The Old Cartoon Network Thread

[Drtooth]

And about WHTRJ?, I wasn't much that into the show as a kid either. I think the art style was a little more crude-looking compared to the other big shows at the time (kind of like the style of that one Dexter's Laboratory episode narrated by a 6-year-old boy). I wasn't a big fan of Robot's voice change later in the show either; while it did give him a more human-like character, I didn't find it as fitting as the original voice (the Apple machine, or whatever program it is).

It had that weird twisted Schoolhouse Rock, retro 70's look to it. It seemed to mesh better with what CN cartoons usually look like than ML&O. I'd say more but the only thing I know for sure about the show is the whole Appletalk bit.

 

[D'Snowth]

I think another thing that makes MLO feel like a "refugee from Nick" is the fact that Nika Frost voiced Mike: I honestly can't remember ever hearing her voice coming from a CN character or show, but I know she was used from time to time in various Nicktoons, such as Lola from CATDOG, or Olga Pataki and Lorenzo's mom from HEY ARNOLD! Ditto, though less pressing for Nancy Cartwright (Lu).

On a side note, Og and Goat are two more examples of what an impressive range of voices Dee Bradley Baker has.

 

[Drtooth]

If there's one thing that intrigues me, it's the pre-adult swim older audience late night programming. Now, all I know of are examples of what they put on before it was established. Even the criminally underrated, too hip for the room Saturday Morning Ed Grimley cartoon at some point. And then there was the analytical old cartoon package of "Toon Heads" which I actually got to see a couple of. And of course the not quite adult, not quite kiddy Space Ghost show meant for older audiences, but still managed to pop up on kid's merchandising. I think even the odd SGCTC albums were published under Kid Rhino, but I have to double check that.

And as we all know, SGCTC pretty much served as inspiration for the [as] block and the original tone of the odd shows within. I'm sure in the old old days of the network most of the late night line up was older cartoons from the 70's and 80's, but I can't confirm that. It's actually kind of strange because if you look at older CN material, you can pinpoint where it started to become a network based more off of modern shows, original programming, and the Doo hisself. I'm sure most of us know of the "Booboo Baba DeeDee" song (it was released on a CN soundtrack). It was an odd mix of current CN stars, Space Ghost characters, and a couple Looney Tunes characters singing about all the characters, new and old, on the network. In fact, that whole album was a mish mash of classic cartoon themes, current CN programming, a few more recent shows like Animaniacs and the only legally released instance of the Freakazoid theme, and a couple TV show packages.

 

[D'Snowth]

I had a thought of what CN could do with Season 2 of Dexter on DVD: even though I hate when studios do this, what if they released them in volumes, like Season 2 Volume 1, Season 2 Volume 2, and Season 2 Volume 3? Since Season 2 was 39 episodes, they can split the season evenly into three volumes of 13 episodes.

I mean it just seems odd with Dexter having been one of CN's biggest hits that it's not getting more love on DVD. Heck, Dexter had his own separate comic book for the longest time before they decided to merge him with Cartoon Cartoons.

 

[BertsNose]

It's actually kind of strange because if you look at older CN material, you can pinpoint where it started to become a network based more off of modern shows, original programming, and the Doo hisself. I'm sure most of us know of the "Booboo Baba DeeDee" song (it was released on a CN soundtrack). It was an odd mix of current CN stars, Space Ghost characters, and a couple Looney Tunes characters singing about all the characters, new and old, on the network. In fact, that whole album was a mish mash of classic cartoon themes, current CN programming, a few more recent shows like Animaniacs and the only legally released instance of the Freakazoid theme, and a couple TV show packages.

I definitely know "Boo Boo Baba Dee Dee." I think I saw the commercial for the first time when Cartoon Network did Dexter's President's Day Marathon. I still have that tape, although I don't know why I stupidly went over some of the beginning. It was an accident but there was most likely so much Cartoon Network gold on that tape.

I had a thought of what CN could do with Season 2 of Dexter on DVD: even though I hate when studios do this, what if they released them in volumes, like Season 2 Volume 1, Season 2 Volume 2, and Season 2 Volume 3? Since Season 2 was 39 episodes, they can split the season evenly into three volumes of 13 episodes.

