2003 seemed like a lifetime ago now, but I remember it well. Cartoon Network, the bastion of animation goodness, relaunched their venerable Cartoon Cartoon Fridays block into Cartoon Network Fridays, a weekly show hosted by live-action hosts and musical guests. I remember talking to my friend about how Fridays was just the beginning of the end of an all-animation Cartoon Network. He laughed it off thinking I was being a little paranoid, and I felt a little at ease. We all went along our merry ways.

But then, as the years progressed, my seemingly paranoid allusions proved to be not only accurate, but also worrisome, almost to the point that I actually have fears that cartoons are going to become an afterthought at the toon house that Ted and Betty built, replaced in the hearts of the executives with lame sitcoms and ripoffs of Discovery and Sci-Fi reality shows.

It didn’t used to be that way. On day one, Cartoon Network had made it a mission to be a 24-hour network dedicated to airing, as the slogan went, all cartoons, all the time. But in 2005, they broke my heart. They aired a myriad of live-action movies under the guise of being “live-action cartoons.” Films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Small Soldiers were somewhat forgivable, especially the former, because they had many animated scenes in it. However, when they aired The Goonies (a popular movie in its own right), Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves, Dumb and Dumber (an adult movie not really known for being kid-friendly), Snow Day (a movie from Nickelodeon of all places), and Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (a fairly adult, nearly uncut TV-14 movie), the line was crystal clear. Cartoon may be the network’s first name, but cartoons would have to share the network with live-action. Even Adult Swim, once considered the savior of anime and adult animation, has largely become an outlet for live-action sitcoms.

And it’s all Michael Ouweleen’s fault. Okay, it’s not ALL his fault, but the people who helped pushed the agenda along with him, Jim Samples and Bob Higgins, are both gone. Samples and Higgins wanted to go into the live-action direction because of the success of the Disney Channel live-action series (particularly Hannah Montana) and movies (especially the High School Musical)

Who’s Michael Ouweleen? Well, Michael Ouweleen was once a guy after my own heart. He was the engineer behind the “Cartoons That Didn’t Make It” and “Shorties” projects at Cartoon Network as well as served as executive producer of the ingenious “Harvey Birdman: Attorney-at-Law” series for Adult Swim. He moved up to the position of Senior Vice President of programming and development for Cartoon Network, and deservedly so. Unfortunately, he was the guy hell-bent on altering the landscape of Cartoon Network from an all-animated one to general children’s entertainment network. If he wasn’t THE guy, then he was the one pushing the idea of live-action programming more than usual, especially when he presented Re-Animated in 2006. It was a moronic movie, but curious minds wanted to see this train wreck in action, and it was a ratings winner. It had a follow-up weekly series, Out of Jimmy’s Head a year later.

Re-Animated, not to be confused to with the horror movie franchise Re-Animator, was the story about a boy who had an accident at a Disneyland-like theme park and had a brain transplant using the frozen brain of the theme park’s founder, an animator who saw his characters everywhere, and becoming the head (no pun intended) of the studio. It was a moronic, but curious minds wanted to see this train wreck in action, and it was a ratings winner. Subsequent ratings were lower, but in one genius crossover even with Fridays, they bribed kids into watching it with the promise of giving away $500 to 200 kids. Do the math. That’s $100,000. Ratings grew and convinced Cartoon Network to immediately greenlight Re-Animated: The Series, now dubbed Out of Jimmy’s Head, and consider other live-action pilots.

Here’s the thing about Out of Jimmy’s Head. The first couple of airings were well-received, but it wasn’t the ratings darling the network hoped it’d be and was just hemorrhaging viewers. The Writer’s Guild strike of 2007, which affected production on Out of Jimmy’s Head, was a blessing in disguise. Instead of resuming the series after the strike ended, Cartoon Network just let it die. It didn’t return. The show wasn’t seen again after the summer of 2008. In April 2008, the series wasn’t mentioned at all during the annual upfronts.

In fact, the only live-action mentioned that year were a pair of movie productions for the next year, movie adaptations of Ben 10 Alien Force, which was one of the new productions announced that year, and a prequel to the Scooby-Doo live-action movies. The rest of the productions were animated fare like Chowder (which outshined the live-action Ben 10 movie and Out of Jimmy’s Head as Cartoon Network’s #1 series of 2007), Flapjack, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, the Cartoonstitute endeavor (which promised to produce new shorts for the network for a period of two years), and Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which was the highlight of the upfront event and, when it premiered. However, the biggest show of the year for Cartoon Network was one they didn’t even highlight, a Canadian animated acquisition called Total Drama Island. And you know what happened?

