Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Adored By The Network / Western Animation

Go To

Everyone has their favorite cartoons, including the stations...

  • Hello, South Park! Not only is it Comedy Central's flagship series, but for a time, it was also right beside Family Guy on TBS for marathon/back to back showings (four episodes in a row!) weekday and weeknight. The channel sets aside nearly every Wednesday to run South Park for almost the entire day.
    • CC later dialed back this practice in favor of a similar obsession with Futurama once they picked it up, and a more recent obsession with The Cleveland Show. A standard weekday on the network will consist of large blocks of these three shows, with Futurama in the morning, Cleveland Show in the afternoon, and South Park in the evening (though sometimes taking the afternoon block as well).
  • To meet CanCon requirements, and because its one of the network's longest-running shows, Teletoon can and will air THREE episodes of Johnny Test in a row every single weekday. Even after it was finally cancelled in 2014, the network continues to air regularly it in reruns. Curiously, they mainly just rerun the second and third seasons, as Teletoon doesn't own the rights to the American-produced first season, and apparently doesn't care much for the seasons afterwards.
    • Totally Spies! is another of Teletoon's longest-running series, and like Johnny Test it still frequently airs in reruns to this day, and was one of the network's flagship series back when it was still producing new episodes. However, Teletoon doesn't air the first, second, and sixth seasons, which were produced outside of Canada.
  • Disney XD in Brazil used to love airing The Fairly OddParents!, showing it four times per day when compared to a double airing on weekdays on the local Nickelodeon. The show stopped airing on May 4, 2018, with That Old Black Magic being the final episode aired.
    • In a similar vein, BBC Two used to treat The Ren & Stimpy Show with superiority, airing it weekdays at 6:50pm completely uncut, while their feed of Nicktoons only aired it on Saturdays at 10pm.
  • Not even Italian networks are safe. Rai Gulp, launched after the three main networks of the state broadcaster Rai dropped animation almost entirelynote  and therefore dedicating its own entire schedule to fill in the blank, is partially guilty of this. Said schedule is made of shows that air at multiple times within the same day, but get removed from rotation after a whilenote . Some of these shows got properly screwednote , while others (some of which actually produced by Rai, as a pre-airing Vanity Plate for them reads "RAI FICTION CARTOONS") are lucky enough to not only get re-airings before their temporary drop from the schedule, but get picked up again more often. However, the shining example is Matt's Monsters, which has been removed from rotation only after a long while.
    • Starting from July 2012 Rai Gulp was at it again, this time around with South American "Kid Operas" (soap operas for kids) in order to cash in on the Patito Feo bandwagon. The problem being, given that Rai Gulp hosted already an abundance of live action shows to begin with, now we have the jarring situation of animated shows outnumbered by live action shows by a wide margin, in a situation not too dissimilar from Cartoon Network's "CN Real" block. The difference here is that this phenomenon isn't bombing as badly as the block did.
    • As of 2017, the live action shows are confined to two blocks (2 PM to 4 PM and the whole evening), meaning that now the channel airs cartoons 14 hours a day (mostly Italian/European productions, with Ultimate Spider-Man (2012), Avengers Assemble, Sailor Moon Crystal and Inazuma Eleven being the only exceptions). Also, the channel bumpers were recently redesigned, meaning that the night programming is no more introduced by the bumper showcasing all the cartoons they aired when the channel first opened.
  • Other Italian channels have their adorations too:
    • Boing, AKA the free Cartoon Network channel, airs The Amazing World of Gumball for most of the day. The only time when it doesn't happen is on weekends, when they air full-day marathons of a different cartoon each week... except when it's Gumball's turn, of course.
    • K2, a channel that mostly airs Canadian and French productions, as of late 2019 has a schedule made almost entirely of ALVINNN!!! and the Chipmunks and Total DramaRama. At least Nicktoons, which acquired ALVINNN reruns, balances out their schedule with a variety of programming and a few time spots for this show.
