In fall 1996, Cartoon Network had announced that they acquired the broadcast rights to two popular 80s shows, Thundercats (owned by corporate sibling Warner Bros.) and Voltron: Defender of the Universe. In 1996, the DVD market was slowly getting started, and there was no chance that either Warner Bros. or Voltron's owner World Events Productions would even bring those shows to VHS. I mean, who would actually buy animated television show collections on VHS for over $200? Throughout winter 1997, Cartoon Network began airing promos for something called Toonami that prominently featured clips from both Voltron and ThunderCats. March 17 couldn't have come fast enough for the Children of the 80s who wanted to see these favorites back on the air.

And for the first time in ages, they were both back on the air on weekday afternoons, just as it had been in the mid-80s in a lot of markets in this country when there wasn't a Disney Afternoon nor a Fox Kids or Kids WB block on the air. Sure, it may have seemed cheesy to a lot of younger viewers at the time, but for older audiences, they felt like they were elementary or middle school-aged children again. These viewers (many of whom still watch Toonami to this day) were the audience that helped build Toonami into what it is today, because if they didn't watch, we wouldn't be talking about Toonami today. You'd think that Cartoon Network would be appreciative towards that group.

Still, the fact that ThunderCats and Voltron aired back to back in the 1990s on television was a shocking moment for the time.