Are there any older people left here who consciously remember Cartoon network when it was in its golden age, the powerhouse era (1997-2004)? There was so much variety and epicness, it will never be replicated.
Nowadays the internet is full of 19-year-old zoomers who are nostalgic for the Cnreal era (2007-2010) and missed out on so much good stuff before that.
I remember when I first came to the US we didn't get Cartoon Network. It was a deluxe channel. Don't remember when that changed but I know it was before the turn of the century.
nobody's nostalgic for cnreal
it's chowder and flapjack we're nostalgic for
I vividly remember the pre-Adult Swim era of CartoonNetwork because I used to watch Space Ghost all the time. It was one of the few cartoons my parents would watch alongside me. I thought Space Ghost, Zorak, and Brak were hysterical. Space Ghost was often put alongside all the other CN characters like he was one of the gang.
And then Adult Swim happened, they moved Space Ghost to a past-my-bedtime time slot, and when I got the chance to watch it, the show was filled with cursing and adult jokes and I noticed immediately it was different. Some fucking puppet dog whose main gimmick is that he was a foul-mouth would randomly show up and I kept wondering, "What the hell happened to Space Ghost?".
I'm pretty sure that fouled my opinion on Adult Swim early on because I refused to watch Aqua Teen for many years after kid me thought [AS] ruined Space Ghost.
Primetime was pure TV kino: youtube.com
I really miss those times.
I grew up in this era
I was 11 by the time of 2004
I remember when they aired Flintstones and Scooby Doo every night, and it used to be something me and my older sister would do every night, stay up and watch Scooby Doo before bed, and of course this was when they'd air more than just Scooby Doo where are you on CN, shit was comfy as all fuck. Childhood officially ended when they stopped airing Scooby Doo at that time slot.
>perfect mix of classics and newer cartoons
I'm old enough to remember, and that was definitely the golden age of the network. The variety was fucking insane. 2005-2007 were a pretty clear and steady decline, and after that it went into the CN Real era. I liked Chowder and Flapjack but holy shit the stuff that surrounded them was such garbage compared to what came before.
This. I’m a firm believer that every era of CN had at least something worth watching, but the variety during this era was ridiculously wide. I guess as TV started dying this was inevitable, but CN really had a good balance of old and new during this time.
yeah but even if i could tell something had changed after 2004 i still have a lot of fondness for the late 2000s
How so was 2005-2007 a decline? That was also when we got Juniper Lee, Camp Lazlo, Ben 10 (the original and the sequel), and Class of 3000, and after that (the "CN Real" era) was The Secret Saturdays, Generator Rex, and Sym-Bionic Titan.
I could genuinely stay up all day just watching CN back then from how huge the variety was. Everything from Dexter's Lab to PPG to EEnE to Billy and Mandy to Courage, all of the old Hanna Barbera shows, Looney Tunes, Fleischer-era animation, old anime, new anime, tons of animated movies, the channel had fucking everything. AS even filled the slot with more adult-oriented anime and surreal comedy in the later part of that period. I'm not sad that it's gone so much as glad that it ever even happened.
>Juniper Lee, Camp Lazlo, Ben 10 (the original and the sequel), and Class of 3000
These were all fine in their own right, but CN had started to draw back a ton of their older programming during this period, and they never quite even met up to those standards.
Secret Saturdays was sadly overlooked, while both Generator Rex and Sym-Bionic Titan were already in 2010 during the period that people thought might lead to a revival. Even then, it's hard to argue that Secret Saturdays wasn't absolutely surrounded by garbage at the time.
everything you listed was mediocre to bad
Shut up, Class of 3000 was kino
I was just 7 when the powerhouse era ended, meaning my childhood should have spilled over into the crap era of CN. However, my family stopped getting cable at the start of 2005, so I only really remember the powerhouse era shows that my older brother your age also grew up watching
I remember all of it. 31 years old here, grew up on prime Nick/CN/Disney/Kids WB
Cartoon Network was peak circa 2003
NEVER
FORGET
it's not like robot jones was any powerpuff girl either
>6 PM YYH
God damn that takes me back, used to be the last thing I'd watch before dinner
out of all those cartoons the only one that was a huge hit was ben 10. don't get me wrong i respect a lot of the stuff they were making. but they just didn't have the same string of critical and commercial successes that they did in the late 90s-early 2000s.
