Mornings to early afternoons, it’s
Mid-afternoons to prime time, it’s
Nights through late nights, it’s
^^All in their heyday, of course!
Our Ideal Cable/Satellite Channel
Tag Cartoon Network
It’s the 1st of the Month…
Today is August 1st.
If you work in the animation industry, or are just a cartoon fan, this could be a day that will live in infamy.
Why? Because today is the day that the Cartoon Network studio building officially shuts down.
They will be relocating to a new location, the Second Century Project Building just a few miles away.
I have to admit, it is a quirky, cool design.
Prior to today, CN’s assorted staff, writers, animators, creators and talent came out to pay their final respects to the old CN Building.
Before I go any further, fam, I think I need to make sure we’re all up to speed here:
“Cartoon Network is not, repeat, NOT shutting down. The network is NOT going out of business! The remaining staff are just relocating to a new studio building. That’s it. Cartoon Network will continue to operate! Just turn on your TV; it’s still on! And no, this isn’t the fault of David Zaslav or the merger with Discovery! Warner Bros. broke ground on this new HQ back in 2020, long before the Discovery merger happened. This doesn’t excuse all of the crappy business decisions Zaslav has made for the studio, but he’s not responsible for this. And the Burbank building isn’t closing because people don’t like Teen Titans GO! Studios don’t close because people who are outside of a show’s target demographic don’t like a particular series; that would be a frivolous and childish way to run a business; anyone who thinks that this a legit reason for a studio to close is clearly an eight-year-old or has the mentality of one! That reason in particular doesn’t make sense because Teen Titans GO isn’t even produced by Cartoon Network Studios; it’s produced by WB Animation! And this is NOT just a publicity stunt to promote Learning with Pibby! Get a brain, morons! Y’all can stop writing obituaries for Cartoon Network because Cartoon Network isn’t dead! This Cartoon Network building is shutting down, but the channel isn’t! Got it? Good!”
OK, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, on to the big question: why is this happening? The plan is to assemble Cartoon Network Studios…
…under the same roof as WB Animation…
…with the long-term goal being to merge the two separate studios into one single studio, as opposed to them operating as separate entities.
How would/will this affect how Cartoon Network operates? Who knows? It’s hard to say. I hope they don’t feel the need to redo the channel’s segmentation too much. It’s fine the way it is:
You have Cartoonito for little kids…
…Cartoon Network for big kids and families…
…and [adult swim] for adults.
The foundation has already been laid out for these people, and somehow they’re still managing to screw it up!
Now, the big, BIG question is: by all appearances, the current regime at Warner Bros. Discovery seems (at the moment, anyway) to be favoring the Warner name and IPs over those of Cartoon Network; does this mean that Cartoon Network Studio is going to cease to exist? Or will it exist in name only, as in only for branding or nostalgic purposes? Or will it continue to be a separate division and focus on making original animated content?
I’m going to play Devil’s Advocate here: while I, like many of us here I suspect, have nothing but love and fondness for the CN Studios brand, I’d be willing to let it go if it meant a better quality of shows and content coming to Cartoon Network. I would hate to see the CNS branding disappear (as a typography geek I love the checkerboard logo), but I’d rather have one singular cool branding as opposed to two separate ones floating around. Keep in mind that in the early days of CN, the studio operated under the Hanna-Barbera Studios name before switching to Cartoon Network Studios.
And before anyone feels too bad about that, Cartoon Network’s European studio changed its’ name to Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe as a tribute to the late studio, so the name still exists in some form.
Who knows what the future holds? Maybe, just maybe, Cartoon Network could become like a Phoenix…
…with a new, bigger, better network and studio emerging from the ashes of the old one.
Maybe we could get a new, cooler name and branding.
And, dare I say, maybe we could get the reincarnation of a bigger budgeted made-for-cable Kids’WB!?
“I doubt it!”
-Yeah, probably not, but it’s still fun to think about.
Maybe Tom Aschiem Wasn’t So Bad…
Folks, I’ve been thinking about what’s been going on over at Warner Brothers Animation and Cartoon Network lately, and now I’m thinking…
I think that we owe Cartoon Network’s former president Tom Aschiem an apology.
For those who don’t remember, this was a brief overview of what Tom Ascheim wanted for Cartoon Network:
Sure, Mr. Ascheim’s vision for Cartoon Network may not have been everyone’s cup of tea. Yeah, he did want to bring some live action projects such Family Mash Up and Tweety Mysteries (the latter being a live action/animation hybrid series) to the network, but then Warner Bros. teams up with Discovery and then Mr. Aschiem was replaced by Michael Ouleween, seen below with his one true love.
