wallac7 asked: What do you think of the state of cartoons like yours and Courage the cowardly dog? I think its very sad that while you were able to be funded (and I praise you for it), John R. Dilworth couldn't get a similar show funded by CN. In my opinion, Teen Titans Go is a sign that the network has gone downhill as it centers way too much on it when other shows like Adventure Time or Steven Universe should be getting attention. I do hope that one day Courage will return.

Courage and Billy & Mandy were made during a time when TV networks didn’t think they had to worry about competition from the internet or other media. Generally, you made 52 half hours of a show and that was it. The logic was that once a kid had seen 52 half hours of a show, they were bored with it and wanted to move on to something else. Courage went to 52. Billy & Mandy went to 76 somehow, and it was quite a coup for the time.

Now studios crank out hundreds of half hours on the regular. Competition is much more fierce, and networks are much more unsure of themselves. Making TV cartoons is fun, but it’s also hard, frustrating, and occasionally lonely business. Anything that makes it more than a season absolutely deserves to be there.

I’ve seen Teen Titans Go and I think it’s a really good, funny show. I never watched the “serious” Teen Titans, so I don’t have the attachment a lot of people do. The reason Teen Titans is being played all of the time is because it’s getting the highest ratings on CN. That doesn’t mean it’s the best show, it just means that the programming department doesn’t believe in diminishing returns. When Billy & Mandy was on the air, we’d constantly get pushed aside for Samurai Jack. It annoyed me, but it didn’t mean that Samurai Jack wasn’t a beautiful show. I’m still thankful that the Billy & Mandy fans stuck with us even though the network kept shifting our dates and times around every week for seven years.

As a fan of anything, it’s your job to share your love with as many people as possible. You are the ones keeping it alive. CN may not air Adventure Time as much as they used to, but that’s just the Darwinian nature of TV. Adventure Time is Helen Mirren and Teen Titans is Miley Cyrus. You can argue all day abut which one is better, but that doesn’t mean that you’re right or wrong or can’t love them both. Most people will gravitate toward Miley because she’s relatively new and because the people running the entertainment world want to push her in front of as many faces as they can. Some people will appreciate Helen’s ability to bust caps in fools at age seventy. It’s all a matter of personal taste.

I guess (to finally maybe answer your question) I feel like the state of cartoons like Billy & Mandy and Courage is: “dead”. And in some ways they’ll probably always be that way. But thanks to the fans, they’re most decidedly “undead”. Entertainment is a symbiotic relationship. The important thing is that you wear your heart on your sleeve, and that you share what you love with whoever will listen to you talk about it or look at your cool T-shirt or sit down and watch it with you.