Toonzone's Cartoon Network 30th Anniversary Celebration Thread: 2002-2006

[Scrappy-Fan92]

We start our third thread for the 30th anniversary with the year of Cartoon Network's 10th anniversary.

While it was generally business as usual for most of the year, October 1st, 2002 would see a humorous 60-second commercial showcasing a rapid-fire montage of show footage and bumpers to celebrate Turner's little money pit making it to the double digits.

Two new original series would premiere this year, those being the deliberately vintage-looking Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones? (which aired its pilot in 2000 as part of the Big Pick Weekend), and the 2001 Big Pick Weekend winner Codename: Kids Next Door (which premiered at the tail-end of 2002 after Courage and Mike, Lu & Og bowed out). These would be the final two new series to formally premiere under the Cartoon Cartoon branding. Perennial merch-maker The Powerpuff Girls would receive a theatrically released film during the summer movie season, which would provide an expanded origin story for the title characters and effectively serve as a capstone to creator Craig McCracken's run on the show.

In more somber news, the channel would note the passing of Warner Bros. animator and all-around Renaissance man Chuck Jones with a short bumper drawing a caricature of him, which they had done for William Hanna the previous year.

Other tidbits:
-Cartoon Cartoon Fridays had its last full year in 2002, getting themed versions of itself such as Cartoon Cartoon Weekend Summerfest and Scaretoon Scaretoon Fridays.
-Someone in charge of scheduling realized that Cartoon Network had the broadcast rights to a lot of Scooby-Doo! shows. Seeing as there was a live-action movie and a new TV show on the horizon, may as well compile the older shows into an hourlong weekday block called Scooby Universe.
-The CN originals would get recent reruns with spiffy packaging via the Top 5 block.
-In what may be the funniest instance of corporate categorization, the action-centric Toonami block is designated as the place to air children's slice of life series Hamtaro. Because anime. Even T.O.M. seems a little confused.
-While not the first of its kind, CN would do an awards show in their usual way. The 1st 13th Annual Fancy Anvil Awards Show Program Special: Live in Stereo would premiere on March 23rd and provide awards to various characters, episodes, and moments, with Scooby-Doo himself receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award. As you could gander from the title, it was a mostly tongue-in-cheek affair, mixing in cartoon character appearances with live-action celebrity cameos. With that said, they still had an "In Memoriam" section to honor William Hanna, Chuck Jones, and animator Maurice Noble.

Robot Jones intro


KND intro

Time Squad intro (season 2)

The Powerpuff Girls Movie trailers and TV spots

2002 CCF intro (long version)

2002 CCF intro (short version), plus an introductory segment for host of the week Edd -- this particular recording likely came from 2003 given how late in 2002 Kids Next Door premiered

Scooby Universe promo

Fancy Anvil Awards full(?) broadcast

A promo for Pokémon airing reruns of its first season on CN fulltime

 

[Surreal Kangaroo]

The first half of the year was pretty solid. I used to have the Fancy Anvil Award show recorded but that tape is long gone by now. I used to be obsessed with KND, so I was hyped for that.

This summer is when I can tell CCF was on its death bed. A shortened theme song. No new hosts. No big pick weekend. Lots of excuses to have host-free nights.

 

[Darklordavaitor]

There were some big changes going on during 2002, but this is still a good year. A couple of things worth noting:

-While [adult swim] would soon become its own thing, I do want to mention that this was the year Adult Swim Action started out. Its arguable first anchor series, Yu Yu Hakusho, would famously move down to Toonami a year later and would become a favorite there as well.

-I remember the Fancy Anvil Awards and being excited for them, getting my votes in. Besides being a fun broadcast that saw the channel continue to play with its ever-growing roster of characters, I think the winners showed off what was especially thriving at this point. The classics were slowly starting to fade out, with only Bugs Bunny getting a win for Musical Performance (I'm going to paraphrase the award titles, so bear with me) for "Rabbit of Seville", as the Cartoon Cartoons took the lion's share of the awards. Dexter's Lab took three; Dexter for Best Male Character, Mandark for Best Villain, and "Mock 5" winning Best Cartoon, while The Powerpuff Girls and Ed, Edd n' Eddy took two each. The former earned awards for Bubbles as Best Female Character and the Mayor for Best Butt, and the Eds won Best Team, and also earned Plank a Best Inanimate Object award.

