Cartoon Network

Well, as promised in the last post, this week's blog update will be about Cartoon Network. But on further reflection (one might say sober reflection), I realized that there actually wasn't a whole lot that I found memorable about Cartoon Network. Most of the cartoons that I watched on it were later in the '90s, and other shows I like that have been featured on Adult Swim (such as Cowboy Bebop and Full Metal Alchemist), were not aired until the '00s.

To clarify,  when I did visit my grandma and grandpa as a kid, I did watch a lot of the old cartoons that they ran during the daytime- Tom & Jerry, Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies, and so on. But they weren't very memorable. They also showed really old cartoons after midnight.

There was only one show I watched for at least half of the decade, Space Ghost Coast to Coast. This was a talk show that was on at 11 PM, hosted by a washed-up superhero named Space Ghost, and evil aliens he was holding prisoner on the phantom planet and forcing to work on his talk show - the main ones being Zorak, Moltar, and Brak. Most of the humor was based on sarcasm. Brak, the incredibly loud-mouthed and stupid cat alien, was my favorite. He later got his own show, The Brak Show, but that was in the year 2000. Here's Brak at his finest.

Other shows on cartoon network that I enjoyed were Johnny Bravo and Dexter's Laboratory. The first was about a narcissistic but vapid greaser guy who was always chasing after women. One episode I remember involved a parody of The Twilight Zone, where he had to babysit a kid who could send him to the cornfield with his mind. Dexter's Laboratory was about a boy genius with a secret mad scientist lab and his hyperactive and stupid sister Dee Dee, who was always ruining his experiments. An episode I remember from this series was about Dexter always getting pushed into the pool by his dad. Here's that Johnny Bravo episode.

Later in the '90s, there was Toonami. I really only remember this because I would watch Dragonball Z and Gundam Wing. It was probably the first Japanese animation I'd ever seen, but looking at this clip, I'm surprised I didn't think Dragonball Z was stupid.

Moral of the story; it seems that nostalgia sometimes fades away on closer inspection.