This past year (2010 – seems like it was only a week ago!), Cartoon Network has expanded it’s Adult Swim program block an extra hour so that it now starts at 9PM (EST). Prior to this move, CN has altered it’s Monday night comedy block to feature animated shows which are only 15 minutes in length, which is actually only about 10 or 11 minutes without commercials. Among thse shows is a sketch comedy series based on MAD Magazine, simply titled MAD (which is more or less a G-rated version of AS’s Robot Chicken). However, for reasons which I will go into later, The 2 main new shows which follow in this vein are the ones that we’ll be focusing on here: Regular Show and Robotomy.

Above: the cast of Regular Show (clockwise from the left): Skips, Benson, Mordecai, Rigby and Pops

The main characters of Robotomy: Thrasher (left) and Blastus (right)

IMHO, Regular Show is the better of the 2 (in fact, I’d go so far to say that RS is Cartoon Network’s best new series of 2010. I like RS even better than Genndy Tartakofsky’s Sym-Biotic Titan. Yeah, I said that.), although Robotomy has it’s moments.

Regular Show, whose title is meant to be sarcastic, centers on a pair of 23-year-old slackers who work at a public park and also live on the premises, Mordecai (voiced by series creator J.G. Quintel) and Rigby, who also happen to be a 6-foot-tall blue jay and a raccoon. Mordecai is the more laid back and (only slightly) more responsible of the 2, while Rigby is excitable, impulsive and all about instant gratification (Rigby, in fact, reminds me a little of Max from Sam & Max). The park’s supervisor is a cranky, living gumball machine named Benson, who frequently chastises the dudes for being the lazy slackers that they are. The park’s owner is an incredibly naive and old-world lollipop man called Pops. Pops is the boss of all the main characters but he’s so incredibly clueless that he’s totally dependent on Benson to run things at the park. Pops likes Mordecai and Rigby, which is the only reason why Benson hasn’t fired them yet. Other park employees at the park include it’s groundskeeper, a yeti names Skips (voiced by Mark Hammil), so named because he always skips around rather than walking or running, who usually looks angry but is usually the one who helps out Rigby and Mordecai when they mess things up. A stupid, pale-green abnormally strong goon named Muscle Man, who falls very firmly into the modern day “bro” archetype, and his buddy High-Five Ghost, a Pac Man lookalike ghost with a single hand protruding from his head complete the main cast. In every episode, a regular mundane activity evolved into a world threatening crisis involving such elements as time travel, gods and floating demon heads. RS is a basically Clerks meets Megas XLR with some traces of Rocko’s Modern Life thrown in for good measure.

Robotomy, meanwhile, takes place on a strange planet known as Insanus in which it’s main inhabitants are violent killer robots whose sole purpose for existing is to break, kill and maim each other for no apparent reason. It’s main characters are a pair of high school student robots named Thrasher (voiced by Patton Oswalt) and Blastus (voiced by Fat Guy Stuck in Intenet’s John Gemberling), who are the misfits of their society because they harbor feelings of warmth and compassion.

What’s even more interesting than the shows themselves is the content of the shows. On Regular Show, for example, the characters are allowed to use words such as “crap”, “pissed”, and “hell”. One episode of Robotomy features an allusion to masturbation. The content isn’t anything really over-the-top, but it’s more daring than anything that’s aired on CN to date. While, MAD is decidedly and consciously aimed at kids, largely because of restrictions imposed by the network over what can and can’t be parodied on the show, RS and R seem more like they were originally intended to air on Adult Swim, but were inexplicably sent to CN for some unknown reason, and it’s almost a shame that R and RS aren’t given a run on AS, as both shows would fit in with AS rather well and both would be a welcome change of pace from the endless stream of Family Guy and Robot Chicken reruns. Don’t get me wrong. I still watch and enjoy Robot Chicken; the sketches aren’t all winners, but it’s good when it has a good concept, but AS has been running RC at 12 for what seems like an eternity now. I’d settle for Willams Street realizing that “adult” isn’t synonymous with “crude, sexist, frat boy/stoner humor”.

