Sorry for the caps, just wanted to do the announcement with a bang.
Discord: Waido X 255#1372 If you cant contact me on TV Tropes do it here.
I'm kind of annoyed that Tom Ascheim's tenure was cut short due to the Warner Bros. Discovery merger (which caused a whole lot of sudden changes today).
Ascheim had a decent vision in mind, paired with the experience of working at Nick in the early 2000s, and working well with Sam Register. I'm hoping that, content production wise, Sam can keep some of the ideas alive.
Meanwhile, Ascheim's replacement is Kathleen Finch from the Discovery side of the company. She lacks the experience managing Kids, Family and Young Adults content compared to Tom, as her bread and butter is networks like TLC, Food Network, and HGTV. Still, I'm hoping for the best...
As a side note, a new standalone Powerpuff Girls ad:
Edited by XMenMutant22 on May 11th 2022 at 12:51:03 PM
This is going to be so much fun.
Man what's taking them to upload a lot of CN's stuff? There's still a massive amount of missing backlog.
Death is a companion. We should cherish Death as we cherish Life.
Disasturbator
My first thought was that it's probably due to rights issus,my second thought is that they don't want to upload everything at once from their library as a form of quality control,it could also be that they're having trouble finding higher quality copies of their shows to upload
New theme music also a box
Professional Moldy Fig/Curmudgeon
Then why can you already find most of those shows on Latino HBO Max?
"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."
Disasturbator
Not all regions get the same content,I don't even get HBO max in my country for example.
New theme music also a box
This is going to be so much fun.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Oh? They have most of 90's CN for instance?
Professional Moldy Fig/Curmudgeon
Cow And Chicken, Johnny Bravo, Mike Lu And Og, Sheep In The Big City, I Am Weasel, Whatever Happened To Robot Jones, Megas XLR, Camp Lazlo...
All those are on the service south of the border, but not here. We are getting ripped off.
"They say I'm old fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast."
Asgore Adopts Noelle
I thought I saw Sheep In The Big City on HBOMax? Maybe I am wrong though.
I know Camp Lazlo is on Boomerang which is exclusive to the United States.
A lot of people don't realize how long it takes these decisions to be made at a company, and the number of people it takes to make them. The fact that Ascheim was CEO of the network for less than two years means that a lot of the stuff that happened under his leadership likely wasn't his personal doing. And this goes for everyone, not just him.
Ascheim's predecessor, Christina Miller, often got accused during her tenure of doing things that changed the network irredeemably for the worse, but if you actually look closely, a lot of the things she was "blamed" for either weren't her direct doing, or started before she became CEO. Likewise, Aschiem often got sole blame for launching the Cartoonito preschool block— which, again, was a continuation of a trend that existed before he took charge.
Red Spade, Black Heart
I'm telling you guys, it all went downhill when Betty Cohen left. Only good boss Cartoon Network ever had. She actually liked cartoons and respected their history. More museum curator than CEO. All of her successors just wanted to measure dicks with Nick and Disney, to CN's unending detriment.
X9 Yo, what's that about? I dig it! More legacy content, please! Do one with Dexter, Johnny or Courage next!
This is going to be so much fun.
Holy shit, what the hell. Why is the USA branch lagging? I wonder if I can VPN to say Mexico and enjoy it.
If you want to really mark a point where it "went downhill"— a dubious proposition in and of itself, since I would argue no era in the network's history has been completely without redeeming aspects— I would point to the release of Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters in 2007. The Boston bomb scare that accompanied the movie's promotion caused Jim Samples, who had overseen Cartoon Network's "golden age" in the early 2000s, to resign.
Samples's replacement was Stu Snyder, who nowadays is mostly associated with the ill-fated CN Real block. It was also during his tenure that a number of the network's most famous shows, such as Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy, and Codename: Kids Next Door, ended their runs. I'm not sure how much Snyder had to do with most of this, though. The only one of these shows he apparently had a direct role in ending was Grim Adventures, where he accused the creator of, and here I quote, "ruining Cartoon Network's brand" with his "hateful fart cartoon". Snyder also oversaw the end of Toonami and the general decline of superhero cartoons on the network, but again, how much of that was his direct doing is hard to tell.
