Hmm... Same management as the Sci Fi Channel?

 

No. Cartoon Network is Time-Warner; Sci-Fi Channel (along with USA Network) is Viacom.

 

I am rewatching a Juniper Lee episode (for some reason my cable's On Demand service only carries one episode at a time). I really want a DVD release.

 

For a frequently-obnoxious kid, Ray-Ray (June's little brother) gets some really wonderful lines.

 

(Sorting through Halloween candy) "Toothbrush? A toothbrush? Curse you, Doctor Horatio Rosenberg D.D.S. of 22 Maple Drive!"

[keithcurtis]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

Thanks for making me re-read 8-month old posts.

 

Keith "Please edit the first post of a necromantic thread if you're going to revive something you started" Curtis

[Blue]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

I didn't like Billy & Mandy at first but it got me with the episode where Cthulhu showed up, so I've been watching since

 

But Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is great fun! Bloo and Eduardo are great! Not too much superheroic in that one, but it's highly entertaining.

[prodigyduck]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

Fans of Billy and Mandy might enjoy following this link:

http://grim.snafu-comics.com/?strip_id=0

 

While fans of Cartoon Network in general might enjoy going here:

http://bleedman.snafu-comics.com/?strip_id=0

 

Keith "Posted a while back, but worth repeating" Curtis

 

 

I've been reading the Bleedman comics for a while. I can say they are some of the most fun you can get from the Cartoon Network characters (plus some Nickelodeon).

 

Alas, CN has really gone downhill for me. They started strong with some awsome toons (Dexters Lab, before it turned; Johnny Bravo before it -seriously- turned; Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack...), but its selection of cartoons recently has just been the kind you find at the bottom of the barrel.

 

Especially with Adult Swim. All of the CN series designed for AS are terrible. Sealab, Venture Brothers, Tom Goes to the Mayor, Minoriteam, 12 Ounze Mouse, and more... These are BAD! They possess the worst examples of both writing and animation that one can find... EVER! Why is it that a television channel dedicated to showing cartoons is all about showing the worst examples of its type? These shows dedicated to stupidity and lowest-common-demoninator humor endure and get renewed, over and over. Meanwhile, shows like Justice League are thrown to the wayside. Any show with good writing and good animation is gotten rid of "because it's too expensive." CN is starting to become just another money-grubbing company, intent on showing the cheapest piece of $#!+ shows and refusing to show the good stuff.

 

As it is Juniper Lee (when i can find it) and Robot Chicken are the only shows I care to watch on CN anymore.

[keithcurtis]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

If you switch Robot Chicken with Venture Brothers in the post above, I pretty much agree.

 

Keith "Meat and Poison" Curtis

[transmetahuman]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

If you switch Robot Chicken with Venture Brothers in the post above, I pretty much agree.

 

Keith "Meat and Poison" Curtis

 

Yeah, c'mon, Venture Brothers rocks!

 

I only catch TV accidentally at work, so I'm not sure what shows are on which channel, but I'm also a fan of Kim Possible, Powerpuff Girls, Ben Ten, Jake Long American Dragon, and Jackie Chan Adventures. Shao-Lin (sp?) Showdown is growing on me, too.

 

*Are* there any cartoons that don't have super-powered beings in them anymore? Oh yeah... that Ed Edd & Eddy yawn fest that some channel shows 50 times a day. I'm almost scared at how much the "superpowered" meta-genre is saturating things - I'm enjoying it, but I'm worried about the inevitable backlash.

[Matt Frisbee]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

The Cartoon Network used to be good, once. Then they moved all my favorites to Boomerang. Since I'm not willing to shell out an additional $40 for digital cable every month, I guess I won't be watching it.

 

By the way, did anyone hear what happened to the Anime Channel?

 

Matt "Very-selective-viewer" Frisbee

[Blue]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

I find plenty of stuff on adult swim funny. I don't turn in to that for the "great animation". I'm there for a laugh.

[gojira]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

Thanks for making me re-read 8-month old posts.

 

Keith "Please edit the first post of a necromantic thread if you're going to revive something you started" Curtis

 

If you always use the little down arrow button "v" next to the post title, you'll always skip over any posts you've read, no matter how long ago it was.

 

I find plenty of stuff on adult swim funny. I don't turn in to that for the "great animation". I'm there for a laugh.

 

I don't find a lot of the cruddy stuff on AS to be funny. Milk Chan, Robot Chicken, Harvey Birdman, Tom goes somewhere, Aqua teen blah blah; none of those shows do a thing for me.

 

What I do like about AS is Samaria Shamploo, Full Metal Alchemist, Cowboy Bebop, Boondocks, and a few other more mature shows that are well written, directed, produced and animated. Yes, Venture Bros. rule.

 

As for JLA and Teen Titans, I think DC wanted their intellectual property back, or a whole train load of moolah, so CN had little choice. Talk to the management of DC.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

By the way' date=' did anyone hear what happened to the Anime Channel?[/quote']

 

Two, three years ... that's what Cartoon Network will be.

[keithcurtis]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

If you always use the little down arrow button "v" next to the post title, you'll always skip over any posts you've read, no matter how long ago it was.

