As one of the driving creative forces behind Cartoon Network's Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, Mike Lazzo's place in the pop culture firmament is well in hand.

As the senior vice-president of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, he's also had a hand in developing and nurturing some of the most innovative animation ever to hit the small screen during his over ten-year tenure at the network – including the successful AS programming block.Lazzo was kind enough to suffer the intense mental anguish inherent in our unique in-depth interview formula (Geneva Convention be damned)...

Twenty-four hours of cartoons.Well, I mean, it was very much on the model of TNT, where Ted went out and bought the MGM/UA library and instantly was able to start a new network, alongside TBS and CNN. Just by that one acquisition, he had thousands of hours of classic movies. So the earliest days of TNT were very similar to how Turner Classic Movies is today. The same approach was used with Cartoon Network. In one fell swoop, buying Hanna-Barbara – with over 8,000 half-hours of animation – he was able to, overnight, start a cartoon network.No. I mean, Turner had always been a small, fairly lean operation. He was a master at taking existing aspects – in the case of TNT, he used part of the TBS apparatus to get that up-and-running. The same was true of Cartoon Network. I originally worked at TBS. Although I was running Cartoon Network programming, I still was working for TBS, so it was like a part-time job. Then, within a year, it was clear that it was going to be too much to split my time that way.1992.That's right. There were some theatrical cartoons that were part of the MGM acquisition – Tom & Jerry, the Droopys... the MGM generics, so to speak. There was also what is called the pre-1948 Warner Bros. cartoons, that had actually been acquired many years earlier by United Artists. That was a part of the package, as well as about 200 Popeye cartoons.Well, at this point – this was the early 1990s – brands were on the tip of everyone's tongue. Branding was very, very important. It was a way of taking the old movies that were on TNT and making them feel fresh again, through packaging. So that was very important to Cartoon Network – even though in many ways we were still deemed the Hanna-Barbara rerun channel, people didn't seem to care because it was attractively presented. So I'd say it was very, very important.Well, I think both. From the earliest ratings we got, we saw what we in fact see today – which is 2/3 of the audience are 2-11, and 1/3 of the audience is 13 and older. When you examine the older aspect of the audience, it's pretty clear that half of it is adults watching with their children, and half of it is just adults watching because they love animation. So it was kind of a combination of all different demographics, and the older ones were very often watching out of nostalgia. Now I would not say that's true of a Powerpuff Girls or a Samurai Jack, or obviously the Space Ghost/Birdman/Aqua Teen that we have now, but in the early days that was true.Yes. To the older viewer, I think that's true, to some degree, but I think that's still a minority of the viewers. The majority of the viewers would watch it because they would just think it's a good, clever show. Early on, though – I know in my case, when we were first starting the network, I would watch all the action cartoons every single day because I had not seen them in 20-30 years. And they just were marvels to me, because there was my childhood playing every day at 4:00.Absolutely! That's exactly right.Yes, I absolutely believe that. I think the timing on it was fantastic, and Ted Turner will tell you that it was his second greatest idea after CNN. And I believe him.