Genuine question. Why did Cartoon Network have all the anime, but Nickelodeon and Disney Channel didn't air anime (not counting Toon Disney's Jetix/Disney XD or the Nicktoons channel)? Sure Nickelodeon did air anime in the 80s and early 90s, but afterwards, they didn't, while Cartoon Network had all the anime
Genuine question. Why did Cartoon Network have all the anime...
Probably because Nickelodeon was run by retards that turned down many promising shows while Disney was more into live action stuff
Also, Anon Babble
Viacom is an unfortunate combination of being weak (compared to the other big TV brands) and stupid. Even when they did had anime, it was either some godawful Japanese-Canandian joint toy brand (MON-SUUNNNNOOOO) or so horrifically censored they could give 4Kids a run for their money.
Disney just felt the preteen audience with live-action slop was better for their brand. Hell, there's a good number of years in the early 2010s they just did not care for animation as a whole, least 'til the popularity of the Mickey Mouse shorts and Star Vs. reminding them "Oh yeah, kids do like cartoons". Combined with Turner/Warner Bros. holding up the Pokemon and other Takara-Tomy/Bandai Namco IPs for the longest (Beyblade, Medabots, Tenkai Knights), they didn't really have a good option that wasn't uber-boy focused or easily-adapted for a US audience (So Digimon and Power Rangers was the best they got...). It is why they snapped up Yo-Kai Watch so damn fast and got Pokemon the moment the contract expired. They had both the place and time in their hands for once.
90s Turner culture
Rasslin'
NASCAR
Annie-mae
In that order
I will elaborate for $8
Cartoon Network used to be run by people who had a fucking clue.
Linda Simensky, who used to be a creative exec at CN:
“We used to explain it as, ‘We target a psychographic, not a demographic,’ ” Simensky says. The resulting shows, from Maxwell Atoms’ The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy to C.H. Greenblatt’s Chowder, were often comically absurd and crammed with slapstick gags, screwy punch lines and surreal atmospheres. “Disney was the kid in the class that’s sitting in front raising their hand,” Simensky says. “Nickelodeon was the kid in the middle, making jokes. And Cartoon Network was the kid all the way in the back row, shooting spitballs.”
Anyways, since the Snyder era, CN has mostly been declining. That bloomberg article about their "last gasp" felt like vindication, and I hope anime continues to shit all over the cowardly western cartoon industry. Fuck modern Cartoon Network. I hope it really does die one day.
Also, this topic is more fitting for
They had vision.
Boomers and boomer networks still hated anime back then and never thought it was profitable(still isn't for that type of platform) and even when it did seem to become slightly popular, they never wanted to admit it.
tl'dr If its wasn't American it was bad. That was a mentality everywhere.
As for Nick and Disney. Nick had Spongebob to keep them satisfied and Disney was fucking Disney at their peek so neither had any worries over anime taking over. Both of which networks were doing way way better than CN, Fox, and other networks that aired anime, anime blocks.
Once the internet became mainstream in the early 2000's, anime preformed so fucking poor despite how popular it was becoming that networks had no reason to bother with that market anymore. Anime was just a completely different market that american networks aren't used to.
2nd tl'dr TV was a dying medium by the early 2000's and anime sure as hell wasn't going to save it.
I found out about BuBu ChaCha through Disney Channel Asia (I reside in the Philippines).
cartoon network
Not anime, not manga
bump
bump
bump
XD
>>/gaia/
is over there bubs
Presumably there was some hero at CN who liked anime and had the pull to convince higher-ups to greenlight Toonami, and later Adult Swim, with progressively less censorship.
If not for Cartoon Network/Toonami then the concept of anime would not exist in the west, they would just be weird foreign cartoons.
Relatively short answer is that burgermutt cartoon distributors are locked into aiming at specific demographics, and American cartoons are, and have since the 1960s, been aimed squarely at little kids, with the only exception being MTV and Fox and Comedy Central and then eventually Adult Swim piloting weirdo/surreal/crass and offensive "adult" cartoons
Anime, even shonenshit, aims at an age above what American kids are expected to consume. Soccer moms in the 90s got angry at shit like the Ninja Turtles for, no joke, having references to Buddhism. Soccer moms are fine with slapstick until it gets too violent, because then little Timmy might become a violent murderer rapist if the funny cartoon people actually hurt each other.
