Cartoon Network (2009-2010, 2015-2017, 2021-present)

Cartoon Network (2009-2010, 2015-2017, 2021-present)
"Get back to restoring the current state of your channel back to what it was, or YOU'RE FIRED!!!" - Benson Dunwoody (probably)
Genre: Animated programming Running Time: 24 hours a day (formerly, from 1992 to 2001) 14 hours a day (6:00 AM to 8:00 PM, formerly starting with September 2, 2001, to September 13, 2021) 6 hours a day (2:00 PM to 8:00 PM, from September 13, 2021, to February 2022 for weekdays only.) 9 hours a day (as of February 2022; weekdays only) 14 hours (as of February 2022; weekends only) Country: United States Release Date: October 1, 1992 Created by: Ted Turner Distributed by: Warner Bros. Discovery

Cartoon Network is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The channel opened on October 1st, 1992. While the channel was very good, especially during the 90s, 2000s and the early 2010s, it went downhill in 2009 and 2010 with the infamous CN Real and milking Johnny Test (2005), and recovered again with the Check It era, and then going downhill again when they milked Teen Titans Go! to death starting from 2015, as well as making unnecessary superhero reboots such as Ben 10 and The Powerpuff Girls in 2016, Wacky Races in 2017 and Thundercats Roar! in 2020 and recovered again in 2018, only for later to go downhill yet again in 2021, due to dubious practices, as well as stagnation of original shows and they still haven't recovered from that downfall.

Why It's Far From the Best Place for Cartoons Nowadays

Note: Some of the problems from the 2013-2014 era will also be pointed out since despite still airing good shows in those eras, it is also the beginning of their second downfall, although it wasn't very noticeable.