Cartoon Network had its best year-long ratings ever.  Total Drama Island ruled the summer and much of the fall. The Clone Wars shattered network records when it premiered. Cartoon Network’s biggest successes in 2008 were cartoons. So, what did they do in 2009? Completely ignore the animated success and greenlit a record number of original live-action productions, which outnumbered the new animated output for the year.

In March 2009, Cartoon Network announced their plans for the 2009-10 season. They announced Adventure Time, a series from Fred Seibert’s Frederator Studios that originated on Nicktoons Network (currently the only all-animation channel in the United States in 2009), Stoked from the creators of Total Drama Island and a new revamp of the 40-year old Scooby-Doo franchise, Scooby-Doo: Mystery, Inc.. Other shows to get announced were a trio of great-looking science-fiction titles, Sym-Bionic Titan from Dexter’s Laboratory and Samurai Jack creator and the producer of the original Clone Wars microseries Genndy Tartakofsky and a pair of shows from Men of Action – a third incarnation of Ben 10 tentatively called Ben 10: Evolutions and Generator Rex, about a boy with the ability to create weapons with his limbs. Combined with new seasons of Clone Wars, Chowder, Secret Saturdays, Flapjack, TDI’s follow-up Total Drama Action, and Brave and the Bold, Cartoon Network’s cartoon stockpile of over 160 half hours proved impressive.

But that’s not what media organizations aren’t even acknowledging. Instead, nearly every media outlet focused on the live-action productions coming to the network. The Othersiders (teens investigating paranormal activities), Survive This (teens develop survival skills in the woods), ·Destroy Build Destroy (teens becoming demolitions experts by using junk), Head Rush (kids answer questions while riding theme park rides) Dude, What Would Happen: (teens trying to find out the answers to strange, mythical questions in scientific ways), and Bobb’e Says (a viral clip show) were announced and the media ate them up, ignoring the seven new animated series coming to the network and the animated movie, Firebreather, based on the Image Comics series.

And said public failed to acknowledge that each of those reality, “strike-proof” live-action series are almost uncreative rip-offs of Ghost Hunters, Survivorman, Junkyard Wars, Mythbusters, Cash Cab, and Web Junk 20, respectively. And the fact that they’re still pursuing live-action productions of that vein as well as scripted fare (though, to be honest, one of the two pilots they’ve ordered, Prepped, actually sounds like it could be the closest thing to an American-made Prisoner, and could work especially in the right hands) leads many longtime viewers of Cartoon Network to ask, “Has Cartoon Network given up on cartoons?” While the powers that be maintain that animation will remain the cornerstone of the network, one has to wonder for how much longer. Since they haven’t learned much from Out of Jimmy’s Head’s failure (aside from putting money in strike-proof non-scripted programming) and the fact that even the creator of Chowder, Cartoon Network’s  biggest original series since The Powerpuff Girls, believes the series may be ending should be a sign that something’s not quite right at Techwood Drive.

Live-action is seen as a savior for something. I’m not sure what it is, and I’m not sure they know either. Cartoon Network has been relegated to third place amongst the children’s networks in this country behind Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. With the addition of live-action programming, Cartoon Network’s ratings have improved, but they’re still in third place. The live-action shows and movies do fine, but it’s the animated ventures that do better, as Clone Wars, Chowder, and Total Drama Island proved this past year. And yes, the animated ventures are going to be fun to watch, but Cartoon Network seems to be remodeling their image away from the “all-cartoon” model for almost five years now and this year is the year they all but obliterate it.

Do I have to watch them? Absolutely not. I’m not happy with the direction Cartoon Network is headed, but I’m not obsessed like I used to be. If they want to fail, ignore their roots, and forget about their legacy in an effort to remain in third place in the minds and hearts of the nation’s youth, it’s their prerogative. At this point, I’m Pilate, washing my hands of the whole thing. You want to know what’s strange? I’m actually at the point that I would rather see Cartoon Network return the Fridays block that caused the paranoia in the first place.

At least back then, they cared about cartoons and showed them.

Photo: D.L.

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