CN and 90s Nickelodeon were the ones who were aware of their peripheral demographic of older kids and young adults, which is why they leaned into anime (and they still had to censor it heavily). Nickelodeon eventually gave up and doubled down on spastic random dumbass fart cartoons for 8-year-old retards, but CN had at least a little bit of sense until they tried making CN Real a thing, and then regained some sense in the early 2010s until they went full retard again.
On a related note: the suits really don't like airing cartoons that aren't for kids on their main networks. Consider that CN had full knowledge that, circa 2022, their primary demographic was 30-something nostalgic manchildren, womenchildren, and troonchildren. Instead of leaning into that, they decided to make the network centered around a block for preschoolers. Half the shows they greenlit for the preschool bloc haven't even aired yet because of how quickly it died.
That's the problem with Western cartoon networks: they're stuck making toonslop for little kids who don't watch cable TV cartoons anymore and can't reorient towards the only people who do (manchildren with furry pfps).
Just wanted to say I appreciate this post
Nickelodean and Disney Channel both had anime in my country. Stuff like Shin Chan and Doraemon though
Nick stuck to the philosophy of more yellow sponge = $$$
Disney had their live action tween slop and their movies to make up for the lack of DTVA shows
Sure Nickelodeon did air anime in the 80s and early 90s
Was Nickelodeon even around in the 80s? I never knew this, or that they aired anime. I remember watching things like Eureka's Castle and them having Stick Stickly host skits between shows during the summer.
The SciFi channel (before it became SyFy) aired anime; Sailor Moon, Ronin Warriors, the list goes on.
If not for Cartoon Network/Toonami then the concept of anime would not exist in the west
I discovered anime without cartoon network or toonami. Even if what you’ve said is true, cn/toonami still isn’t anime or manga and shouldn’t be posted here. Post stuff to do with western animation on Anon Babble
Rasslin'
I miss WCW so damn much...
Didn't Disney Japan air K-On at one point? My local Nick and Disney never did but Cartoon Network aired anime, that's actually where I got my start.
Was Nickelodeon even around in the 80s
Nickelodeon has been a thing since the 1970s but their cartoons weren't until the early 1990s. Before their cartoons they specialized in live action sitcoms and game shows. Nickelodeon Studios at Universal was a thing for a reason.
Wrong, many western countries had anime outside of Cartoon Network and Toonami since the 70s, thinking CN and Toonami are the reason anime is a thing in the west is just some burger propaganda, now fuck off to Anon Babble.
Jason DeMarco. I know it's easy to make fun of him now since he's responsible for all the bad/mediocre Adult Swim anime originals, but he was also the one pushing for Cartoon Network to air anime on Toonami and Adult Swim back in the day in the first place
>>/gaia/
What is that? Which board?
Didn't Disney Japan air K-On at one point?
I know Cartoon Network Japan airs cartoons aimed at younger kids, like SGT Frog, HunterxHunter, and Mob Psycho 100. IIRC, those were the only three airing on the network last I checked.
Here you go 8$
I'll explain. In order to answer this question, you have to look back at how the networks came to be:
Nick started off as a very low budget edutainment channel called "Pinwheel" that mostly aired Seseme Street knock-offs. Once they started expanding, they had a VERY low budget to work with, so they just bought whatever fit on the network that was cheap. As it turned out, foreign cartoons were one of the cheapest sources of animation at the time. Not just anime, but British cartoons like Danger Mouse.
But Nick was also doing their own low-budget live action series. Their first major breakout hit was a gameshow called Double Dare, which was fucking HUGE at the time. It almost single-handedly started shifting Nick's focus from acquisitions to original programming. By the late 90s, Nick had (mostly) abandoned acquisitions in favor of being an all original programming network. By the time anime was taking off in the west, Nick had already moved away from that sort of thing.
Cartoon Network is a similar story. It started as a dumping ground to justify Turner's acquisition of the Hanah Barbara IP. And, just like Nick, it began expanding its programming entirely by buying whatever they could get cheap. This included a bunch of stuff like DBZ and Sailor Moon that networks had experimented with airing in the past, but had long since been abandoned. But unlike Nick, Cartoon Network were far from ready to transition to an all original programming network when DBZ took off. CN needed content and anime had no home on US TV, so they were a perfect match for each other.
As for Disney... well, they were a VERY different matter due to the whole "former pay channel" thing. But the short answer is Disney Channel's library was big enough not to need acquired programming, for the most part.
you are immensely retarded
whole "former pay channel" thing.
What?
1. It was dirt cheap to license.
2. It was probably the only network willing to broadcast animation they didn't fully own the merchandise and other ancillary rights to.
