It's been a long while since I talked about animation in depth. It's surprising, as it is one of my first loves, but developments over the years (and it frightening that I can use the word "years" in descriptions of my life on the internet and of my time writing here, even if in the latter it is more of a description of the length of time between posts) lead me to less actively seek out information, history and community from the resources that exist here on the internet. Part of the reason is that I can avoid controversies that almost inevitably spin out from something written by John Kricfalusi.

For those who haven't heard of him, John K. is a Canadian-born animator best (and for most people, only) known for creating Ren and Stimpy. He is also something of a bomb-throwing animation iconoclast, in much the same way that Christopher Hitchens is on every subject he writes about. He has opinions about what he feels is wrong with American animation, (summarized partly that it is all the fault of the cabal of writers and executives who conspire to keep the lowly animator subservient)  and he will gladly tell you in ways deftly designed to inflame the passions of his acolytes and to drive those who disagree into apoplectic fits. Again, much like Hitchens.

A spot on parody of this, and other animation-web lunacy was written by Bob Mackey for Something Awful. Page two contains a barely indistinguishable from reality parody of John K.

That said, I was honestly surprised and delighted by a bit of animation he did for the first episode of Class of 3000 (I'm reading it was just character design), which I'm not much of a fan of. Of course, Class of 3000 is unabashedly a kids-only show, and it wasn't hoping to suck me in as a fan.

I mentioned Courage the Cowardly Dog several posts/months back. In particular, the episode, Remembrance of Courage Past which was -- if I'm not mistaken -- the last episode of the show (paired with Perfect) , both shown and planned as such. In Remembrance, we learn through flashback the tragic story of how Courage came to be an orphaned dog, to be found and saved by Muriel. I mention it now, as for the time being, Cartoon Network has provided a direct link to the video.

For a network that has actually began to show contempt for the medium that it was created to celebrate, Cartoon Network has actually paid some small tributes to Joseph Barbera on his passing. and two commercials remarking on his passing (an Adult Swim version and a Cartoon Network/Boomerang version of the tribute). That said, with some occasional exceptions, the Boomerang network can be seen as the broadcast museum to the works of Hanna-Barbera.

Largely, I grew up after the H-B heyday, but of the so-called animation renaissance spurred on by the critical and commercial success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which helped revive the Disney Feature Animation unit, and encouraged Steven Spielberg and Warner Bros. into producing animation for television. (Remember when Tiny Toon Adventures got a primetime special on CBS for its premiere?) Disney got in to the act by expanding their daytime offerings into a two-hour block, calling it The Disney Afternoon. With Fox entering the scene, you had a small but active environment for animation, which of course helped spur the creation of Cartoon Network.(Ironically, a 24-hour animation network would eventually kill off afternoon cartoons on network TV, and drain the remaining audience for SatAm cartoons.)

Now, it may be giving too much credit to Joe Barbera and Bill Hanna to say he kept animation alive from the 60s-80s through their Saturday morning works (and the Flintstones in primetime), but if nothing else, they kept a lot of their colleagues in work, and inspired lots of kids at home, through those cartoons, as well as through those Tom and Jerry shorts from the 1940s onward. J.B. also was one of the helpful bridges to the history of the medium. He will be greatly missed in the animation community. I'm glad to see he will be missed by Cartoon Network, too.

Click Here to see video: Pulling a Malade Out of the Hat from Liquid TV

One of the great shows to be showcased on Cartoon Network's "Cartoon Cartoon" campaign was John Dilworth's Courage the Cowardly Dog. Courage began life as a one-shot short, The Chicken from Outer Space, where a meek little dog who is tormented and mistreated rises to protect his caretaker from a alien chicken. It was popular enough to spawn a 52 episode series, noteable for its almost gothic atmosphere, which contrasts diametrically with the sunny affections that caretaker Muriel shows for Courage. This is pretty much all that allows Courage to persevere against not only all the outside threats that attack him and his caretakers, but to persevere against his mistreatment by Eustice, (presumably) Muriel's husband.

The video clip linked to predates "Courage" by 5 years. It was a segment on MTV's Liquid Television titled "Smart Talk with Raisin - Pulling a Malade out of a Hat". In it we have character which are precursors to those of Courage. Raisin, the little girl hosting the show has the same general sunny temperment that we would see in Muriel, while Malcolm is the misanthrope who would be reincarnated as Eustice. He insults the poor dog Hamilton much the same way Eustice does Courage.

