The History of Toonami, Chapter Two
Jeff Harris

Afterall, it's not every year that a total of nine shows premiere on the block (Outlaw Star, The Big O, Mobile Suit Gundam, 08th MS Team, Dragon Ball, Cardcaptors, Gundam 0083, Zoids Zero, and Batman Beyond). It's also not every year that two shows have new episodes (Dragon Ball Z and ReBoot) nor four shows premiere online courtesy of a new interactive section of the official webpage known as Reactor (Star Blazers, The Harlock Saga, Patlabor, and Record of Lodoss Wars). It's also not every year that Toonami breaks from the mold and airs animated music videos from a techno band (Daft Punk) nor an animated band (Gorillaz). Let's face it. If 2001 was a typical year, this would have been the greatest year of the block's history, expanding beyond the spectrum of cable television and venturing into cyberspace. But 2001 wasn't a typical year.

Not by a long shot

Instead of celebrating the block's success, most of the attention was focused on what's been going behind the scenes of the block. The coup de'tat at Turner Broadcasting, led by AOL Time Warner's Bob Pittman, was just brutal, replacing just about every high-ranking TBS official and naming The WB Broadcasting Network's founder Jamie Kellner the new president and CEO of Turner Broadcasting. Kellner's first big mistake was pairing his Kids' WB broadcast block and Cartoon Network under one management umbrella, especially with his "cartoons are for kids" mentality. His second mistake was forcing the retirement of Cartoon Network's founder Betty Cohen, moving her to a new division which is supposed to create new outlets for the Turner brands (it didn't, and in 2002, she officially left AOL Time Warner). His third and fatal mistake was relaunching the Kids' WB weekday block as Toonami in July 2001. Now, don't get me wrong, a broadcast outlet for Toonami would have been wonderful if they actually stayed with the formula that made the Cartoon Network Toonami a hit, but the fact that shows that wouldn't even be considered a Toonami-worthy series like Generation O, Detention, and Scooby-Doo has made the cut. The Kids' WB Toonami also made way for the removal of the 4 PM launch time, which had been a part of Toonami since day one in 1997. However, the takeover was minor compared to the events that took place on September 11, 2001.

Hell came to America that day, without any warning to the public. A strange air of patriotism, a sense of uncertainty, and foul taste of greed encased the country. Programmers had to be sensitive about what they showed in the weeks following 9/11, and Cartoon Network's Toonami was no exception. Almost immediately, they stopped airing Mobile Suit Gundam (a somewhat pacifistic series), skipped the "Gohan's First Date" episode of Dragon Ball Z, and aired double episodes of Dragon Ball for a number of weeks. On the Kids' WB side, they didn't air the last unaired Batman Beyond series, "Unmasked," though Cartoon Network aired it months later as well as the missing DBZ episode. September 11 had an effect on all of us, but in the midst of what may be considered dark days, we have to always remain optimistic about the future.

2002 seemed like an instant replay of 2001 for the first half of the year. There were a few as very few shows made its premiere will hold, though the producers of Toonami, Williams Street, launched a short-lived action version of Adult Swim, which was considered by many longtime Toonami fans as something better than what they were watching on weekdays with old Toonami favorites like Outlaw Star and Tenchi Muyo on the block and new shows like Yu Yu Hakusho and Pilot Candidate joining the lineup. ASA was simply an edgier Toonami block on Saturday nights. Meanwhile, the lowest moment in the history of Toonami came when the Kids' WB version put Scooby-Doo on their weekday lineup. At least new cycles of Dragon Ball in February softened the blow for a while.

The summer of 2002 brought the end of Kids' WB's Toonami lineup and the building blocks for rebuilding the Cartoon Network Toonami. The first Toonami show to air in its original 4 PM startup slot was a truly un-Toonami series, Hamtaro. As the summer rolled along, shows that would eventually become fan favorites were launched. Zoids: Chaotic Century, which had previously been a morning-only series, began running on Toonami with plenty of praise. G-Gundam turned the world of Gundam upside down and inside out by being less focused on warfare and more focused on robot fights. When the summer ended, a pair of old-school properties were reintroduced in Masters of the Universe and Transformers Armada.

On October 14, the world's first Toonami network was introduced as CNX (no relation nor connection to this site, which was called CNX: Toonami Revolution years before the announcement). It was a Cartoon Network UK-operated network that blended Toonami elements with live-action programming. It wasn't as successful as they would have liked, but they eventually did revamp the network almost a year later officially naming the network Toonami. That same day, Cartoon Network launched a very strong 3 PM to 7 PM lineup that included Boomeraction and Batman: The Animated Series in an hour block before Batman Beyond (which now kicked off the Toonami lineup), Zoids: Chaotic Century, and the rest of the block.

A week later, that very strong lineup was scrapped as Batman Beyond and Zoids were dropped in favor of the previous day's new episodes of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. Combined with the fact that both shows reran during Midnight Run, the same episodes came on at least three times a week. Thankfully, in November, the Midnight Run changed to a great lineup that included G Gundam and an acquisition that surprised many folks, the original G.I. Joe. By year's end, the instant rerun format was over and it actually looked like the block was getting better.

But in 2003, a new internal competitor was unleashed on a night that should have belonged to Toonami all along. SVES was just one of the changes that dramatically affected the way we look at Toonami. Check out Vol. 3 for the conclusion of the history of Toonami so far.