It seems like it's been ages since I've written anything of particular interest for the main page here. Part of that lies in the fact that this semester has been artistically challenging, emotionally draining, and time intensive. Another part lies in the fact that I've been tediously toiling away behind the scenes to fully realize a perceived greatness (and low and behold, Preston's been helping!), of which I hope to have finished before 2010 for your viewing receptacles. However I feel a greater part of it lies in the fact that I simply find myself hating Cartoon Network.

I hate the corporate attitude they flaunt about. I hate what they stand for. I hate the fact that they feel they can toss away the people who made them a household name. I hate that they are no longer innovative, creative, interesting, or otherwise their own entity, but rather a second rate carbon copy of their strongest competitors. For a lack of a better analogy, they're the 'Dr. Thunder' to Dr. Pepper; a cheap imitation with second rate ingredients only put forth to capitalize on a number mouths who prefer that brand of carbonated beverage.

Cartoon Network is not in it for the entertainment, despite being a channel whose goal is producing entertainment. A part of me accepts this, mainly because it's been drilled into our heads by apathetic businessmen whom loom around in the shadows whispering it into our ears. 'Cartoon Network is a business!', 'We need to appeal to the masses to stay afloat and appease our revenue!’ the statements go on and on. However, how a business can appeal to the masses is key to their success as well. Ben and Jerry's for instance, is a company that revolves around the market of a particular frozen desert. It's a business, one whose source of revenue relies not on presenting themselves as a friendly company that people can relate to, but for producing a good product. Yet unlike Cartoon Network, Ben and Jerry's does present themselves with a friendly face. They don't talk down to their customers and while I'm sure they crunch statistics, run tests on their sales, and do the wonderful numbers dance to determine the next crazy combo of cavity-educing goodness, they do not allow it to be THE face of their company. As a result their product is all the more recognizable and desired, not only for the product's quality (and really, Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream is rivaled by no other) but for the company image.

Yet current Cartoon Network seems to lack all of these traits. They're the guys carrying a clip-board and wearing a business suit on a Sunday. They're all about the stats, where each viewer is nothing but a number - categorized by age, sex, and location. They make no apologizes to this image, in fact they oddly embrace it in all its awful, cold, and unappealing glory. Even if I disregarded Ben and Jerry's company image and based my opinion of the company souly on product quality - it's still a test that Cartoon Network fails. Glimmers of brilliance pop in and out of the schedule in the same way cosmic dust gives way to beauty before an exploded star turns into a black hole devoid of anything, left over genius from an unapologetically different and unique Cartoon Network of yesteryear. Meanwhile replicated fads and formulaic reincarnations there of are practically forced down viewer's throats, as if those in charge are exclaiming "LIKE IT, BUY IT!" to the poor innocent souls they're trying to ensnare in their web of marketing and revenue.

I hate it how the powers that be for this business, feel they are supreme to their workers - who probably know the inner workings of the business model better then anyone else. After all, Mathematical statistics do not lie, numbers reveal all truths and in reading such those powers feel they can build a better product without the assistance of those who actually hone it as a skill, craft, and passion. Instead we get loveless, passion-less, replications. Reprints of a successful formula stretched and skewed to meet the spreadsheet of this year's hottest properties. While people who love the animated medium and want to bring something new and wonderful to the plate, Cartoon Network management is intent on staying complacent and mediocre if it means saving a few bucks and tapping into someone else's innovation; Creating a network that is just that, mediocre.

I hate how the network feels it can shrug off its existence and deviate from its framework just because they're too stubborn to look in the mirror and realize what's wrong. I personally find it rather pathetically hilarious that Cartoon Network is so intent to look towards Nick and Disney Channel's live action success and assume it's the animated medium that's the cause for their lack there of - yet most of Nick and Disney Channel's biggest success stories ARE animated shows. Yet even in an attempt to bring live action to Cartoon Network they flounder; after all...what kind of quality programming is Cats and Dogs and Dumb and Dumber?