Snyder was replaced in 2014 by Christina Miller, who ended the live-action shows but continued a lot of Snyder's other less popular decisions. It was under her that Teen Titans Go became the network's flagship series, at the expense of other shows perceived as being higher-quality by the Periphery Demographic. But this period also saw the greenlighting of Infinity Train (even if it did get cancelled after only four out of a planned eight seasons), the long-awaited fifth season of Samurai Jack, and a gradual influx of new well-received shows like Craig of the Creek.
With his tenure having lasted only two years, it's hard to tell if Ascheim actually accomplished any meaningful change compared to his predecessors. We did get a preschool block and more live-action programming announced during that time, but it's easy to see that as simply an extension of Snyder and Miller's actions. And if the 2007 Boston bomb scare hadn't happened, Samples would have remained in charge, and Snyder, Miller, and Ascheim likely wouldn't have been his successors. The network would look very different.
TL;DR: The Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie has a lot to answer for.
Edited by ElSquibbonator on May 12th 2022 at 12:43:03 PM
Redmess
Is it when the network started doing more and more live action shows? I always felt that that is the worst possible thing that can happen to a network dedicated to cartoons. Especially when it's in the name of the network.
Optimism is a duty.
This is going to be so much fun.
They're trying to grab that demographic Nick and Disney have. Problem is that those two channels already have live action shows in their DNA.
Redmess
Right. Though as a child I always felt Nick should be cartoons-only too.
Optimism is a duty.
she/her friend to the hooved
Difference being that Nick always had live-action shows and, at least for a while, they were just as well-liked as the cartoons. Cartoon Network, on the other hand, was not going to be able to pull that off even at the best of times, for fairly obvious reasons.
Edited by Chortleous on May 13th 2022 at 4:02:49 AM
CN had already started airing and experimenting with live-action programming when Jim Samples was kicked out, as well. Dude left in February 2007. Re-Animated came out in 2006. It's fair to say that decisions like Out of Jimmy's Head and Ben 10: Race Against Time were already in place when Snyder took up the position in May 2007. A lot of people blame Snyder solely for CN's flirting with live-action stuff, but the fact of the matter is that he was just continuing what was already happening, for... worse. Was gonna say "for better or for worse," but nah, just for worse.
Edited by RacattackForce on May 13th 2022 at 8:20:39 AM
Redmess
Fart cartoon? Has that guy even watched Grim?
Because I've rewatched the show recently, and one of the things that stood out to me that that show, rather than having an anal fixation for its humor (fart and poop jokes, toilet humor), it has a nasal fixation. The vast majority of its dirty jokes involve snot, runny noses, noses being hurt or deformed in some way, usually Billy's. These snot jokes are everywhere. In contrast, there is nary a fart joke to be found in the entire series.
Optimism is a duty.
(ON INDEFINITE HIATUS)
Well, there was that episode with the invisible duck
She/they. Hirrus Clutumnus is my comfort character
I think the point was more that "your dumb Gross-Out Show is bad and you should feel bad," but yeah, when Billy and Mandy wanted to go gross, they went with nose stuff.
Oddball Nerd
And there were fart jokes. They weren’t extremely common, but there were still quite a few (mainly from Billy too). And not just in the duck episode. I was literally watching a clip a few days ago where Nergal tries to say hi to Billy, only for Billy’s farts to constantly interrupt him. And I also remember 2 other instances: one where Billy sings about having gas before farting and another where Grim farts and excuses himself to the viewer.
"Detecting trace amounts of mental activity. Possibly a dead weasel or a cartoon viewer"
Redmess
True, there is the occasional fart joke, but most of the humor is nose-related.
Optimism is a duty.
There was one live-action show on Cartoon Network that was actually well-received, even by people who hated the rest of the CN Real lineup. That being Tower Prep. Unfortunately, it was cancelled after one season simply because not many people were watching it. I've heard it speculated that if Tower Prep were a Disney or Nickelodeon show, more people would have given it a chance and it would have lasted longer.
The more pertinent question is, what will become of the unreleased shows the network currently has planned after the recent change in leadership?
Edited by ElSquibbonator on May 13th 2022 at 1:34:19 PM
Dude was there for so little time that I'm not sure we can even tell what he did in the position beyond greenlight some of the upcoming live-action stuff and put in place the preschool initiative.