Tuned In

Where Are the Cartoons Going? Not Cartoon Network

By James Poniewozik | @poniewozik | November 9, 2009 | +

 

good_dog
Former ABC cartoon The Goode Family is getting a second life, but not on Cartoon Network.

The surest sign that MTV had hit the big time was that it stopped airing music videos. Ditto VH1. The more of a mainstay Food Network became, the more it aired shows that weren’t about cooking. The big money for cable news channels is not in news, but in opinion.

 

Cartoon Network has hit something of a slump in the ratings lately, so it seems to be taking cable history as a guide. How do you revive a cartoon channel? With shows that aren’t cartoons!

In that spirit, the network has been airing a string of reality shows aimed at kids. And now it’s greenlit two hour-long live-action series: Tower Prep, about a mysterious prep school, and Unnatural History, the adventures of a teen anthropologist.

So where’s a wayward cartoon to go? If it’s for adults, to Comedy Central. The network just announced a deal to rerun all 13 episodes of Mike Judge’s P.C. satire The Goode Family, which aired on ABC over the summer. Variety also reports the network is considering adopting the episodes of Sit Down, Shut Up that Mitch Hurwitz created for Fox before it was canceled.

There’s no deal to make new episodes of Goode, though the show’s studio says it would be ready to put the show back into production if the rerun’s ratings so moved Comedy Central. None of which I’d bet on, though there’s precedent: Family Guy and Futurama both got revived after successful reruns on cable. Specifically, on Adult Swim, the spinoff of… Cartoon Network.

Related Topics: Animation, cartoon network, sit down shut up, the goode family

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  • dodonna

    It seems like this is becoming the norm with “niche” cable channels; they reach the limits of their audience, then decide to chase bigger numbers by eroding whatever brand identity that made them of interest in the first place. It’s why Sci-Fi airs wrestling and AMC stopped running classic movies in favor of “Mad Men.” (Say what you will about “Mad Men,” but it’s not a movie.) I understand why it makes financial sense, but as a viewer I want to see cartoons when I tune to Cartoon Network. And when I tune in to the Weather Channel, I want to know what the weather will be, not to watch a precipitation-related feature film.

    On the other hand, working as I do for a PBS station (a “variety service” if there ever was one) I’m happy to see Food Network, TLC and A&E abandon their attempts to poach the genres we established. It undercuts the old “why should we continue to fund PBS when we have (insert lookalike cable channel here)” argument when they’ve given up any pretense of arts or education.

  • msquared2

    I remember back in the mid-90′s when I was in college, I loved this little network called FX. FX was a new kind of cable network from the Fox people which featured all kinds of live TV shows out of an apartment. They had a live pet show, live antique show (pre-Antique Road Show), as well as a movie review show, and a morning talk show (ala Today, Good Morning America), and a host of other interesting programs. Today FX is just another network with the Fox label, not unlike TBS or USA…just another network broadcasting movies & syndicated TV shows. A fine network…but it bears little similarities to the original network which debuted in the 90′s.

  • bzdesk

    I’ve noticed this Cartoon Network trend. I am an unabashed adult consumer of cartoons (I sometimes have the TV tuned to cartoons on mute as I work, corny but hey, weirdly enough, it works for me creatively, street cred be dmnd), but after the 5th hour of Spongebob on that other channel, one starts to seriously pine for a good ol’Johnny Bravo marathon.

  • oderal

    It’s a “What have done lately” with these niche shows and it hard when the item that made you popular is now losing it appeal

    Still Cartoon Network was once a show that show Warner Bros & Hanna-Barbera cartoons until they started expanding with orginal animation and anime as well as useing internet with great guesto and with it with Disney doing well with there live programing Cartoon Network needs to expand to compete

  • http://rachelstoryboardtv.wordpress.com rachelstoryboardtv

    I think that this is yet another example of how the network model is no longer sustainable. People are no longer tuning into channels, they are tuning into SHOWS. And it no longer matters where these shows are found.

  • http://tvtattle.com/2009/11/09/odds-ends-100/ NBC Universal could be sold for $30 billion — TV Tattle

    [...] With Cartoon Net going live-action, what will happen to wayward cartoons? [...]

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