Timeline | Reflections | Comments

1994

     In early 1994, inspired by the popularity of "Animaniacs", a fellow by the name of Devon Thomas created the Warner Bros. Club on the old Prodigy internet service. The club existed in the Cartoons topic of Prodigy's TV BB, and the only way to signify club posts was by adding a "WBC" prefix to each post title. The club was intended to be a home for the discussion of all the Warner Bros. cartoon series, which at that time consisted only of Looney Tunes, Tiny Toons, Batman, Taz-Mania and Animaniacs. Club members were encouraged to take the name of a WB cartoon character and refer to each using those names.

     Devon left shortly after founding the club, and it languished for a while until club member Eileen Delgadillo ("Dot") decided that something needed to be done. She made a post asking if anyone would mind if she took charge, and after receiving a single indifferent response she declared herself the club's "Supreme Ruler of the World" (SROTW). She created a club leadership which consisted of Linda Pang ("Babs Bunny", Vice SROTW), Colin Feder ("Plucky Duck", Assistant to the SROTW), and Brian Smith ("Sylvester", Assistant to the VSROTW). In December of 1994 Brian Cruz joined the club, first as "Charlie Dog" and later as "Bugs Bunny". Due to his expertise in Looney Tunes, Brian was named the club's Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies Authority (LTMMA). Yes, there was an acronym for everything!

1995

     1995 was a banner year for the WBC. As the membership grew and the club's organization solidified, several club documents were created. Among these was the Peanut Code, which were the official club rules, and Cast Members List (CML), which was based on a monthly roll call. Eileen also decided to start a WBC newsletter called "The Looney Bin", and asked several club members to contribute to it. Brian Cruz was tapped to write a history of Looney Tunes, and it was in their exchange of e-mails regarding the newsletter that Eileen and Brian discovered they lived only miles apart. They decided to meet in person on March 24, 1995, and on that date they began a romance that continues to this day. (Yes, they'll get married eventually. Give them time!). Click here to read the first issue of The Looney Bin.

     In order to expand awareness of Warner Bros. cartoons, a second branch of the WBC opened in 1995 on Prodigy's Arts BB. The leadership of this branch differed slightly from the TV BB branch. Colin Feder was the "Grand" SROTW and Brian Cruz was the Vice GSROTW, with Brian Smith as Colin's assistant and Linda Pang as Brian's assistant. Unfortunately this branch of the WBC attracted few new members and was eventually dissolved.

     The WBC's presence on the world wide web began in 1995 with the creation of The Warner Bros. Club Online, a page which did nothing more than provide the location of the WBC and list its leadership. Simple as it was, it was the first incarnation of one of the four sites that would eventually merge and become Toon Zone. Colin Feder and Brian Cruz both created their first web pages around this time: CMF Studios and Brian's Home Page, respectively.

     September saw the launch of Kids' WB, and with it came new shows like Pinky & The Brain, Freakazoid, and The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries. The world of WB Animation looked bright, and the WBC kept chugging along.

1996

     Nobody remembers what happened in 1996. No, seriously, we all racked our brains but couldn't remember a thing. Weird, huh? But we were able to find these two old threads: a WBC Roll Call, and the start of a story chain. Plus, take a look at the redesigned Warner Bros. Club web page, which is all too typical of sites from that era.

1997

     In 1997 the popularity of the WBC slowly dwindled. This was the result of Prodigy introducing a newer, web-based service called Prodigy Internet. The older Prodigy, now dubbed "Prodigy Classic", had become positively archaic, with its old DOS graphics and clunky interface driving away users in droves. The world wide web was going mainstream, and dozens of cartoon web sites started popping up all over. One of the best was and still is Keeper's Cartoon Files, run by Ron "Keeper" O'Dell, the boyfriend (and now fiancée) of the WBC's VSROTW Linda Pang.

     One of the most handy features of Keeper's Cartoon Files was the Kids WB FELs (Future Episodes List), which detailed Kids WB's broadcast schedule. Unfortunately, in September 1997 Ron lost his internet access and was no longer able to update the schedule, so Brian Cruz volunteered to take over. At this point in time, Brian was in his first year at NYU's film school and had long ago cancelled his Prodigy account, making him a WBC member in spirit only. Brian quickly slapped together an addition to his NYU web page, and on September 16, 1997, the Kids WB Episode Schedule Page was born! (the link will take you to the earliest archived version of the page, from January 1998).

