Gephyrophillia #221

Originally Posted on 03/27/2010 by Jeff Harris

I've been a member of Toonzone longer than I've been on my own. Yes, I'm still running a fairly independent site, but I've been hosted by Toonzone since September 2000. To put it in perspective, Toonzone was not only still called Toon Zone, Toon Disney still showed a lineup full of Disney cartoons, Cartoon Network had animation on its lineup in all hours of its programming day (which was 24 hours, seven days a week), DVDs were still a virginal market, Blockbuster still had rows of video tapes and actually relevant, AOL was not only America Online but also had mountains of users (not to mention mountains of CDs flooding my mailbox), and there was no GMail, Twitter, nor Facebook when I became a part of Toonzone.

The X Bridge has been The X Bridge since 2003. It'll be seven years come July. Five years prior, it was CN2. Four years prior to the TXB rebranding, it was CNX. This site has been The X Bridge longer than it's been CN2/CNX, and the name will remain as long as I'm interested in the site. And I'm still interested in the site.

Why do I bring this up? Well, here's the thing. When you're a part of something for so long, people associate you with that particular brand. Often, people come in from other companies and try to make a mark elsewhere, some still associate that person or persons with the previous brand, even though, more often than not, they found more success and more fame at the brand they're currently at. And at this point, I probably lost you.

This all came in part from a friend of mine from Twitter. A decent, rather educated friend of mine is convinced that Anne Sweeney, the head of Disney/ABC Television (she leads the non-sports units of Disney Media Networks worldwide as well as the ABC television network) is the devil incarnate at Disney all because she "poisoned" the Disney brand after being at Nickelodeon for so long. You may not know Ms. Sweeney by name, but if you're a fan of the Disney family of networks, you know her work by now. She's the individual who brought The Disney Channel from the lowly premium range to the basic cable supremacy it enjoys today. Ms. Sweeney also launched Toon Disney (which is now the rapidly-expanding Disney XD brand) and SoapNet (ask your mother), leading them all to success.

Prior to joining Disney,Ms. Sweeney was at Fox where, for three years, she co-created and launched FX, one of the critically-acclaimed cable networks of all time, and FXM (which is now Fox Movie Network). She was brought into the Murdoch machine after she helped his British Sky Broadcasting service bring Nickelodeon to the UK.

From 1981 to 1993, Ms. Sweeney worked at Nickelodeon as an assistant to the program manager due to her educational background, not to mention her pedigree with the influential Action for Children's Television advocacy group. Readers familiar with earlier articles about the group knows how the ACT was partially responsible for the E/I mandates currently in place on television as well as the demise of Saturday mornings as a cultural institution (scat! I have to get back to that, don't I? Remind me to do that, okay?). While at Nick, Ms. Sweeney brought in international fare as the head of acquisitions and senior VP of program enterprises. She's the individual who helped cement Nick at Nite's classic television credibility by bringing in shows that are legendary to the lineup.

Ms. Sweeney spent much of her Nickelodeon years working at Nick at Nite as well as helping turn Nickelodeon as a global brand. But she didn't run the show there. In fact, she really didn't get her empire building skills until she moved over to Fox. However, Ms. Sweeney's been at Disney longer than she was at Fox. Ms. Sweeney has been at Disney longer than she was at Nickelodeon. Really. She was at Nick for 12 years and at Disney for over 14 years and counting. So, by definition, shouldn't Anne Sweeney be considered more of a Disney person than a Nickelodeon person? Same thing with Rich Ross, Walt Disney Studios' current chairman who has also been a part of Disney for over 14 years while he was only at Nickelodeon for seven years, with a stint at Fox for three years inbetween the two. When you've done as much as they have for one company as long as they have, then maybe you have to realize that they're part of the company they're in and no longer a part of the company they used to be with.

So, when my friend brandishes the "Nick Clique" label on Mr. Ross and Ms. Sweeney, and they haven't been a part of Nickelodeon in over 17 years, there might be some strange agenda swimming around in his head or something. I don't judge, and I won't judge. But in light of the evidence I've presented, Mr. Ross and Ms. Sweeney, despite my friend stating admit otherwise, ARE a core part of Disney machine and have been for almost two decades. They're not trying to systematically destroy Disney or any other such nonsense, but building it up to levels it hasn't seen in its history. Disney is bigger now than it has been in over a decade with blockbuster films, record-breaking television shows, heck, they just dominated Nickelodeon's annual kudofest, the Kids Choice Awards, this year. It may not be everybody's brand of Disney, mind you, but the world changed. People change.

This site isn't CNX, you know.

*Until we are one, later.*

Jeff Harris,
Creator/Webmaster, The X Bridge.