I think this shows off what the big three shows of the network were at this point. Dex and Powerpuff were no-brainers, especially the latter, but I particularly love how the Eds have risen through the ranks. I believe 2002 was when it received its first video game for the GBA. Dexter's Lab's revival wouldn't prove as successful as its original run, and The Powerpuff Girls Movie underperforming would signal the end of Powerpuff Mania, not to mention that Courage was wrapping up this year, so CN would soon rely on Ed, Edd n' Eddy as one of their top shows over the next few years. Kids Next Door would also receive that push, as it proved to be a big hit out of the gate.

If you liked the classics, then 2002 wasn't too bad of a year, but they were dwindling down even further from the main channel. The Flintstones still had a sizeable presence on CN, and you could still see plenty of Looney Tunes, Scooby and Tom and Jerry, but the rest of Hanna-Barbera's library were saved for the earliest hours and/or Boomerang. It is what it is, though, as CN's originals were continuing to make their mark.

 

[Beast of Beef]

Well, we’re in the middle of august. I guess we forgot to do this. Bumping. Let’s continue.

 

[Scrappy-Fan92]

Well, we’re in the middle of august. I guess we forgot to do this. Bumping. Let’s continue.

I didn't forget, I'm just lazy and my plans to have a temporary substitute for these posts fell through.

My apologies for the radio silence, everyone. I'm not as hyperfocused on these as I used to be (and my near-lack of scheduling in 2017 wasn't great, either). The anniversary posts I make now are generally more detailed anyways, so it takes time. As such, I'm gonna cut my losses and just continue posting these throughout the end of 2022. Hopefully, I can make all of the posts before Dec. 31st.

 

[Scrappy-Fan92]

Okay, trying to get back in the thick of things. 2003, the last full year of the Powerhouse era, a transition year so to speak. The end of the Cartoon Cartoon branding starts this year, with Cartoon Cartoon Fridays ending after a four-year run, getting transitioned into "Summer Fridays," which would obviously drop the Summer part eventually. This generically-named "Fridays" would use the transition branding for a few weeks longer until the block was finally revamped at the end of the year, boasting a new cameo-laden intro from Primal Screen and featuring real people as hosts. Tommy Snider and Nzinga Blake would be the original duo, interacting with the crowd, their puppet costars, and the occasional call-in appearance from a cartoon character.

Toonami would also begin its next evolution, redesigning T.O.M. yet again and learning how to navigate in a world without "new" episodes of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, though reruns of both would persist while Funimation prepared Dragon Ball GT for U.S. broadcast. Sailor Moon would also air its last reruns in the United States this year. This would be Toonami's last full year as a weekday block, its eventual transition to a one-day event being heralded by the arrival of a sister block aptly titled Saturday Video Entertainment System. Much of Toonami's programming would find a second home here. And what perfect timing; Toonami's Midnight Run, Rising Sun, and Super Saturdays off-shoots would end this year.

For originals, it was largely business as usual, some shows come in, others leave. Dexter's second run would conclude in November, and Time Squad and Robot Jones would air their last new episodes the same month. Perhaps the most interesting development was CN airing an animated Star Wars cartoon titled Clone Wars, headed by Genndy Tartakovsky. This "microseries" took place after the events of the then-recent Attack of the Clones and was an anthology focused on the Jedi and the Clone Troopers serving under them.

Meanwhile, Grim & Evil proved successful enough that Cartoon Network would split the show in two as it had done for Cow & Chicken and the Weasel segments four years before, though the newer duo would run concurrently a bit longer. The rechristened Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and Evil Con Carne would premiere within about a month of each other during the Summer season.

And CN's relationship with Warner Bros. Animation would continue, getting second-run episodes of recent hits like What's New, Scooby-Doo? and becoming the home of the studio's newest superhero cartoon, Teen Titans and Daffy Duck's first solo show that wasn't a shorts collection, Duck Dodgers. Marathon Media's Totally Spies would also find its way to CN after a short run on ABC Family.

...I have got to make these write-ups shorter.

Other trivia:
-Fridays would be the area where CN premiered the first three Pokémon movies over three consecutive weeks in November.
-Memorial Day would see a 12-hour movie marathon, including The Powerpuff Girls Movie which had already made its television premiere earlier in the year.
-Cartoon Network did another one of those "Air our Christmas programming in the Summer" events.