     Since he had way too much free time on his hands, Brian began expanding his page to include more than just the Kids WB schedule. He added the schedule for WB cartoons on Nickelodeon (which, like the Kids WB schedule, was just copied from the networks' official section on AOL), as well as a section on WB cartoon comic books, and also a small area on the front page with WB cartoon news. The second of the four sites that formed Toon Zone was now fully functional.

1998

     By 1998 it had become apparent that the WBC would need a new home. Eileen Delgadillo (now a freshman at the School of Visual Arts in NYC) created new branch of the WBC on a free web board service. A few members of the Prodigy branch migrated over, and some frequented both branches, but for the most part the web and the Prodigy WBC's remained separate. Eileen and Colin headed the web branch, while Linda and Brian Smith headed the Prodigy branch.

     Now that the WBC was on the web, its membership began to increase steadily, thanks in part to a prominent link on the Kids WB Episode Schedule Page. People who joined around this time include "ByZWay" (later "Romey"), Craig "Gookie" Crumpton, Beth "Siren" Bonstetter, and Craig Marinaro. Eileen changed her name from "Dot" to "Batgirl" and finally "Harley", while Colin dropped his "Plucky" name altogether.

     Based on the demand for a Kids WB schedule organized by date rather than by show, Colin created Kids' WB Episode Schedules: Daily Edition on his Lycoming College web space. The site featured a calendar that listed each day's WB cartoon programming on both Kids WB and Nickelodeon. This was the third of the four sites that would become Toon Zone (no archive from this time is available, sadly).

     Brian Cruz redesigned his page and renamed it WB Cartoon Episode Schedules because it began to focus on more than just Kids' WB!. No longer content to copy schedules from AOL, Brian established relationships with the publicity departments of Kids WB and Cartoon Network, and received schedules, programming highlights, and news through them. The news section continued to grow as readers started to e-mail news directly to the site, including WB Animation producer Tom Ruegger.

     Eileen created a new site, The Warner Bros. Cartoon Comic Cover Archive. The site featured synopses and covers to all the WB cartoon comics released by DC Comics in the past few years. There was also a page that featured artwork from Batman Adventures artists Ty Templeton, whom Eileen had become friendly with. As you may have guessed, this was the fourth site that would form Toon Zone. (and once again, there's no archive available from this period).

     With four similar sites growing in popularity, Eileen, Brian and Colin quickly began to run out of space to keep everything. They had used up the space on every personal account, college account, and even AOL accounts from several friends. They decided to pool their money and buy 300MB of space on a server, along with their own domain name. Initial ideas for the name were based on some variation of "WB Cartoons", but it was decided to drop "WB" for fear of legal problems, and also to allow the site to grow beyond WB cartoons in the future. They more or less agreed on toonzone.net (.com was taken), but asked for ideas on the WBC as well. Click here to read an archived WBC thread in which members suggested other possible names for the site.

     On August 21st, an announcement was made on the WB Schedules page (now called Brian Cruz's WB Cartoons Page) that the site would be moving the following Monday. After a weekend spent moving files and creating front page graphics, Toon Zone debuted on August 24, 1998.

1999

     With ample server space now available, it made little sense to keep the WBC on a free web board service. So in February of 1999, the WBC forum moved to the Toon Zone server. Click here to view the last page of the original WBC web board. Due to the large number of story threads that were being posted, a new forum spun out of the WBC called "The Story Board". At first, The Story Board used a different forum software than the WBC, but within a month The Story Board joined the WBC in using a version of the "WWWThreads" software (heavily modified by Harley). Sadly, the oldest archives of the WBC and The Story Board using the WWWThreads software could not be located for inclusion in this timeline, but the Original Story Board can still be read.

     Due to its inability to be upgraded for "Y2K", Prodigy announced that it's "classic" service would be shutting down. The original Prodigy branch of the WBC closed for good in June.

     The four sites that comprised Toon Zone were never more active than at this time. The Comic Archive now extended back to beginning of the Batman Adventures, Looney Tunes and Animaniacs series. The WBC was attracting new members and its page was becoming larger and more complex, included features such as an archive of Tim "Two-Face" Leighton and Jim Harvey's Batman: The Animated Newsletter. Schedules were coming in regularly, providing constant updates for Brian and Colin's schedule pages. The news section of Brian's site grew larger thanks to contributions form people like Jim Harvey, Vincent Benenati, Eddie Beiles and Craig Crumpton, among many others. WB Animation producer Tom Ruegger was contributing synopses of upcoming Histeria episodes, as well as information on the direct-to-video Animaniacs movie, Wakko's Wish. In April, the first edition of April Fool's News caused a minor ruckus. But then in June everything came to a crashing halt when Kids WB stopped providing their schedule. Numerous attempts to regain access to the schedule failed, and so Brian's Cruz's WB Cartoons closed for good in July.

