The Old Cartoon Network Thread

[D'Snowth]

We have a thread for old Nickelodeon, yet we don't have one for old Cartoon Network, so that needs to be remedied.

Anyway, I was thinking back on the old Cartoon Cartoons, and it seems to me that out of all the original Cartoon Cartoons, only two of them were true flops: MIKE, LU & OG and SHEEP IN THE BIG CITY - neither of them survived beyond a second season, as opposed to the standard four seasons that all the others got. Here's what's interesting, though: of the two, Sheep seemed to get better treatment by CN in general. Sheep was featured in a few of the earliest issues of the CARTOON CARTOONS comic books (I think he even got at least one CARTOON NETWORK STARRING issue), and of course a Subway premium. In spite of that though, MIKE, LU & OG seemed to have more of a genuine cult following than Sheep, even though it got treated more poorly: I think as far as merchandising is concerned, MLO may have been featured in a couple of coloring/activity books, and that's about it . . . but again, people seemed to keep asking for more of it; in the comic books, there's been a number of requests in the Letter Letters section to add MLO to the comics, and they keep responding, "If people want to see them, they need to write in a let us know!" I think Sheep's lack of popularity stemmed from kids not being able to appreciate the obviously Rocky and Bullwinkle-inspired format and humor, which was, admittedly, before their time anyway.

 

[Drtooth]

You know what I miss? Launch Cartoon Network. Now, I didn't have cable until recently, and I didn't know anyone else that had that network (remember, it used to be very hard to find because of regional cable venues), but if there's one thing I miss it's this.

Getting 90's kids to give a crap about the likes of Wally Gator and Magilla Gorilla via the odd network merchandising push. There were odd little kid's meal promotions with characters besides Yogi, Fred Flintstone, and Scooby. Then there was the Warner Bros store HB bean bags featuring obscure characters only true HB fans would bother with, like Squiddly Diddly. All before it turned into the 24/7 Scooby-Doo network for a while. It's surreal. We don't usually see retro merchandise of retro characters aimed to kids, unless the characters are that well known. When it comes to HB characters, you'll rarely see anything outside of Scooby-Doo, the Flintstones, or maybe Yogi Bear now (and pretty much anything outside of Scooby-Doo is rare in and of itself).

 

[Schfifty]

Did any of you folks ever use Cartoon Orbit back in the day? Man, that feature was so cool....memories of using C-O back in '01—'03 flooded my mind today after I saw this thread. I remember there was one mini-game or something where you could trade tokens with other users and earn points. I think that was from C-O's later years, as I remember seeing a token of General Skarr from Evil Con Carne.

Matter of fact, I just found this video of Cartoon Orbit's old flash-animated tutorial video! I've been looking for this forever!

BTW, thanks for creating this thread, D'Snowth.

 

[Drtooth]

UGH! I can't believe I wasted time on that thing. And the promotional ones would disappear within a week of you trying to find them. Man, I hated that thing. Retrospectively, of course.

 

[D'Snowth]

Ah yes, I remember Cartoon Orbit - that was pretty cool, at the time. IIRC, my cZONE was very Courage-centric, I always went with Nowhere properties and would always try to get as many Courage cTOONs as possible, lol.

But anyway, check this guy out; I recently found his YT channel, this is the guy who animated all of the bumpers and promos for CN's Powerhouse Era:
https://www.youtube.com/user/wahnish

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Ah yes, I remember Cartoon Orbit - that was pretty cool, at the time. IIRC, my cZONE was very Courage-centric, I always went with Nowhere properties and would always try to get as many Courage cTOONs as possible, lol.

But anyway, check this guy out; I recently found his YT channel, this is the guy who animated all of the bumpers and promos for CN's Powerhouse Era:
https://www.youtube.com/user/wahnish

Wow this guy has done some really outstanding work,he was like half my childhood!

 

[D'Snowth]

The Powerhouse era of CN was definitely the best: it gave CN such a unique personality all to its own that it lacked beforehand. Don't get me wrong, CN had some decent bumpers during its earlier years, like this one:

With the introduction of Cartoon Cartoons in 1997, CN was on the verge of finding its footing, but it really was the Powerhouse era the following year that gave it that footing, and really brough the whole network to life.

 

[Drtooth]

I love those old "look at how many old cartoons we have" bits with all the cartoons interacting. Obviously, I have a Roger Rabbit bias here, but I loved those old parody type bits that made fun of the old cartoons. One of my favorites was the diner full of cartoon sidekicks, and Super Friends Robin has this whole spiel of Porky Pig and how his best work was as a sidekick (which I heartily agree). They had those nice little conversations that cartoon viewers would have. That's a nice touch.

I especially loved it when they brought the newer characters in to interact with older ones. Why, who could forget this PPG gem?

While I certainly don't want to go into the debate over new cartoons vs. old cartoons on the network, there is one thing I have to say about the old CN. They put a LOT more effort into the commercials than they do today. Oh, sure, you may get something grand today like the Uncle Grandpa "used cars" style commercials or last year's Thanksgiving Adventure Time Weeklong premire avent that had fake food crafted to be references to food that appeared in the show (Finn Cakes, Prismo's Artisanal Pickles, etc,). That's once in a while. Now they just have loud and obnoxious hyperactive kids sending in iPhone videos of themselves that they autotune to be even more annoying.

But, being me, I found something truly special. Japanese CN commercials from around the 2005 era. It contains Powerhouses for shows that we didn't get on the network (and American ones at that), some of the same stuff you'd see on the US channel dubbed. But more importantly, special Japanese animated bumpers featuring the American characters done in (one of my favorite anime styles) the old Japanese Animators trying their darndest to look American, but still coming off very Japanese looking.

And here's another single video I've posted somewhere else before.

About 52 seconds in, Eustace has the most anime look on his face possible.

 

[Schfifty]

But anyway, check this guy out; I recently found his YT channel, this is the guy who animated all of the bumpers and promos for CN's Powerhouse Era:
https://www.youtube.com/user/wahnish

That is some seriously wicked stuff. I like how he worked on the Powerpuff Girls' interview segments in the PPG movie.

I actually discovered a few of those PH bumpers on another channel a while ago, which I think is that person's original channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/sacks10/videos?view=0&flow=grid&sort=da

I especially loved it when they brought the newer characters in to interact with older ones. Why, who could forget this PPG gem?

Oh, I remember that Powerpuff Girls and Super Friends bumper. I believe there were just two of those featuring the L.O.D....the Powerpuff Girls one, and another one where they were all arguing about superpowers, with Braniac ultimately asking for just a pair of pants. It's pretty funny.

I'm curious about which animation studios worked on those. I think Rough Draft in South Korea might've animated the Powerpuff Girls' actions over the old Justice League cartoons, since the latter doesn't seem like Rough Draft's style, and Cartoon Network added new dialogue. Or maybe the animation staff at Hanna-Barbera had a hand in producing? The studio closed in 2001 (I think), after the shorts were already airing on the network. I'm really curious.

 

[MuppetSpot]

Remember that the election in 2000, I vote for Scooby.