The title of this post comes from the first of the two shorts that aired as the last episode of Courage. "Remembrance of Courage Past" was paired up with an episode titled "Perfect", where a strict schoolteacher continually punishes Courage for not being perfect. That character makes her appearence in this short, thus seemingly deliberately bookending the saga of Courage.

Unlike recent series, this shows appears to have ended at the time by creator Dilworth's wish. The show was not placed on a long hiatus, with the last episodes snuck in under cover of night; nor was it stealthly cancelled as several recent Cartoon Network productions were. This a shame to think what the checkboard network has become.

ALSO: Interview with John Dilworth in Animation World Network from 1999 as Courage first premiered as a series.

Adult Swim brings another show back to life.

Earlier: The Saved by the Bell prank.

I remember an old advertisement on Cartoon Network stating that they were the animation network that will only show cartoons 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, forever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever.... until the end of time. Obviously time ended back in November 2005 with the airing of "The Goonies".

Here's the news from Variety:

SHIFT ON AT CARTOON NET
Net taps Naito as veep longform development

Major changes are in store for Cartoon Network, which will step
outside its charter for the first time and into live-action
programming. Cabler has opened its doors to the unanimated world as
part of a larger development department expansion that includes
select live-action theatrical movie buys and the creation of a
longform unit.

Cartoon Network now has its own category. Chronicling its death is going to be a fulltime job.

Again, Adult Swim people, if anyone asks, tell them the "Saved by the Bell" gambit is your way of protesting this new initiative.

Seeing a teenaged Mario Lopez wearing a pink tank top, hawaiian shorts and pink novelty sunglasses singing "Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Bahran" caused me to believe I was suffering from an acid flashback. Having Dustin Diamond and Mark Paul Gosselaar, all in 80s (early 90s) glory had me shaking with nerves. I had never consumed LSD in my life.

I had left to shower believing that I had left the TV on Cartoon Network, so for a very brief moment, I thought I lost my mind. Then, I remembered this was the same network that has recently aired The Goonies, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Snow Day, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, and Small Soldiers, and has optioned to produce two shows which includes live action (not counting the Canadian produced Zixx), so it is certainly possible that the network has taken its train of stupid ideas to its logical conclusion and crashed it directly into TNBC. Then I saw the tag. "Saved by the Bell on Adult Swim starts April 17th." All in the varsity collegiate typeface.

Knowing this made me feel better.

Regular readers of this irregular journal may now be questioning the veracity of my claim of never having used LSD, as I have been regularly bashing Cartoon Network for airing things that even the most braindead fools would recognise as not being cartoons. As recently as 24 hours ago.

And if this was airing at any time on any other daypart of Cartoon Network, I would start organizing a massive protest in front of Turner headquarters in Atlanta, as well as considering simultanous protests at the Time Warner center in New York, and the Warner Bros. studio lot in Los Angeles. But in Adult Swim, it different. Not because they consider themselves a different network from Cartoon Network daytime. ("Saul of the Mole People" looks to commit the double sin of being live-action, and being Adult Swim filler crap like "Tom Goes to the Mayor" and "12 oz. Mouse".)

No, since Adult Swim first expanded to the 5-6:00am hour, they've had an hour of time to kill. As scheduled, they used to run 3 hours of programming, and then repeat it. The seventh hour was filler, which lately they filled with the lousiest junk they could find. Expanding the weeknight block to the 10:30-11:00pn half hour on the other end reduced the dead block to just 5:30-6:00am. And by lousy, I mean the worse of the worse. Currently, they're using that block to run an animated show called "Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos". Think of Saturday Night Live trying to produce a parody of the worse star driven animated program possible. Karate Kommandos is worse than that! The opening of the show actually mentions Chuck Norris' name ten times The opening has an ethnic kid and they actually refer to him by his catchphrase "Too Much". Chuck Norris' team actually includes a Samurai and a Sumo Wrestles/Cook. The villians include "The Claw" who was apparently out of work after the cancellation of Inspector Gadget and henchmen who probably got fired from Cobra in the G.I. Joe series. This is how the show opens!

Chuck Norris!
Chuck Norris, man of action!
Chuck Norris stars in Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos!
Chuck Norris, he's got nerves of steel and strength to match!

You actually get the feeling that the producers of the show was afraid the animation would be so bad, that people wouldn't recognise Chuck Norris without the repeated cues. The animation was pretty bad, even for 80s standards, though at least it seems they got Jack Kirby and Gil Kane to help make sure the people looked recognisable as people. The plots were nonsensical, and there was no continuity within the show itself. You couldn't parody this show -- it was that bad. Which is probably why it wound up on Adult Swim. This show, and the Mr. T cartoon, were the shows they used to prank people on April Fools Day (replacing the popular anime of the night).

