Hopes Dashed and Passed in 2025

Back on the very first day of 2025, I made a post about what I wanted to see happen in the new year.

I really didn't expect much, but I was a bit optimistic about the media landscape. I didn't expect much optimism elsewhere because, um, well, you know.

You've seen America since January 20, 2025. You know.

Regardless, on this final day of 2025, I figure how the things I wanted to see in the new year would pan out.

The result?

Maybe I should have just wished that the sun would come out. At least I had that the biggest of the year.

So, here's how my hopes were dashed this past year:

FAST channels with more A-list/top-tier programming. 

Surprisingly, this actually happened. Homicide: Life on the Street, a series that hadn't been on the air in decades, made its streaming debut this year on Universal Crime. The original Law & Order also got its own self-contained FAST channel. PBS and BBC expanded their FAST offerings with themed channels. Moonlighting found a spot on Tubi. Dream On, a series that never even appeared on home media decades after it ended, landed a solid spot on The Roku Channel. Disney launched FAST channels based on The Practice. Shows like VR Troopers, Beakman's World, Simon & Simon, Cagney and Lacey, Hart to Hart, The Real Ghostbusters, Extreme Ghostbusters, and the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles found homes on FAST outlets. Even rarely seen stuff like Meatballs & Spaghetti found a home on FAST channels. The opportunity for growth outside of the usual walled gardens is there.

The problem is which media company will take it further and make it more accessible to platforms they don't own? Only time will tell.

More animated FAST channels.

Well, here's the thing. There have been more FAST channels dedicated to animation popping up. However, the choices are pretty limited. The Pink Panther Channel from MGM has every Pink Panther animated series including Pink Panther and Sons, which was a co-production with Hanna-Barbera, and Pink Panther and Pals, which was a series produced for Cartoon Network. It was initially a Freevee/Prime Video Channels exclusive until Roku picked it up around the summer of 2025. Interestingly, they also occasionally air the original live-action films and the recent revival series starring Steve Martin. making it a home for all things Pink Panther.

Warner Bros TV's Cartoon Rewind has expanded their curated lineup a little, but the expanded lineup hasn't really shifted anything new to the lineup. 

The problem with these two is that they tend to have more a marathon format rather than a curated network model. It's something that shows one of the very few flaws in FAST outlets. You could have a massive library of shows but puke out massive marathons of one show that takes up numerous hours. Some shows that have more than 48 half hours of episodes like Beetlejuice or Challenge of the GoBots could air day-long marathons every week. The monotony makes the draw a little boring, and if these companies want to make FAST networks more of a draw, they need to learn to curate the lineups better and make them mimic the traditional linear TV model. Sony's GET Comedy, Circle Country, and many of the FAST-only variants of over-the-air diginets like GRIT Xtra, Outlaw, 365 BLK, LAFF More, and Bounce XL do this well.   

A clear definition of the future of the Cartoon Network brand in the United States.

HA!  I think that Cartoon Network in the United States is in a worse position than it was a year ago, and last year was forgettable. The future of Cartoon Network in the United States is as clear as a bowl of chili in a black bowl in a windowless room with no lamps. 

In a year when the bulk of Cartoon Network and Boomerang's library got removed from HBO Max even though the official Cartoon Network still uses the same redirect notice it had when they largely shut down (and it's still pointing to Max, not HBO Max at the time of this writing).

The long-awaited new season of Gumball? It was a Hulu exclusive in the United States. A spinoff of Steven Universe? Lars of the Stars is coming to Prime Video in the United States. A jam session special created by Pendleton Ward, Patrick McHale, Ian Jones-Quartey and Rebecca Sugar? The Elephant is on Adult Swim. J.G. Quintel's latest original series? Adult Swim-bound. 

Let's face it. Cartoon Network fans have been going through things for years, but 2025 has been incredibly taxing to them, especially in light of the impending changes within Warner Bros Discovery and the separation of the studio and library from the linear network.

I'm.... I'm going to talk about that in a bit.

A broad focus and stronger support of the Looney Tunes brand.