30 years old here
I remember when Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, and Nickelodeon all showed Yogi Bear and even Looney Tunes simultaneously (the Looney Tunes anthology movies were shown on Disney periodically 1994-1996 believe it or not)
I remember when Disney Channel had lots of weird shit like the Tall Tales live action show, Jim Henson Hour, Mother Goose shorts, that live action Alice in Wonderland, weird 80s-era live action Chronicles of Narnia, Flight of the Dragons, the low-budget live action Alice in Wonderland movies, and that nightmare fuel Return to Oz movie.
I remember when Nickelodeon showed Flipper, Lassie, Adams Family, etc as part of its regular non-Nick At Nite Schedule.
I remember when Kids WB was classic looney tunes + Animaniacs and not just anime
I remember when Cartoon Network showed obscure black & white 1930s shorts at 3am
I remember Robot Jones pre-voice render
I remember that 2000-2005 period where anime on Toonami was largely uncensored outside of swearing/nudity and we had bloody violence in most of its glory.
I remember UPN and how it showed kino like Recess and Buzz Lightyear of Star COmmand on weekday mornings so you could watch it before school
I remember the Starship troopers cartoon
I remember the FIRST Max Steel
I remember Reboot pre-Toonami
I remember the endless rerun loops DBZ had when it hit Goku arriving at Namek
I remember the original airing of the DBZ ep where Gohan fights Form 2 Frieza and it accidentally cut to 2 eps later the next day, fucking up the whole schedule for the week.
I remember when syndicated ocean dub DBZ, Beast Wars, Donkey Kong Country, and War Planets/Shadow Raiders were all shown at like 5-7am on saturday mornings all on the same channel (again, UPN).
I know this comes off as a "muh 90s kid" posting but it still needs to be said to counter zoomer influence.
I remember Zoog Disney starting the trend of this tween sitcom shit and losing interest in Disney by ~1998
Fuck bros, I want to go back to those days. I know you can get that shit on streaming and mega now, but it just isn't the same as tuning into TV and getting a variety of cartoons. Just please take me back so I can watch all of it again and play Cartoon Cartoon resort and other great Shockwave games
I'll say you are right, back then just before Adult Swim separated to do its own thing, CN was in its best moment. It felt more wild and original, like they where doing things without thinking in market research and what not.
Even the foreign stuff they did back then was better.
youtube.com
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Miguzi was mid 2000s, not late 2000s.
what commercial successes did they have in the early 2000's?
>Samurai Jack was honestly pretty underground aside from it's internet presence
>Codename: Kids Next Door was a lot less underground, but I wouldn't call it a merchandising success.
>I remember when Cartoon Network showed obscure black & white 1930s shorts at 3am
This was the shit, I remember them airing old 50s propaganda cartoons about nuclear war too. Seemed like that slot was just whatever old shit they wanted to throw on.
>I remember UPN
UPN was the station that I remember showing Sailor Moon and Pokemon on in my area. Also a very limited run of the original Dragon Ball.
>I remember the endless rerun loops DBZ had when it hit Goku arriving at Namek
Are you a Mexibro by any chance?
Don't forget this gem. CN was firing on all fucking cylinders then.
youtube.com
>I know this comes off as a "muh 90s kid" posting but it still needs to be said to counter zoomer influence.
Ironically it seems the "le 90s kid" influence has worn off on the Internet nowadays, a stark contrast to say 2012 when it was at its peak.
Now the majority of nostalgia online is moving into Zoomer nostalgia, for the Late 00s-Early 10s era (pic related). Feels kinda weird, just a few years ago everyone ranted about how the Late 00s-Early 10s were the "downfall into shit era".
>Nowadays the internet is full of 19-year-old zoomers who are nostalgic for the Cnreal era (2007-2010)
>Feeling nostalgia for Total Drama, The Super Hero Squad Show, Peppa Pig, and Skunk Fu.
I need a moment.