Cartoon Network Hates Me

This post has been a long time in coming. I've written before how it can be tough to be a television fan when you like niche media. Television programmers are merciless and will move lower rated performers all over the schedule with hardly any notice, air episodes of a serialized program out of order, and refuse to run promotions where anyone can see them. With "Community" coming back soon, and a bunch of cancellations recently announced, there's been a good amount of grumbling. "Ben & Kate," "Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23," "Alphas," "Drop Dead Divas," and "Leverage" are recent casualties.

However, two cancellations that have caused the most outcry are Cartoon Network's "Young Justice" and "Green Lantern: The Animated Series," which we only know about because they didn't appear in the press release announcing the network's upcoming schedule. Both shows were part of the heavily hyped "DC Nation" programming block, which by all indications had good ratings, but perhaps weren't attracting the right demographics. The first sign that something was wrong was back in the fall. Both shows came back after a three month summer hiatus, but only aired two episodes before they were unceremoniously yanked from the schedule for another three months. There was lots of speculation as to what might be going on behind the scenes, but even people who worked on the shows didn't have any information. When it became apparent that the whole block was cancelled, fans gnashed their teeth, but the older ones weren't surprised. Cartoon Network is notorious for stunts like this.

The kids' channels get away with a lot more fiddling with their schedules because their young audiences are less likely to call them out on it. However, Cartoon Network's programs, particularly the action cartoons and the repurposed anime, always had a decent sized cult following among adults. This includes me. And over the years, I've seen the network do absolutely rotten things to those fans. Cancelling shows that ended on cliffhangers and sticking low performers in bad timeslots is just the tip of the iceberg. Cartoon Network has the frustrating habit of sitting on unaired episodes of a cancelled series for months. "Generator Rex," for instance, was an action show that lasted three seasons, and was pulled from the schedule in February of last year. Cartoon Network didn't air the last half of the season until the following December and January, and for most of the break it wasn't clear if the remaining episodes were going to air at all. This wouldn't have been so bad if "Generator Rex" was a comedy show like "Spongebob" or "Adventure Time" with interchangeable episodes, but "Rex" was a serialized adventure story with long plot arcs building up to a big series finale. Two episodes still got cut and remain MIA, probably destined for DVD premieres.

DC fans will remember similar shenanigans with the scheduling of "Justice League Unlimited," where the final episodes kept being pushed farther and farther back and eventually most frustrated fans were pirating broadcasts from the UK, where they premiered three months earlier than in the US. The same thing happened to the initial runs of "Sailor Moon," where delaying key episodes prompted many viewers to jump ship for local syndicated broadcasts. Note that these delays were not due to production issues - animation is a perilous and time-consuming process, so some delays are always expected - but fans knew the new episodes were ready because they were finding them elsewhere. Mostly Cartoon Network delays are just them finagling with the scheduling to boost ratings or stretching out the useful life of their content. Sure, all networks do this to some extent, but you can at least expect a regular network program to air twenty-some episodes a year, and they only vanish or get delayed if there's something goes seriously wrong. Moreover, these shifts are extremely well documented by the press. Nobody much cares about the cartoons except the poor schlubs who never gave up watching them, so the programming decisions are less rule-bound and much more opaque.

Then there's Cartoon Network's refusal to cancel anything. When asked why "Young Justice" and "Green Lantern" weren't on the new schedule, a Cartoon Network rep would only say that, '“Shows will run their courses, others will premiere – but we are not canceling anything, and those two series are still on our air.” Staffers who worked on the DC shows later confirmed that production had ended. The thing is that Cartoon Network never officially cancels anything. They just opt not to order more episodes. Thus, they evade ever handing down bad news, occasionally leaving shows in extended limbo and confusing their viewers. After years of dealing with the song-and-dance act, it's clear that a show is dead when they stop promoting it and when the key creative talent moves on to new projects. It's only recently that some creators have started making unofficial statements on Twitter or personal blogs, putting a halt to the speculation. Before this some unfortunate fans would hold out hope for a resurrection of their favorite show for years.

It's actually pretty rare that a cartoon show cancellation raises the amount of fuss I've been seeing around the internet for "Young Justice" and "Green Lantern," but they were pretty popular. This begs the question why would Cartoon Network cancel them at this point, after only two seasons apiece. I think the crux of the network's problems has always been that it's good at attracting older viewers, but is fundamentally a kids' network. Ratings for anyone over the age of eleven just don't count as highly, because it's not who their advertisers are interested in. I'm guessing that DC Nation just wasn't pulling the numbers with the 2-11 year olds that it needed to. I'm not kidding when I say that Cartoon Network hates me, and other grown-up fans like me, because if there are more of us watching a show than the kids they were trying to target, it means they screwed up.

Look at the new schedule, and it reflects Cartoon Network's embrace of it's biggest performers with the younger demographics - "Adventure Time" and "Regular Show." The new "Teen Titans"? Aimed much younger than either of the current DC shows. There's also a new "Batman" incarnation, because while the Caped Crusader has plenty of older fans, he's always done well with the kids too. It's always the shows that skew older that seem to cause the most trouble, but to Cartoon Network's credit, at least they're still making them occasionally. And it was their interest in the adult demographic that led to Adult Swim and the rise of more toons aimed at grown ups.

So in spite of everything, I'm glad they're still around, even if they do drive me crazy. Happy 20th Cartoon Network. And if you delay the next Fionna and Cake episode of "Adventure Time" again, there will be hell to pay.
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