By Dogasu
Posted 08-24-2001

You know, in all the time I've been doing this site (a year and a half now), I have never gotten the response to anything that I've gotten with the Kids' WB! rant.  Never.  I didn't think it was too spectacular or grandiose, yet everyone who e-mailed me thought it was great.  People wanted me to start this grand letter-writing campaign to Kids' WB! and the be the leader of some giant revolt against the network.  It's crazy. 

Well, now the network’s plan I talked about in that last rant have come into action, and I would like to talk about it.

First of all, Cartoon Network's Toonami got Cardcaptors.  And you know what?  They gave it a cool opening, making even the dub seem like a cool show.  They aired all the episodes in order (well, the order they're listed in on Nelvana's website).  They only had one commercial break instead of about three.  And they kept the ending theme--nothing more than an instrumental of the opening theme--but at least now you can read the credits.  The only thing that bothered me about Cartoon Network's airing was that they kept in the dubbed opening song.  Why!?  Why!?  They took away Outlaw Star's opening (a great opening at that), as well as Gundam Wing's (another great OP), Tenchi's, Big O's, Mobile Suit Gundam's, 08th MS Team's, and even their crappier dubs' (Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon) openings.  So why did they air this one!?  When it's the CRAPPIEST ONE OF THE GROUP!  I mean, I'd rather watch the dubbed Dragon Ball Z opening (y'know, the one that sounds like drunken blind-folded monkeys banging on trash can lids) than watch 
that Cardcraptors mess.  What's the deal!?

Anyway, the show had its run, and then was taken off the block in favor of one of their better shows.  Cartoon Network treated Kids' WB!'s molested dub with as much dignity as it could, and even now they're asking for Cardcaptors art for their monthly art showcase.  Cartoon Network even aired commercials for the new season of Cardcaptors--which would appear on  the other network--during the regular Toonami run!  And now they’re airing commercials for that Cubix show.  How many Cartoon Network shows have you seen advertised on Kids' WB!?  Zero.

All that happened back in June.  Cartoon Network's Toonami continued getting stronger.  There was a vote for the next series to fill the 5:30pm slot, and Outlaw Star won over a third of the votes.  They're airing Mobile Suit Gundam and 08th MS Team, and are probably getting monster ratings because of it.  Dragon Ball’s on the air, with re-dubbed episodes that have the original Japanese music.  New Dragon Ball Z's are coming this September, and they've got two more Gundam series to show this year.  And there's the three Sailor Moon movies they'll be airing this year, as well as the "follow-up" to last year's The Intruder.  And then there’s the whole “Adult Swim” block that’ll feature an hour of Cowboy Bebop.  So Toonami has a strong future.  OK, technically, Adult Swim has nothing to do with Toonami, but you get my point.

And while Cartoon Network's Toonami is getting stronger despite some rather large hurdles, Kids' WB! premiered their version of Toonami. 

I give it about half a year.  If that much.

I turned the TV on to see Kids' WB!'s Toonami, and it's nothing more than a very pale imitation of the popular Cartoon Network block.  The block began with an opening  showing Tom's ship, the Absolution, going through some warp or something.  I guess the idea is that the ship goes through this other dimension thing for two hours each weekday (that "other dimension" being Kids' WB!), and then goes back to its regular space (Cartoon Network) in time for Toonami.  Or something like that.  Then, the first show, Batman Beyond came on.  Without a special Toonami opening.

Y'know, that's one of the staples of Cartoon Network's Toonami.  Sure, the openings are annoying.  They replace, on a regular basis, the Japanese openings that are a hundred times better.  And sure, the music in the background isn't all that great.  But you know what?  Despite all that, it shows that the network tries.  Can you imagine how long it takes to go through all the episodes of a show and pick which clips to use for the opening?!  It must take a lot of work, to get the videos and sounds and everything just right.  If nothing else, it shows that Cartoon Network takes the time and effort to give each show the special attention it deserves.  Cartoon Network respects its shows.  Kids' WB! doesn't.  They just air the openings they've always been opening.

Well, we go to a commercial break, and we don't get a different bumper for each show.  Kids' WB!'s Toonami has about three "all-purpose" bumpers/eyecatches-things, and that's it.  Not even a "Batman Beyond will be right back," or "Pokemon will be right back."  It's just "Toonami will return in a moment."  Rather lazy.  And then Kids' WB! keeps the two or three commercial breaks per show like it always has.  Cartoon Network only has one commercial break per show. 

The endings are like the regular Kids' WB! endings--half the screen's credits, the other half's commercials.  No full-screen endings here. 