At the end of 2024 until about early 2025, many people were legitimately worried about the future of the Looney Tunes brand. Numerous cancelations of major projects, most noticeably the theatrical release of Coyote vs ACME, the removal of Looney Tunes shorts from what was then known as MAX, and unfounded rumors of Warner Bros Discovery selling the entire Looney Tunes brand made these fans completely mental, I must say.

To be honest, at the end of 2025, I feel that Looney Tunes is in a much better position than it has been in a long, long time. 

First of all, Warner Bros is still distributing Looney Tunes, Tom & Jerry, and Hanna-Barbera shows and shorts on physical media, which are selling out much to their surprise. While Warner Bros isn't releasing the film itself (which is still a stupid move), Ketchup Entertainment, which released the truly fun Looney Tunes film The Day The Earth Blew Up, announced that they've picked up distribution rights to Coyote vs. ACME for an August 2026 theatrical release. I really hope all of you folks who spammed, attacked, berated, and harassed anybody even remotely close to Warner Bros with that damnable and obnoxious #RELEASECOYOTEVSACME hashtag will actually go out and see it in theaters. Otherwise, you could truly sod off.

Can't talk about Looney Tunes without mentioning its more high-profile broadcast network. MeTV Toons, which celebrated its first anniversary back in June, added a Hanna-Barbera block of shorts, a restored version of The Huckleberry Hound Show, a slate of restored shorts from studios like Van Bueren and Ub Iwerks, Linus the Lionhearted, Star Trek: The Animated Series, the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, and Terrytoons shorts featuring Heckle and Jeckle, Mighty Heroes, and Mighty Mouse, including the legendary Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, which hadn't been seen on television in over 30 years, and has created a rather sizable fan following since it launched in June 2024, continues to expand its footprint across the country gaining national linear slots on Dish, DirecTV, and, surprisingly, Comcast's Xfinity on channel 1736.

And I'm happy to say that in the last week of 2025, my local cable company Cox Communications finally added the over-the-air feed of MeTV Toons, WSKY-TV 4.6, to the cable lineup on channel 110 in the Hampton Roads market in Virginia. Considering I'm paying for a limited service with no basic cable networks save TBS, having a local MeTV Toons affiliate on cable is quite vital. 

Just hoping MeTV Toons doesn't decide to start giving some loud, obnoxious mice cookies in the future because this network is fantastic. 

Surprisingly, Looney Tunes got a much better streaming home in 2025 thanks to an unlikely outlet. Fox Entertainment's Tubi free AVOD streaming platform picked up a whopping 262 half hours of Looney Tunes shorts. 786 of the 1041 shorts made are now streaming for free on the site, which is much larger than the 300+ shorts selection that was offered on HBO Max. Since its arrival on Tubi, Looney Tunes has become the #1 program on the entire service by a country mile. Its success has been publicly noted by Tubi executives along with a commitment to keep the shorts there for a long, long time as long as the shorts have an owner that is willing to continue that relationship.

More on that in a bit.

A Universal Science Fiction FAST channel. 

Yeah, that didn't happen. Pity. 

The Crunchyroll stranglehold on the anime industry to just come apart at the seams. 

That didn't happen either. 

If anything, it got even tighter. And what's worse? The rest of the industry seems to be picking up a lot of Crunchyroll's worse traits, including disrespecting localizers and voice actors and replacing them with generative A.I. software. 

I don't see significant shifts in the anime industry happening in 2026 unless, well, Netflix ends up owning Warner Bros Japan after putting in a, so far, successful bid.

While we're on the subject of something Netflix might own...

DC Comics' 90th anniversary to be something truly epic, celebratory, and memorable not just on the big screen but also the small screen (including announcements of new animated projects for all kinds of audiences) and the comics themselves. 

BWA-HA-HA-HA! 

I bet a lot of you folks didn't know that 2025 was DC's 90th anniversary. They really didn't make a big to-do about it across the media nor the comics themselves. That said, you can't say DC didn't have an eventful 2025. You had the successful theatrical launch of James Gunn's DCU with Superman, the popular titles from the Absolute Universe, the relaunch of Vertigo, the publication of Mark Waid's New History of the DC Universe which established Milestone and Wildstorm characters firmly in the current continuity, the brief return of the Power Company, HUSH 2, the latest relaunch of Batman, the announcement of crossovers with Marvel, and the tournament happening in the DC K.O. event series, not to mention riding on the success of the Emmy-winning limited series The Penguin.  DC has been having fun. 