But most of all, I hate the fact that those in control of the network don't care for the craft. Most, if not all of the upper-management that currently controls the once small and brilliant, now bloated and mediocre network simply do not understand animation. They lack a passion for it. They don't know what to make of it - and as such feel it is to blame for any downfall or detour on their ultimate quest to lucky pot of gold that resides at the end of the preverbal rainbow. After all, a cartoon can't be as successful as 'High School Musical', right? Cartoon's are just Saturday morning, corporate sponsored commercials meant to evoke a sense of wanting and desire in a child's young and impressionable heart; enough so that he or she begs the money source (aka the parents) to purchase the tie-in. Right?

...Right?

The management at CN basically IS CN. Aside from the remaining super-stars from the golden era of the network (McCracken for instance), shows trickling down the line increasingly sport the "Created by [insert businessman here]" tag, or obviously are tailored to meet the requirements of endless notes and requests meant to make their show appeal to the latest trends. Yet at the same time they don't know what to make of that word that comes before 'Network' in their name. So my question is - how can Cartoon Network expect people to understand them if they don't understand themselves?

And while I've just spent an extraordinarily long amount of time complaining about Cartoon Network's current attitude and practices (of which they'll just shrug off because not a businessman, nor am I in their network's demographic - another thing I hate) none of it seems to relate to this site and what I'm supposed to talk about here. In fact, I've yet to mention Toonami at all up until now. I honestly and feel that the good folks down at Williams Street fight the good fight regarding what the block should and shouldn't be - and for that I'm thankful. Toonami as a block has shaped my life in extraordinary ways; and while it may seem pathetic to read from the outside looking in - it's true. Toonami inspired me to get into web design, with this very site. Through which I developed a taste for graphic design, a taste which lead me to my associate’s degree. Toonami introduced me to some of the best animation the planet has to offer, and Cartoon Network in its hey-day contributed to this. It ignited a spark within me that opened a door to a whole new world, artistically and intellectually. The block taught me how and why to appreciate the animated medium, which in turn led me to meet fantastic people whom share the same passion. And while my enthusiasm for the animated medium gives way to funny and uninterested looks from a majority of those within ear's distance - Toonami is responsible for the euphoric sense and appreciation for the medium that simply makes the rest of the world and its opinions wash away.


Yet, when you're standing in a field of cow manure, it's only a matter of time before you start to smell of it yourself - and this is where we stand today. Creative minds behind the block know good animation. They know quality, they understand the medium. Yet Cartoon Network's philosophy of milking properties dry and skewed and confused sense of identity make it nearly impossible for Toonami to stand as the block it once was. Instead of Gundam and Tenchi we've got Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh, which despite the demographics they were created to appeal to, simply are not Toonami material. We've got Cartoon Network tapping into a library of music that Toonami has uses to distinguish itself to promote their own kiddified actions series (a la Xiaolin Showdown). General Cartoon Network promos are more and more borrowing from Toonami's promos. Interviews which occasionally are multiple times on the block's once a week strip bare little to no Toonami feel, nor acknowledgment that they were intended for the block. Instead musicians talk about Cartoon Network, as the network's logo pops up.

What's the point of spending money on a particular brand, if you're just going to blur its difference from the general network? What's the appeal of changing Cartoon Network's packaging and labeling it 'Toonami', if they themselves aren't willing to allow it stand out from the pack?

I suppose the question itself is a moot point, considering Cartoon Network doesn't even know what to do in terms of its own packaging. Instead we're fed a garbled mix of visual vomit. Left-over packaging morphed, intertwined, and scattered throughout a random assortment of content-less, meaningless, uninspired attempts at creating a network identity. Where as the network looks to their competitors for rehashed ideas, it also looks within itself to mimic its own brilliance - and in the end it's the viewer that looses with a watered down presentation.

This is why I haven't posted often. Cartoon Network suffers from the big business blues, a stubborn, infuriating, and harsh case of it. Yet they're complacent in that fact - happy even. It’s hard to write about something that's constantly negative. It'd be nice if I could write a good article about what is being done right, and there have been numerous rights this year. Yet in the atmosphere the network as a whole has bred within the animated community, it's nearly a given that for every step forward we're soon to go two steps back. Making it even harder to write something positive, in fear that as soon as you do you have to take it all back again.

Mostly I just hate Cartoon Network today. I hate the ideas it stands for. I hate its mentality. I hate how it treats the medium.

Yet at this point, I hate that I still care.
-Cody S. @ 11:19 PM
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