Cartoon Network (2009-2010, 2021-present)
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| Cartoon Network (2009-2010, 2021-present) | ||||||||||||
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 "Get back to restoring the current state of your channel back to what it was, or YOU'RE FIRED!!!" - Benson Dunwoody (probably)
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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 late 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.
- To get the elephant out of the room: Back in 2009-2010, they had a new block titled "CN Real" and it used to air live-action shows, on CARTOON Network, which is obviously a 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 are Out of Jimmy's Head, Dude, What Would Happen?, Survive This, The Othersiders, BrainRush and Bobb'e Says the only bad shows that aired during this era, but there are also animated shows from this era that range from average to bad—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, Mixels, Transformers: Robots in Disguise, Numb Chucks, and Supernoobs.
- In 2009, they did not release any new original animated programs, despite the network's name, and aired live-action programs instead. Many of the original animated programs and programming blocks (such as Toonami in 2008) were also cancelled prematurely in favor of CN Real and the live-action shows.
- Just like modern Nickelodeon but not as often, the channel sometimes tries so hard to be hip and cool at times, with stuff like rapping and Fortnite dances.
- 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 thrived on Disney XD.
- The network would refuse to air reruns of Steven Universe and Adventure Time, due to the heavy serialization of both shows that would made it difficult for those unfamiliar with them to follow.
- 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:
- The introduction of Cartoonito (a preschool block) for the US, which originally included the disdained Caillou (with its first two seasons being the worst offenders) and the already controversial, doomed-from-the-start Thomas reboot All Engines Go!.
- A return to live-action programming, which was thankfully scrapped later on.
- The abandonment of any shows with mature themes or serialized shows in favor of cheap, juvenile comedies with protagonists under 18, with more mature projects that were supposed to air on Cartoon Network like Unicorn: Warriors Eternal and Batman: Caped Crusader being moved to Adult Swim and HBO Max.
- 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. Not everyone can get the service due to either financial concerns, poor internet connections or lack of interest.
- Christina Miller, while not a terrible president and better than other bad presidents like Cyma Zarghami (the president of Nickelodeon from 2006-2018), wasn't exactly a good president either; she made some poor choices, such as turning down many pitched shows that received widespread acclaim, and greenlighting or acquiring bad/mediocre shows like Supernoobs, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, The Powerpuff Girls (2016), Ben 10 (2016), etc.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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!, Space Ghost Coast to Coast (although it moved to Adult Swim in 2001) and Ed, Edd n Eddy. 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 Digital eMation to Collideascope Digital Productions Inc. to Atomic Cartoons.
- The network logo was oversimplified in 2010; while still good, it 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.
- 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.
- As mentioned before the time slot is very repetive and the same shows keep taking up the schedule over and over again, such as Johnny Test, Teen Titans Go!, and The Amazing World of Gumball to a lesser extent.
- 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.
- Even worse, they advertised Teen Titans Go! as "Your new favorite show" in early 2015, which is outrageous as it is one of the most hated shows of all time.
- 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 and CDNK being removed from HBO Max and Amazon Prime in 2024, chances for Galactic KND are likely low.
- 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.
- They stopped promoting anime series and forced them into early morning Saturday slots from 2010 to 2017. They even gave Pokémon, the last remaining kid-oriented anime series, 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.
- Luckily, Pokémon still airs on Cartoon Network in Canada.
- Since 2021, they're stagnating with shows. The only shows currently on air are Craig of the Creek, The Amazing World of Gumball, 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 two (The Amazing World of Gumball and Craig of the Creek) have ended and Jessica's Big Little World is a Cartoonito show, leaving We Baby Bears the only Cartoon Network show that is still in production.
- 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.
- International feeds are still stuck with Dimensional for the moment. Chances of feeds apart from Southeast Asia and Australia rebranding to Redraw Your World and Canada and Latin America rebranding to Prism are really low unlike Nickelodeon which introduced their splat logo in the entire world in August 1st 2023. The UK is also stuck with Dimensional has been stuck with that brand since 2017, and they could have at least rebranded to Redraw Your World, just like what the Southeast Asian and Australian feeds did back in 2022, or the current Pastel/Prism era, just like what the Canadian (while also replacing Teletoon) and Latin American feeds did back in 2023.
- They have screwed over the Total Drama Island revival by putting it on hiatus for over a year, with no announcement of a second season as of this writing, and making little to no acknowledge of its existence (outside of several promos that aired before the show went on hiatus).
- Overall, along with modern Nickelodeon, the new era overall ruined the reputation of a once good and special network.
Redeeming Qualities
- The network used to be better back in 1992 to 2014.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Our childhood wouldn't be the same without CN.
- At least they are fighting back against Warner Bros. Discovery from removing all of their shows from HBO Max.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- At least they toned down a little of the constant airing of the most hated Teen Titans Go! show since 2018.
- Their current branding, Prism, is appealing to see.
- Despite their downfall, unlike modern Nickelodeon and modern PBS Kids, at least they are still capable of making good shows and is still better than both channels.
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