In the fall of 2005, Kids’ WB debuted a Canadian/American co-produced animated series titled Johnny Test. Described as little more than a gender swapped version of Dexter’s Laboratory by it’s anti-fans, Test is all about an 11-year-old boy who is a living test subject for the experiments of his teenage genius twin sisters, Susan & Mary. Along for the ride is Johnny’s pet dog Dukey, who thanks to being experimented on by Mary & Susan, possesses human intelligence, the ability to speak and exceptional martial arts skills. Rounding things out at the Test’s home are the kids’ parents; their anal, uptight but still likable stay-at-home dad Hugh and their loving but busy business woman mom Lila.

When I saw the premiere of Johnny Test, my initial thought was “This is the stupidest show that I’ve ever seen!” and I ignored it for most of it’s run on WB. Test didn’t set the world on fire, but it did well enough in the ratings to secure another 3 seasons on Kids’ WB. Shortly after Test‘s stint on WB ended, the reruns were acquired by Turner and began airing on Cartoon Network. Surprisingly, this acquisition scored big ratings points among viewers (some of which were seeing the series for the very 1st time), and is presently one of Toon biggest (and most overplayed) shows. I began watching some of the episodes that I missed when Test was airing on WB, and to my surprise, I didn’t hate episodes as much as I did when Test was running on Saturday mornings on Kids WB. Some of the stories I actually found to be amusing. So, even though I no longer hate Johnny Test, why is Test still never listed among my favorite programs? I’ll tell you why.

Yes, that’s right. The main thing/element that I dislike about Johnny Test is the title character of Johnny Test himself. I like his sisters. I like Dukey the dog. I like the parents (in fact, I think that the idea of the parents having reversed roles–Mom works while Dad stays home as opposed to the opposite–is a funny and interesting idea). I even like some of the shows’ recurring characters, most notably the pudgy, wanna be hip infinitely rich teenager Eugene,aka “Bling-Bling Boy”, but I don’t like Johnny. Sorry, but I just don’t. Believe me, I have tired. I’ve watched several episodes and have really made a conscious effort to try to like Johnny, but I just can’t. Johnny is weak link of his own series for a number of reasons:

-First, he’s annoying and horribly generic. Everything about Johnny screams “Generic ‘Kids rule!’ preteen hero. He has all of the requisite pre-teen boy habits (playing video games, loafing, avoiding working hard, etc), and he has all of the cliched supporting characters in his life. Most notably, the neighborhood girl who treats the main character like the scum you scrape off of tomato soup, but who secretly has a crush on the boy (Sissy), as well as the resident school bully (Bumper) who exists for no other purpose than to torment Johnny, even though he has no reason to actually hate him. All of the worst elements of Johnny Test can be traced to either Johnny or the characters whom are directly associated with Johnny. it’s hard to like a show when you find it’s most important character annoying.

-Second, Johnny isn’t very likable. i guess that we (the viewers) are supposed to see the character as being delightfully anarchic, a la the early Bart Simpson, but just comes off as irritating. In one short, Johnny uses his sisters’ tech to bring fossilized dinosaurs to life on a filed trip to the museum, putting his entire class in serious danger for no other reason than he’s bored. What a jerk!

-Third, Johnny has no talent. Mary, Susan and Dukey are much more interesting characters with much more interesting traits: Susan & Mary are super geniuses who can make virtually anything in their own impossibly high tech lab which is stored within their otherwise ordinary suburban home. Dukey is a dog who can talk, is smarter than most people and has mad martial arts skills, but Johnny brings absolutely nothing to the table. He’s not particularly bright. His grades stink. He doesn’t excel at anything. Johnny has no talent other than his uncanny ability to annoy people. Sure, he’s got interesting hair, but in the long run, that’s not much of an asset.

Why is it that on Dexter’s Laboratory, the boy genius Dexter is the central character in the direct center of the series and his annoying non-genius older sister Dee-Dee is only a prominent supporting player, yet on Johnny Test, it is the non genius annoying sibling Johnny who is in front, while the much more interesting characters of the Test Twins are merely supporting players? It almost seems as though Test‘s producers were afraid that networks wouldn’t be interested in buying a series starring a pair of girls, and so they instead put the über annoying Johnny in the center under the belief that “girls are icky!”. Let’s face it, folks, Susan & Mary are the real stars of the show. Test would be boring and horribly generic without them. Without Mary and Susan, there’d be no lab, no crazy inventions/experiments and no Dukey (at least not the intelligent talking version of Dukey). One only has to see the episode “The Quantum of Johnny” to see how badly the show would suck if the Test Twins weren’t there. If the Test Twins were the stars of the show and the supporting cast were their supporting cast, then it could be a great show. I’d much rather see a series centering on Mary & Susan and their lives with no Johnny character present at all. I guess that network executives don’t believe that people would prefer a series about a pair of smarty pants girls instead of a wanna be cool anarchic goof of a boy like Johnny. Well, believe it, suits!

