Note for the old-timers here...

[The Mad Hatter]

More new KWB shows premiered this weekend, which manage to elicit absolutely no response from those of us who were around when KWB was kicking serious butt.

Meanwhile, we've all gone ape over Samauri Jack.

Looks like we've officially moved on from the network that gave rise to this club...

[BourgeoisBuffoon]

New WB shows premiered? :confused:

(looks at previous statement) Hm, not the best thing to say.

[James Harvey]

That's a good point. I can remember talking about the newest episode of ANIMANIACS or BATMAN in here. As soon as BATMAN BEYOND leaves the net after this year, I'll have no reason to watch KWB anymore.

[Anthonynotes]

Outside of Batman Beyond (and maybe Jackie Chan ocassionally) there isn't anything on KWB of interest, at least in a way that appeals to older viewers like A! did....between no humor based shows and an action lineup aimed at single-digit-aged viewers, not much of interest to me on there anymore. Of course, IIRC, back when KWB started up, Cartoon Network was in its infancy (and hadn't yet started airing the shows people here are going gaga over like the PPG's and that "Samauri Jack" show, and the upcoming JLA 'toon)...quite the flip-flop.

-B.
Will probably have to spring for cable to get to see the JLA cartoon/the PPG's...though he probably won't spring for HBO/Showtime (despite shows on there I wanted to see)...

[Narfpinky]

Haven't watched KWB in about 18 months. Last thing I watched was The Sliced and Diced, Rearranged and Mangled Big Cartoonie Show.


>>Note for the old-timers here...

Sure makes me feel older than I am, poit.

[Sveven Dvorking]

Originally posted by Narfpinky
Haven't watched KWB in about 18 months.

I watched Kids WB last weekend. I haven't watched anything on Kids WB other than new Pokemon episodes in who-knows-how-long.

Since Pokemon and Digimon are both returning for another season, why take chances with new stuff?

[Jowy Blight]

Since Pokemon and Digimon are both returning for another season, why take chances with new stuff?

Beacuse Pokemon and Digimon won't be around forever (thank god!). I mean Fox Kids is having enough problems as it is, and Pokemon is almost finshed. So KWB needs something new they can milk til there's nothing left.

[Vin]

Boy were those the good ol' days. I remember that Hatter. I've changed my username various times before settling on this one, but I've been here for 3 or 4 years. It's been a long time coming. I'm actually thankful we are shifting to focusing on CN than Kids' WB! Kids' WB! has certainly gone to the dogs. We are the WBA shows anyways?

[Psycho Fox]

Yhea KWB is mostly dead now. I don't watch it any more.

"WBA made KWB. WB screwed it up"

[Jowy Blight]

With Samauri Jack and JL at CN's side, CN will have quite a bright furture. As for KWB, the less said, the better.

[BourgeoisBuffoon]

Maybe if WB never canceled shows like Animaniacs, P&tB, Histeria, and any other Silver Age stuff it would not be in this mess...
....CN prospers because it treats it stuff with respect....exception being Scooby Doo, but every other show CN has it gives a chance....THAT'S why it does so well.

[James Harvey]

I can remember when the travesty that was THE BIG CARTOONIE SHOW was the huge talk around here, and I wouldn't blame you. What they did was beyond forgiveable.

[The Mad Hatter]

And before that, our biggest complaint was that Histeria didn't live up to expectations. Nowadays, that show could blow much of the lineup out of the water.

[Anthonynotes]

Originally posted by The Mad Hatter
And before that, our biggest complaint was that Histeria didn't live up to expectations. Nowadays, that show could blow much of the lineup out of the water.

NO kidding to both the Cat and Cheney Dubya Bush-y HAL-Ain't-Here-y Big Boring Uneventful Year 2001 Show... (yeah, so I'm gettin' rusty....it's been awhile since I made up one of these names) and Histeria...now, even that slice-and-diced excuse for a clip show would probably be much preferable over the likes of Cubix/Pokemon/etc...

