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Don’t Just Stand There…DO Something!

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You know what’s been grinding my gears lately?

These nonstop internet threads, rants and YouTube videos of people whining, “I want my old Nickelodeon back!” or “I want my old Cartoon Network back!” These things have been sprouting up like weeds online; I’m currently on 2 message boards, and invariably, we’ll get a “ways to improve Nick” or “How would you improve Cartoon Network?” thread; it never ceases to amaze me how so many peoples’ idea of “improving” these networks entails booting off all of the current shows and bringing all of the 1990’s shows back. The final straw for me was this obviously fake news bulletin stating how Nickelodeon was basically dumping all of its’ “terrible” current shows like iCarly, Big Time Rush and T.U.F.F. Puppy and would be resurrecting their 90’s cartoon franchises like Doug, Rugrats and Hey, Arnold! with new episodes. What’s scary about this is that many people actually believed this to be true.

Sadly, this attitude is all too prevalent on the net nowadays. To all of the people yelling, “I want my old Cartoon Network back!” or “I want my old Nickelodeon back!”, I’d like to say just three little words:

Let. It. Go.

Seriously, get over it and get on with your lives. Yes, the 90’s were a great decade for both channels, but it’s Reality Check time: CN and Nick are never going to go back to being the way they were in the 1990’s. Never. You know why they aren’t? For one simple reason: it’s not the 1990’s anymore. The 90’s were 20 years ago. If you’re old enough to fondly remember the 90’s then you’re officially out of CN and Nick’s target demo and are therefore invisible to these channels. CN and Nick aim their programming at kids, not adult nostalgia buffs, but kids. And that means people who are kids now, not people who were kids 20 years ago. I get that you’re fans of the 90’s era shows (I enjoyed several of them myself), but don’t let your fanboyism blind you into believing that a schedule devoid of anything new and which endlessly loops all of the shows that you grew up loving would be better for the network. That’s not how it works. Nick and CN constantly re-running their 90’s shows and not making any new shows might please some fans, but from a business perspective it would be a terrible idea. TV is a business, and no bsuiness has ever gotten ahead by constantly looking back. Just because the majority of the 90’s cartoons were great doesn’t mean that nobody should ever try to make new ones: people would be out of work that way, and eventually, with nothing new coming down the pike, these networks would eventually start to lose money. And losing money is never good for business.

I think that instead of wishing for Cartoon Network and Nick to bring the old shows back, we should hope for these networks to produce new shows with the same level of creativity and commitment to quality as the shows of the 90’s.

The problem with the rallying cry of “I want my old (fill-in-the-blank network) back!” is that Nick and CN aren’t “our” networks anymore. They’re for the kids of today. While it would be great if their parent companies would show viewers our age some love with the occasional returns of the shows from our era onto their schedules for a little while as well as some decent DVD sets, we really should let today’s kids have these channels, since that’s what matters for the survival of these networks. The shows that Nick and CN run currently may not appeal to you or I, but that’s not a requirement; it only matters if today’s kids like them. CN and Nick are “their” channels now, we should let them have them and form their own fond memories.

I generally don’t take much stock in nostalgia because it’s circular; in 20 years time, in 2031, we’ll be subjected to piles of threads videos and rants from people who are complaining that they want their 2011 Nick and CN back.

Another thing that bugs me about the TV nostalgia complainers is how so many of them aren’t willing to put forth any effort to satisfy their needs. All too often they just sit on their saw-horses and kvetch about how their desires aren’t being met and wanting the networks they watch to do everything to accommodate their wishes. Last year on 1 of the forums I’m on, there was this guy who would come on there every week just to whine, complain, crab and moan about Boomerang: he would go on and on about how he didn’t like that Boomerang was now airing newer cartoons and what he called “Japanese fighting shows” like Swat Kats, Teen Titans, Samurai Jack and Pokemon (never mind that 3 out of those 4 shows are in fact American and the 4th isn’t a fighting show, but a collecting show) and how he wished that Boom would go back to showing Looney Tunes, Superfriends and Mr. Magoo (never mind that those shows are all property of Warner bros. and if Turner ever wanted to re-acquire them, they’d have to pay Warner a whopping royalty). Around this same time, there was another forum member who wouldn’t stop yammering about how he wanted to see Kekaishi moved from [adult swim] to the Cartoon Network schedule; apparently this kid had once watched something on [adult swim] when he was younger and was so freaked out by what he saw that he refused to watch [as] anymore, and he wouldn’t stop going on about how he wanted Turner to move Kekaishi to CN (Never mind that currently the only anime that CN runs are the toy-based ones like Pokemon, Bakugan and Beyblade).

