What is going on with Cartoon Network’s DC Nation block? We know that it’ll be back in January, but why did it go away in the first place? Bleeding Cool’s Brendon Connelly has a list of the four reasons that have been leaked from sources likely to know, from the second suggestion that there’s something going on with DC’s use of the Milestone characters to a more serious falling out between CN and Warner Bros over the block as a whole:
Work on Beware the Batman was not pleasing Cartoon Network, and an unannounced Justice League show wasn’t cutting it either, so the partnership started to disagree about future directions. Rather than plough on, they’ve decided to burn off the episodes so far produced, dissolve the block and deal with each future DC-themed show on an ad-hoc, one-by-one basis.
That’d be a shame, if true – and it’ll be interesting to see what comes of Beware the Batman if it’s really not pleasing the CN executives…
October 17th, 2012 at 11:17 am
If only DC/WB had a deal like Marvel/Disney, so that they could air whatever animated series they wanted on their own channel. Why did Kids WB have to go away?
October 17th, 2012 at 12:37 pm
Well pooh.
October 17th, 2012 at 8:21 pm
Again if this true, Cartoon Network is run by Hyperactive Monkeys on drugs. Looking at their programing other then there saturday stuff (morning and adult swim/toonami). Failed live actions, bad cartoons, endless reruns of dumb adventure time and regular show. We are not going to give one of our good shows a third season. Replace it with a tiny titans and badly looking batman. If this true then should listen to twitter riot that has been going on since saturday.
October 17th, 2012 at 11:27 pm
I’m still leery of the new Batman animated series. They have been very stingy about releasing advance video from it and what little we’ve seen looks like the same kind of substandard CGI as Green Lantern suffers from. There’s nothing wrong with traditional animation as The Legend of Korra has clearly shown.
October 18th, 2012 at 10:17 am
So, I spoke to one of the former Producers of “Adventure Time” at the Alternative Press Expo this past weekend (won’t name names). Mainly because I knew he worked at Cartoon Network & I wanted to complain to someone about them cancelling “Thundercats”.
He said that whenever comedic cartoons, such as “Adventure Time” are the most popular (like now), CN pulls the plug on their action shows (and vice versa when action shows are more popular). What they do is pull the show off air for a few months, & then return it to the air without announcing or promoting it. Naturally, the viewers will have dropped off (no one knew it was coming back). CN then uses this rationale to drop the shows completely: “Well, we brought it back, but no one was watching.”
That’s exactly what they did to the new He-Man show back in 2003/2004. That’s exactly what they did to “Thundercats” last year.
And this is exactly what is going on with the DC Nation block right now.
So, if you have ears at Cartoon Network, let them know this sucks, because this could be really bad for the DC Animated shows.
Two more thoughts:
1) The “toys not selling” reasoning is flimsy. Mattel should be concerned about that, not CN. Besides, any time I go to Toys R Us or Walmart these days it’s almost impossible for me to find the super hero figures I’m seeking out, so how can they NOT be selling? I have yet to even see a Young Justice figure on the shelves at a regular store.
2) Why do the DC shows have to air on CN anyway? Why not CW on Saturday mornings, & then re-run them on like Hub or Qubo (sp?)?
Thanks,
–J.
October 18th, 2012 at 4:51 pm
I would like to read a believe reason why DC Nation/Young Justice/Green Lantern the Animated series disappear until January 2013. It look like I must saved my money and buy the DVD when it finally debut on the DVD. I was wondering what happened to the new Thundercats series. I will be looking for the return of DC Nation,Young Justice and the Green Lantern series in January 2013.
October 19th, 2012 at 12:26 am
CN treats every action show they make this way, and has since JLU. They do get toy revenues, but Mattel has a terrible track record with getting their action figures even placed in stores, and they hold the master DC license right now. Without toy revenue, the shows aren’t profitable, since CN actually has to pay a license fee to DC Comics for the characters. (Yes, one division of WB has to pay another division of WB $$ to use characters owned by WB. Insert your own snark [HERE].)
