Teletoon At Night

What the hell, Teletoon? I mean no disrespect, but seriously – why change the long standing name of your adult block from The Detour to this horribly lame title? Teletoon…at night? It’s bland, and so are the shows airing in the block. Remember when Teletoon showed satisfying “adult” cartoons several years ago, and not just the same stuff everyone else aired? The set of shows they consider “adult” these days is dismal, they are too tame to really be considered anything more than the average “cartoon for an older audience” stuff you’d see in usual primetime hours on Fox or Global. This line-up runs Monday to Friday:

9pm – Futurama
9:30pm – King Of The Hill
10pm – American Dad
10:30pm – Futurama
11pm – Robot Chicken
11:30pm – King Of The Hill
12am – American Dad
12:30am – Futurama
1am – King Of The Hill
1:30am – American Dad
2am – The Critic
2:30am – Tripping The Rift
3am – Sons Of Butcher

Several things are wrong with this line-up. First off, the shows. Futurama: already aired on YTV (recently no longer does). King Of The Hill: already aired on The Comedy Network (recently no longer does), and still airs on Omni2. American Dad: still gets a fair bit of airplay on Fox. All three of these shows have been seen a million times over by the public, and all have widespread DVD releases by seasons, and lots of downloads floating around the Internet. These shows are popular and will be in rotation in some form or another for years on television and in your DVD player. Why not air something that’s unique alongside Robot Chicken? Something that has a hard to find, or no, DVD release perhaps? Your best offerings here get airplay nowhere else but on your network these days: The Critic, Tripping The Rift, Sons Of Butcher…are in a timeslot where most are sleeping the night away.

Secondly is the repetitiveness. It would be passable if each triple serving of the shows mentioned above were different episodes each time (lord knows each have enough episodes), but they aren’t! Watch the King Of The Hill episode in the 11:30pm timeslot, and it will be the same episode airing at 9pm the next day. I hate it when networks do this, because I have to pick and choose when the best time is to watch the show, so I don’t run into repeats the next day. If you watch a lot of Teletoon and are a teen/adult, chances are you’ll be watching at 9pm till maybe just after midnight – which means you get a double shot of three already overplayed shows. I don’t understand the reasoning behind this – this isn’t an “adult” block by any stretch. It’s a pitiful primetime party, leaving people that want to watch something a little more entertaining to stay up at least to watch The Critic. And that is the third thing I cannot stress enough – an “adult” block on an “all animation” network should offer things I can’t view anywhere else, and the content should be up for people over 18 years of age. Is that really asking too much, Teletoon? Believe or not, Canada is full of teens, 20somethings and 30somethings and beyond that are craving for something more, and are currently starving on the scraps you offer – what you consider to be adult animation.

And after all is said and done…The Detour itself…still exists. On weekends at least. It’s puzzling to have two adult blocks on one network. A topic I’ll cover another time.

He’s Dead…Chowder’s Dead

And so goes the lifespan of an animated series.

It seems just like yesterday I ranted about Chowder, which was getting glowing reviews from the cartoon viewing populace when it premiered in 2007. A fresh, upbeat show for Cartoon Network. It was a hit among viewers in the US, despite getting a good shaft on Canadian television airwaves. When it did finally land on Teletoon a year later in the fall of 2008, it was only airing Saturday mornings at 11am and Sunday mornings at 5:30 in the morning. It never had a chance to gain a fanbase here at all with a weekly timeslot, and currently only airs here Saturdays at 6:30am. That’s pathetic, to say the least – Teletoon has garbage cartoons scattered in their line-up, and they take a show as creative as this and shove it where no one is looking.

From what I can tell, Chowder is a victim of two things – starting strong and bad timing. When the show premiered, it premiered with a lot of buzz and started off strong, and did very well for Cartoon Network initially. The problem with starting off with such a perfect formula, is where do you go if you start at the top of your game? I haven’t had the chance to watch much Chowder due to when it airs here, and my lack of time to find new episode downloads online, but from what I can gather the show seemed to suffer from repetitiveness and characters personalities straying farther away from their original traits as episodes progressed. If I ever get a chance to sit through the series I could be wrong, but sometimes writers can run dry on good ideas quickly if they use their entire arsenal early on to fire shot after shot of good episodes in a short time.