  • The now defunct Discovery Kids network, for its last few years, essentially was Kenny the Shark and Tutenstein (both of which made the jump to successor network The Hub) with the occasional Time Warp Trio, Bindi The Jungle Girl, Prehistoric Planet and Dinosapien (which also was kept on The Hub) thrown in.
  • The Discovery Kids network replacement, The Hub, while having a more balanced schedule than certain other networks, was quite fond of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and Transformers: Prime. Considering the immense popularity of these shows, it wasn't such a bad idea.
    • On the subject of shows without a huge fanbase, most of the network's time not spent on ponies or Transformers was instead spent on Game Shows.
    • The Hub also adored Animaniacs, much more than Fox Kids, Kids' WB! and Cartoon Network ever did (Nickelodeon never really treated the show very well), airing promos for the show during every program on the network (even during Animaniacs itself), and in addition to the Christmas marathon, they ran a two-hour one for Martin Luther King Day (along with The Super Hero Squad Show) and a two and a half-hour one for Super Bowl weekend. At one point, the show aired for three hours on weekdays. This is all despite the fact that the show was 20 years old at that point.
    • And when The Hub itself was replaced by Discovery Family, the ponies remained, as beloved by the new regime as the old. On the other hand, Animaniacs was unceremoniously removed.
    • Aside from a few other Hasbro series in the morning note , Friendship is Magic became all Discovery Family really aired during the day. During the night, all Discovery Family airs are low rated Discovery Channel originals with little to no promotion, though recently Cake Boss has been taking most of the attention.
    • From 2020 to 2022, Super Monsters often aired up to three to six half hour blocks on Saturdays and Sundays. Sometimes, it aired more than Friendship is Magic does (especially considering the latter show has already ended)! But now, that show only airs on weekdays.
  • Much like its predecessor, Universal Kids is quite fond of this trope.
  • qubo:
    • Willa's Wild Life and The Mysteries of Alfred Hedgehog were adored by the digital channel in 2013.
    • In 2014 it was then Sally Bollywood and Famous 5: On the Case. To wit; both shows air three times a day Monday through Friday (at 7/7:30 a.m., 6/6:30 p.m., and 9:30 p.m./9.00 p.m. respectively)note , and on Saturday & Sunday at 6/6:30 Oh, and unlike before, where they'd air one episode then rerun it at a later time, it's three different episodes each day. This isn't so bad for Sally, who has 52 episodes, but Famous Five only has half of that, meaning they blow through the whole series in about a week and a half.
    • On October 2014, it was Raggs. Considering that the show has nearly 100 episodes, it's not bad.
    • The block on NBC loved any show produced by Big Idea back when they first started. It helped that VeggieTales and 3-2-1 Penguins! were their highest-rated shows at the time. They also had a habit of playing the VeggieTales episode "The Asparagus Of La Mancha" every month when a new episode wasn't scheduled. This lasted from the fall of 2007 until the show left the block. Even ads for these shows got frequent airplay: one Public Service Announcement based off 3-2-1 Penguins still aired long after qubo stopped playing the show, last showing up on the penultimate week of the NBC block.
    • From 2020 until the channel's closure in early 2021, Qubo loved Inspector Gadget. It aired from 8:00PM/1:00AM each Friday night and Saturday night. The promo for it also aired most, if not all commercial breaks! It even got a 5 hour marathon for Father’s Day 2020! Something no other Qubo Show had ever gotten.
  • The whole time Cookie Jar TV was on CBS, only one show stayed on its lineup for a long time, Busytown Mysteries. They aired it for one hour every Saturday. In fact, when the block in fall 2009, they played the show every hour in the whole three hour 9am-12pm Saturday morning lineup, which means that it was shown thrice. Eventually it did slow down completely.