And yet, them not even acknowledging its 90th anniversary, especially after reverting its logo back to their iconic DC Bullet, was a bit off. Maybe they'll go out in 2028 when Superman turns 90, which will likely be the final milestone year DC could do what they want to do with the Man of Steel before the first elements of the character becomes public domain in 2033. 

Adult Swim to fully get out of its cynically nihilistic phase and actually become more mature and not just catering to the older fans of the block (that is, the original 18-34 demo when it began in 2001, who are now 42-56).

Yeah, that didn't happen either. 

Adult Swim is pretty much the FOX cartoon rerun channel during primetime as well as the early evening hours the block hijacked from Cartoon Network. Checkered Past ended unceremoniously and replaced with hours of King of the Hill, which ran for three hours every day of the week in that early slot until mid-fall.

And yet, by the year's end, Checkered Past kind of came back? Granted at the time of this writing, it's just Dexter's Laboratory, but that's still strange. For all we know, it could be a tie-in for the new season of Primal, another show created by Genndy Tartakovsky.

The block itself has seen better days, and 2025 was a reminder that a bigger block isn't a better block. Hopefully 2026 will be a more fruitful one for Adult Swim, the block's 25th anniversary. If not, well, prepare for the bittersweet end. 

I want Lazarus to be great.

It was fine. Great intriguing story that could had an ending that could have expanded the world beyond the initial plot of the series. But alas the Primetime Emmy-nominated series (it was nominated for Best Original Theme Song) is one and done. All for the best, I guess, but Lazarus does, sadly, seem like yet another failed original series for the better cartoon show we call Toonami. Speaking of Toonami...

A Toonami original series based on a WB-owned property. 

Nothing based on a WB-owned property has aired on Toonami in 2025 aside from reruns of My Adventures with Superman. I don't see that changing any time soon in 2026 and beyond. I feel we may get reruns of Get Jiro on the block when that series finally premieres, but that's yet another DC adaptation. 

While I would love to see more DC properties on Toonami, I want them to be more age-appropriate and not series that were intended for younger audiences as MAWS initially was. And now with the future of the network under Warner Bros Discovery is in doubt in light of the impending split of the network into Discovery Global, I'm curious if there ever will be an original non-DC title based on a WB-owned property on Toonami. 

The block has seen its leaders seemingly abandon viewers and social media and avoiding fans for reasons only known to them, and their absence, combined with the seemingly general lack of actual direction which is still haphazard and spontaneous 

As we approach both the 30th anniversary of the original Cartoon Network Toonami block and the 15th anniversary of the Adult Swim revival of the block in 2027, I'm curious how the block will even look. I know it'll likely still be around, but given the changing culture and ownerships on the horizon, what would Toonami look like a year from now?

It's not like they're bringing back Toonami Rewind any time soon because we all know it'd just be Dragon Ball Z Kai because Dragon Ball Z is the only series that has ever aired on Toonami. Nope. Nothing else matters to them. 

Seriously, who the heck was Toonami Rewind for, anyway? 

Adult Swim and/or HBO Max picking up and renewing Star Trek: Lower Decks. 

Yeah, that's not happening. If anything, 2025 ended up being the beginning of the less-than-amicable relationship between Warner Bros Discovery and Paramount Global, or as they became by the middle of the year, Paramount Skydance. The pair had a fight about South Park on HBO Max, and to be fair, Paramount was pretty unfair with the show's initial contract with the streamer. 

Initially, new episodes of South Park were supposed to stream on HBO Max the day after they premiered on Comedy Central. Paramount, in its infinite wisdom, decided to get one over on HBO Max by having South Park specials premiere exclusively on Paramount+. Here's the rub though. For a couple of years, the specials were the only South Park productions being made, and this was largely to spite HBO Max. 

So, Warner Bros Discovery and Paramount Global had a fight about the terms of the contract and what was considered an episode and what was considered a special. They came to an impasse, and the initial contract was allowed to lapse.

The day after the contract lapsed, the first new episode of South Park on Comedy Central in years aired.

Petty as hell.

