Thoughtnami™

 A question was recently asked from one of my oldest and dearest buds over on my BlueSky account: i know you answer this every year or so, but what's your dream Toonami lineup, given an infinite acquisition budget Definitely something I haven't been thinking about in a long time, especially after, well, I kind of lost faith in the block .  Also, I know how unrealistic all of this could be.  But here's the thing. If you apply real-world logic to a concept like this, you will be baffled. If anybody has any qualms with what I thought of or if anything I put here causes a visceral reaction like "This doesn't make sense" or "Why didn't you do X instead of Z?" or "Why did you do this like this instead of like this," make your own suggestions on your own space. Cool? Savvy? We green?  Excellent. I'll continue. It's been a while since I've done something like this. Been through some things lately. Here's how I'd take on the ...

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...

Fans of Cartoon Network and Warner Bros Animation haven't had a lot of victories in the last couple of years. Cartoon Network abandoned their webpage and shifted everything to HBO Max, then called MAX.  The Boomerang stand-alone streaming service shuttered and threw everything to MAX. Then MAX dropped nearly everything animated, including nearly every Cartoon Network series, every Hanna-Barbera cartoon including The Flintstones, The Jetsons , and Scooby-Do o, Tom & Jerry, and even the venerable classic Looney Tunes shorts and most of the spinoffs. The message seemed clear to the "fandom:" Warner Bros HATES cartoons. It did look bleak, but something started happening in spring 2024. First, Warner Bros launched Cartoon Rewind, a FAST channel that aired older and seemingly random cartoons. Silverhawks, Beetlejuice, Richie Rich, Shirt Tales, Pac-Man, Challenge of the Go-Bots, Mister T, Pirates of Dark Water, Thundarr the Barbarian, Fantastic Max, Centurions, Police Aca...

 I love Bluesky as well as the folks I interact with over there. It's pretty calm and not as chaotic as other social media platforms. Having better tools like muting of words and individuals as well as de-tagging your username and removing your posts from those who want to attack you really enhances the experience. Is it a perfect place?  No. There's no such space known as "the perfect place." That's a lesson I learned from Yogi's Ark Lark when I was a little kid.  I've been a huge Hanna-Barbera fan since I watched the lion's share of their works in syndication and on the USA Cartoon Express back in the early 1980s, and I still am to this day. Those shorts and shows not only entertained me for decades but, much like their corporate cousins Looney Tunes, they are a core part of my creative DNA.  I think that's a reason I've been enjoying MeTV Toons lately.  One of the many, many reasons. Folks, I'm still lucky I could watch it locally via c...

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 ...

“There are fixed points throughout time where things must stay exactly the way they are. This is not one of them, this is an opportunity. Whatever happens here will create its own timeline, its own reality, a temporal tipping point. The future revolves around you, here, now, so do good!” - The Doctor DISCLAIMER: The following is an alternate history of CBS's Action Zone, a block that aired in the 1994-95 season and had continuity attached to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles until its final season on the network. This is purely speculative and a work of fiction, although some real-world elements were included and presented for realistic situations and scenarios. Neither this series nor its author are connected to nor reflect the views and opinions of CBS, Paramount Skydance, or any entity or persons mentioned and does not mean to infringe on the copyrights and trademarks of those parties. - JH In 1994, CBS launched a newly-branded action block to shake up its Saturday morning lineup. T...

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...