As for being glad re: a shift to CN, it's kind of distressing that the only good stuff to talk about from WB these days requires paying $30-40 a month for cable to watch it (let alone talk about it)...and since I don't have cable (yet, anyway), it doesn't make it too easy for me to talk about stuff like the PPG's/"Samauri Jack" (or actually, talk about it at all period, not having seen "Jack"). Then again, I guess AOL-TW would be getting money from me to fund their Poke-centric stuff in a way, since the local cable co.'s Time-Warner cable....

-B.

[Craig Marinaro]

Well, with JL, WBA seems to have officially switched over to CN. KWB has made it painfully clear that neither WBA's higher-brow shows, nor the fans of said shows, are welcome at their network. Nothing left but to move on.

I remember back when many of us used to tune in to the first few episodes of WB shows like Max Steel or Generation O!, even though we knew they'd be wretched, for pure laugh value (or at least, I did ;). But like a great joke that's been told one too many times, it's boring now.

We're at the tail-end of the '90's animation resurgence at this point...TV animation is reverting back to the cheapo cliches and platitudes that it leaned on in the '70's and '80's, but there are thankfully a few minds left in the animation world who haven't forgotten the lesson that a high-quality product can be worth the extra effort in the long run (Tartakovsky, McCracken, Groening...probably a few others). Glad we've got something.

-C
As opposed to live action TV, where I see absolutely *NOTHING* to interest me this coming season...

[Psycho Fox]

Originally posted by Craig
We're at the tail-end of the '90's animation resurgence at this point...TV animation is reverting back to the cheapo cliches and platitudes that it leaned on in the '70's and '80's, but there are thankfully a few minds left in the animation world who haven't forgotten the lesson that a high-quality product can be worth the extra effort in the long run (Tartakovsky, McCracken, Groening...probably a few others). Glad we've got something.

Well I have to say that foreign animators are one step higher. R&D into better and better 2D animation software has allowed them to cut time and money for production making the suits more willing to experiment IE Watership Down, Redwall on the higher end of animation quality and Quads and others for uhhh lower end that use the software to really go cheap. You go to the small studios in Toronto now and you'll see Amiga 4000Ts and G4 Macs where simple animators desks were before

[BourgeoisBuffoon]

Sigh....those old animator's desks, replaced by cold machines....what happened to the good old days? But really, it's a pity the new animation rennasaince did a 180 and went into a dark age...no wonder animes are have really gotten popular.

....and Histeria! was always good! :mad:

....sorry. It's pretty much the only show worth watching on KWB, in my opinion....and my fav WB show overall. But still....what you said is true....even the Big Crappy-stupid-sappy-overall-clip-showey is preferable....BTW, I have not heard a single Gen. O! advertisement in a month....

...who knows? Maybe WB could get pathetic enough start showing old SchoolHouse Rock! Then again, Conjunction what's your function has a better ring to it than what WB could serve right now...

[Anthonynotes]

>>>Well, with JL, WBA seems to have officially switched over to CN. KWB has made it painfully clear that neither WBA's higher-brow shows, nor the fans of said shows, are welcome at their network. Nothing left but to move on.
<<<

Apparently so...

>>>I remember back when many of us used to tune in to the first few episodes of WB shows like Max Steel or Generation O!, even though we knew they'd be wretched, for pure laugh value (or at least, I did ;). But like a great joke that's been told one too many times, it's boring now.
<<<<

Indeed....