I mean it just seems odd with Dexter having been one of CN's biggest hits that it's not getting more love on DVD. Heck, Dexter had his own separate comic book for the longest time before they decided to merge him with Cartoon Cartoons.

I hate when studios do that too but I don't think I own any sets that have done that. I was thinking the same thing about season two. That definitely would make the most sense even though I really hate those volume sets. I remember the Dexter comic books and might have read one or two of them. I probably should see about reading more of them. Didn't IDW publishing put out Dexter's Lab comic books? I don't know when they started doing that.

 

[Schfifty]

I've been thinking about something lately, and it's kind of fitting since it's still a little around Halloween....how come almost none of Cartoon Network's classic shows sell any official Halloween costumes? I mean, Nickelodeon's got SpongeBob (which has been airing since 1999), and there have been official SpongeBob costumes produced during the last several years, but when you look at Cartoon Network, hardly any of their classic Cartoon Cartoons shows sell any Halloween costumes.

Is it maybe because the Cartoon Cartoons shows aren't as profitable as bigger franchises like SpongeBob? Were they never considered "franchises" in the first place? I just find it interesting that you don't see big costume companies like Rubies produce official Courage the Cowardly Dog or even The Powerpuff Girls costumes, especially when the latter is getting rebooted next year. Although, I'm thinking if companies did produce Courage costumes at this present time, they probably wouldn't sell well since the show ended 13 years ago, despite the big cult following.

 

[D'Snowth]

Dilly once said that Courage never really got merchandised because the market is dominated by boys, and boys aren't going to want to buy a pink dog.

 

[D'Snowth]

I was going through an old tape of mine and it had the COW AND CHICKEN episode "Child Star" on it: now, even though I religiously watched C&C during its original run, "Child Star' was one of those episodes that didn't really leave any kind of lasting memory on me, because the night it first aired, our dish service acted up (anyone remember PrimeStar?), so I missed out on a majority of the episode when it first aired, though I taped a rerun of it later.

Anyshoe, there's something of a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment from this episode: during the auditions for Pretty Little Girl, a mother randomly snatches a wig off her son and screams, "John Thomas! What is the meaning of this?!" The son (still wearing a dress and panties) meekly responds, "Oh, Mother, I just wanted to be the Pretty Little Girl." The mother angrily replies, "I'll Pretty Little Girl you, John Thomas!" The thing that confuses me about this so much isn't really that a boy wanted to play a girl's role so much that he wore a wig, dress, and panties (after all, in Shakespeare's day, men played the women's roles anyway), it's that the mother made this discovery at the audition. Why were they there in the first place? Didn't the mother not even find it strange that she suddenly had a daughter she never had before who wanted to audition for a movie role? Or did the boy have a twin sister he pretended to be to convince his mother to let audition for the role?

 

[D'Snowth]

And lookin gthrough yet another old tape, I came across the Dexter episode with the bully who hated kids with funny accents, and today it comes across as kind of ahead of its time, considering it was an anti-bullying episode, however, back then, because the anti-bully campaign hadn't been adopted yet, it never even came across as an anti-bully episode because it isn't so in-your-face about it: the bully hated kids with funny accents for no real reason, so he had a vendetta against Dexter and the Irish and French friends he suddenly had. It even has an interesting resolution with the bully getting a taste of his own medicine when he accidentally smashes into the school statue: "MY FAAAAAAAAATHE! IT HUUURRRRRRRRTHS!!!" And the schmaltzy yet humorous ending with the bully now loving kids with funny accents and he, Dexter, and the others all literally fly into each other arms.

 

[Drtooth]

Speaking of Dexter, there's one episode I've always had a problem with. Trick or Tree House.

Now I'm usually try to avoid the tired old "were they high" joke because, well, that sort of thing inhibits creativity. But they were totally high on this one. It's just...weird. Weird all over. And not weird in a good way, either. Just... alienatingly weird. A suspicious sound turns out to be the father playing with chimes and a gong and saying "that was swell. Now it's time to take a rest" (or something to that extent). And the bit at the end with the "Look who's bigger than a breadbox." bit that makes no sense even in context. You wonder if they wrote this at 5 Am after a night of no sleep and rushed it out to deadline. It feels like they were tired, desperate, and thought everything was funny and made sense due to sleep deprivation and stress.