Scratchbuilding | SB-02: Boomerang 1.0

Originally Posted by Jeff Harris

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Boomerang and The X Bridge's history has always been intertwined.

Honestly!

In case you're new to the site or think I might be a habitual liar, let me explain. Way back in the dark ages when I was just a wee little agitator on a site at GeoCities, my site's name was CN2. This was July 1998 and Cartoon Network was still primarily known as a network that aired nothing but cartoons. Anyway, the purpose behind the site was to convince Cartoon Network to launch a spinoff network involving the then-young Toonami action-animation block. A second Cartoon Network. A CN2. So, I had a campaign of sorts to create a Toonami-themed network. At the same time, my site became a Toonami news and info site of sorts. Before my site hit its first anniversary, Cartoon Network actually announced plans in 1999 to create a spinoff network.

Instead of focusing on Toonami, they branded their block after their weekend classic animation block, Boomerang. The plan was to create a 24-hour network centered around a six-hour selection of programming per day and launch it on April 1, 2000. With that announcement, the name CN2 became irrelevant to this site, which became CNX from that point on (I explained why the site's now The X Bridge many times over in the past).

But Boomerang has been an oddity at best. The six-hour rotissarrie lineup was annoying and unimaginative. There's also the matter of the channel not being widely availiable in most major markets, a problem that plagues it today. Even though the six-hour rotation is gone, the lineup isn't a great representation of classic animation. The addition of recently-produced properties isn't helping much either. Boomerang is slowly becoming Cartoon Network's wastebasket, and that's a shame.

Boomerang needs to be revamped from the head down. It needs a change of management, a change of direction, and become a network that definitely personifies the golden age of theatrical animated shorts and the golden and silver ages of television animation.

It would be a radically different network. And it could be built. Before I rebuild Boomerang, I would like to radically transform the management of both Boomerang and its sibling station Cartoon Network. This is a special edition of Scratchbuilding where I rebuild both Boomerang and Cartoon Network because you can't truly rebuild one without the other. Boomerang is the first half. Cartoon Network's will be revealed on October 1, 2007, the channel's 15th anniversary. That will be my most ambitious rebuild ever because that network as we know it IS dead. I have to rebuild that channel from the ground up.

Boomerang comes first in this master plan. This is step zero.