>>>We're at the tail-end of the '90's animation resurgence at this point...TV animation is reverting back to the cheapo cliches and platitudes that it leaned on in the '70's and '80's, but there are thankfully a few minds left in the animation world who haven't forgotten the lesson that a high-quality product can be worth the extra effort in the long run (Tartakovsky, McCracken, Groening...probably a few others). Glad we've got something.
<<<


Well, while the big animation frenzy's clearly running its course---outside of the "Simpsons" still being on the air and Cartoon Network, Saturday Morning/weekday afternoon animation does seem to be on a bit of a backwards slide...though the fact that Sat. AM is probably more or less dead/dying at this point (between NBC having pulled out of the race years ago and the three-hour educational requirement, CBS is only airing educational shows, leaving the competition between ABC [and an all-Disney lineup], KWB, and Fox) might be another factor. However, I think that thanks to the people you mentioned, the bar for TV animation's been raised overall, and even the most banal episode of a banal program like "Recess" is still probably better quality-of-animation-wise/writing-wise than some of what was churned out when I was a kid (that "Yogi Bear in Outer Space as a space-cop and doing disco dancing" show, anyone? :-)


>>>As opposed to live action TV, where I see absolutely *NOTHING* to interest me this coming season...


Um....uh...well, there's that "Smallville" show I want to see...uh, even if it does look to be "Dawson's Creek-with-superpowers" and Lex is the only interesting looking character. Beyond that, I guess there isn't anything else live-action (animated, the JLA cartoon is probably the only thing I want to see...). And I don't want to spring for pay-TV channels like HBO just to see what the fuss over "Sex and the City"/"The Sopranos" is about....


-B.

[The Mad Hatter]

That's true... the animation resurgence may be over, but I think we've got a way to go before we slip into another animation dark age. Cartoon Network is still churning out lots of good stuff, from JL to PPG to Samauri Jack to Space Ghost. The Simpsons continue to air, and despite our griping remains funnier than most live-action TV shows. Not to mention King of the Hill and Futurama. And, as was suggested, even the cruddiest shows on One Saturday Morning and Nick have more life to them than the average fare from the 70s and 80s. Things are slowing down, but we do have some outlets.

[Psycho Fox]

Originally posted by BorgeoisBuffoon
Sigh....those old animator's desks, replaced by cold machines....what happened to the good old days? What is wrong with that? you rather them go with Poké ripoffs? see those as you put it cold machines reduces the risk to aceptable leves for the suits

[BourgeoisBuffoon]

Geez....I was only kidding. Of course I know that the machines are the wave of the future, I know that it reduces problems, and we can get more work done with them. I was just trying to have a little fun....

[Matthew Hunter]

I never watch Kid's WB anymore. EVER...simply because I'd rather set a timer for Cartoon Network's 4-hour "Looney Tunes block" and sleep in. It's all action shows now, but what's worse....BAD action shows! Jackie Chan as a cartoon? come on! There are shows I have read the reviews here about that have come and gone, and I'd never seen a single episode. The last new show I had much interest in was "Batman Beyond", but it actually, to me, got boring after a while. Now, I wasn't here when the whole network started, but I found this place around 1998. I remember that, even when the programming block declined, we at least had something to talk about, like what we could call the "Big Cartoonie Show" every time we reviewed it.

My fondest memories of KWB's "Good Old Days" were back when I was in 8th grade, I guess that's almost 4 years ago now....I'll be a senior in High school this year. Anyway, I always used to watch "Pinky and the Brain" and "Batman/Superman Adventures" after school. My friends did too, even those who really didn't like most cartoons...older kids liked that stuff. And I remember before that when the first Saturday morning seasons came around, at one time they were running "Animaniacs", "Pinky and the Brain", "Freakazoid", "Bugs and Daffy", "Batman", "Superman", and "Sylvester and Tweety", plus many others, all in one morning, and they had me hooked for a while.

Then it was one more non-Warner action program after another...first "Men in Black", then "Pokemon"....and then the crap that's on now. The block had been founded on truly FUNNY cartoons, but it has become the opposite of what they were originally trying to do. The interesting thing about all this, to me, is that they actually proved something, that kids and adults alike could enjoy a humor-based cartoon series, and it did not have to be a loud, crazy superhero fest with no heart or sense of humor. "Batman/Superman"...now that series had a real plot to it. You could really sypathize with the heroes and villians, you hated the Joker but laughed at his jokes at the same time, and you wanted Superman to win. You hated Lex Luthor but were intrigued by him at the same time. You knew Detective Bullock was a jerk, but that he had a heart. You wanted to see what happened to Batman in the next episode. And what about "Animaniacs"? Truly sophisticated humor, the episodes that aired on the WB were even better than the old Fox ones. I remember one that had Yakko as a detective, and someone slipped him a "Mickey" in his drink...."No thanks, mac, I work for Warner's!" And then there was the hilarious parody of Betty Boop they did once. "Pinky and the Brain" could easily be called one of the greatest animated programs ever. Remember Mister Saltana the recluse, or the Christmas special, or "Kickie Sack Sack Kickers"? "I think so Brain, but if Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why does he keep doin' it?"