To these couch potatoes, I ask this: instead of wishing, hoping and dreaming that these networks will change their ways for you, have you ever considered, I don’t know, DOING something to remedy your predicament? Crazy thought, I know, but you could actually DO something instead of just spiting what CN and Boom are doing now.

And when I say “do something about it” I don’t mean creating an account on a message board just to complain. That doesn’t work, because most of the time the people in charge of programming on these networks don’t hang out on public message boards. Nor do I mean signing some online petition or starting some “revival project” on Facebook. Online petitions are like miracle diets: they don’t work because they’re too easy to doctor, and a gathering of people on Facebook to talk about how great a show is and post really bad fan art isn’t a “revival project” because neither of those things are going to get your favorite shows back on the air.

If Da Boom or CN aren’t running the shows that you want them to or they’re not running them at a convenient time for you, DO something about it. If these shows aren’t airing at a convenient time for you, record them and watch them at a time that is convenient. If these shows are on DVD, buy the DVDs and watch them at your leisure. Find out if these shows are on a legal streaming video service and subscribe to that service. If a DVD distributor isn’t producing DVD sets of your favorite shows, then write to them and ask them to; let them know that you’d be willing to pay for your favorite shows on DVD. Heck, you could even study the art form you love, learn to write and draw, take a course in animation or art or creative writing so you can 1 day actually MAKE the sort of cartoons that you want to see. And I don’t want to hear stuff like “That’s too expensive” or “That takes too much time” or “It’s not the same as watching them on TV”. Stop making excuses. Think of getting to see these shows again as a drug or a bottle of booze: if you want your fix badly enough, you’ll find some way to get it. If you had your own kick-ass cartoon collection on DVD or streaming video, then it wouldn’t matter what these channels do. Ultimately, it comes down to ‘just how bad do you want it?’

It seems to me that being proactive and doing something is better than just sitting on your duff and hoping that 1 day one these networks will come around to your way of thinking, ’cause that may never happen.

Team Snycher Fails Again!

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Cartoon Network’s weekly ratings are in, and it looks as though CN’s Hall Of Game Awards from Friday February 25, 2011 scored a rating of 1.4.

Yes, that’s right. 1.4.

Now, I know that we shouldn’t derive pleasure from others’ misfortune, but I have to say, from a spectator’s standpoint, and also speaking as an animation lover, I have to say that this news is pretty darn funny. After months of promotion on Facebook and other sites, rounding up all those celebrities, pro athletes, First Lady Michelle Obama and everything else, the HoG was a major bomb-a-saurus. I really, really hope that this latest failure causes the folks in charge of CN to stand up and take notice.

Seriously, how many live action projects have to fail before Team Snycher gets the point? When people tune in to a channel called CARTOON NETWORK, they want to watch CARTOONS. They don’t want to see jocks, B movies, reality shows or any of that crap. Why, oh why haven’t these 2 been fired yet? Why does Turner keep allowing these guys to drag CN further and further down the toilet? Don’t you guys get it? The live action/sports crap isn’t working! People don’t want to see this kind of stuff on CARTOON Network! It would be something else is any of these live action shows were huge, but they aren’t. The majority of them have been failures, and CN is still firmly lodged in 3rd place behind Nick and Disney. If CN were smart, it would let Snyder and Sorcher go because they’re both about as useful to CN as a burst appendix, and they would also give up on this pointless quest to be like Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel and would just concentrate on being the best ANIMATION channel that they can be.