Billy & Mandy intro:


Evil Con Carne intro

Star Wars: Clone Wars intro

Saturday Video Entertainment System premiere promo

Summer Fridays intro from May 23rd, 2003

Cartoon Network Fridays 2003 intro

Toonami's first T.O.M. 3.0 intro

Christmas in July 2003 promo

 

[Scrappy-Fan92]

Here is the turning point. It's 2004, the year of Friends' finale, George W. Bush's reelection, and the debut of the Nintendo DS. Cartoon Network went through a most transformative period, shedding its checkerboard logo for a smaller "CN" insignia and heavily revamping its branding. The last vestiges of the Powerhouse era were removed as the channel called on Primal Screen once again to provide the bumpers and interstitials with the City branding. Instead of transposing 2D cartoons onto live-action backgrounds, a wholly CG playground was used to provide a neutral setting for the channel's characters to inhabit. It was quite visually impressive and probably very expensive, which I imagine was one of the contributing factors to streamlining the cast of characters used in these commercials. Cartoon Network was over a decade old at this point and had migrated much of the earlier Hanna-Barbera programming to the Boomerang channel. The original Boomerang block aired on CN proper until October 3rd of 2004, taking Looney Tunes with its departure.

The City bumpers were predominantly focused on more contemporary programming, CN's own originals made between 1996 and 2004, as well as Tom & Jerry (the old shorts having avoided being taken out of rotation) and Scooby-Doo and Duck Dodgers (franchises that also either had some vintage presence or new material to keep them relevant). In some ways, this was the year Cartoon Network properly became a venue for new programming instead of older studios' greatest hits.

Toonami would also go through a shift. After seven years as a weekday block, it would supplant the recently created SVES as the channel's Saturday night action block, a status that continues to this day even after it was revived on Adult Swim. Taking up the Monday-Friday airspace would be Miguzi, another action-oriented block mostly airing acquisitions in its earlier days. Totally Spies and the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would find comfortable homes here, alongside Teen Titans and another animesque cartoon, Code Lyoko. Miguzi's branding had CG bumpers focused on a young girl named Erin who hung out with aliens in an underwater base.

Of course, all of this new wrapping doesn't mean anything if there aren't any shows to air. The first new original to premiere would be action comedy Megas XLR, followed by Craig McCracken's Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (getting a pilot movie in the Summer) and Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, a celebrity cartoon based on fictionalized versions of Japanese singing duo Ami Onuki and Yumi Yoshimura. Warner Bros. Animation head Sam Register was the credited creator of the latter show.

Other trivia:
-Samurai Jack and Evil Con Carne would conclude this year, the latter with its overarching plot unresolved. Due to animation lead time, Con Carne's General Skarr would be transplanted to Billy & Mandy before his home series officially ended.
-Johnny Bravo would debut its fourth and final season this year, with series creator Van Partible returning.
-Saturday Video Entertainment System would conclude.
-CN held a May Movie Month, airing a different movie or special every day.
-Justice League concluded and was succeeded by Justice League Unlimited soon after.
-Ed, Edd n Eddy aired its season 4 finale "Take This Ed and Shove It," which would've been its series finale had CN not ordered more episodes. A Christmas special aired literally the following month, so for most viewers, it was a seamless uncancellation.
-Fridays received a slight update to its intro, now adding in some newer characters.
-Cartoon Network Cartoon Theatre also received new branding to match the City era, with Ed serving as an usher in between commercials.

CN City branding unveiling:


Megas XLR intro


Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends intro

Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi intro

Johnny Bravo intro (season 4)

Miguzi intro

Toonami intro (2004)

Fridays intro (2004)

May Movie Month promos

2004 Memorial Day Movie Marathon promo

Saturday Block Party promos

 

[mqg96]

Here is the turning point. It's 2004, the year of Friends' finale, George W. Bush's reelection, and the debut of the Nintendo DS. Cartoon Network went through a most transformative period, shedding its checkerboard logo for a smaller "CN" insignia and heavily revamping its branding.

Toon Disney went thru a huge transformative period in 2004 as well, with the addition of Jetix, the removal of Disney Afternoon shows and changing its logo, and Nickelodeon to a small extent had some changes as well. 2004 was a huge transition year for multiple TV networks & pop culture in many ways. The timing of this was crazy.