During the middle of that South Park fight, Paramount Global was being pursued by numerous suitors including Sony and a group of US investment firms, Byron Allen, and Skydance Media, a small film and game studio owned by nepo baby David Ellison and largely financed by his father Larry Ellison's Oracle and the U.A.E.-funded RedBird Capital. 

As we all know, Skydance Media ultimately bought Paramount for US$8 billion dollars and completed the sale in the summer of 2025. Then, the mountain wrecker started destroying the company starting with CBS News and ultimately canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to appease the current administration. 

And just as the ink was drying on the Paramount deal, Paramount Skydance had their eyes focused on another media company with many of the same kind of assets they just purchased: Warner Bros Discovery.

*sighs*

Look, I already talked about how I feel about the impending split of Warner Bros Discovery many times over. I also spoke my peace about how I feel about David Ellison and his stalker-like pursuit of WBD despite being rejected by the company so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so many times. I don't feel I need to talk about him anymore this year. Considering this is my last post in 2025, that's kind of moot, isn't it?

I'm almost convinced that whatever happens is just going to happen. I have no control over the situation. I'm not a fan of Netflix by any stretch, but I would rather have Netflix end up with the streaming and studio side of Warner Bros than Skydance ending up with the whole damn company only to shutter everything that wasn't part of Paramount.

If Paramount Skydance is completely unsuccessful in their temper tantrum attempt to buy Warner Bros Discovery, I think they'll still need them. Seeing that the lineups of their linear channels is largely shows made by Warner Bros Television (Friends, The Big Bang Theory, Martin, Living Single, Two and a Half Men, Family Matters, Mama's Family, The Jamie Foxx Show, and The Wayans Bros) and one distributed by them (The Fresh Prince of Bel Air), and the biggest sitcom on CBS is currently Georgie and Mandy's First Marriage, I can't see them totally getting out of that relationship if Netflix does fully end up with the studio assets. 

Also, Netflix has been very beneficial for Paramount Skydance showcasing their films and remaining the permanent global home for many shows and specials that were produced under the Nickelodeon label, including Glitch Techs, the Avatar: The Last Airbender live-action series, and the recent Rocko's Modern Life and Invader ZIM movies. 

In hindsight, I was naive to suggest that Adult Swim try to pick up Lower Decks. Yeah, it would have been fantastic to get an adult animated series that was set in the Star Trek universe to air on an outlet not owned by Paramount since they wanted nothing to do with it anymore. It would have been a break from the monotony of having the same Disney-owned FOX cartoons airing in all open primetime hours. 

But alas, I hadn't considered that Paramount (now Paramount Skydance) are pretty much jerks towards rival companies like WBD in providing library shows.

And I keep forgetting that Adult Swim is a dudebro sausage fest that doesn't carry shows with women in lead roles, and the folks at the head of Adult Swim, most notably network president, noted Billy and Mandy hater, and co-creator of one of the shows that kickstarted the live-action era of Cartoon Network Michael Ouweleen, have made that viewpoint the core identity of not only Adult Swim but Cartoon Network as a whole. A show like Lower Decks didn't have a shot.

Hell, Lower Decks couldn't even air on MTV, which has woefully continued its road to irrelevance in 2025 with numerous shutdowns of many of its linear music-only stations across the globe. It could absolutely work on MTV, especially if someone had a plan to revitalize the entire brand from the ground up and actually put in the work to do so.

But on the bright side, I got a great package from a bud of mine: a Blu Ray release of the complete Lower Decks series. Physical media should be the standard in this crazy era of elimination, write-offs, and consolidation, and I feel it's a worthy investment if you're a fan of television and films now more than ever. Now, I'm just enjoying the hell out of this impressive yet underappreciated series that added so much to a great sci-fi franchise that revolutionized the world and hoped for peace across the universe.

It's nice to wish for peace in the world you're in and those outside of it.

That's my wish for you, my friends for the year ahead. It's not going to easy, but we can get through this if we take care of each other and ourselves. Know who your friends are, make sure you understand who'll have your back, appreciate them, and love them all. 

I know i certainly do.

Here's to a great, safe, peaceful, joyful, and creative 2026. And if the fates allow, we'll do this all again next year.

Be alert, be safe, take care, and, as always, keep creating.