Keepin’ It Real…Real Bad!

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Back in 2009, the current programming heads of Cartoon Network, Stuart Snyder and Rob Sorcher (hereinafter referred to as “Team Snycher”–2 men who seem to be on a mission to make us all think that the ‘C’ in CN stands for something other than ‘Cartoon”) launched a new program block called CN Real, an entire block of non-animated programming.

You probably shouldn’t look directly at it.

CN Real’s lineup consisted of shows which had very little (if anything) to do with cartoons. They were mainly kid-friendly reality shows (The Othersiders, Survive This!), game/challenge shows (Destroy, Build, Destroy! and Jackass Junior…that is…Dude, What Would Happen?) and…whatever the hell Bobb’e Says was.

Not surprisingly, we the viewers bought none of this nonsense and the CN Real block stunk out loud, ratings-wise, with only 2 of the programs (DBD and Dude) still remaining on CN’s current lineup. Undaunted, Team Snycher is still determined to make live action a mainstay on CARTOON Network’s schedule. Now, what I’m about to say may shock and surprise some of you, especially considering who’s typing fingers this statement is coming from, but I’m going to say it anyway: CN Real wasn’t an inherently bad idea.

Yes, you heard me right. Yes, CN Real’s programs stunk out loud, but the overall idea of CN Real wasn’t entirely a bad one. Don’t get me wrong, I still believe that ideal percentage of live action programs on Cartoon Network should be zero, but since Team Snycher insists upon forcing live action down the viewers’ collective throats, the shows might as well be entertaining and at least tie in to the theme of the flippin’ channel. If we truly must have live action programming on CARTOON Network, the shows should at least be programming that’s based on an animated franchise or be “cartoony” in it’s approach and nature. Shows such as Filmation’s Shazam!, the oddball surreal Saturday morning shows created by Sid & Marty Kroft, kidcoms like Parker Lewis Can’t Lose (which was like a cartoon with live actors). These shows (or original shows made in the image and spirit of these shows) would be a pretty good fit for the CN Real block.

By now it’s common knowledge that CN’s 1st (and to date, only) attempt at a live action kidcom, Out of Jimmy’s Head did for CN what Roseanne Barr did for the National Anthem. That show bombed so hard that CN execs are still picking up the shrapnel 4 years later. Discussing everything that was wrong with OOJH and what could have been done to improve it is enough for a separate article onto itself, so we’ll save that discussion for another time. What truly stunk about the failure OOJH was that after the show crashed and burned, CN execs have since been avoiding non-animated comedy as though it has a rash. But truthfully, again, the idea behind OOJH wasn’t bad. OOJH didn’t fail because it was live action; it failed because it was ill-conceived and poorly written. A “living cartoon” type of kidcom such the aforementioned Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, could actually work and be a pretty good fit for CN, if handled properly.

Also, keep the shows that air on the CN Real block exclusive to that block. The non-animated shows should not be airing at all times of the day throughout the day on CN. Ideally, the CN Real block should air about 2 or at the most 3 times a week. Premieres with a couple of encores, so if one wants to see a live action series on Cartoon, they would have to tune in to CN Real.

This, at its’ core, is what bugs me about Team Snycher’s machinations: I realize that there’s always been some live-action on Cartoon Network: we had Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, Carrot Top’s AM Mayhem, High Noon Toons, Fridays and the like, but the difference is that the live action on those shows/blocks/bumps were intended to celebrate and promote the cartoons on the network, not kick them off to the side like the Snycher-imposed shows do. With shows like the ones on CN Real, as well as the now-defunct Tower Prep and Unnatural History, the upcoming Hall of Game Awards and several of the live-action movies, we’re getting more and more time on CN that is completely devoid of any animated content. Not a good thing on what’s supposed to be a channel for animation lovers. Even Snycher’s movie selections are flawed. If we really must have live action movies on The Flicks, they should be films based on animated properties such as Batman, Superman and Spider Man, films which combine live action such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Space Jam, The Phantom Tollbooth or The Mask (the original film, not that crappy sequel). Movies like Snow Day, School of Rock and Kicking and Screaming, which have zilch to do with animation, have no place on CARTOON Network.