 

That doesn't always work properly. But you're right, and I do try to do that.

 

Keith "Didn't mean to sound snippy, but I had just posted a new thread on that very subject" Curtis

[Enforcer84]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

Fans of Billy and Mandy might enjoy following this link:

http://grim.snafu-comics.com/?strip_id=0

 

While fans of Cartoon Network in general might enjoy going here:

http://bleedman.snafu-comics.com/?strip_id=0

 

Keith "Posted a while back, but worth repeating" Curtis

Bleedman is awesome is he not?

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

Bleedman is awesome is he not?

 

I remember someone raking me over the coals for recommending The Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi, mainly because of its take ion the CNverse which is far darker than its creators could have anticipated. Most notably with

the death of DeeDee, and the resulting escalation of the feud between Dexter and Mandark, each of whom held the other responsible

.

 

Of course, my main annoyance is that he has chosen not to continue the story, as there are many threads to explore that he has left.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

Two' date=' three years ... that's what Cartoon Network will be.[/quote']

 

Given how much Time-Warner has invested in their in-house studio and talent, I doubt it. Besides, we still have to see what Genndy Tartakovsky will do next.

 

To answer Matt's question, Anime Network exists, but with the exception of a very few cable markets it exists only as an on-demand service, where it competes with services like Anime Selects (which is an in-house service owned by Comcast).

 

However, I have little doubt that the Big Three Animation Networks (Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Disney Channel) would become very concerned were a service like Anime Channel or the Anime Network to become common in more markets; this would be especially bad for Cartoon Network because the extra competition would increase the price they have to pay distributors for top Japanese shows like Full Metal Alchemist, Naruto and Bleach.

[Teflon Billy]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

Given how much Time-Warner has invested in their in-house studio and talent, I doubt it. Besides, we still have to see what Genndy Tartakovsky will do next.

 

To answer Matt's question, Anime Network exists, but with the exception of a very few cable markets it exists only as an on-demand service, where it competes with services like Anime Selects (which is an in-house service owned by Comcast).

 

However, I have little doubt that the Big Three Animation Networks (Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Disney Channel) would become very concerned were a service like Anime Channel or the Anime Network to become common in more markets; this would be especially bad for Cartoon Network because the extra competition would increase the price they have to pay distributors for top Japanese shows like Full Metal Alchemist, Naruto and Bleach.

Eh, I wouldn't think it would be that bad, it might force CN to make some actually good domestic animation instead of cherry picking a bunch of japanimation.

 

Venture Brothers and Boondocks is the only quality domestic stuff I see on there that is CN produced (I can stomach the quasi-japanimation style of Boondocks, but mainly because they went with the mostly realistic anatomically correct style and the styles of the newspaper comic(for the kids))

 

TB

[Insaniac99]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

Eh, I wouldn't think it would be that bad, it might force CN to make some actually good domestic animation instead of cherry picking a bunch of japanimation.

 

Venture Brothers and Boondocks is the only quality domestic stuff I see on there that is CN produced (I can stomach the quasi-japanimation style of Boondocks, but mainly because they went with the mostly realistic anatomically correct style and the styles of the newspaper comic(for the kids))

 

TB

 

what about Ben 10? I'm loving that show and AFAIK, CN made it themselves....

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

Eh' date=' I wouldn't think it would be that bad, it might force CN to make some actually good domestic animation instead of cherry picking a bunch of japanimation.[/quote']

 

They are actually doing quite a lot of solid, innovative domestic animation. Craig McCracken's Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is a good example: not only is it written extremely well by people who have a genuine grasp of how comedy and farce work, but its production methods have been groundbreaking as well (the entire process is done on PC domestically, avoiding the necessity of outsourcing the "grunt work" that almost everyone else has to do, enabling substantially lower budgets, faster turnaround and the ability to produce more episodes in less time). The above-mentioned Ben 10 is another -- a non-satiric original-universe superhero series done by people who actually understand and like the genre. Venture Brothers may not be to my personal taste, but I have to admit that its combination of nudge-nudge-wink-wink self-referentialness and solid technique is quite impressive. (The reason I do not enjoy it so much is that, with the exception of Brock who is a truly inspired character, the protagonists are alarmingly annoying.)

 

There are also a couple of series on Toon Disney that I really like. I think anyone with any degree of geek-fu gets some sort of kick out of Kim Possible. And there are few series that make me laugh out loud as reliably as The Emperor's New School, which pulls off the nearly-impossible feat of presenting a self-centered, arrogant prat as a protagonist and makes you like and want to root for him anyway because he's such a charming self-centered arrogant prat.

[wrestlinggeek]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

 

As for JLA and Teen Titans, I think DC wanted their intellectual property back, or a whole train load of moolah, so CN had little choice. Talk to the management of DC.

 

Actually, both DC and Cartoon Network are owned by Warner Brothers, so that is not the problem. I don't know why they canceled my favorite animated show (JLU). As for others, most of what I watch on CN is recycled from Fox (Family Guy and Futurama, mostly). I also love Juniper Lee, Robot Chicken, Dexter's Lab, Power Puff Girls, and Star Wars: Clone Wars. Unfortunatly, with my work schedule, I almost never get the chance to see those.