     In October, the need for a new outlet for WB cartoon news was filled with the creation of Toon Zone News. Craig Marinaro served as news editor, along with a staff of reporters including Craig Crumpton ("Gookie"), Vincent Benenati ("Rembrandt"), Jim Harvey ("Dick Grayson") and "The Mad Hatter", with other WBC members contributing on occasion.

     In November, Harley decided to use the extra resources that Toon Zone possessed in order to start hosting other animation sites. Jon Cooke's Unofficial Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies Page became Toon Zone's first hosted site.

2000

     By 2000, numerous animation communities were coming under attack from a barrage of spammers and troublemakers. The nonexistent security of free web board services made it virtually impossible to keep the peace amidst a hail profanity and pornography. The excellent "Animated Bat" forum had been closed down due to constant attacks, and the same problems were consuming the World's Finest forums and The Termite Terrace Trading Post. Since Toon Zone's forum software featured user registration and banning controls, our offers to host these forums were accepted. The TTTP joined in January, with the WF forums following in June. This was the birth of what we know today as the Toon Zone Forums.

     In April, another edition of April Fool's News made waves. It revealed the real reason behind Brian Cruz's long absence from Toon Zone: he was on tour with The Who! In reality, Brian was now working on what was to become Toon Zone's second hosted site: Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies: The Early Years. Also in April, The Toon Zone main page received a much-needed makeover (dubbed Toon Zone 2.0), and instead of a site map it now featured actual content, such as site updates and news headlines. In August, the Kids WB schedule returned after a year-long absence.

     During the rest of the year Toon Zone continued to grow thanks to the addition of new hosted sites. CNX: Toonami joined in September, followed shortly by The World of Tiny Toon Adventures. During the winter, the eight GeoCities accounts that comprised The World's Finest began their migration to Toon Zone.

2001

     In 2001, Toon Zone continued its expansion. The WB Animation Archive joined in January, followed by another Toon Zone redesign (version 3.0) in March. In April, Toon Zone had to move to a dedicated server in order to supply the resources necessary to keep up with the increased traffic and bandwidth usage.

     In May, the Toon Zone Forums switched to vBulletin software, which may very well be the most important event in TZ's history. The new software was easier to use, much more efficient and didn't require constant "archiving" as the old forum software did. The initial forum lineup was: The Warner Bros. Club, The Story Board, The Termite Terrace Trading Post, The Batman Beyond/Zeta Project Board, The DC Universe Animation Board, The Animation & General Topics Board, and the World's Finest Fanfic Board (followed shortly by the WF RPG board)

     Toon Zone News was rapidly expanding, with more detailed stories and more frequent updates. In addition to the 2001 edition of April Fool's News, major articles such as the Kids WB 2001-02 Sneak Peek brought TZ news extra attention. In July, the news operations of all TZ's hosted sites were merged into the new and improved Toon Zone News. The news was now integrated with the forums, allowing for easier posting by reporters and automatic updating on the main page. Led by editor "Perry White" (a group account accessible by several people), Toon Zone News would soon become one of the most prominent sources for animation news on the internet.

     Despite having moved to a dedicated server, throughout the summer Toon Zone was often extremely slow to load, and sometimes didn't load at all. In August the decision was made to move to a different dedicated server, significantly more powerful than the Cobalt RAQ server TZ had been on. The new server allowed several new hosted sites to join in the next few months. Cartoon Cartoon Fridays: The Fansite joined in September, followed by Adult Swim The Fansite in November. DC Comics solicitations appeared on the comics page for the first time in September.

     Several more changes took place on the forums. A DVD board was added in July, followed by the Fun & Games and Feedback & Suggestions boards in August. The Cartoon Cartoon Fridays board was added in September, followed by the addition of the Tiny Toon Adventures board and The Drawing Board in October. In November the forums were completely reorganized, and were no longer listed by hosted site. The Batman Beyond and DCU Animated boards were reconfigured into the "Batman, Superman & Beyond" and Justice League boards. The Adult Swim board also opened in November, and a Comic Book board was added December. By the end of the year, the TZ forums had become exponentially larger than when they started.