This is why I wish that Snycher would just give up the dream and take their business elsewhere. If Snycher wants to have their own Nickelodeon or Disney Channel, Turner should just give them one. Let Snycher run their general kids’ entertainment channel any way that they want to and leave Cartoon Network to us fans of animation.

Thanks also to Silverstar for his contribution.

Adult Swim should embrace it’s inner classic

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Think about it: Adult Swim is an 8 hour program block which consists of 4 hours of programming that is shows once and then repeated, much of which consists of 2 half hours of King of the Hill, followed by 2 half hours of Family Guy, followed by 2 airings of Robot Chicken. Granted, RC is only 15 minutes long, so that’s really only 1 half hour, but still, this AS lineup has been around longer than Europe. Why can’t AS use some of that airtime to shill some of the classic cartoons which helped put Cartoon Network on the map in the 1st place? If Turner insists on giving us an additional hour of AS, why not devote that extra hour to something that we haven’t seen a hundred times before? How about some Late Night Looney Tunes or some MGM Uncensored? How some late night airings of Toon Heads, or O Canada? Heck, even Sunday Pants might be nice to break the monotony once in a while. But I guess that Williams Street is more interested in shoving Family Guy reruns down our collective throats. Goodness knows that one can never get enough FG. there are 1 or 2 episodes that I still haven’t completely memorized yet. Shoot, who needs variety anyway?

Point and Laugh!

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This morning, Damon and I came across this little thread by a member of the Toon Zone Forums. This little piece o’ flamebait was written by a member who has a serious mad-on for Boomerang and who was 47-years-old at the time of his initial post on the forum. This is the kind of post that gets closed immediately (and rightfully so!), which it did, but the statements made in this tidbit of haterade were so over-the-top ridiculous and silly that we just had to put in our 2 cents (or 4 cents, collectively). To avoid confusion, here’s the code: The original poster’s comments are typed in the default text color (in this case, black). Damon’s comments are in blue, while mine are in purple.

Nickelodeon sucks for one reason and one reason only.

We’re off to a great start so far. Hooray, one-sided rant threads!

Their morning block is too lengthy, the pre-school television hogwash that they show each morning is a load a crock if you ask me,

Nobody asked you. How is a 48-year-old adult with no children supposed to judge the merits of a block of programming designed for preschoolers? Of course, you’re entitled to watch Nick Jr., if that’s your choice, but it’s pretty ignorant for you to be so critical of the block, since you’re judging it solely on it’s entertainment value and you’re much too far outside of Nick Jr.’s target demographic for your opinion on it to be taken seriously. Either accept the block for what it is or don’t deal with it at all. Adults complaining about preschool shows is like women complaining about the shows on Spike, or gangsta rappers complaining about CMT.
I hate Blue’s Clues and i’m glad they got rid of it,
Wow. an adult doesn’t like a TV show that’s intended for kids aged 2 to 5. Shocker. I wasn’t a fan of Blues’s Clues either, but that’s because I’m a grown adult with no children and as such, I never watched Blue’s Clues often enough to have any strong emotions toward the show, positive or negative. Again, why is a grown-ass adult even watching Blues’ Clues to complain about it? You think that Blue’s Clues is immature and inane? No shit, Sherlock. It’s Blue’s Clues. The show wasn’t supposed to grow and mature, you were! You want more mature and intellectually stimulating programming? There’s everything else on TV that’s not a preschool block! 
and I hope that they get rid of Dora the Explorer also, ever since 2006, i’ve thought of her and boots as crack head alcoholics…

