If My Gym Partners A Monkey taught us anything, we all know who loses this one. It sure ain't Nickelodeon (*hint hint*).
New Web Browser, same old Shokew.Of course Avatar: The Last Airbender and Danny Phantom have huge fanbases and still talked about today. Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and Camp Lazlo, while good shows, are pretty obscure compared to those two.
Foster's, obscure? HA! It, Billy and Mandy, and KND were the three big shows of mid-2000s CN.
Plus, Craig Mc Cracken and Lauren Faust worked on it.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?I should mention that just because something has a big, huge fanbase, it means nothing outside of that one simple fact. It doesn't mean the work's good; it means the work is popular.
And I do recall Foster's being very popular back then.
"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."The dim point in CN history was starting in 2008, when Toonami was on its last legs, KND finished, Fosters began to fade away. Chowder and Flapjack were good but underappreciated shows, and the rumblings were on the horizon for CN Real. This was all resolved by early 2010 once half of the CN Real lineup had already been cancelled (though they kept trying for 3 years with shows like Tower Prep, getting the Hole in the Wall rights, or Incredible Crew), but 2010 was the advent of first Adventure Time, and then Regular Show, the former of which was an instant hit, and i knew they were around the corner.
So the dark days of CN were shorter than advertised, at least to me. Though there was doubt in 2010-11 as we worried whether they would buy into the success of AT and RS or try to pursue CN Real.
I really, really hated it when Cartoon Network was trying to do live action shows. I mean, it's CARTOON Network. I can actually say I'm glad they all failed. Hilariously, I recall writer Peter David (given that he's friends with Tower Prep series creator Paul Dini) complaining that Tower Prep had gotten no promotion when, as I recall, they pimped that show all out of proportion. It seemed like they ran a spot with their annoying theme song at every damned commercial break. Seriously, the only show that had been hyped more was Adventure Time (which I think they started running spots for more than 6 months before it premiered).
Geez, I remember than I hated Camp Lazlo, and My Gym Partner is a Monkey. Whatever Happened to Robot Jones didn't do much for me, either. I think a lot of their shows suffer from the same problems; despite widely divergent designs, settings, etc, a lot of these shows are essentially the same basic thematic setup, again and again and again.
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CN Real, to paraphrase T.S. Eliot, was not a bang but a whimper. Everyone worried it would be the end of CN as we knew it - and then it turned out the kids hated it as much as the adults did, giving CN its worst ratings since 1998.
By fall, at least, half the shows on that lineup had been cancelled, and while they kept on trying, they eventually realized that it was foolhardy.
edited 28th Nov '15 3:58:44 PM by Aldo930
"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."Gym Partner had some good moments of depth, especially if you paid attention to Principal Pixiefrog. I remember one time they randomly cut in on him doing a home video audition by acting out a part of "The Outsiders." Hilarious if you got the reference.
Channels lose viewership, not subscribers (unless you're HBO et al).
I don't know about Disney's ratings right now, though part of the issue could be that they're overextended. They have a LOT of solid content on Disney XD, but that's all tier-two cable in an age when people aren't getting tier-two as often.
edited 28th Nov '15 6:00:16 PM by Ogodei
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Maybe the type of sitcoms the Disney Channel specializes in is going out of style now...
Channels in the high hundreds are more widespread now than they were ten years ago, though. I've been to pizza places where they had Disney XD.
Speaking of Disney and My Gym Partners A Monkey, probably the best episode of that was the one where they parodied High School Musical. There were a few really good jokes in that one about how musicals would work out in real life - like, they miss their lunch break because of a musical number.
edited 28th Nov '15 6:13:47 PM by Aldo930
"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."I was probably 10 or so when Gym Partner aired...
I traded in Nickelodeon for that crap, and I'm fairly certain Avatar and Danny Phantom were still airing (I know Disney had Phineas and Ferb, though I never really liked it). Then I traded in CN when Chowder and Flapjack were airing for Seasonal Rot Sponge Bob...
I really did not know what good taste was yet.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?CN Real was so bad, the network knew it was bad before word got out of what it was! Cartoon Brew's article on it, months before it premiered, had to "mysteriously take down a link" from "the source's demands". Hmmmmm.
I think it was for the better though, because CN's former creators are now at Disney, Discovery Family, and other places, spreading their genius elsewhere. Nickelodeon is oddly the only one NOT to adopt any of these creators.
edited 28th Nov '15 8:44:20 PM by kyun
MGPAM was okay for the most part in my book (I do remember liking it as a kid though). I do find it to be rather juvenile and mean-spirited, though it did have a few watchable episodes IMO. CN seems to fondly remember the show and it was fairly popular at the time (It does appeal to kids well). I don't think such a hated cartoon would have gotten 52 episodes and two specials on CN, seeing how Squirrel Boy was canned for how unpopular it was.
edited 28th Nov '15 8:53:27 PM by MagnusForce
"Detecting trace amounts of mental activity. Possibly a dead weasel or a cartoon viewer."![]()
I guess they wanted to have their own distinctive artists rather than nabbing the former talent of their archnemesis. Chris Savino could be one, but he never actually created any original series for Cartoon Network.

Nickelodeon. Obviously.
"We be we baby!"