  • ABC loved Recess, to the point where it was usually shown twice every week. Not that anyone minded; the show was very popular. Plus, Toon Disney would frequently show marathons of the show (Disney Channel would just show it twice a day) until 2007, when the show was moved up to 9:30 AM every weekday...when the target audience was in school. It remained like this even after the switch to Disney XD in 2009, all the way until it was removed in 2010 (although it was briefly revived in 2011).
  • CBS adored Garfield and Friends back at the height of its popularity. After the first season, they showed it for an hour until it was finally cancelled in 1995. Actually, they were planning future seasons, but CBS wanted to pay less and less money. It managed to run a year longer than Muppet Babies, the previously adored show.
    • When Teletoon Retro got the rights to Garfield and Friends, they showed it 3 times every Monday through Thursday. As of 2014, the show airs 6 times a day on weekdays.
      • Teletoon even held a marathon of the show on September 1, 2012, where they showed six episodes back to back from 3:00PM to 6:00PM.
    • Junior aired the show twice a day ever since it launched until the summer of 2013, when Maya the Bee took its timeslot.
  • The Swedish version of Jetix and Totally Spies!. They literally had a programming block called "Totally Jetix": Only Totally Spies, all day, every day.
  • Brazilian network RecordTV has been infamous lately for repeat broadcasts of Woody Woodpecker, mostly at night preceding the news. And while not an animated program, Everybody Hates Chris is on the same condition.
  • Polish station MiniMini started broadcasting My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episodes of both Season 1 and 2 everyday, which amounts to 4 episodes per day from December 2012 to March 2013 (decreased to 3 episodes per day from mid-March 2013 to June 2013 and again to 2 episodes per day from June 2013).
  • AFN Family:
  • This is common in Spanish kids channels. As they have to broadcast a minimum quantity of European content, they usually fulfill this quota with midnight broadcasts of the same shows over and over.
  • As the main page quote indicates, King of the Hill was very popular on FX prior to the syndication rights lapsing. Marathons were common during the early/mid-'00s even without a holiday or other justification.
  • NBC had this problem with The Smurfs (1981) during the 80s, where it was run in 90-minute blocks during its heyday. Nevertheless, it was a huge ratings grab for the network, and it topped even some of the network's primetime shows.
  • Much like The Hub, Australian network GO! used to adore Animaniacs, to the point where the Tamagotchi dub and even Johnny Test were canned for it! It also aired twice in the morning, noon and night.
  • Aside from its original programming, NHK in Japan really loves Thomas & Friends and Shaun the Sheep as of this writing. It helps that both are extremely popular in Japan.
  • RTP 2 has had some shows that they wouldn't let off their hands from their kids blocks. This generally applies to co-productions between various other members of the EBU (generally based on the EBU proper). They tried this with Marco and Gina, a show that has been running for over a decade. It's a breath of fresh air when the show is taken off the air, and then, after a while, it returns.
    • A more recent show, Lulu Vroumette, has been airing on RTP 2 since 2011. It has been airing several times to an extent that they just can't resist in dropping the show. Much like Marco and Gina, RTP partook in this production.
    • For a good chunk of 2014, the channel aired Teen Titans (2003) on weekday slots in a constant cycle. The problem is, only seasons 3 and 4 were airing, until they decided to stop airing it.
  • Back when Magic Adventures of Mumfie first aired, ANY network that aired it would treat it like a precious gem and air it for a very long time and/or promote it a lot. Here are a few examples:
    • ITV loved promoting this show alongside Astro Farm and featured it in all of their combined shows promos.
    • Fox held onto the Mumfie license for five years across their networks. It got to the point where the normal Mumfie show on GirlzChannel competed with the Mumfie segments on Storytime with Thomas!
    • Nick Jr. UK ran it for nearly five years twice a day.
    • KiKa in Germany broadcast Mumfie twice a day and had it for twelve years. It was also one of their highest-rated programs.
    • In Japan, NHK showed it occasionally after its initial run up until Kids Station got the rights and lost them in 2001.