     In December, one of the most popular and contentious events began on the forum: The John Delaney Sketch of the Week Poll. Comic book artist, John Delaney agreed to draw one sketch a week, based on the result of a poll held on the forum. Members would rally and root for their favorite characters to win, often creating heated discussions and creative campaigns. A gallery is available of over 60 sketches John was drawn.

2002

     In 2002 Toon Zone added several more hosted sites. The Powerpuff Girls Movie site debuted in February, The Justice League Watchtower in March, Matthew Hunter's Unofficial Looney Tunes Page in April, Hokey Smokes! Rocky & Bullwinkle in May, The Animated Batman in June, The Trapeze in October and The Walter Lantz Cartune Encyclopedia in November. Adult Swim: The Fansite had its final update in August, the same month that The World's Finest site was completely redesigned. Marvel Comics solicitations first appeared on the comics page in September.

     Voting began in January for one of Toon Zone's most ambitious projects: The Top Ten Cartoons of All Time. TZ members, along with prominent people in the animation industry, were asked to list their top ten animated series and top ten shorts, and the results were revealed on the Top Ten Cartoons site in June.

     The Toon Zone main page received its one millionth visitor in March: none other than WBC member NarfPinky! To coincide with this event, a new Toon Zone design (version 4.0) debuted only seconds after the one millionth visit was recorded. Not coincidentally, NarfPinky would become the two millionth visitor later in the year. March was also the month when two Adult Swim chats were held: the first with Welcome to Eltingville creator Evan Dorkin, and the second with SeaLab 2021's Adam Reed, Matt Thompson and MC Chris.

     2002's April Fool's Day stunt was the most ambitious ever. A team of TZ members bandedtogether to create The Toon Zone Follies, a news parody similar to The Onion. Fake banner ads appeared throughout the site, and the Termite Terrace board was temporarily renamed The Gary Coleman Show board. Sketch Poll #13 ½ was held in which Gary Coleman (drawn by Harley) narrowly beat out Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter. It was also around this time that Toon Zone's unique File Not Found message (now retired) made its first appearance.

     Animated Diversions, a new section of Toon Zone devoted to original web comics and animation, debuted in April with three features: High Score, Chip & Walter and Time Trouble, and Callista's Cafe. In May Animated Diversions added its own forum, and in July added another feature: Thought Crime, Inc.

     Numerous changes and additions took place on the forums. In January the Toonami board opened, resulting in a significant increase in new members. In February the AniGen (Animation & General Topics) board split into the AniTainment and AnyGen (later called Cafe Toon Zone) boards. An experiment in which several usenet newsgroups were mirrored on the forums began in March. In June, the AniTainment board was renamed The Entertainment Board, and all general animation discussion was moved to the WBC. The Video Games board was added in June, resulting in another forum reorganization that is still in place. In December, the "Batman, Superman & Beyond" and Justice League boards were merged into the DC Animated Universe board.

     All of these additions put a strain on Toon Zone's resources. A donation drive was held in the Spring that resulted in a move to another, more powerful, server in September. A new, streamlined version of the Toon Zone Design (version 4.1) also debuted in September.

2003

     So far in 2003 two new hosted sites have joined Toon Zone. The DC Cartoon Archives in February, and The Encyclopedia of Animated Disney Shorts in July. Sites dedicated to Marvel Comics Animation and Famous Studios cartoons are in the works, as well as the return of Hokey Smokes! Rocky & Bullwinkle.

     The forums have undergone several changes this year. In January an Anime board was finally added, with Twage (one of it's most vocal proponents) named chief moderator. A Drawing Board Workshops sub-forum was added in February, which helped make the Drawing Board one of Toon Zone's most popular forums. In March the Cartoon Cartoons board was renamed The Cartoon Network Forum and the Adult Swim board got a facelift (as did Cafe Toon Zone in August). The Toon Zone Forums were chosen by the developers of vBulletin to beta test version 3 of their forum software, a process which is still ongoing. In May the new and improved TZ Forum Rules (written by Twage and Harley) debuted.

     Animated Diversions added two new features (Upstate and River City High) as well as an oekaki board.

     Toon Zone moved to yet a another new server in June, with significantly more power and bandwidth. Harley gave the Toon Zone main page a dynamic new design in July (version 5.0!), adding more colors, a drop-down menu, and a "Top Stories" section.

     Now Toon Zone celebrates its 5th Anniversary. In honor of both this anniversary and the upcoming 10th anniversary of the Warner Bros. Club, the Tiny Toons board has been revamped into the new WBC, continuing in the spirit of the original club from years ago. Thanks to everyone who has made the last five years possible!

Timeline | Reflections | Comments