I cannot understand why it is that everyone's willing to badmouth the abundance of live-action programming on Cartoon Network, yet most of these people give Jetix and the presence of Power Rangers on Toon Disney (which came about long BEFORE Cartoon Network's live-action programming) a free pass.
It could also be because people kinda expected about as much Network Decay from Disney after what they turned The Disney Channel into.
Or because when people tune into a channel called Cartoon Network, they're tuning in because they actually want to see, y'know, cartoons. It's like if Adult Swim showed Barney (something not meant for adults, thus clashing with the block's title), or a channel called "the Cooking Channel" showed something that had nothing to do with cooking, or the History Channel showed something that had nothing to do with history, or...well, you get the idea, I hope?
Am I (the person who wrote the page) the only person who is bothered by the fact that this channel, which is clearly owned by Disney, has been showing cartoons created by Warner Bros. Animation?! No one else seems to complain about the presence of Batman: The Animated Series, Pinky and The Brain, or Superman: The Animated Series; in fact, they even seem to treat it like there's nothing at all wrong with it. Have these people forgotten that Disney and Warner Bros. are BITTER ENEMIES?!? There should have been no way that Warner Bros. would agree to let Disney run their shows. Plus, all three of those shows have already had their entire runs released on DVD before Jetix even picked them up, which makes the decision to put them on Jetix even more pointless!
They are not so much bitter enemies as much as friendly rivals (think Batman and Superman, not Batman and the Joker). Who Framed Roger Rabbit had Mickey Mouse and the gang appearing next to the Looney Tunes. They use their cartoons in the other's movies (Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in Warner's Gremlins, Warner's Powerpuff Girls in Disney-subsidiary Touchstone's Unbreakable) and reference each other's work (references to Warner's Superman in Disney/Disney owned Underdog, Hollywoodland and Sin City, reference to Disney's Fantasia in Warner's Billy and Mandy). They don't really hate each other.
Cultural touchstones for the time the episodes were written? They were riffing on the hot button issue of the day? Kinda like the "___ movie" movies, only, you know, intelligent?
One should also remember that both Disney and Warner Bros. are HUGE corporations, and sometimes different shows or films are made by different divisions of the same company (for example, the Disney Animated Canon is made by a different branch of the Walt Disney Company from the one that runs Disney Channel, and there are probably similar examples within Warner Bros.) and even different people working in the same division may not all feel the same way about the competition. Perhaps Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Histeria, Pinky and The Brain, and Freakazoid were all written by members of Warner Bros. who hated Disney, while the decison to let Warner Bros. shows run on Toon Disney was made by executives who did not share those writers' hatred? Besides, both companies really want to make money, and sometimes greed may overcome bitter hatred (especially if shareholders don't share the companies' hatred for each other and would be really pissed at the company they own passing up an easy monymaking opprotunity). The coorporate world is seldom as simple as people think it is (then again, that's often true of the world in general).
When I was younger, I loved Toon Disney because it would show all of the old Disney shows that the main network no longer bothered with. I would watch Darkwing Duck, Gargoyles, DuckTales (1987), Tale Spin... all manner of fantastic childhood memories were visited upon again by this network. So, dovetailing nicely from the above complaints, why the hell do they allow live-action shows and Warner Bros. cartoons and more modern Disney shows and ignore the vast and wonderful stockpile from the 90s. And I know they show some stuff a two and three in the morning, but two and the three in the morning? Is not a good timeslot. WHY do they spit upon my youth?!
Dude, ya gotta understand. Disney is the devil. That's why they make such good shows and almost never show them anymore. As far as I know, the only thing you listed that airs anymore is Gargoyles, and that is, like you said, around 3 in the morning. At least there's always YouTube and Keep Circulating the Tapes.
Add to that the fact that they seem less and less inclined to release DVDs of said shows (I almost guarantee we'll never see the rest of Darkwing Duck or Tale Spin), and not only that, they give us the edited releases and we're supposed to be thrilled. And they wonder why people will download copies illegally; that's the only way I could get "Days of Plunder and Lightning" unedited for gods' sakes!
Listen, episodes of 90s Disney shows aren't that hard to find. Just look at an episode guide for the Disney cartoon show you want to watch (you can find that on wikipedia by typing "list of [insert the name of the Disney cartoon show here]) episodes") then use the episode guide to look up the name of the episode of that show you want to watch, then do a youtube search for the show's name followed by the episode's name, and you'll probably find the episode, albeit sometimes split into pieces. Using this method, I've been able to find every episode of Gargoyles as well as any episode of Aladdin that I wanted. Don't complain about the shows not being on DVD, just go watch them right now on Youtube!
Look, the 90s cartoons had only one decade when they truly shined. The 90s of course. Nowadays they're barely talked about and aren't particularly seen as something special. Almost all cartoons had the "Talknig animals and cutesy scenarios" formula, which was popular for cartoons from the 90s and everyone took adventage of it, even creating action cartoons like Biker Mice From Mars and Swat Kats.
We all know there are a lot of people who grew up with 90s TV and had wonderful memories from it. And for that to stay true, it's better if the cartoons stay in our childhood memories instead of on TV. Moving on instead of living in the past, also helps. And that's what people should do.
While that's true, it's kind of hard to justify when almost everything they show nowadays is so much worse that it isn't funny.
That's purely subjective. The new stuff trounces the old stuff in ratings. That's why they were eventually taken off the air. Old shows tend to be put in schedules as filler for new networks; that's why The Hub has shows like Batman Beyond and Jem and The Holograms, for example. If the old stuff were that much more popular, then Boomerang wouldn't have niche-level viewership or be a colossal money sink for Time Warner. (Dn't get me wrong—I like the old stuff too. But it really is a niche thing, fueled mainly by nostalgia.)
On the Warner Brothers stuff - forgiveness?
Money, Dear Boy, it's how syndication works. Plus, who cares if Disney is playing some old Warner Brother's show that CN isn't playing or vice versa? In the end you still get to watch the show.
This troper's problem with the channel is their willingness to put the really good stuff (ie: shows like Digimon and Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!) on in the morning when I'm still asleep, and put the rest of the crap up during the day!
Why did they REMOVE Toon Disney completely and change it into "Disney XD", in addition to removing most of the "toon" aspect. Fresh Freaking Prince comes on it now for Pete's sake.
Probably as a result of all the complaining about live-action shows on Toon Disney. A bit of wagging the tail to please the dog, you might say.
Or just Network Decay combined with Executive Meddling. Disney doesn't care about nostalgic adult fans who like to re-watch the cartoons they grew up with; they want whatever programming they think will attract grade school boys. (They've already got the girls' market thanks to Hannah Montana, High School Musical and the Disney Princess franchise.) That's part of the reason they bought Marvel Comics, after all.
As in, adults who enjoy the 90's cartoons are not the focus anymore. Nowadays' youth seem to adore a very strict formula: teenagers who are unusual (they must possess abilities that others do not, from superior intelligence to magic powers), are, in reality, celebrities or really important for some sort of corporation, and, this is very important, they must interact with "normal" people while trying to hide their status. It is easier this way to relate with the characters and it keep them amused at the same time. Shallow and repetitive, yes, but that's what the spectators who will spend money buying the show's merchandise want.
Why the name change? It's basically the same channel, with live action shows added.