    • The Norwegian broadcaster of Mumfie was a very special case: Much like the Italia 1 Dragon Ball example listed on the main page, the show almost never took a break from airing (save for short ones in between each season lasting anywhere from one week to a month). This lasted until late 2014, when Lionsgate got the rights to the show.
    • The now-defunct Greek channel Alter Channel used to play Mumfie a lot as well. It's also included in lots of CD's containing intros of TV shows distributed by its owner Modern Times.
  • American Public Television (a syndicator of programming mainly to PBS member stations) has had the rights to Zula Patrol for ten years now, and it seems as if they won't let go of it. They've gone through the same thing with the more recent Wunderkund Little Amadeus.
  • Undergrads, a quickly-cancelled American cartoon on MTV, grew to become very popular in Canada to the point where Teletoon would air it constantly. It aired once a night for years, despite the show only having a tiny handful of episodes. It goes off the network for long stretches now, but is often still trotted out in the nightly run of shows, despite being more than a decade and a half old by this point.
  • Most, if not all foreign over-the-air TV channels outside of North America that run kids programs will often share a program: Arthur. In a similar manner to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, the show is available in exchange for ad time.
  • HBO Family (HBO's channel geared towards children and families) loves rerunning the series HBO Storybook Musicals despite being completed in the late 90's. Same goes for the 1999 HBO Family original movie The Sissy Duckling which is a unique take on The Ugly Duckling. Crashbox, A Little Curious, and Happily Ever After Fairytales For Every Child are also some of the only late '90s/early 2000s series that they still air daily as of The New '20s.
  • Whenever it's a holiday or a must-see TV event, Christian kid's network Smile note  will run the VeggieTales special "If I Sang A Silly Song" or any of the the Christmas episodes note .
    • Outside of VeggieTales, their favorite show is Auto B Good, which takes up half of the morning schedule.
    • The channel also adores airing the movie The Lion of Judah, showing it at least once a month.
  • YTV loved Alvin and the Chipmunks and Animaniacs so much that they aired the holiday specials from these shows up until the mid-2000's.
    • As it's always been a huge Cash-Cow Franchise for Nickelodeon, you can't really go a day without YTV showing SpongeBob SquarePants, as YTV is essentially Canada's answer to Nick. The show currently airs for three and a half hours each day.
    • Sidekick was another one of their favorite shows throughout the early 2010's, with it getting many promotions and online games, as-well as airing quite often, it even got its own webpage unlike other shows on the network, even after ending it aired reruns until 2016-ish.
    • In the summer of 2017, Chuck's Choice was the most-aired show on the channel. Three hours of airtime is given to it daily. Numb Chucks was also run on the channel a lot, appearing every two hours.
    • YTV's second favorite show is The Loud House, which runs for two and a half hours on weekdays and three and a half hours on weekends. Justified somewhat, since the animation is produced by a Canadian studio.
    • Despite the show in the US lasting one season and fading into obscurity, YTV adored Detention and gave it plenty of promotion with their other shows. It lasted 5 years longer on YTV than it did on Kids WB, despite the show having only 13 episodes.
    • As of February 2021, the channel's most-aired shows are The Loud House and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2017).
  • CITV seemed to be quite fond of any animated show produced in Canada, as well as The Aquabats! Super Show!, which is the only thing that used to air on the channel from 6AM to 8:30AM.
    • They also loved airing Horrid Henry (before it moved completely to Nicktoons in early 2019) and Mr. Bean.
  • Panama's RPC is obsessed with Phineas and Ferb, to the extent that, on their weekday block of cartoons, Phineas and Ferb (which is the last show of the morning) has a double slot instead of a single slot like the other shows.
  • British children's network POP Max (named Kix at that time) premiered three of the Angry Birds animated series together in October 2016note , yet their rotation was only limited to the first 26 episodes of every series due to the latter being a Short-Runner. How could this be a network favorite, you ask? Just two months after their network premiere, they were treated with the same level of admiration as their other, more long-lasting shows, usually averaging six episodes every weekday and twelve per weekend, causing the entire rotation to be reset by the following week.