Since this is a 2002-2006 thread, I must say that this was definitely the height of my CN childhood in a nutshell. 2002, 2003, & 2004 were my favorite years for sure.

 

[Toonhead2002Ultra]

Con Carne's General Skarr would be transplanted to Billy & Mandy before his home series officially ended.

You know I had no idea that the episode where General Skarr showed up in Billy & Mandy came out before his series of origin ended. It aired in June while Evil Con Carne wouldn't end until October; about 4 months later. I wonder if kids at the time we're confused to see the same character play relatively different roles in two different shows that aired new episodes during the same time period. Makes you think.

 

[Scrappy-Fan92]

Welcome back to the anniversary celebration thread. Up for discussion now is 2005. King Kong and The War of the Worlds were remade, Joseph Barbera headed his last Tom & Jerry short, and long-running procedural JAG concluded after a decade on the air. Cartoon Network had a most busy year, enjoying the only full year of the City branding and beginning to shed more of its 90's trappings. After six seasons, The Powerpuff Girls aired its last episodes in March of this year, leaving Ed, Edd n Eddy as the last original pre-2000 show still in production at this point. It, KND, and Billy & Mandy would serve as the last Cartoon Cartoon or Cartoon Cartoon-adjacent programs to air new episodes for the remainder of the decade.

A new crop of shows would come about throughout the year, most prominently two shows that aired during the Cartoon Network Summer event. On Memorial Day was the urban fantasy action series The Life & Times of Juniper Lee. In July came Camp Lazlo, a show from Rocko's Modern Life creator Joe Murray. Two of its characters, Scoutmaster Lumpus and Slinkman, served as hosts of this year's daytime Summer block before their show actually premiered.

Much later in the year, CN would provide sneak peeks of three additional shows that would help chart the flavor of this era.

Another Summer addition came through the Tickle-U block, another attempt at preschool-oriented programming. Acquisitions included Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs, Firehouse Tales, a revival of UPA's Gerald McBoing-Boing, and the U.S. debut of Peppa Pig.

Miguzi and Toonami would carry on as usual, the former block adding a new alien companion named Yolk, designed by a child fan who had submitted their drawing during a promotional contest run in 2004. Toonami would acquire a litany of new anime in the Fall season, including its other action series involving a blonde glutton who wore blue and orange. The Gundam franchise would air its last episodes on daytime CN this year as well.

Other trivia:
-Ed, Edd n Eddy would air Valentine's Day and Halloween specials as the lead-ups to the wholly-digitally animated season five. These episodes would take place during the school year and would properly debut in November.
-Fridays would see Nzinga Blake depart, her position as co-host filled by voice actress Tara Jayne Sands, perhaps best known for being the original voice of Ash's Bulbasaur in Pokémon.
-Toonami premiered Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, One Piece, Naruto, and a Williams Street international co-production, IGPX.
-Dragon Ball Z resurfaced with uncut episodes and was aptly titled Dragon Ball Z Uncut.
-Scooby Universe's successor block Scooby Alley ends in July, taking most of the remaining Hanna-Barbera Scooby shows with it. The Saturday Block Party also ends this year.
-Totally Atomic, a one-hour Sunday night block focusing on Totally Spies and recent-ish acquisition Atomic Betty, ran in the early half of this year as well.
-During November, Cartoon Network would begin flirting with live-action programming, airing acquired movies. Some, like Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Small Soldiers, had a large animated component to them, but others did not.
-The first of two Cartoon Network Holiday Rushes ran holiday-themed programming Sunday-Thursday (plus some spill-over into Friday) for most of December. Billy & Mandy, Foster's, and KND saw their Christmas episodes premiere this year.
-Towards the end of the year, Cartoon Network provided sneak peek episodes of Ben 10, My Gym Partner's a Monkey, and French co-production Robotboy. I will go more in-depth with these programs for the 2006 post.

Juniper Lee intro:


Camp Lazlo intro

Tickle U promo

Fridays' Tara interacts with Billy & Mandy's Irwin and even namedrops new block Sunday Pants

Holiday Rush promo

Toonami Summer 2005 Preview and a collection of bumpers from Cartoon Network Summer

Lumpus and Slinkman's Cabin Fever promo

 

[Surreal Kangaroo]

To be honest, the City Age is my favorite. I have more nostalgia for the Powerhouse era, but the City age is my favorite on terms of looks and idea.