1. To get the elephant out of the room: Back in 2009-2010, they had a new block titled "CN Real" which used to air live-action shows, In an animated based network, which is an obvious failed attempt at trying to be just like Disney and Nickelodeon. To quote the FoxTrot comic strip: "It'd be like a news network running stuff besides news!" Not only there are numbers of bad live-action shows it aired in that block such as: Out of Jimmy's Head, Dude, What Would Happen?, Survive This, The Othersiders, BrainRush and Bobb'e Says but there are also animated shows that are bad to average such as the modern seasons of Johnny Test (2005), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Teen Titans Go!, the 2016 reboot of The Powerpuff Girls, the first four seasons of Ben 10 (2016), the first two seasons of The Garfield Show, Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Numb Chucks, and Supernoobs.
2. In 2009 they did not release any new original animated programs that year despite the network's name and aired live-action programs instead, as well as the fact that many of the original animated programs and programming blocks (such as Toonami in 2008) were cancelled prematurely in favor of CN Real and the live-action shows.
3. Just like modern Nickelodeon but not as often, the channel sometimes tries so hard to be hip and cool at times, with stuff like Fortnite dances.
4. Many acquired series from other companies that the network had, left because they lost the rights, most notably the Pokémon anime adaptation from the Pokémon Company and Nintendo, which aired on Cartoon Network for ten years. In 2017, it was moved to Disney XD due to poor ratings; conversely, Pokémon is thriving on Disney XD.
5. The network would refuse to air reruns of Steven Universe and Adventure Time, due to the heavy serialization of both shows which would make it difficult for those unfamiliar with them to follow.
6. At the start of Tom Ascheim's tenure in 2020, some drastic, unwanted/unnecessary changes to the channel were announced. A few of them include:
   • Despite the introduction of Cartoonito (a preschool block) for the US, it had a few bad shows:
     • The disdained Caillou, with its first two seasons being the worst offenders.
     • The already controversial, doomed-from-the-start Thomas reboot All Engines Go!.
   • A return to live-action programming.
   • With a few exceptions like the upcoming Unicorn: Warriors Eternal and Batman: Caped Crusader, the abandonment of any shows with mature themes or serialized shows in favor of cheap, juvenile comedies with protagonists under 18.
7. By September 13, Cartoon Network would only show cartoons for 6 hours than its normal 14-hour timeslot on weekdays to save more time for Cartoonito in the morning hours for 8 and Adult Swim in midnight hours for 10, which is not much for older kids can get their favorites that much since there are more of them on HBO Max, but thankfully, CN now ran a little longer for the weekends. Speaking of HBO Max, this can be a greedy way to get WarnerMedia to switch viewers to HBO Max. As not everyone can get the service due to financial concerns, poor internet connections, or lack of interest.
8. Christina Miller, while not a terrible president and better than other bad presidents like Cyma Zarghami (The president of Nickelodeon from 2006-2018), she wasn’t exactly a good president either, as she made some poor choices, such as turning down many pitched shows that received widespread acclaim, while greenlighting and/or acquiring bad and/or mediocre shows like Supernoobs, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (TV Series) etc.
9. They never explained why their shows like Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart were put on massive hiatuses, nor did they indicate that a second season of MMHOPH was coming. It being removed from HBO Max and them removing any mention of it (indicating that it was quietly cancelled) does not help matters.
10. Since 2013, they started to make awful reboots/spin-offs of the classic series such as: Teen Titans Go! (The most infamous example, it's also one of the shows that would constantly air on TV starting from 2015-2017), The Powerpuff Girls (2016), Ben 10 (2016) (although that one at least got a nice season finale), and ThunderCats Roar.
11. Even before the real dark age (this being 2015), they milked Johnny Test (2005) by having it constantly airing every day and occupying everything else, this is something that later would happen to Teen Titans Go! in 2015-2017.
    • Johnny Test (2005) also suffered from seasonal rot as it is the longest-running CN show of all time, right next to Teen Titans Go! and Ed, Edd n Eddy (except that one is actually good), it doesn't help that the seasons 4-6 of Johnny Test are the worst since the animation has been downgraded from having a nice hand-drawn animation to awful looking flash because of switch from American animation to Canadian animation.
12. The network logo was oversimplified in 2010 while still good, looks nowhere near as good as the 90s and 2004 ones.
    • Their studio outro logos for the show specifically have also been horribly downgraded from having a nice hand-drawn animation, funny, slapstick, and goofy that has certain characters from certain shows doing something funny, or badass (for example Samurai Jack), from 2001 to outright lazy since 2013 where its just nothing but a scene from the actual show or a quote said by a character, to a lesser extent it is also a downgrade from their 2010-2014 logos.
13. Their promos and bumpers are also a huge downgrade from their 90s-2014 ones, it now feels very generic and dull, especially when compared to the CN City from 2004 and Check It 1.0 from 2010 eras.
14. As mentioned before, not only was Johnny Test constantly airing over other shows, but so was Teen Titans Go!, which occupied outright everything else.