I think he's talking about Disney Channel being a premium channel not included with basic cable, like HBO and Showtime.
en.wikipedia.org
Funny enough, Fox bought the rights for Escaflowne, Slayers, and Magic Knight Rayearth specifically to keep them out of the hands of Cartoon Network. They aired only a handful of episodes of the first and deliberately sat on the other two for various reasons.
Gotta get in tune with Sailor Moon
'Cause that cartoon has got the boom anime babes
That make me think the wrong thing
If you're not old enough, these are lyrics from the song "One Week" by Barenaked Ladies. It was a super, SUPER mainstream song in 1998 that pretty much everyone had at least heard.
For comparison, the song was released in September of 1998. Cartoon Network started airing reruns of Sailor Moon in June of 1998 and DBZ in August of 1998 (2 weeks before the song came out), so this was before Cartoon Network had been airing shit for long enough to have had any influence.
North America 100% had a concept of what anime was before Cartoon Network. Hell, fucking Pokemania a whole year earlier.
4kids slayers would have been a crime against humanity so maybe it's better they didn't do anything with it
Scratch that last line. I'm getting my years mixed up.
But we got 4Kids Slayers anyway thanks to the CPM dub. Just without the censoring.
Nickelodeon is an American propaganda station
Fox Kids had anime.
Mapletown, Little Koala, Noozles and the Grimm's Fairytale adaptations all ran on late 80s Nick
Bastards. I still need to go back and finish Escaflowne one of these days. (And watch Rayearth before the remake comes out. Maybe Slayers too.)
tfw our local Fox Kids broadcasted Patlabor (with the Japanese OP), Digimon (dubbed from the Japanese version) and Shin-chan
Slayers is great, even today.
Rayearth's storytelling is kind of clunky by modern standards. Maybe the remake will clean it up a bit, but I'm worried it will take the Sailor Moon Crystal approach and adapt the manga too faithfully for its own good.
Disney and Nick were fighting for the "day-care" market. Just have the Day-care worker turn on our channel and leave it on all day.
CN was newer and couldn't compete, until they branched out with an after-school action block.
Anime was cheap to license. And it was "different" people actually punched and kicked each other and died and everything. It was the COOLEST shit ever.
So Nick and Disney spent the next 5-10 years trying to make their own action shows. While CN would just buy a couple more now and then. Anime was still pretty cool, but wasn't as cool because with the internet you could watch other anime that wasn't censored.
By the time Disney and Nick decided to get in the game Anime was mostly burned out for American audiences so it was shoved to the alternate extra channels. Meanwhile CN STILL just buys a couple now and then and breaks even.
nick aired anime in the 80s.
maple town (pic related), noozles, little koala, maya the bee, belle and sebastian, little prince, litt'l bits
This tracks to my memory. There is no equivalent to the shōnen demographic (ages 11-17) in America or Canada for cartoons. You go from stuff like Teen Titans Go or SpongeBob or Avatar the Last Airbender straight to Family Guy and very little in between. Closest we came had to be OG Young Justice, Regular Show, Infinity Train, and maybe Samurai Jack season 5 (which was still billed as an adult cartoon)
nick almost got keroro gunsou before adv shut down
Fucking Speed Racer was popular in America in the 70s and even my Boomer ass uncle and aunt knew what Rose of Versailles is long before Pokeymans blew up
It wasn't everything animated but Americans knew what Japanimation was long before Toonami. Toonami was a successful block of TV on a channel for kids, and that's why people won't shut up about it but completely forgot MTV and Sci-Fi Channel and video stores since those aired the anime that the autistic millennials didn't grow up watching so they could later claim in some 2 hour long YouTube video essay narrated by a furry about how no one outside of a few neighborhoods in Tokyo knew Dragon Ball Z existed until Toonami created anime in 1998
This might be the bigger issue. A lot of millennial and zoomer man children assume that their experiences were everyone's experiences, so if they didn't know it existed, no one did. Anime was already a niche in the 90s and early 2000s that none of the "cartoons are for little kids" normies cared to watch, so they assumed that literally no one ever besides them cared about anime as if it wasn't possible that some people didn't care about Western kiddyslop toons but actively imported and fandubbed anime and supported OVAs and what Macekred series did get broadcast dubs
before adv shut down
What is adv?
had anime
in its early years or in current day
It was one of the big 3 companies who brought anime stateside in the 00s. ADV, Funimation, and Geneon. Two of those died in the late 00s.