Comparing a 5-year-old girl and her pet monkey to crackheads and alcoholics. Very mature for a guy pushing 50. OK, comparing the behavior of, say, the Mysteries, Inc. gang on Scooby Doo to that of hopped-up dope fiends works because those fictional characters have actually displayed signs of stereotypical stoner behavior (constantly having the munchies, drifting around aimlessly with no sign of employment, spending much of their time in a van, etc.), but trying to do the same joke with Dora the Explorer doesn’t work at all because neither Dora nor Boots have ever exhibited any sort of behavior that’s comparable to that of a crack head or an alcoholic Why do you think of these characters as “crack head alcoholics”? Could it be because you have no frelling idea how crack heads and alcoholics typically act like? Doing so says far more about the person making the comment then it does about the comment itself. The irony being that anyone is who thinks that calling characters on shows tailored for little kids by mindless adult terms such as “crack heads” is a sign of maturity is the exact opposite of mature.

Get rid of Dora? Not gonna happen anytime soon. Dora the Explorer is one of Nick Jr.’s, nay, one of Nick’s biggest cash cows right now. Dora merchandise is everywhere. The little chica isn’t going anywhere as long as she and Boots continue to put butts into seats, so my advice to you is to simply change the channel when she comes on. Here’s how I handle the TV shows that I don’t like: I just pick up that little remote control device that came with my set and push those little buttons with the numbers on them. The stuff I don’t find entertaining I just don’t watch. It’s literally that simple. And was the whole “Dora and Boots are crackhead alcoholics” remark supposed to be clever or funny? ‘Cause it failed on both counts. That was neither accurate, smart nor humorous. I’m guessing you heard these terms used to describe something or someone else and thought that would be a really cool snap to make on a children’s cartoon character, but it only succeeded in making you look like a socially inept shut-in.

…and that bubble guppies and max and ruby stuff that nobody my age cares about anyway

As previously stated, nothing on Nick Jr. is intended to entertain people your age. Therefore, it doesn’t matter if you like them or not. If you truly didn’t care about these preschool targeted shows, you wouldn’t have created this dumb ass rant thread complaining about them on a public message board in the 1st place. Furthermore, in your rant, you even acknowledge that you’re too old to be watching these programs, let alone care about them, thus you defeated your own argument. Good job. Would  you like some salt to go with that foot?

 they already have NickJr. the channel so why even have a morning block on Nickelodeon if there is a channel dedicated to that jargain.

What’s “jargain”? That’s not a word. Did you mean to type ‘jargon’? But jargon is meaningless talk or writing, it’s not a block of TV shows. Anyway, I honestly don’t understand why some people think that just because Nickelodeon created a separate channel for Nick Jr., that this means that the Nick Jr. block would go away (or should go away). Most of the people complaining about this are either too young or immature to understand things from a business perspective. If you don’t get it, allow me to explain: Nick Jr. (the channel) is a digital exclusive extra channel, while Nick Jr. (the block) is basic cable. Most people are unable (or unwilling) to pay an additional fee on top of their regular cable/satellite fee for an extra digital package just to get the Nick Jr. channel. Also, Nick Jr. (the block) is doing too well in the ratings for Nick to just drop it. If you really don’t like the programming on Nick Jr., you could, I don’t know, watch something else, maybe. Nobody is forcing you watch Nick Jr. at all. Watch something else. Read a book, Go outside. Seriously. An adult over 40 shouldn’t need to be told this.

However, even though Disney Junior has a channel now, I like the fact that they still have a block on Disney channel
OK, so earlier, you were ripping apart Nickelodeon for having both a block and a separate channel for Nick Jr., and now you’re praising Disney for doing the exact same thing, even though Nick did it first. Can you say “hypocrite”, boys and girls?
the reason it is so good is cause they don’t run it too long, off by 12 or 1 which is better than Nick which runs their block from 8 to 2, Disney’s block has shows worth watching, Nick’s block runs too long with a sequence of shows nobody cares about.