15. Not only that but other good and lesser-known shows such as: OK KO: Let's Be Heroes were canceled too early in favor of this awful spin-off show, which is just insulting and a giant middle finger for the fans of these shows.
16. Even worse, they advertised Teen Titans Go! as "Your new favorite show" which is outrageous as it is one of the most hated shows of all time.
17. Similar to the modern Nickelodeon, they stopped caring about their classic shows from 2000s and 90s such as: Grim & Evil series (especially: Evil Con Carne, which had only two seasons), Chowder, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, Codename: Kids Next Door, etc.
    • They also turned down the offer of Mr. Warburton to make Galactic: Kids Next Door, a proposed spin-off to Codename: Kids Next Door, despite being the only revival fans were interested to see and their huge campaigns to get the show approved. With the failed reboots, chances for Galactic KND are likely low.
18. They didn't give Ben 10 (2016) another chance as the final season (this being Season 5), only had about 3 episodes, which is a shame since the show actually had the potential to be actually good.
19. They stopped airing anime made for kids in 2017 by giving Pokémon the boot from their scheduling in the US after Season 19/XY&Z (the end of the X&Y era of the show). Luckily, Pokémon made a new home in Disney XD in the States and was then moved to Netflix after Disney had lost the rights to the anime after the show's twenty-second season, Ultra Legends. After that, new episodes eventually became more accessible for release on Netflix and other streaming services instead of both TV and streaming.
    1. Pokémon still airs on Cartoon Network in Canada luckily
20. Since 2021, they're stagnating with shows. The only shows currently on air are Craig of the Creek, Teen Titans Go!, Jessica's Big Little World, We Baby Bears, Tiny Toons Looniversity and Ivandoe, and two of them aren't even made by Cartoon Network (Tiny Toons Looniversity and Teen Titans Go! are WB shows while Ivandoe is produced in Europe), while the other (Craig of the Creek) is going to end very soon and Jessica's Big Little World is a Cartoonito show, leaving We Baby Bears the only Cartoon Network show that is still in production.
21. They, alongside Warner Bros. Discovery and its parent company Warner Bros. also support NFTs which used to be hazardous for the environment, even then, it's still not safe due to them being prone to scams, however it was WBD fault due to CN originally opposed until got merged by them.
22. Overall, along with modern Nickelodeon, the new era overall ruined the reputation of a once good and special network, and there is little to no chance that it will redeem itself again or be the same as they were back then.
23. International feeds are still stuck with Dimensional for the moment. Chances of feeds apart from Canada rebranding to Prism are really low unlike Nickelodeon which introduced their splat logo in the entire world in August 1st 2023.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The network used to be better back in 1992 to 2014.
2. At least their downfall in 2009-2010 wasn't so severely bad as they still had great content such as The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends, The Powerpuff Girls Rule! (a made-for-TV movie special of The Powerpuff Girls (1998), Chowder, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008), etc.
   • In addition, some of their live-action shows were actually great such as Level-Up, Tower Prep, and Unnatural History.
3. Despite their biggest decline as of 2015, they still aired a handful of great shows such as: OK KO: Let's Be Heroes (which sadly got canceled fast in favor of Teen Titans Go!), Mighty Magiswords, The following seasons of Adventure Time, Regular Show, Steven Universe and Ben 10: Omniverse, Clarence (The best show that aired during the dark era), We Bare Bears and it's spin-off We Baby Bears, Jellystone, Unkitty, etc.
   • In addition at least they did marginally redeem themselves by having a good season finale of Ben 10 (2016), Sadly that season only lasted for three episodes.
4. The outro logos, while a huge downgrade from their old 2001 and 2010 studio outro logos, can sometimes be good and unique and almost assemble their iconic 2001 logos when it doesn't copy a scene from the show and it's not lazy such as Steven Universe, Over the Garden Wall, Mixels (except for the static variation), Samurai Jack (Season 5), Mighty Magiswords, We Bare Bears and it's spinoff We Baby Bears, The Powerpuff Girls (2016) and Clarence.
   • The logo design in general is really faithful to the 2001 variant.
   • In addition the 2010 logo was last used in 2014 when the special episode of The Powerpuff Girls (1998) "Dance Pantsed" aired.
5. Our childhood wouldn't be the same without CN.
6. At least they are fighting back against Warner Bros. Discovery from removing all of their shows from HBO Max.
7. Their adult night block Adult Swim, managed to successfully have a proper season finale of Samurai Jack (Season 5) in 2017, Not only that but it is also fully uncensored as it has more dark content which felt nice.
   • Speaking of which, their adult block still airs good shows and hasn't gone downhill for now.
8. They also added a 2 hour weekday programming block called "Checkered Past", featuring classic shows such as Dexter's Laboratory and Ed, Edd n Eddy.
9. By 2021, it finally launches the preschool block, Cartoonito, in the US.
   • Not only that but it also aired some good shows such as Pocoyo, Baby Looney Tunes and Care Bears.
10. At least they toned down a little of the constant airing of the most hated Teen Titans Go! show since 2018.
11. Despite their downfall, unlike modern Nickelodeon and modern PBS Kids, at least they are still capable of making good shows.
12. Their current branding, Prism, is appealing to see.

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