On top of that, every DC cartoon is out of the 4-8 year old demographic that CN wants. They don’t want B:TAS or JLU or YJ level writing, because they think it’s too far over the heads of their target demo. That had a snitfit over how Brave & the Bold turned out, when they WANTED a children’s show, but got a geekfest filled with more fanboy Easter eggs in every 22 minute episode than in a season box set of a Joss Whedon TV show.
Clone Wars is the only action cartoon that gets respect because they’re terrified that someone else will pick up the show. Unlike the DC shows that are actually made by WB Animation, CN has zero ownership over Star Wars and couldn’t stop Lucasfilms from shopping it around to Nick or the Hub.
The best thing to happen to DC cartoon would be moving them into Adult Swim or allowing them to move off network where it could find it’s proper target audience.
You’ll notice that CN doesn’t even bother to rerun the Timmverse DC shows anymore. Those are syndicated to a rival US kids network. Ironically, that network has TRIED to get original programming from WB Animation, but CN has so far refused to allow it.
October 19th, 2012 at 1:43 pm
I don’t blame Milestone nor Stephanie Brown for why DC Nation is off the air. For starters, if that was the case, they wouldn’t pull Green Lantern from the lineup either.
I blame Cartoon Network paying too much for a series, Dreamworks’ Dragons: Riders of Berk, that has failed to reach an audience and a network pretty much stuck with a lemon that could go elsewhere unless they figure out a good place to put it. It premiered on Tuesday nights and didn’t do well in that slot. It moved to Wednesdays and not doing well there either. So, Cartoon Network decided to put reruns of Dragons to Saturday mornings after Clone Wars in hopes that they’ll get an audience, and if the shows do well there, Cartoon Network will move premieres to Saturday mornings.
And please note: there’s no current Dragons toyline based on the series, so the channel has no interest there. Cartoon Network has no ownership/distribution/residuals issues in the series; it’s Dreamworks Animation, and they could easily move it to Nickelodeon where all the other DWA shows air if Cartoon Network scraps it. They bought a show sight unseen and it’s not working.
And, unfortunately, DC Nation was the sacrificial lamb.
Still stupid.
October 24th, 2012 at 1:43 pm
When people talk about action cartoons: Batman TAS, Superman TAS JLA and JLU set the bar that gave birth to cartoons like Avengers earthest mightiest heroes to the point where marvel was able to formulate a live action master pieces movie. Sadly enough DC has yet to do that which is odd with in itself. Being that they don’t have the same restrictions Marvel do(what a damn shame). Now I followed CN when boomerang was a time slot on Sunday mornings 1993 I was 13 years of age. Back then CN was pretty good, but since the disappearance of Toonami in the afternoons and at night CN has been on the gradual decline. I don’t know if any one from CN views this but because of the transition from action to this care bear/ strawberry shortcake style of cartoons aside from DC nation and Thundercats my friends and I refuse to watch CN. we actually make funny of CN. Kind of how younger kids make fun of CBS. If any one from CN is reading these blogs get your lives together this is not ROCKET SCIENCE. If you have something good don’t toss it to the waste side and If you have no intentions of using it then let other networks use it. You will be still making money and pleasing the millions of viewers that are current disapointed with you guys due to your pre-mature and unannounced removal of DC nation. After all isn’t what this all about the money and the viewers
October 28th, 2012 at 11:18 am
Whats sad here is Cartoon Network is basically a good network with REALLY BAD people in charge, Stuart Snyder and co seem to make a dozen BAD decisions for every GOOD one.
Also to some others bashing the comedy shows, thats just not right, Adventure Time & Regular show are solid toons as well. It is indeed sad and WRONG that Cartoon Network SEVERELY MISTREATS Action animations and a lot of the newer WB toons in general, but its not the comedy shows fault, its the people who work at the network that play favorites.
If you ask me WB should start going to OTHER networks with their programming, lord knows The HUB TV Network would treat their shows ALOT better then Cartoon Network has. I mean they’ve treated the reruns of Batman:TAS & Superman:TAS pretty well so far, even made some fun promos for them. So yeah I say Warner Bros DROPS CN and goes to Hasbro/Disocvery to work out a deal to get their shows on THE HUB. Lord knows they would give them better treatment then CN has!