    • In August 2017, Kix started hosting marathons of their shows that lasted around 9 hours on average, with Angry Birds being one of them. However, their hype for the show has died down in recent months, to the point where it no longer airs on any Sony-owned channels.
  • TV Ontario has had quite a few of these:
    • To fulfill CanCon requirements and the show's popularity, they show PAW Patrol up to 5 times a day. It also airs four times a day on Knowledge Network's Knowledge Kids block.
    • Up until they dropped the show in 2018, they also adored Thomas & Friends and showed it three times a day for almost two note  decades.
    • TVOntario also adored anything related to Noddy from 1998 until 2010, to the point where they still showed The Noddy Shop at the same time Make Way For Noddy was premiering new episodes in 2002. They also aired Say It With Noddy in between other shows even after the show was removed from their lineup.
    • Elliot Moose and Polka Dot Shorts were two other mainstays of the TV Ontario lineup, staying on the air until The New '10s to fulfill the Canadian content requirements. The former ran at least six times a day at the height of its popularity, usually between other shows on the channel.
    • After they lost the rights to Thomas and Friends, they gave this treatment to The Ollie and Moon Show, which not only took the three time slots Thomas occupied, but it also took one of Arthur's afternoon slots in the process.
  • Treehouse TV is obsessed with Peppa Pig and Thomas & Friends, running 30 minute blocks of both at least 5 times a day. They also air 4 30-minute blocks a day of Max and Ruby and My Big, Big Friend to fulfill Canadian content requirements.
    • Before this, Treehouse loved airing Caillou and Dora the Explorer, with both getting as many as three hours of airtime on an average day.
  • Two examples from Russian channel 2x2:
    • The channel has huge Simpsons blocks, which they sometimes spice out with heavily edited versions of American Dad! or Family Guy. SpongeBob SquarePants also airs in similarly large blocks.
    • Avatar: The Last Airbender: the country has several three-day holidays during the year, while Avatar has three books. Do the math. Every holiday is devoted to Avatar all day long, to the derision of viewers, especially when it comes to May (May 1-3 is International Workers' Day, May 8-10 is Victory Day). The first conclusive season of The Legend of Korra was brought to the mix when it was released to fill more time. The eventual decision to finally move away from Avatar on holidays in favor of Studio Ghibli films was greeted with enourmous joy. 2x2 still broadcasts Avatar during national days of mourning when all channels are mandated to suspend all entertainment programming (yes, somehow they managed to pass Avatar as non-entertainment).
  • Back in the day before their schedule underwent an overhaul in the early 2010s, UK children's TV channel Pop loved showing many of the shows from DIC Entertainment's library, especially as their airings of them retained DiC's logos, which is something that Cookie Jar never learned to do so.
  • When French cartoon channel Gulli launched, it gave Oggy and the Cockroaches two airings (unlike other shows, which only got one). As if that wasn't enough for them, Oggy would reign supreme for 4 years, be given tons of promotion, aired twice on most blocks, and every Saturday night from 2005 to 2008 would have some kind of Oggy thing airing. This died down in 2009, after Canal+ got the rights for the first two seasons from Gulli. But the adoration came back on 30 June 2017, where they premiered 6 season 5 episodes back-to-back. We don't even speak of 9pm on 21 October 2018 to 6am of 22 October 2018. They aired nothing but Oggy.
  • The Boss Baby: Back in Business: In a report breaking down the downsizing of Netflix's in-house animation branch, canceling projects in the process, the company's staff reportedly praised this series as the "ideal" for what an animated show on Netflix should achieve in terms of viewership numbers. This is in spite of the show being a third-party acquisition from DreamWorks Animation. Writer Brandon Sawyer even cited that, due to the original deal with DreamWorks, Netflix had a hands-off approach in the series' development.

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top