Tuesday, April 21, 2009

These times they are a’ changin.’ The Fall of Cartoon Network; More Network than Cartoon

The Fall of Cartoon Network; More Network than Cartoon.


A large entry in the “we saw this coming” category for 2009, Cartoon Network has finally let their mission statement die a horrible death after languishing away for a year or two on Terri Schiavo life support. Cartoon Network has decided that animation is not really where it’s at, and has announced plans to decimate both their regular programming and Adult Swim lineup. Now, while Adult Swim had long since been killed by the likes of Squidbillies, Giant Baby, Assey McGee, Tom goes to see the poop, Saul of the Mole Men, Super Jail, and all that crap (I never thought a show on Adult Swim would be so bad that I’d long for the return of Stroker and Hoop), this represents a real sift in the overall direction of the channel, much more so than a bit of live action here and there. The only channel out there right now that could provide animated content for audiences over 5 years old (save for Nick’s Avatar, but that’s over and done with) is now on it’s way to being “not so much.”
Along with Sci Fi jumping on the dumbing-down "marketing genius" bandwagon, CN is going to get the same type of ratings they had before (since it has more to do with who’s free at what time of day rather than the actual content that will effect viewership) but may end up spending less money here and there. What is truly detrimental about this development, is now there will be a much more limited venue for commercial animation as a viable entertainment product. So unless the actual animation pulls in some noticeably higher numbers than the live action crap that is on every other channel, we might see a format change coming up for the now-in-limbo “Cartoon” Network.
The departure of CN chief Jim Samples, due to the fact that people in Boston managed to show the world how retarded they are back in January of 2007, has left the door at CN wide open to business school zombies who can’t think for themselves, and we are now going to suffer the results. CN will now be run according to some dimwit business formula taught in college business courses by fast talking advertising execs that needed extra income so they connived some university board into letting them teach courses. It may be for the best, if animation continues tosuffer due to the economic situation, live action might help keep the actual channel alive - but it will never be the same. Although it is possible that CN will rebound and go back to what worked, I am not optimistic.
Tokyo Omake:
More helicopter flyovers caught on camera from my apartment balcony.
Can anyone identify what kind of craft these are?


Other Updates,
GIANT GUNDAM:
Anime News Network has reported that there will be a life-size 1/1 scale Gundam constructed and put on display in the Odaiba area of Tokyo, in Shiokaze park in an article here. The article however doesn't mention specifics, so here are some of the details.

According to Green Tokyo, the Gundam will be unveiled on July 11th and stay up through August 31, and according to progress reports the skeleton legs are up as of now.

The Gundam sculpture will displayed in Odaiba's Shiokaze Park (潮風公園) just north of the Tokyo Maritime Science Museum. It is accessable via the Yurikamome monorail line (NOT to be confused with the Tokyo Monorail) at either the Daiba station on the north end or Fune-no-kagukukan station at the south end of the park.

This amazing exhibition is something that I and hopefully some of the rest of team あ!PoN will be covering for those of you who can't make it over to Tokyo.



6 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm not surprised to see the news about CN. They've slowly been going in that direction for a while now.

The helo on the left looks like a variant of the S-60. The one on the right could be a version of the Chinook.

Unknown said...

As for the Gundam, they've already started building it.

Brack said...

The Office only runs to 12 episode + two specials so I don't think purchasing it will decimate any schedule unless they repeat it ad nauseum.

Also, Superjail is the best thing Adult Swim have ever shown, and possibly the best US TV animation in the last 5 years. One of the few shows that felt like it was the product of animators rather than writers, and a technical and creative tour de force given they created that much movement in Flash and on an Adult Swim budget.

Anonymous said...

Superjail is a cartoon. And I was astonished at how good it was; it felt like a return to the "crazy old school crazy MTV cartoons of the late 1980's". Really, I hailed Superjail! as a return to glory.

While I don't *like* Squibillies, its basically a bad attempt to re-create ATHF and suffered from HORRIBLE production delays (airing the unfinished, *storyboard* for the pilot episode? that drove me off) but its still a "cartoon".

Superdeformed said...

I'm glad that every cable channel is pretty much Spike TV now.

... and they wonder why most people are pirating?

Anonymous said...

Military Chinook and Black Hawk Are the helicopters.