Anime you enjoyed back then, but watched it recently and...

[SteveH]

Dave's right, but for different reasons.

It's not sponsors per se, it's the fact that FCC regulations about what commercials can air with cartoons completely killed the all-important local TV station afternoon KidVid programming block. Generally 3-5 PM.

Without cereal and toy commercials filling the ad slots, there was no reason to program cartoons. That's why the afternoons are filled with infomercials and 'chick chat' shows and judge shows and 'poor behavior in action' shows.

Just like the death of cheap disposable entertainment venues, you CAN'T 'get this show on TV' because there is no place to PUT it.

Cable is no solution. No matter what it may sound like, 99% of cable programming is still AT BEST something like 10% of the audience of the mainstream 'over the air' networks. Even in this cable and sat TV age.

And Cartoon Network just can't get it right anyway. They owned afternoon kidvid with Toonami. Killed it. Got lots of excitement with Young Justice. Killed it. Thundercats. Killed it. Weak, sad, only an hour long DC Superheros block. On life support.

They just don't know what to do, so don't go looking at them to be the savior of anime or anything.

[davemerrill]

Actually it was DEregulation that did more to kill your afternoon kidvid block. Those local UHF stations were all bought up by national networks who turned them into UPN and Fox and The WB and the whatever elses, and suddenly the programming decisions for all those stations were being made in the home office in Scottsdale Arizona or where-ever, rather than in the cities themselves. The local horror hosts and kiddy cartoon hosts were replaced by Judge Judy. Which, honestly, is pretty cheap programming, and the local weatherman doesn't have to dress up like a clown or a spaceman any more. And let's face it. Kids aren't watching broadcast TV any more. They quit in the 90s for Video Game Land, and they haven't looked back. Parents today DVR the shows they want Junior to watch, and by golly, Junior might not ever know television is anything but Yo Gabba Gabba.

Great reading about the 1990 act, though. I dimly recall the story about the station trying to claim 'The Jetsons' was educational programming. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_regula ... rogramming

Trust me on this, if Cartoon Network could make money showing DC cartoons and Gundam and Cyborg 009, then they'd be showing the hell out of DC cartoons and Gundam. There's a reason Cowboy Bebop has been on the air for more than a decade, and why the Sci Fi channel shows wrestling and 'Mega Shark VS Rocktopus" instead of, you know, sci fi - it makes money.

[SteveH]

I'm not so sure they were 'bought up' by UPN and Fox and The WB et al so much as station owners wanted to cost-shift programming (because of bidding wars for key syndicated programming, which makes no sense as most of that is full barter anyway) and hooking up with a 'web' puts more advertising money in the pocket. It also takes all that annoying 'choice' from the local owner.

Cartoon Network is Warner Brothers. There was an edict a few years back about creating more WB owned content so they have extended income streams.

I mean, to them what the program is doesn't matter, really. It exist to fill time between commercials.

[_D_]

I can understand also the need for secondary revenue streams. This is (apparently) what killed off Green Lantern The Animated Series. No outfit would touch the property after the disaster that was the live film. The CGI show cost a lot to make and without a toy company tie in, no more show. Young Justice was a good show but I also saw few toys for it. Ben 10, regardless of what you might think of the current incarnation (and I have been watching it since season 1) has lots of secondary revenue streams so it remains on the air long after it has jumped the shark. And with CN losing people like Genndy Tartakovsky, well that really lowers your talent pool. Dunno what they have for next year other than the new Batman but there is less and less I'm willing to devote even 1/2 hour of my time to...

[davemerrill]

Oh yeah, if there's no merchandising, then there's no TV cartoon. That's the bottom line. At least when the CN people I know tell it, it's to say "We could show something starring a property we don't own, or we could show something starring a property we DO own and get all the merchandising money from. Hm, tough choice... not."

I do miss the days of the crazy local UHF television, weird old monster movies, obscure sitcom reruns, and bargain-basement cartoon packages; the same way I miss the drive-ins. I don't think we'll see the like again, at least not until streaming video gets a lot more market penetration. There are already channels where like-minded nerds are showing whatever crazy stuff they can get their hands on, but it hasn't yet become convenient enough for the average consumer. We're still in the hobbyist stage.