[Jhamin]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

As for cancelling stuff, I found this a few months back on Titango.net, who were a bit miffed about the Teen Titans getting cancelled.

 

There was apparently an interaction between Cartoon Network wanting to keep the toy money from the shows on their network and a management shift at Warner Brothers. Between the two, Justice Leage, Teen Titans and (the far less lamented) Krypto the Superdog all got knocked.

 

Wil Wheaton (Voice of Aqualad)

..Some new people came into Warner Bros. Feature Animation - new bosses - and as part of their “We’re here, we’re the bosses, get used to it” they had all of the existing shows come in and re-pitch - the producers and writers had to come in. It didn’t matter if the show had been on the air for 10 years or 5 years or if it had only run 3 episodes - they had to come back in and re-pitch it.

 

They had to go in and re-pitch it and for whatever reason the new overlords over there didn’t like it.

 

Between you and me, most animated shows exist as a means of selling action figures. That’s why on the Simpsons, where Abe Simpson won the award for writing Itchy and Scratchy, one of the nominated shows was Action Figure Man (the How to Buy Action Figure Man episode). Everybody knows it, and it’s okay - it’s not like it’s a big secret and it’s not like it’s anything to be ashamed of.

 

The general supposition was that most of the existing franchise shows had made as much money as they were going to and were getting more expensive as everyone contracts kept getting renewed. (Remember that some of the Justice League voice acters had been playing those parts since the early 90s). There were enough episodes to keep reruns going and support the toy line.

 

Meanwhile, the new management in both companies have a new set of shows that they created selling new toys that they can take credit for.

Coming soon from DC (according to various press releases):

 

-A series of two hour PG-13 direct to video movies (Suprman vs. Doomsday, Teen Titans: Judas Contract, and Justice League: New Frontier)

-The legion of superheros

[FenrisUlf]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

If that is the way it happened, then it truly stinks.

[Jhamin]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

Quoted in an old issue of Toyfare:

 

WB Animation president Sander Schwartz says they were cancelled because they "lasted longer and for more episodes than most successful animated shows, and it's time to give them a bit of a rest." He later adds: "In animation and the kids' business in general, you're not making money from TV, but from a variety of sources: home video, merchandising and licensing. That's just the traditional cycle. There isn't a compelling reason to do new shows ("shows" refers to new episodes, not new series). ."

[FenrisUlf]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

Quoted in an old issue of Toyfare:

 

WB Animation president Sander Schwartz says they were cancelled because they "lasted longer and for more episodes than most successful animated shows, and it's time to give them a bit of a rest."

 

Well, okay, it is better to go out while you're still on top then to hang around until you become a joke, but I stil think it's foolish to get rid of a show because "it's been successful for years".

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: The things you pick up from Cartoon Network

 

Between you and me' date=' most animated shows exist as a means of selling action figures. That’s why on the Simpsons, where Abe Simpson won the award for writing Itchy and Scratchy, one of the nominated shows was Action Figure Man (the How to Buy Action Figure Man episode). Everybody knows it, and it’s okay - it’s not like it’s a big secret and it’s not like it’s anything to be ashamed of.[/quote']

 

Actually, Wheaton may have been forgetting the controversies of the 1980's concerning most of the syndicated cartoons of the period, which was based on the contention that it was something to be very much ashamed of.

 

Either that, or he'd rather not think about them.

 

In 1982, a sort of minor renaissance of the "action cartoon" hit the American syndication market wth series like Transformers, GI Joe, Thundercats, and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Most of them came with a simultaneous launch of "action figure" lines, the toy manufacturers actually had a hand in the creative direction of the shows (new characters would be conveniently introduced at the same time as their figures came out) -- and a lot of people became very, very upset.

 

Now this was the pre-cable era, when almost all television programming was regulated by the FCC because it was broadcast over the public airwaves. Children's programming were under special scrutiny, and there were regulations dictating exactly how much advertising time could be sold, and how many commercials aired, on a program directed at children. Only in these cases the entire program was essentially a commercial -- a commercial for the toys.

 

There was (and still is) a large contingent, particularly in the fields of education and social services, who believe children should be completely off-limits to marketing because they do not have the judgment possessed by adults. And that contingent frequently petitioned the FCC for an outright ban on "toy-commercial" programming. That the content was also rather more violent than they would have liked (and, in the case of GI Joe, politically objectionable to many of them as well) only added to their displeasure. the strongest criticism was directed at a short-lived Rambo series -- John Rambo was viewed both as a potent symbol of conservative politics and, to put it bluntly, a murderous psychopath. (That at least originally he was neither is beside the point -- I am still deeply annoyed at what happened to the character in the sequels to the powerful and politically neutral First Blood, but that's another thread.)

 

However, the Reagan-era FCC was not particularly sympathetic to their ideas, and the cable revolution would eventually make the entire political issue moot. The objectors are still there, and still vocal, but there is very little they can actually do about the issue unless the FCC were to have a massive sea change in ideology and Congress were to vastly expand its authority in ways that almost everyone agrees would be excessive.