Cartoon Network/Boomerang

[Hudsons81]

It's unbelievable how we don't have a thread for these networks yet till now...

Anyways, discuss anything about the cable/satellite TV channel Cartoon Network, it's sister channel Boomerang and their programs here.

Currently, my favorite show on CN is actually intended to run as short one-to-two minute shorts in between shows, called Mixels. I like that show because it reminds me of the animated broadcast kids' TV shows I watched back in the 1980's and 1990's such as Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs The Jetsons and The Flintstones. Characters are cute and wacky and the plots can sometime be unpredictable.

Now, as to Boomerang-that's where I actually watched some of the Mixels shorts earlier this year-and thus, where I would watch CN commercials relating to it. However, I have only watched it twice since they added actual commercials on Labor Day of this year. However, I remember when I would watch The Jetsons and The Flintstones (just to name a couple shows) reruns on Boomerang a lot between November 2011 and September of this year.

[Pikapower]

Wasn't there a Sesame Street style show that aired on Cartoon Network in the 90s called "Big Bag"?

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

1st Cartoon Network Hotel to open in summer 2019 next to Dutch Wonderland



Read more about it here:
http://amesfanclub.com/forum/index.php?topic=5233.msg71958#new

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

I finished binge-watching Adventure Time on DVD and enjoyed it a lot!

It was a funny, yet dark cartoon that takes place centuries after planet Earth was ravaged by a nuclear war, when the magic returns, the remaining humans live in bunkers or on a distant island, and the four elementals, ice, slime, fire and candy, rule parts of the Earth...

The show is best described as a mix of Mad Max, Dungeons & Dragons, The Legend of Zelda and Candy Land...

[TheFugitive]

I have seen this cartoon and come to the conclusion that its primary purpose is to give children nightmares.

I am old enough to remember another show called Adventure Time.  This one was locally produced on WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh.  It was a live studio show hosted by WTAE announcer Paul Shannon. Each day he would have a studio audience of Cub Scouts or Girl Scouts watch him perform various comedy skits and show cartoons and Three Stooges shorts.  They had this bit at Christmas where you could send your letter to Santa c/o WTAE and each week he'd load all of the letters that came in onto a rocket that would take them to the North Pole (where they would cut away to a "live remote" of Santa reading them).  Funny how well I remember it all these years later.

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

I have seen this cartoon and come to the conclusion that its primary purpose is to give children nightmares.

I am old enough to remember another show called Adventure Time.  This one was locally produced on WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh.  It was a live studio show hosted by WTAE announcer Paul Shannon. Each day he would have a studio audience of Cub Scouts or Girl Scouts watch him perform various comedy skits and show cartoons and Three Stooges shorts.  They had this bit at Christmas where you could send your letter to Santa c/o WTAE and each week he'd load all of the letters that came in onto a rocket that would take them to the North Pole (where they would cut away to a "live remote" of Santa reading them).  Funny how well I remember it all these years later.

It's a funny coincidence how many classic and modern shows, etc. share names, there's an old black-and-white TV show called The Avengers, which shares its name with a Marvel Comics superhero league, and two versions of the Dennis the Menace comics: the American version by Hank Ketcham, as well as a version seen in the British comics, who has a pet dog named Gnasher. Thriller is the name of an old black and white TV show as well as a song by Michael Jackson.

[TheFugitive]

Both of those shows were very popular back in the 60's.  The Avengers was a British series that was purchased by ABC and aired here.  It went to color in its later seasons.  Diana Rigg wearing her skintight leather outfits made it particularly popular with male viewers.

[Retail Fan+ (Justin Hill)]

There's actually three different shows titled Adventure Time, just to show everyone how generic that two-word title really is:

* An American childrens' show produced from 1958-1961 for WTAE-TV 4, an ABC affiliate in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Time_(1958_TV_series)

* A Canadian childrens' adventure show produced from 1967-1968 for CBC Television:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Time_(1967_TV_series)

* An American animated series created by Pendleton Ward for Cartoon Network, produced by Frederator Studios from 2010-2018 which started out with a few pilot episodes on Nickelodeon's Random Cartoons. Nickelodeon rejected the cartoon, so Frederator and Pendleton Ward took the cartoon to Cartoon Network, who greenlit it to a full series. This is the most famous version of the show bearing the name, winning 24 awards throughout its run and gaining international recognition. The show has become a successful cartoon franchise with two spin-offs, Distant Lands, as well as the upcoming Fionna & Cake spin-off: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Time

There's also another instance of the usage of the "Adventure Time" name, in the name of 1980s rock/pop trio The Elvis Brothers' second album: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Time_(album)

[TheFugitive]

Adventure Time on WTAE in Pittsburgh actually ran all the way up into the mid-1970's.  I know because I grew-up in Pittsburgh and I remember it well.  It was hosted by WTAE announcer Paul Shannon up until his retirement in the early 70's.  After that the host became Joe Negri, a well-known local jazz musician who a lot of you may remember playing Handyman Negri on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.  The show used to run five days a week in the afternoons but moved to just Sunday mornings towards it's end.

[TheFugitive]

I found a couple of screenshots from the Pittsburgh version of Adventure Time.

Here is host Paul Shannon sitting next to the apparatus used to contact Santa Claus at the North Pole so he could read letters which children had sent.



Here is Paul Shannon with the audience, on this day made up of a Brownie troop. (The audience was almost always a Cub Scout or Brownie troop that had been invited for that day.)



Here is Joe Negri performing a musical number. You may be familiar with him as Handyman Negri on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.  He's 97 and still with us.