Old Cartoon Network :(

What's wrong with Cartoon Network is that there is no imagination whatsoever. Cartoon Network has too much money to be creative. I mean, look at Adult Swim now. When you have a few million dollars to buy reruns of Family Guy, you don't have to worry about getting ratings. You can put Family Guy on at 3 A.M. on the "Watching This Channel Will Make You Sterile" channel, and it would probably get great ratings. So now that they have guaranteed cash cows like Futurama and Family Guy, they can afford to use boring black and white text messages in between shows, because they don't have to worry about drawing viewers in.

But you know what, fuck Adult Swim. Fuck it right in its stupid asshole. This article isn't about Adult Swim, this article is about the glory days of Cartoon Network, 1992-1996. Back when the only "Adult Swim" Cartoon Network had was Space Ghost Coast to Coast, every Friday night at 11, for a half hour, completely uncut. It was glorious. Growing up, I took Space Ghost for granted. I never taped it because I just assumed it would be around forever. WELL WE CAN SEE HOW WRONG I WAS ABOUT THAT :'(

Space Ghost wasn't the only original show on Cartoon Network back then. The rest of the original shows basically existed only to introduce Looney Tunes and other classics. They had stuff like The Moxy Show, which was a computer animated dog voiced by Bobcat Goldthwait. They played The Bear That Wasn't like in every single episode of the Moxy Show. Also, I remember a long time ago they had Haas and Little Joe, two hand puppets with googly eyes and mustaches and they were dressed like cowboys. They introduced different Looney Tunes with cowboy-themed jokes. It was phenomenal. Other original stuff on old Cartoon Network: World Premiere Toons. Captain Buzz Cheeply, Yuckie Duck, God those were magical.

One of the things I miss most about old Cartoon Network were the promos and commercials. They were brilliant. One single commercial from 1994 was funnier, more clever and more entertaining than the entire series of Kids Next Door, Teen Titans and Grim and Evil combined. There was one commercial of some detective or something, he was talking to a guy that saw Dino (from the Flinstones) and the whole commercial was an old man going "RA RA RA RA RA!!!", and it was great. I talked to my friends the next day about it. Also, there was the "Cartoon Network Thing To Do Today". I remember the theme song of those.

But you might be asking yourself, exactly how awesome was old Cartoon Network? Even the anime was awesome. True story. Back when Cartoon Network first started, anime was awesome. There were no special "Toonami" or "Adult Swim Action" blocks, anime was just any other cartoon. They'd play Quick Draw McGraw, Smurfs, G-Force, and then Bugs Bunny. There were no nerds back then to ruin anime for everyone. G-Force, Voltron, they were probably edited real bad. I didn't care. Thinking back, I still don't care. No nerds complained. There wasn't an official message board dominated by 13-year-olds who demanded nothing but anime be shown. Everything about old Cartoon Network was great.

So as you can plainly see, more money = less creativity. Back when Cartoon Network had nothing to show but the contents of the Turner vaults, they'd have to do creative things to get people to watch. They had all kinds of cool marathons and different kinds of packaging to get people to sit through that old stuff, and I did. Every time I see those shaved Yetis that host Cartoon Cartoon Fridays in front of a bench of the producers' sons and daughters, it breaks my heart. I used to be able to turn the TV on to Cartoon Network and watch it all day, and never get bored. Today, I can't watch TV that long and be that entertained even if I changed channels. Kids these days, they don't know what they're missing. I wish it was still 1994.