I can’t wish the same for the slightly older SyFy (former SciFi) network but I did have the great fortune of living in a market which subscribed to both at their launches. Dennis Miller, when he used to be funny, said (paraphrasing), “We have a SciFi network and now a cartoon network. I’m waiting for the end-of-civilization network to appear!”
Both channels are brilliant case studies in contrasting results. One has just been a painful monument to mediocrity (guess) and the other helped maintain the new golden age of animation we have today. I can’t completely blame SyFy for its problems. After a couple months on the air, my friends and me realized the channel had little to work with because we remembered how terrible most SciFi TV has historically been. For every Star Trek there’s a dozen Manimals with a couple Space:1999s sprinkled in. Personally, I wouldn’t shed a tear if Comcast finally pulled the plug on SyFy. Battlestar Galactica (2003) wasn’t a big enough apology for airing that John Edwards psychic bullshit. Now there’s wrestling, or as Rednecks say, wrasslin’ shown. The point? It’s important to keep the lights on but not when the content isn’t even remotely related to network’s genre. I doubt the core audience for wrasslin’ tunes in to SyFy.
So SyFy, please enter a suicide pact with G4 (formerly TechTV) and do the world a favor, make room for something worth a damn watching.
Back to the Cartoon Network!
CN initially appeared to be another cynical Ted Turner move. In the Eighties, he acquired a big chunk of MGM/UA’s library which included numerous cartoons, mostly Tom & Jerry shorts. Then he bought Hanna Barbera from the company those founders sold to in 1969. Voila! Crazy Ted now had a ton of content thanks to HB filling up Saturday mornings for 20 years. Looking back, it was a rather wise countermove to Nickelodeon’s 1991 initial foray with their original series: Doug, Rugrats and Ren & Stimpy. CN’s advantage? It was on 24 hours…instant babysitter!
Where (more like when) CN’s behavior departs from SyFy’s was after three years of being on the air. First was the weird Space Ghost Coast 2 Coast show. I caught it accidentally like thousands of others one Friday evening. My initial reaction was is this a prank a la Captain Midnight’s attacks on HBO? It was amusing, I just didn’t expect it from CN, the home of old HB crap. Second was the contests allowing viewers to vote what would be the network’s first original show. I forgot to watch and vote but I had no objection to the winner being Dexter’s Laboratory.
Additional hits followed in Dexter’s footsteps and I’m not going to list them, many of you reading know what I’m talking about. It seems CN also started a cartoon arms race against Nickelodeon plus Disney got involved. Today there’s CN with Boomerang (commercial free!), NickToons and Toon Disney with Nickelodeon, Noggin, Nick Jr., Disney Channel and Fox Sundays dominated by animation. I almost forgot Comedy Central’s several productions.
What puts CN head and shoulders above its competitors was the creation of [Adult Swim], now a separate network for ratings-gathering purposes. AS had a similar origin, heavy on repurposed/failed shows with a tad of originals. Today the new stuff easily outnumbers the reruns from Fox.
It hasn’t been completely perfect. CN/AS have become dependent upon live-action schlock to fill time. Nickelodeon and Disney I expect this from, they’re kid-based channels. CN has cartoon in its name. Level Up, Dude! What Would Happen? and Destroy! Build! Destroy! are terrible. AS gets more lee-way, their “live” stuff tends to have a cartoon-esque execution through the shows’ absurdity. I figure the live fare is cheaper to produce yet they have years of animated material to fill the hours. Reruns being played ad nauseum doesn’t seem to hurt Nick’s bottom line.
Congratulations Cartoon Network! May you continue for at least another 20 years and bring the world more excellent originals in the vein of The Powerpuff Girls; Ed, Edd & Eddy; Kids Next Door; Adventure Time; Justice League; and much to my wife’s ire Regular Show.