Anyway, two anime films that my opinions reversed on with the passage of time is Urusei Yatsura Only You and Urusei Yatsura Beautiful Dreamer. Used to think that Only You was the definitive UY film and Beautiful Dreamer was too slow and overintellectual. Nowadays, I think Only You is basically an extended TV episode, while Beautiful Dreamer takes chances and goes places the TV show never would.

[_D_]

There are secondary channels that do show stuff like that but none that I know of up here in Canada. Unfortunately Dish also won't pick them up as it's an extra expense they do not wish to make.

Here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_subchannel

There used to be some real gems on these channels like T.H.E. Cat which is unavailable on DVD but such offerings are now few and far between it seems. It was like that in Canada as well 10 years ago when we had more specialty channels on cable and satellite. All gone now alas...

This was the fate of MyNetworkTV it appears:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyNetworkTV

There is also The High Chaparral but it's in one of the Dish Western channels. It also is unavailable on DVD...

http://www.thehighchaparral.com/cast.htm

[SteveH]

I can understand also the need for secondary revenue streams. This is (apparently) what killed off Green Lantern The Animated Series. No outfit would touch the property after the disaster that was the live film. The CGI show cost a lot to make and without a toy company tie in, no more show. Young Justice was a good show but I also saw few toys for it. Ben 10, regardless of what you might think of the current incarnation (and I have been watching it since season 1) has lots of secondary revenue streams so it remains on the air long after it has jumped the shark. And with CN losing people like Genndy Tartakovsky, well that really lowers your talent pool. Dunno what they have for next year other than the new Batman but there is less and less I'm willing to devote even 1/2 hour of my time to...

How long have they been pimping 'The Batman' now? 2 years? Meanwhile the completely delightful 'Brave & the Bold'- dead.

Bandai America is pushing Ben 10 REALLY REALLY Hard. I think the Ben 10 section at Toys R Us is twice the size of the Power Rangers section (and is that still a thing? I hear Saban has ditched the 'let's just port over the current Sentai show with minimal changes' for the full-on '92 mistake of 'let's just keep making stuff from this show because it's branding and stuff' nonsense) and if Bandai America had put just 15% of this effort into Thundercats it may have done better.

Of course with DC cartoons we have to deal with whatever insanity is going on in the wake of that New 52 crap. Can't celebrate the fun old stuff because it conflicts with the NEW GRIM GRITTY POST-NOLAN BATMAN IMAGE-SET REAL!! dictates.

[_D_]

Luckily, according to my comic store owning friend, most of the "52" line is dead. Couldn't knock off Marvel for more than a couple months, so it's mostly finished. Sure there are a few mainstays but all the secondary stuff is effectively dead. CN would be better put to make more special movies that go straight to DVD a la SYFY Channel. IMO at least those might make them some money. But, yeah, the fragmented audience doesn't help. I just figure a lot of kids can't identify with a lot of the characters in any series these days. Gotta be tough being a kid these days and trying to find something to like. Anime is no help since most of the series that are set in other countries don't seem to have figured out the populations may not be 100% white. And that has always been a problem with me. Some artists/writers have given people around the world a lot of diversity while others haven't a clue. So it goes...

[usamimi]

It seems to me the only anime that does well on TV anymore is stuff that's already got some sort of following or is popular online. Like everyone was freaking out over One Piece coming back (not that OP is bad, it's a good series, I just don't have the time to follow it anymore, really) or the recent announcement about Sword Art Online (I'm not a fan of the series at all, I didn't care for it). Which is a shame, because that means things that may be more obscure won't ever get a chance on TV, probably. ("Too risky!")

I also miss stuff like monster movie hosts/hostesses and crap like that. I grew up with things like that and I miss them sometimes. Even PBS doesn't show as many things that have a small-town or local "host" anymore.

[_D_]

The big deal for my friends in Japan seems to be Naruto, which completely escapes me. But then the new DBZ movie came out and everyone went gaga over that...