Gephyrophillia | Watch This Space #158

Originally Posted onn 10/16/2007 by Jeff Harris

I get it now, Cartoon Network.

You don't want to be Cartoon Network anymore. You fail to even acknowledge your 15th anniversary a couple of weeks ago, and what do you debut on said occasion? An hour of a mid-90s live-action series that you insist clutter a lot of channel space. And like kudzo any ivy, it creeps all over the place, including the once venerable Toonami block, which now has two hours a week to play with, half of which is Naruto. Never thought I'd see Toonami devolve into a weekly, two-hour block with only three shows. I thought we lived in the US, not overseas. You guys died a long time ago in my eyes, and it appears that your corpse refuses to get buried, but rather continues to be a bloated, maggot-infested body that is taking up space and stinking up the place. It's a disgusting sight no doubt, but that's how I feel when I see you.

I get it now, Warner Bros.

You want to get out of the animation industry, or at least you want to sell programming to outlets not owned by your company. Cartoon Network wasn't surprising since you two kids couldn't really get along in the first place. But to completely kill Kids' WB, the number one broadcast network programming block on Saturday mornings, is not only asinine, but also moronic. What's even more ironic is that you're selling the time not to an independent outlet like, say, Nelvana, but rather to a competitor who gets their collective asses kicked every single week. It's like you're a boxer who knocks your opponent down, but you picked him up declaring him the winner. Also, people don't readily have access to DVDs, broadband internet access, or cable. But those people don't matter to you. They don't have money, right?

I get it now, 4Kids.

You must have some magic in you that blinds your record from the general public. You've managed to take control of both Saturday morning slots for Fox and The CW beginning next season and planning on using the deals to clutter the lineups with hastily-acquired titles from Japan. Oh, and by acquiring broadcast and licensing rights to Di-Gata Defenders only to make it an online-exclusive series proves how much you value third-party productions (hope you're keeping notes Cookie Jar and Sony).

I get it now, Disney.

The television animation industry is threatened in the US, and ironically, you are behind it. You've pretty much lost fact that it all started with a mouse (well, a rabbit, but until recently, another studio owned the rabbit and you changed the rabbit into a mouse, but still). All because the public has latched on to a glorified B-movie musical, a fake musician (I feel sorry for Miley when she wants to break out of the character in a few years), and any other live-action pap you're selling to the masses that the studio has lost sight that Disney's roots are in animation. You can rarely find anything from the television era starting with Gummi Bears all the way down to Pepper Ann on television these days. And today's audiences probably never saw an actual short guided by Walt Disney (yes kids, he was a real person). Today when people think of Disney, they think of Pixar movies, the Princess and Pixies lines, Power Rangers and Jetix, and pathetic Disney Channel shows and movies. I remember when the Disney name meant something. Now, it means nothing, and because of the public's need for more of the same, animation, correction, really good, diverse animation is being lost on today's audience.

I get it now. I have to end this post. People grow sick of the rantings. But there's a way to stop the rantings. Companies need to stop sucking so much, relying on quick fixes and strengthen what works for them. Otherwise, I'll keep on complaining. Oh, goody.

*end transmission*

Jeff Harris,
The X Bridge Creator/Webmaster
October 16, 2007