 

[Scrappy-Fan92]

Link to the 20th/25th anniversary lookback at 2006 here.

We close out this thread with 2006, the year of Cars, 30 Rock, and Nintendo's Wii. Cartoon Network's last full year under the leadership of Jim Samples would continue the channel's evolution post-Powerhouse. After some late sneak peeks in 2005, Cartoon Network would properly premiere two original series early in the year: Fish-out-of-water (see what I did there?) comedy My Gym Partner's a Monkey and an extraterrestrial-themed show of action from Man of Action. Yes, this is the official birth of the Ben 10 franchise. Also joining them was European co-production Robotboy, which debuted abroad in November of 2005.

These shows would be joined by the late Everett Peck's suburban slice-of-life series Squirrel Boy on Memorial Day weekend, and singer André 3000 would create a cartoon of his own through surreal musical series Class of 3000 at the tail-end of 2006. I suppose it would be fitting that Class of 3000 made its way to the network as Ami and Yumi would be shown the door this same year. No other original series would conclude this year, leaving 2006 as a relatively stable period for CN, at least on the surface.

Joining the new crop of shows would be a new crop of movies. Among the more notable ones included Kids Next Door's Operation: Z.E.R.O., Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends' Good Wilt Hunting, and a new IP, animation/live-action hybrid Re-Animated.

Truth be told, there may be more interesting trends in the acquisitions. Miguzi would truck along for its final full year, though with Erin's screentime notably reduced. Pokémon's increased prominence on the block would be a harbinger for Cartoon Network getting U.S.-exclusive broadcast rights to new dubbed episodes starting with Battle Frontier in September. The anime's previously undubbed side-story episodes from years past would also be compiled into an anthology series titled Pokémon Chronicles, aired in the Summer before Battle Frontier premiered.

Teen Titans would conclude after five seasons and receive a movie of its own to provide one additional adventure for the cast. Justice League Unlimited would also end, bringing the DC Animated Universe's 14-year run to a close. What's New, Scooby-Doo? would end its run on Kids' WB, a block which itself would migrate to a new channel as CN's fellow network The WB would close. Dragon Ball Z would also see its last new-to-U.S.-broadcast material via airings of several movies on Toonami.

Cartoon Network was changing. And that could most obviously be noticed through another branding change. The City bumpers were retired partway through the year for more minimalist bumpers, often with red backgrounds.

Other trivia:
-Billy & Mandy aired the episode "Keeper of the Reaper," which introduced Fred Fredburger, who in turn inspired the Yes! era of bumpers that came in this year.
-The Tickle-U block concluded this year.
-The Holiday Rush returned, reusing much of the same bumpers due to overlap in the active shows featured.
-Cartoon Network paid tribute to Japan's Studio Ghibli with "A Month of Miyazaki," where multiple Ghibli films were broadcast starting in March.
-Two pirate-themed films, Scooby-Doo! Pirates Ahoy and Tom & Jerry: Shiver Me Whiskers, were given television premieres in the Fall. These would be the final feature-length movies with any involvement from Joe Barbera before his death in December. Cartoon Network would air a bumper in tribute to him.
-The Powerpuff Girls would receive another feather in its cap: a Japanese adaptation. Powerpuff Girls Z would demonstrate just how prolific the franchise had become.
-Fridays would undergo some branding changes of its own, bringing in more video game-themed aesthetics.

Robotboy intro:


-My Gym Partner's a Monkey intro
-Ben 10 (2005) intro (season one)
-Squirrel Boy intro
-Class of 3000 intro
-Yes! bumpers here and here
-A Month of Miyazaki promo (warning: some sequences, such as 0:23-0:27, may be disturbing or upsetting to those with trypophobia...also, if you don't know what trypophobia is, do not Google it without disabling images on your browser. You have been warned).
-Pokémon: Battle Frontier promo
-Operation: Z.E.R.O. promo
-Good Wilt Hunting promo
-Re-Animated promo

 

[Scrappy-Fan92]

Ignore this post, I placed my text in the wrong area. Go look at the soon-to-be-put-up 2007-2011 thread.