“Nobody cares about Nick Jr.”? The block’s ratings say otherwise. If that were truly the case, then neither Cartoon Network or Disney Channel would have bothered launching (or attempting to launch in CN’s case) their own preschool blocks and later channels to counteract Nick Jr. By “nobody” you mean yourself. YOU don’t care about Nick Jr.’s shows, as well you shouldn’t, seeing as how you’re a grown-ass man with no kids. I honestly don’t know what’s sadder: you deluding yourself into thinking that you somehow represent Nick Jr.’s audience, or that you even want to put yourself in that position in the first place. And at what hour Nick chooses to end its’ preschool programming shouldn’t matter one whit to you, since you’re not being forced to sit through a second of it. Anybody who says, “So-and-so preschool block is bad because it goes on for too long” has obviously never had to stay home all day with a small child; if you actually had to watch some little ankle-biter during the day, you’d want all the kiddie blocks to go on for as long as possible.

8 A.M. to 2 P.M.? Those are the same hours that kids aged 7-12 are in school. Coincidence? What else is Nick supposed to air during those hours? Nickelodeon is channel for kids, and it wouldn’t make much sense running general Nick shows during the hours when Nick’s target audience isn’t at home to watch them. Nick Jr. has since become a boon for stay-at-home moms (and stay-at-home dads) to keep their little brats distracted while they go do housework or whatever. Why should Nick terminate it’s preschool block just because 1 grown-ass adult is too lazy to change the channel to something else or to get up off the couch and go do something else?

This whole argument of yours is stupid. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. You’re basically saying “I like this network’s little kid shows, but not this other networks’ little kid shows”. That makes no sense. Even if you were a teenager who just wanted all the little kid shows gone, that would also be a stupid argument for reasons already stated, but there would at least be some kind of rationale behind it, regardless of how profoundly stupid, immature and egotistical said argument would be. You can’t be against one preschool block and simultaneously be in favor of another, especially since you’re not judging these blocks on any kind of viable or rational level. Any shade of credibility you might have had (assuming there was any to begin with) got tossed right out the window the instant you indicated that you play favorites. You could just not watch the shows you don’t like, or better yet, instead of watching preschool shows all day, try and find a job so you can move out of your parents’ basement and get a life.

My final and most favorite of all Boomerang is even better than Nick, miss the days when it was a block, as for the channel, they’ve shown a lot of awesome cartoons from my past that i’ve enjoyed watching since 2003, they’ve done good lately, IMO they would get a lot of praise if they were able to find a way to bring back beloved classics that haven’t been shown in a long time(such as the Looney Tunes for example).

Um, why in the blue hell are you comparing Nick to Boomerang? The latter is a ad-free digital bonus tier rerun channel aimed primarily at nostalgic baby boomers and Generation Xers, while the former is a commercial basic cable premier kids’ channel. They’re not the same thing at all. That’s like comparing OWN to Fuel TV. And what do you mean “Looney Tunes haven’t been shown in a long time”? A sizable chunk of the LT shorts air on Cartoon Network 5 times a week, and DVDs, streaming videos and even illegal copies of the shorts on sites like YouTube and Dailymotion have been circulating both online and offline for years. You’d know that if you’d ever quit acting like Boomerang is the only channel you’re permitted to watch. I understand that Boomerang is your channel, dude, but seriously. Get off your lazy ass and leave your comfort zone once in a while to look around for other sources for these shows. You are not beholden to TV, be it Boomerang, Nick Jr., Disney Junior or otherwise. That you even care this much about this subject comes off as seriously sad, pathetic and downright fanboyish on your part, and that you’re THIS fired up about it just shows us all that despite being light years removed from the age bracket these shows are targeted towards, you’ve still got a boat-load of growing up to do.

For anybody that may not understand this topic, this is my comparison and personal opinions and views of cartoon blocks turned tv channels.
Nick Jr. and Disney Junior aren’t cartoon blocks; they’re preschool entertainment blocks. Neither are, nor have they ever been, exclusively cartoon blocks, nor has either ever been promoted as such. And again, this “comparison” makes zero sense because you’re not judging it from any kind of logical or rational viewpoint; you’re entire argument is “This block stinks because I, an adult over 40 years of age, doesn’t find a bunch of shows that are tailored for preschoolers to be entertaining!” Anyway, that’s probably something that you just should have specified at the beginning of your thread instead of the end of it.