I’ve been hearing a lot of requests and thoughts from fans on the message boards about a 24 hour Adult Swim channel. AS should become it’s own channel. Why doesn’t AS just become it’s own channel?, etc. I’ve heard similar requests for a 24 hour 4KidsTV channel.

Listen, I don’t want to sound like a jerk here, but I have to chuckle a little when people say “Why doesn’t so-and-so program block just become it’s own channel?”, as if launching a 24 hour channel is as easy as buying airspace at the entertainment section of your local Walmart. Launching a 24 hour channel is a more costly and involved process than most fans believe it to be. There are a number of things working against Williams Street splitting from Cartoon Network and launching Adult Swim into it’s own separate channel. Before I start, I’d like to clear up a little misconception that a few fans seem to believe in as gospel: Adult Swim is not a separate entity from Cartoon Network; AS is part of Toon. AS is a 4 hour program block that airs nightly on Cartoon Network which due to the fact that it’s considered to be a separate entity for ratings and commercial purposes, has successfully fooled everyone into thinking that it’s a separate channel, when it is in fact, merely a program block. Toon and AS are not “sister” networks, the way that TBS and TNT are. It’s much more like Nickelodeon and Nick@Nite. Cartoon Network owns Adult Swim, lock stock and barrel.

That said, here are some reasons why an Adult Swim channel will likely never come to pass:

– Adult Swim doesn’t have enough programming to run 24/7.
Many of the outside acquisitions that used to run on AS Williams Street no longer has the broadcasting rights to. You wouldn’t want AS running 24/7, unless you wouldn’t mind seeing reruns of Space Ghost: Coast to Coast running about 10 times a day, Robot Chicken running about 9 times a day and Aqua Teen Hunger Force running another 10 times in a day. What’s that you say? “Then why doesn’t WS just make a bunch of new shows?” Because that’s easier said then done, that’s why. New programming costs money, and who’s going to give WS the mucho dinero they would need to produce a bunch of new programs? Turner? Don’t think so. If Turner is too cheap to produce a general kids’ entertainment channel to air it’s crappy live action shows on, then they’re sure as shootin’ not going to finance a 24/7 AS channel.

– Adult only programming can only air during certain hours of the day
Adult Swim isn’t HBO or Showtime, which are both pay stations. Programs like The Boondocks, for example, are rated TV-MA, which means that AS wouldn’t be able to air them during the daytime hours. Imagine what would happen if a stay-at-home mom caught her toddler channel surfing during a commercial break of Blue’s Clues and landing on an episode of The Boondocks or Squdbillies or Tim & Eric and you’ll have some idea why this idea could simply not fly. WS would have to air kid-friendly programming during the daylight hours in order to appease the concerned parents at home, which would defeat the purpose of having an AS channel in the 1st place.

-Neither Williams Street nor Turner have any desire to make an AS channel
Representatives from WS have stated repeatedly that they don’t want to break off and program an AS channel, and Turner doesn’t want AS to separate from Toon because AS is currently getting higher ratings than anything else on Toon. To throw away a program block that’s the highest rated thing on their channel right now would be more insane than wearing a suit made of aluminum foil, pour gravy on your head running around screaming “Look at me! I’m Baked Potato Man!”. Meanwhile, Boomerang is continuing to languish on it’s never ending hamster wheel and getting the red-headed stepchild treatment from Turner, with only the occasional shuffling of it’s lineup in order to create the illusion that the channel isn’t dead (My personal theory is that the programming on the Boomerang channel is being run on a single tape that’s run repeatedly in a small room within the Cartoon Network studio and some guy looks in occasionally to check if the tape is still playing). Turner needs to make better use of the 2 animation channels that it has now before they even entertain the thought of making a 3rd cartoon channel.

However, it appears as if Cartoon Network is going to allow Adult Swim to begin airing at 9pm (EST) in the near future (whether or not this is a good thing remains to be seen. I have mixed emotions about this move myself, but that’s for another time), so for the folks longing for an AS channel, this is probably the closest thing we’re going to get to actually having one.