While this is aging news, and a topic I still plan to cover, Cartoon Network changed their branding to include live-action programming earlier this year, a move that has baffled most viewers and long time fans of the network. Chowder is just coming up on being two years old, however it was already stated on creator C. H. Greenblatt’s blog in May 2009 that they were working on the final Chowder episode. It was stated here that the voice cast recorded their lines for the final episode. While people were hoping the series would get picked up again, things of this nature rarely happen in the animation industry, save for Family Guy. It was pretty much confirmed a month later on Greenblatt’s blog that Chowder had no place in the network’s future. I don’t get Cartoon Network here in Canada, but I hope at least the series is getting promoted well enough there, that the second season gets some positive ratings. I always thought a crossover episode with Chowder and the characters from The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack would have been great, but that will never come to be.

Yes, fans can be angry at Cartoon Network for canning such a good show, only to promote live-action crap no one wants. But in a way, perhaps Chowder ending now is all for the best (?). Most cartoons air for many years to achieve the laughs Chowder got in its short run – isn’t it better for it to end now instead of being dragged out for years and years? Hopefully Cartoon Network doesn’t take forever in airing new episodes. It should also be noted that it’s a rarity when an animated series has a proper ending episode. From what I can tell from Greenblatt’s notes on what the last episode is about, I’m sure the last serving of Chowder will provide you a warming impression that will leave you with a satisfied feeling of a belly that is full.

I Wish I Could Stop Time

Forgive me, readers of this blog, for I know there are a few out there. I’ve been in a real funk lately about many things, and no surprise, have been kept busy and away from posting here as much as I’d like to. I can barley make a post each month, which is horrible as I just can’t collect my thoughts properly to make a good entry – no time. As I sit back and watch 2009 roll on, all I see is change (online and in real life) and many things never being the same again as they were as we enter a fresh decade.

Firstly, is the progression of Flash in websites and the constant revamping of many websites that didn’t need revamping at all; I wish things could be kept simpler, but some douche always thinks they can make something better even though the original concept is fine. I won’t go into details about each, but I hate how Hotmail changed its interface last year. AutoTrader.ca is worse to navigate and pictures don’t always load now as they use a Flash system to display them. Ebay has updated their viewer for pictures too, along with their layout, and I don’t like it. Flickr had a great browsing layout before, where I would see usernames and dates of pictures posted foremost. Now they have a newer Flash based way of going through search results with tiny thumbnails. The worst of all is the new YouTube channel layout – keep it simple, stupid! The older one was far easier to get through, and the newer one is just unnecessary and in my opinion, a real pain in the ass.

Secondly, is the deterioration of television animation and its networks over the past couple years; 2009 proving to be the worst year yet thus far in North America. This is a subject I’ve been meaning to get to for a long time, but its going to be an extensive rant. Saturday morning cartoons are non-existent now, long standing networks like Cartoon Network recently changed their format to include live-action programming, Flash cartoons domineer the landscape and offer cheap entertainment on a small budget. We have lost the art of character design, proper looking backgrounds, and even good sounding opening themes and scores. I have a strong feeling television animation is headed for the dark and dismal place it once crept from during the 1970s on through till the mid 1980s. Of course, I’m not a kid anymore, and it could just be me on the old “things were better back in my day” kick. But when you really sit back and take a look at the picture as a whole…things were better back in the day. Things, at least in Canada, were better even five years ago. Even animation here has sloped down a slippery path of disappointment, manufacturing shows that are instantly forgettable. The networks that air these cartoons have followed suit – if I had the power to make a new 24-hour channel dedicated to animation here, I would. Because Teletoon sure isn’t what it used to be, and that is a sad fact.

Where I’m Coming From – Part 2

Teletoon – Launched October 17, 1997
It’s unreal to think that it’s been just over a decade since Teletoon made its first appearance on Canadian cable airwaves. It makes me wonder how I’d live without it now, as its aired a lot of programming that otherwise may have never been aired here. Like YTV, it was the first channel of its kind – but unlike YTV where in the later hours the animation was switched to more live-action shows for older viewers, Teletoon was 100% about animation 24 hours a day. When it first came on the air it was part of an extra channels package that was given a free preview back in 1997 for a long while. Other areas of Canada got it longer than others and our free preview in Southern Ontario lasted a long while. Eventually I turned the television to channel 50 one day to find it blocked with a fuzzy picture and barley audible sound. I begged and pleaded my mom to get the extra channels, as at the time we only had the standard cable package which only went up to channel 36…or maybe it was 29, it’s been too long to recall exactly how many channels we got. She caved, and I was able to feed my addiction to this new channel and another one I wanted for a long time, The Family Channel (which will be covered later).