Now with Adult Swim showing Saved by the Bell, in a normal title card, they state this is a *special two week run* starting April 17th (Actually, the 18th at midnight). Interestingly, this run overlaps with Cartoon Network's two week run (starting today) of showing movies in prime time. Yes, most of which are live action movies. Tonight they're showing "Roger Rabbit" once again, but tomorrow it's "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" and Wednesday it is a documentary about the current executives running Cartoon Network. So, right now, I'm happy to assume that the Adult Swim team is mocking the regular network team by showing a show neither animated or suited for adults. (Saved by the Bell wasn't suited for viewing by anyone, despite going on seemingly forever.) This was a show aired on TBS, and many people complained that CN was turning into the TBS dumping ground. (The movies that CN aired in November, January and February had aired earlier on TBS.) I think even on the ToonZone message board, someone suggested that "Saved by the Bell" would be airing on the future "Children's Network".

Of course, it is equally as likely that an Adult Swim executive got wasted and just started laughing like a lunatic at the old show.

Updated at 4:48am -- Well, another bumper stated SBTB will air at midnight (I stated 5:30am originally), so I guess we'll still get to enjoy the suckatude of Chuck Norris at 5:30am, as well as seeing SBTB air twice each night.

Well, after watching this show on Cartoon Network, I can only conclude that the network hates its viewers. It is a horrible adaption of whatever they intended to adapt to American television. Absolutely nothing is done well by this show. Not the writing. Not the dialog (This joke rings too true for this series: "You make a lot of jokes, but you're not the least bit funny."). Not the puppetry. (It would probably be too much to hope for the quality of puppetry from -- let's say "Beany and Cecil", but it's not even good enough to be "it's bad, but we can have fun with this" a la Trey Parker and Matt Stone's "Team America: World Police".) I suspect they try to use the epileptic camera work to hide the fact that the puppetry work is bad, but it just makes the whole thing look worse.

I look at this show, and ask why? I'd actually rather see "Loonatics Unleashed", "Danny Phantom", "The Batman" or a live action Chevy Chase movie appear here than see this mess of a show on Cartoon Network.

Watching Cartoon Network is beginning to feel like looking at somebody about to play Russian Roulette with a AK-47.

I find it remarkable that the funny book company that foisted the concept of parallel universes into American homes oh so long ago, so they could have and keep two Justice Society teams going on has allowed their acclaimed flagship show Justice League to be mortally wounded, because some folks couldn't bear to live in a world where two different animated manifestations of The Joker could possibly exist. Two Jokers? That could cause a major metaphysical crisis to befall this universe.

Well, provided that Cartoon Network doesn't engage in its favorite pastime, Schedule Roulette, they will run the each of the last eight episodes at 10:30pm Saturday nights. They're actually advertising this heavily, at least on Adult Swim, thus lending credence that the DC Universe is frightening to children. Well, there will always be the DVDs.

Actually, this is sad as the JLU animated series was probably the most accessible entrance to the DC Comics universe and cast of characters. Perhaps this will change as we immerge from the wreckage of Infinite Crisis to what is speculated to be a more hopeful world upon its aftermath.

I hope Time Warner can see how popular this decision is among its viewers. The only other recent postings by Paul Dini with as much comment activity is the one with Zatanna his lovely wife, Misty (also with some news about some comic or another he's writing).

Oh yeah, BTW, Paul Dini has a journal.

From Cartoon Brew:

Cartoon Network proper will continue its decline, if not in ratings then in quality of programming. Once a powerhouse of 'creator-driven' animation, it has increasingly lost its focus and sense of direction. There is so much confusion that the network has taken to screening live-action programming in recent months. The network's vice president of development, Sam Register, recently stepped down from his post, highlighting the internal turmoil and lack of clear consistent direction for the network.

Tonight, Cartoon Network, breaking from recent trends, is going to air an animated movie. "Spirited Away" is an excellent film by Hayao Miyazaki. It's practically a showcase all that is good and artistic by animation, plus it was a commercial success here in America as it was in Japan. Now, last November they started airing live action films, which -- in case any executives at Cartoon Network are reading this page, i must remind you -- are not cartoons. On the Martin Luther King holiday, this network hit its newest low with the airing of the Nickelodeon live-action pap "Snow Day".