And then Warner got in there and said "We need more of this and that or our viewers will get bored and switch to the other channel!" They dumped the classic Looney Tunes and Animaniacs and squashed them into the Chopparoonie kill-the-looneys whatwe-needhere-aresome-pikachunies cartoonie show, sticking old Tiny Toons cartoons into that, and then ran wild with the trash. What few Warner-animated and produced shows that were left were "educational", and while "Histeria" at least had creative thought behind it and amusing characters, "Detention" was, in my opinion, deplorable, rotting, boring, painful-to-watch and just plain lousy.

At least now we have the memories, and can look forward to Cartoon Network's "Justice League", and see the best of Animaniacs again when it goes to Nick. And we still get 4 hours of LT on Saturday on CN. I loved the old KWB, not this new action hero stuff. Some truly creative minds made Kid's WB what it was, now some truly uncaring minds are going to sink it for good, I'm afraid.
-Matthew Hunter, aka "Beepbeep"

[kiddiesunshine]

kidsWB got stupid with the big cartoonie show. i rember when it had EARTHWORM JIM, FREAKAZOID and WAYNEHEAD. those days it payed to watch every sunday(kwb airs sunday mornings on ch.26 in chicago)..

[kiddiesunshine]

big time typos in that last post:
rember=remember
payed=paid

[BourgeoisBuffoon]

Matthew, my friend, you spoke for all of us.
The problem is, actions shows' producers have DEEP pockets-Max Steel being a good example. His show's ratings are VERY low, but his toy company pays WB to keep airing the show. It's more profitable for WB to run his show than thiers...
.....do you think WB will ever learn from its mistakes?

[Nftnat]

Originally posted by BorgeoisBuffoon
Matthew, my friend, you spoke for all of us.
The problem is, actions shows' producers have DEEP pockets-Max Steel being a good example. His show's ratings are VERY low, but his toy company pays WB to keep airing the show. It's more profitable for WB to run his show than thiers...
.....do you think WB will ever learn from its mistakes?

Only when we run WB, my friend. It is sad, really. Of course we're familiar with the fact that Road Rovers got higher ratings than Superman, but was cancelled. *sigh*

[BourgeoisBuffoon]

Maybe we should stage a coup d'etat and take over WB! :D

Hey, at the rate WB is going, they could use some new, SMART people running the network...and I cannot beleive WB stupidity in cancelling higher-rated shows....sigh...

[Psycho Fox]

Originally posted by BorgeoisBuffoon
Maybe we should stage a coup d'etat and take over WB! :D

Hey, at the rate WB is going, they could use some new, SMART people running the network...and I cannot beleive WB stupidity in cancelling higher-rated shows....sigh... Angry fans take over WB at gun point. You know that doesn't really paint us well

[kiddiesunshine]

i wanna be kwb's prez! i'd banish all non-wb toons! hahaha! ok? ok.

[Nftnat]

We have discussed this in the past. It's also come up on the ng; there's an aspiring storyboard artist there who's shown interest in joining this quixotic quest. Who knows what the future will hold? We'll see, we'll see.

[BourgeoisBuffoon]

it wouldn't paint us well

Yeah, you're right, Psycho Fox :(...but even if we did do it, it would be saying a message to get their act together!:p

As Nftnat said, there's always the chance some GOOD guy comes up to become prez. Let's hope it's someone who scours the Toon Zone boards....