Thoughtnami™

"Let me tell you what I'd wish I'd known When I was young and dreamed of glory You have no control: Who lives Who dies Who tells your story" - "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story" from Hamilton: An American Musica , lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda  In 2027, Adult Swim is going to present a five-part documentary about Cartoon Network celebrating its 35th anniversary. Wait, no, let me rewrite that properly. That sounded a little too much like a press release. In 2027, Adult Swim, not Cartoon Network, is going to air a five-part special eulogizing Cartoon Network in honor of the channel's 35th anniversary while likely ignoring much of the last decade because nothing happened and everything is fine. Okay, that might be a little too cruel. Still, at the time of this writing, June 2026, news from the Annecy Internation Animation Film Festival in France, the biggest global showcase of film, television, and streaming animation, occurred this week, and one ...

Warner Bros Discovery, a once proud and powerful global media powerhouse that has revolutionized the entertainment industry for over a century, is now officially dead. Back in February, the company has announced that it would be purchased by Paramount Skydance, a fascist-leaning media company financed by foreign governments who sponsor state terrorism and heavily favored by a despotic administration who feels he is the permanent leader of the United States and ruler of the world. And today, April 23, a majority of the company's stockholders officially okayed the deal, which is still being thoroughly investigated by several state attorneys general as well as a few global trade organizations. This is not the end I wanted to see, but it was one I was prepared to admit was always a possibility, especially in an era in our history where truly vile nepotic businessmen have determined to rid the world of progressive, diverse, and established media in favor of authoritative, fascist-leanin...

You people made me break my hiatus for this one post. I explicitly stated that I did not want to talk about the deal anymore. I'm not entirely talking about it, but there is something that has been grating at me the moment the deal was officially determined.  Look, I get it. You hate this deal. I really hate this deal. Folks who work at Warner Bros Discovery hate this deal. Even some of the stockholders and board members hate this deal. It's a terrible deal. It's not even sealed. It's not completed. And there's still a chance it might not legally get cleared by most trade commissions and jurisdictions and completely fall apart. But please hear me out for just a moment.  I want you folks, especially you animation fans, take the time to actually read this because a huge chunk of you folks is acting like petulant children. Since I have to be the grown-up in the room, I'm going to have to say this. Paramount Skydance is NOT going to just get rid of Warner Bros prog...

"I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it." - Groucho Marx I don't take anything I've done for granted in the nearly 30 years I've been writing professionally. In 1998, I created a simple GeoCities page about my favorite programming block, Toonami. CN2 Toonami Inner Circle was part love letter for the block/part news and opinion outlet. I also was trying to convince the folks of Cartoon Network to launch a Toonami channel.  An ambitious task in 1998, mind you, but I was prepared to fight. Cartoon Network eventually launched a spinoff channel in 2000, albeit one based on its Boomerang classic cartoons format. That change forced me to change my site into CNX: Toonami Revolution. A few years later, I changed my site from CNX to The X Bridge (TXB for short) largely because, well, they actually made ...

January 31, 2007, is a day that would live in infamy in Adult Swim's lore. On that day, an ad agency hired by Cartoon Network installed LED light panels featuring Mooninites from the Adult Swim series Aqua Teen Hunger Force throughout several major cities, most notably Boston, Massachusetts, to promote a movie based on the series.  The light panels were placed in random points throughout the city that people felt they were explosives, and this caused a bit of a panic. A lot of chaos and fallout came out of that incident that would ultimately lead to the craziest cycle of events in media history to the point of having a pair of media juggernauts, a nepo baby-lead company that has completely ignored the media company he just bought and a tech company that has altered the film and television industries this century, are fighting each other for control of the biggest media company on the planet, Warner Bros Discovery. It's a wild ride, so let me try to explain each domino as much ...

I've been writing professionally since 1998, and over time, my opinions have changed a lot. Then again, that's just life. I'm not the easily-angered 20-year-old I was back then. In a way, I've tempered a lot in the nearly three decades I've been doing this. I've come to the point that I shouldn't get easily annoyed or angered by the media I consume, the folks who guide it, and the outlets they air on. That said, I can be frustrated with them, but I don't get angry about that sort of thing anymore.   I guess that's what you call growing up or something like that. I think you need to know where I'm going with this. I'm not a thin-skinned guy. When I'm wrong, I'll admit it. My opinions are malleable and always evolving.  I also don't have blind faith in anything, especially when it comes to the things I love and the media I consume.  Anybody who has known me for a while knows that I am the biggest Warner Bros fan on the planet. I...

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 sp...

On December 4, 2025, Netflix announced plans that they would acquire the streaming and studios division of Warner Bros Discovery in a deal that is worth nearly US$80 billion. The rose ceremony that had the business world had been waiting for had been telecast for the world to see, and everybody involved decided that this courting game was finally over. Of course, if you believe that, I have a skyscraper to sell you. I would have said bridge, but I'm not selling that quite yet.  Plus, I'm still giving it repairs. Hopefully those repairs will be completed by the summer, so wish me luck. But yeah, apparently this courting game is not over just yet because the company that had felt it deserved that final rose despite being rebuffed many, many, many times is going all out and trying to tell not only Warner Bros Discovery but also the entire world that they're going to get them or nobody will.  Ever. I mentioned how the mountain wrecker known as David Ellison has had a kind of o...

 I have seen a madman completely destroy a major American institution to build a bloated, gaudy monument to themselves thanks to billionaire friends largely flipping the bill.  But this article is not about what the current Administration has literally done to the White House.  This is about how David Ellison destroyed Paramount to create a media empire that conservatives have only dreamed about thanks to his billionaire daddy largely flipping the bill, radically changing CBS News into a conservative-leaning propaganda group and canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.  Even after that, he wants to buy a second, much larger media company, Warner Bros Discovery, to solidify himself as the Big Media Thanos that rules Hollywood and the complete backing of the Administration. Let me be abundantly clear.  I don’t want ANYBODY to buy Warner Bros Discovery. At all.  I don’t want Comcast to buy them. I don’t want to see a tech company like Netflix, Amazon, or ...