OK, network. You're at a crossroads. You've long squandered your credibility as the place for creator driven cartoons. (Look at your treatment of Samurai Jack, Megas XLR, Duck Dodgers and Justice League -- the last of which will return next Saturday, but unfortunately for its last parade before cancellation.) Nickelodeon, with Frederator has taken that spirit and ran with it with the Nicktoons Film Festival. In singlemindedly trying to focus on the 6-14 demographics, you alienated not only many of your older, loyal viewers, while not gaining much with the children you are pandering to. Children don't like to be condensendingly pandered to.

But you're still Cartoon Network, backed by the might of the Time Warner and available to most cable homes. You've driven down the wrong path, and wandered around aimlessly, but you managed to return to the fork in the road. The signs are marked cryptically, but you have a decision to make. One mimicks the path that has lead to ruin for pair of networks; one owned by your parent, the other owned formerly by your competition's parent. This is a path also taken by another sister station -- older, more established, more important --that is slowly leading it to ruin. The other road, well it is rockier, less paved, and well less traveled. And, well, you may not make it to its end. But travelling the road will earn you the respect of your fans. Few networks could ever hope for that.

As much grief that I have given Cartoon Network over its programming choices and practices, I do have to give them credit for being brave and airing Aaron McGruder's "The Boondocks". Tonight's episode imagines Martin Luther King returning to the world only to find himself completely estranged from the world. As he finds that America has largely turned away from the values he championed -- and even worse, he finds that black America has stopped trying to reach for the dream, but rather have decided to wallow in gross decadence. If I had to guess, this is the episode that most personally captures how McGruder feels about the world -- and he'd give that final speech as spoken by King to his peers if he felt that they'd listen to him. However, his plan B -- to put it in a cartoon -- is as good an backup as any.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr Day.

With the many inscrutable things Cartoon Network has done this past year -- such as cancelling one of its consistently highest rated shows, silently premiering then pulling one of its other critically acclaimed show and letting it disappear from public consciousness for months, and of course airing live-action movies and series -- sometimes the network does something to give me a small measure of hope. They're making a new Tom and Jerry short-subject for the network.

Then Cartoon Network reminds me of why I'm disappointed with them again -- "Snow Day" will be the live-action movie to air Monday.

First, to answer my rhetorical question, yes, there was a Level One. And if the show sounds like it something to be played on a XBox or a PlayStation, it's more than coincidence. They opted to use a video game logic engine to animate portions of the series. They play it like a video game, save it and edit the results of that into the show.

Yeah they do, though the frequency that I'm seeing the human faces of Robin Williams, Rick Moranis and Denis Leary on a network that still has "Cartoon" in its logo is troubling. Someone needs to go down to Atlanta to reaquaint the execs to what that word means.

Still, starting back on Monday of this week they've been airing previews of shows that they are going to officially debut next year. Tonight's preview was of "Robot Boy", which seems to be artistically similar to Nick's "My Life as a Teenage Robot", not to mention sharing the Pinocchio plot device of a robot trying to fit in with real human boys that was the crutch of "Teenage Robot" as well as to the short-lived "Whatever Happened to Robot Jones". Actually, to judge it artistically, I'd suggest it follows in the style set by Powerpuff Girls and a bit of the old Astroboy in the designs, and it isn't as clean as the 30s-40s homages as "Teenage Robot". But it seems to be more of an action show than "Teenage Robot". ("Robot Jones" was more of love letter to the 1980s, which probably doomed it to cancellation since I doubt most viewers of the network were even alive in the 80s. Heck, I don't remember much of the 80s.) "Teenage Robot" is more focused on Jenny attempts to fit in with the human high-schoolers, a theme that resonates with the demographic Nick attracts. "Robot Boy", at least from the first ep, focuses more on the battling of other robots, as there even seems to be a major villian who I assume will appear every week. Though this show feels slower, though it may be just the crew trying to get a feel for the show.


Still, it is interesting how certain story themes will wind up being used by several different people in their shows. Look at the similarities to "Juniper Lee", "Danny Phantom", and "Jake Long". (We all know how I feel about Danny, but I admit the show is nowhere near as tooth-grinding as Jake Long frequently is.)

Now tomorrow, Cartoon Network will yet again treat its mission statement as tissue paper as the network will go the Toon Disney route and preview "Power Rangers"... I mean "Zixx: Level Two" (level 2 already?)!

I'll be disappointed if I discover that they cancelled Teen Titans and possibly Justice League for that.