The block continues, and it gets to an hour of Pokemon.  Not too much is different--they still use the dub opening, they still have the half-credits half-commercial ending, but for some reason, Kids' WB!'s Toonami cuts out the PokéRap/Pikachu's Jukebox/Pokémon Karaokemon of each episode.  I mean, it's not a big loss or anything to get upset over, it's just odd. 

Somewhere during all this, Kids' WB! occasionally air a "Toonami Trax," a weird song of some foreign singer (the first one seemed Asian, the second one's Hispanic), singing bad pop songs in English, with clips of various Kids' WB! shows interjected throughout.  The songs are only about 30 seconds, but I'm glad Cartoon Network never did anything this sad-looking.  It's really bad stuff.  And it makes Cartoon Network’s upcoming venture seem even better--on August 31st, the Midnight Run will run various music videos for the whole hour.  They’ll have four music videos from the Toonami “Deep Bass” soundtrack (you know, the things they show before commercial breaks sometimes?), four Daft Punk videos (including the world premiere of the “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" video), and three Gorillaz videos (including “Clint Eastwood“).  Some of these songs have actually been shown on MTV (and are now in regular rotation on MTV2), and they even have a world premiere!  Kids’ WB! would  never ever do anything this ambitious.

As the block progressed, I noticed that Kids' WB!'s Toonami really wasn't all that different from the regular Kids' WB! afternoons.  They still air the episodes of their shows out of order--Cartoon Network always airs their shows in order, unless it's a special holiday or something--but even then they resume the very next day.  They still have the many commercial breaks.  They still have the same-type endings. 

And the same Kids' WB! announcer.  It's Toonami, so you'd expect Tom and Sara to host, right?  Wrong.  For some reason, Tom and Sara don't talk at all during the run.  OK, that's a lie...Sara says "Dragon Ball Z's on Kids' WB!" in one commercial.  Six whole words.  Their faces appear on the screen, but they just randomly walk around as that same Kids’ WB! announcer advertises the return of Toonami.  In addition, Kids' WB! doesn't have Toonami's awesome commercials.  They could have really made Batman Beyond look like a cool show, and could have revitalized people's interest in Pokemon.  But noooo...It seems that the Cartoon Network Toonami staff spent maybe a day making stuff for Kids' WB!, and then resumed working on their own network.  Hiring Tom's voice actor to announce the commercials was probably too expensive, or they didn't have the time, or something.

So after Pokemon, the real star of Kids' WB!'s Toonami appeared. Dragon Ball Z.  It was their new show.  It had already been established as a number-one rated TV show thanks to Cartoon Network.  Now it's Kids' WB!'s turn.

Everybody and their knock-kneed grandma knows what Dragon Ball Z is, and its presence on Kids’ WB! would show viewers what the network will do with shows that aren’t really theirs.  The answer--the same thing they do with everything else.  For the two weeks the show was on the air, the episodes were shown out of order.  The Freeza saga was completely skipped.  They showed the dubbed openings, including the blindfolded monkey one.  There were several commercial breaks, including one right after the episode title screen (explain that one to me).  They cut out the next episode preview.  And they did the half credits-half ending thing so you had absolutely no chance of reading them. 

Kids’ WB! treated this show like crap.  This was the first time that many fans without cable had a chance to see the Season 3 and beyond episodes, and Kids’ WB! completely confused them by throwing them into a newer episode without any setup, background information, or even a hint as to what this whole “Android-Cell” business is.  And the network did this to the fans EVERY day!  I really feel sorry for the fans whose first exposure to these newer episodes were through Kids’ WB!, because they were really screwed over.  I hope all of them can get cable or satellite soon to see these episodes in the order they’re meant to be shown.  Same goes out to Sailor Moon fans, because Kids’ WB! starts airing the newer episodes of that show in a few weeks.

From what I see, Kids' WB!'s Toonami is nothing more than a Kids' WB! in Toonami clothing.  The only difference is that they have a new show and some CGI at the beginning and end of their commercial breaks.  Kids' WB! isn't trying to be the leader in cutting-edge animation, or isn't trying to introduce exciting new shows--they're just trying to cash in on a popular brand name.  When this “annie-may fad” is over, the network will completely ignore the fact that  they ever aired anime and focus on more crap like Max Steel.  Kids’ WB! doesn’t deserve to even say the word Toonami, much less present this farce as the real thing.  I hope they fail and fail big-time. 

Well, off I go to watch the rest of Bebop before Cartoon Network gives somebody a bathing suit…