Mr. Ouleween’s plans involve cutting Cartoonito down from 5 hours to a mere 90 minutes in length, having the Adult Swim block start earlier and earlier (AS recently started airing at 7 PM EST, and in the fall it will start at 6 PM), then shuffling some of CN’s new shows over to different blocks than where they were originally intended to air. My Adventures with Superman, an general ages animated series, is now airing under the Adult Swim banner, and the upcoming preschool series Jessica’s Big Little World, which was planned for Cartoonito, will be airing under the Cartoon Network banner here in the U.S.
Sure, maybe Tom Ascheim’s vision for Cartoon Network wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but you know what? I think that I prefer Tom Ascheim’s take on Cartoon Network. At least he was interested in program that appealed to EVERYONE. Meanwhile, Michael Ouleween’s vision seems to be “We’re only going to provide entertainment for Edge Lords, Stoners and action anime fans. Everyone else can go plug a hole. If you like comedy, go watch Nickelodeon.” Mr. Ouleween’s plan was/is to transform Cartoon Network into “an all ages channel”, which by his definition, “all ages” apparently means “list anyone over the age of 10 as adults and screw people who like self contained, comedic stories”.
This is why I believe that we all owe Tom Ascheim an apology. Now, everyone line up and tell him you’re sorry!
The Truth Revealed!
In an interview back when the show was still airing, Johnny Bravo creator Van Partible revealed that Johnny actually lays mad pipe, but only offscreen, as a show depicting his successes wouldn’t be funny.
“Ya always wondered, no ya know! HEH-HAH-HUH!”
Learning this only makes his getting this show on the air in the first place all that more miraculous.
Someone give this man a medal; he deserves it.
Unpopular Opinions/That’s Warner Brothers!: Live-Action on Cartoon Network
Happy New Year, everyone! Let’s start 2023 with a big ol’ hot take:
Yeah, yeah, I know. hear us out. We used to be like you. Years ago, whenever the subject of Cartoon Network daring to air live-action would come up, our usual reaction was….
There was a time when we regarded the very thought of CN airing live-action programming to be akin to painting a moustache on the Mona Lina, but over time we’ve either mellowed with age or have gotten even more insane, whatever you want to call it, but we’re not 100% opposed to the idea anymore.
“But guys…CARTOON Network!” I hear you say, and yes, I agree. Cartoon Network initially pledged to air “cartoons and nothing but cartoons, all day, every day, until the end of time”, I get it, but here’s the thing: animated shows are expensive and take time to produce; unless your parent company has a HUGE backlog of cartoons to fall back on, they’d need something to keep viewers occupied while the new animated shows are being made, and these days CN like most networks prefers to run their older cartoons online as opposed to on the main TV channel. The reason that Nickelodeon and Disney Channel rely so heavily on live-action kidcoms (aside from the obvious fact that they’re popular with kids) is because live-action shows are cheaper and take less time to produce: Disney Channel and Nick can whip out 2 or 3 episodes of Lizzie McGuire or Bunk’d or Henry Danger or Game Shakers in the time it takes to produce 1 episode of Phineas & Ferb or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So there’s a practical reason to employ some live-action programming, even on animation channel.
Now it’s usually at this point that someone will inevitably point to Cartoon Network’s notorious flop programming block CN Real, which we covered here a while back in Keepin’ It Real…Real Bad!. CN Real was a turkey, no one’s denying that, but as Jason (Goldstar) mentioned in that article, the reason why the CN Real block failed wasn’t because they dared to air live-action, it was because they were airing the wrong kind of live-action. What’s the first word in this channel’s name?
There ya go.
If Cartoon Network were to ever start incorporating live-action shows and movies into their schedules, certain requirements need to be met. Live-action on CN could work, provided it’s the right kind of live-action. Reality shows? No. Those don’t gel with cartoon lovers, least of all kids; generally speaking, the only non-scripted shows that kids tend to dig are game shows. If a CN show isn’t going to be a cartoon, then it should at least be “toon adjacent”. Some examples of acceptable live-action for CN would be:
This kind of live-action could work, provided that the animation to live-action ratio stays at something like 70:30 or 60:40 in favor of the cartoons. It may or may not every happen, but if Cartoon Network is ever to open itself up to the possibility of live-action again, they should never forget their channel’s, name, history, theme and roots. If they really ever have to air live-action, it should be animated live-action.
Twin Images 
You must be logged in to post a comment.