Teletoon has been on the air long enough to now reflect and look back on how the station has changed over the years, and I never would have reflected on it five years ago but now enough time has passed to realize the changes. I was at the perfect age when the network premiered and I remember a fair bit of it – I was 12 in 1997. As with YTV in its earliest days, Teletoon aired imported cartoons and co-productions with Canada, but there was much more focus on Canadian animation and a lot of older shows found a brief home here to air and gain a new fanbase. The network aired a lot of Cinar’s old catalogue of cartoons with shows like Albert The 5th Musketeer and The Smoggies, and plenty of shows from Nelvana as well like Ned’s Newt, Blazing Dragons and Donkey Kong Country. Shorts from the National Film Board of Canada were also shown, and other cult classic cartoons like The Raccoons. Eventually the network started to produce original and co-produced productions like 6teen, Atomic Betty, Cybersix, Kid Paddle, What About Mimi?, and many others. Although the network hasn’t been around that long compared to others, I think its best years are starting to reflect the period of the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Originally the programming was divided into four blocks, each with their own set of uber cool bumpers, station ID’s, and “coming up next” ads, all of which were based on a “planet” theme and each had their own. They also made use of some pretty cool animation styles such as Claymation, and compared to what bumpers you see these days, you can see a lot of work was put into the early ones. The four blocks were preschool, kids, family and adult – I wish I had specific times for when they changed over. I remember the adult bumpers were kinda creepy and not as immature as they are today, looking to suit more teenage “college” viewers rather than real “adult” viewers of animation. By 1998 these were all changed along with their little station identification “jingle”, and its been too long to remember what exact design they went to next. By the start of 2007 the network layout was dramatically changed, including the old logo, as was its website to a more reformed look.

Teletoon, also like YTV, has aired a long line of cartoons ranging from sunny preschool outings to the darkest of adult shows. Their original format was great as they moved on to older programming throughout the day, and back then had a strong commitment to air diverse programming and air things uncut. Early on, and I was unaware of this for many years until I decided to research a bit on the network, Teletoon had an incident during their first year where they accidentally broadcasted adult content during a time devoted to preschoolers, and the backlash resulting from this was cutting many programs aimed at adults and teens therefore killing off those viewers from the network. While they have tried to regain that demographic with their Detour block for the past couple years, I don’t think they ever really recovered from that event. The whole block is mostly borrowed from Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block, and while good and funny teen and adult shows are offered, it pails in comparison to some of the really gritty stuff they played like the animated Spawn series and Ralph Bakshi’s Spicy City, two shows for some reason I really remember well but I’m sure more great adult programs were showing back then. This Wikipedia article here has a large list of all the shows that have ever been on it, and in time they will get their own post here. Along with airing imports and a lot of Canadian content, Teletoon has been Cartoon Network’s Canadian outlet for quiet some time. Every one of CN’s productions has aired here at one point, some having a far longer run than others. The longest it ever took for a CN show to reach here was Space Ghost: Coast To Coast which landed in The Detour block in September 2006 – twelve years after it originally premiered in 1994. And since Cartoon Network is associated with Hanna-Barbera, a lot of their older classic shows have aired here as well. Check out more on Teletoon from its Wikipedia article here, and check these pages with Teletoon related banter. Youtube has a whole load of Teletoon related stuff so check that out; this user in particular has some good promo’s including this one, as well as a lot of oldschool YTV promos as well.

Has Teletoon jumped the shark with its viewing audience and current programming? At first I didn’t think so, as I still see it as a good network with plenty of good shows to offer. But I think just enough time has passed for long-term fans to notice how the network has changed, and while it hasn’t been around as long as YTV, it seems it’s just at the tip of the ramp to jump over the shark but its not quite there yet. The more I think about it, I would love to roll back the clock ten years to a time when it was a fresh network airing a lot of assorted programming. A fair bit of older fans say yes, it has jumped, and some even think the network is as bad as YTV is these days. I don’t really support that statement, but we will have to see what Teletoon will bring to its viewing audience in the next ten years to come.