Cartoon therapy

Millions of Bug Bunny fans can't be wrong

by Randee Dawn Cohen

Saturday morning was always special. As the one time during the week when siblings could set aside their rivalries, arguing only over who ate all of the marshmallows out of the Lucky Charms, Saturday morning was the children's hour, after hour, after hour. It was where you could sit down with your younger brother or sister, legs splayed out impossibly at your side, vegetating amenably in front of Superfriends, Schoolhouse Rock, Bugs and Daffy. The real world paused between 6 a.m. and lunch time as you sat enrapt in a world of cartoons.

On Cartoon Network, it is always Saturday morning. This is a 24-hour, 365-day, all-animation world -- and a world unto itself. Smart, savvy, slightly goofy, Cartoon Network is a splash of two-dimensional color, silly voices, and anvils falling on unsuspecting coyotes. It's a combination that works thanks to clever programming and an insistence on appealing to all age groups and demographics. Kids can tune in to the cute and the classics, alterna-rock fans can get a first-hand lesson on just what those Scooby snacks Fun Lovin' Criminal sing about are, and adult night owls can unwind -- with or without chemical enhancement -- to the bizarre real-world spin of Space Ghost Coast to Coast or the B-movie James Bondisms of Johnny Quest.

"We've never considered ourselves a purely kids' network," says senior vice-president and creative director Stephen Croncota. "We always talked about being for cartoon lovers, and for anyone who embraced the silliness, the irreverence, the outrageousness that cartoons represent. Kids -- that's a no-brainer. They'll always come to cartoons. But there is a way to go cradle to grave with this thing, and we realized that from the start."

It is a formula that has surpassed even the expectations of its parent network, Turner Broadcasting. When Cartoon Network first began, Turner vice-president Kitsie Riggall was quoted as saying it "would be more of a niche service." Instead, today Cartoon Network reaches a little over 27 million viewers and routinely ranks as one of the top 10 cable channels, reigning over more established networks like MTV, Comedy Central, and Court TV.

The idea for Cartoon Network came from one of Ted Turner's spending sprees. In 1991 he acquired the libraries -- and production houses -- of Hanna-Barbera cartoons. After he'd purchased the rights to Warner Bros., MGM, and Paramount animation, there was enough of a blend to kick off a channel, and Cartoon Network was born in '92.

But Cartoon Network is not just a rote rerunning of animated shorts and series. The powers that be long ago decided to create a 'Toon universe within their network, a universe where 'Toons and humans co-exist. This has led to 'Toons introducing their own shows, hosting talk shows where they interview real people, and engaging in important philosophical debates like "Is Dino a dog or a dinosaur?" Croncota points out, however, that the presence of real people on Cartoon Network has been kept to a minimum, and that the Network has no intention of resorting to human hosts. "Fred Flintstone, Muttley, and Space Ghost are our stars in the way that an MGM studio had its line-up of stars. And we're really careful. If anyone's coming on to tell you about the next show, it should be a cartoon. We have 1001 stars, and they're fabulous characters, so why would we want a human being?"

Presentation is one thing; connecting with the audience is another, and a substantial portion of Cartoon Network's programming nods to its older viewers, from calling a block of musically themed cartoons "Toonapalooza" to having They Might Be Giants write the theme song for the wry, popular Space Ghost Coast to Coast talk show. (The show's "out" music was the last recording by the late free-jazz guitar genius Sonny Sharrock.)

Space Ghost's guests are also geared for the older audience: from Schoolly D to Jim Carrey to David Byrne -- these are some of the rare human faces Cartoon Network allows. And it's all worked. Cartoon Network's hip "star" cachet has translated into a full third of its viewing audience's being over 17.

To attract younger viewers to cartoons their parents and grandparents might have watched, however, some cut-and-paste was necessary. "When we first started out," says Croncota, "we went out and did focus research. And the kids we talked to said shows like The Flintstones or Josie and the Pussycats were dated. It didn't mean they wouldn't watch them, but they distinguished them from cartoons made in the '90s, for them, with a '90s attitude. What we did was to bring our cartoon stars to life, by literally cutting them from the cartoons in a process called rotoscoping, and put them over the air introducing shows, in musical numbers, all over. So now the kids see these stars as more timely, more relevant, more modern. Because how can a cartoon character be your grandmother's favorite when he's talking to you today?"

In addition to the new stunts old cartoon stars perform, Cartoon Network has hired new, young animators to create series like The Powerpuff Girls (about three kindergarteners who have to ask permission from their teacher before blasting into the air to save the world) and Dexter's Laboratory, about the put-upon but brilliant boy scientist Dexter, whose most difficult experiment is figuring out how to get along with his older sister. Says animator Gennady Tartakovsky, who received an Emmy nomination for Dexter, "There's a spontaneity with cartoons. I think people like to watch good drawings; there's this appeal to art. If you make a cartoon people like, they might even forget they're watching a cartoon and just think of it as a funny, appealing, interesting film." Hence the success of other networks' more mainstream, prime-time fare like The Simpsons, The Ren & Stimpy Show, and Duckman.

The new challenge for Cartoon Network is reorganizing the late-night line-up to secure ratings after their core audience is gone. "We had this dilemma," say Croncota. "After 11 at night, we're still on, and our kid viewers are in a coma. Nickelodeon lost all of their viewers late at night; that's why they created `Nick at Night.' "

No surprise then, that the woman who orchestrated Nickelodeon's night-time turnaround, Betty Cohen, is now running Cartoon Network. Croncota says they are beginning to gear the overnight viewing to an older audience, though for right now the repeats they show are also skewed to that age group, with favorites like The Jetsons, Bugs and Daffy, and Scooby-Doo (Shaggy being arguably the original slacker) ruling the dark hours.

Nostalgia plays a large part in Cartoon Network's programming; the image of Saturday morning remains vivid for any programmer. Says Croncota, "I think most people would admit that life has gotten tougher, harder, faster, colder, and people look for things that have this home and hearth effect. It helps you rekindle the feeling of more innocent times, when you seemed a little more protected and buffered from the harsh realities of the world. And whether in reality those were your happiest times, from where people stand now, they were. These cartoons and these characters were a really big part of it. Actually having a network devoted to that is wondrous for most people."

And it is that sense of wonder that powers the colors of Cartoon Network, which has managed to invent a world where irony and childishness coexist peacefully, a place where you can be hip and goofy at the same time. Croncota recounts, "To get my job, I had to write a campaign, and I came up with the slogan `Cartoon Network: making the world a better place, one cartoon at a time.' And I kind of think that's what we're doing. If more people around the world watched cartoons more often, everybody would be a little less uptight and a little less angry, and having a little more fun."