History Of Toonami Part 3 #ToonamisBackBitches

It had been about 3 years since toonami had ended. Anime fans had been deprived of their content. Companies like Funimation who dubbed animes tried running their own independent channels for their anime, but to no avail. Even online television channels made by fans with anime playing 24/7 and a library of thousands of episodes of hundred of animes. Still nothing came close to the glory days of Toonami.

Then one night on April 1^st people tuned in for their Saturday night adult swim cartoons. And rite as the clock struck midnight the channel went dark. Suddenly the opening to The Room began to play. And then after going to black again it began. T.O.M. was seen again in all his glory. Tonight after 3 years everyone would get back a taste of their childhood.

Now this is originally intended as a April Fools joke, according to Cartoon Network and Adult Swim on a post they made as it started airing. But as if it had been advertised for months, word started spreading around the internet and people everywhere were tuning in and tweeting. It was as if Toonami never went anywhere. At the end of the stream Adult Swim asked its audiencek, “Want it back? Let us know. #BringBackToonami” And so for weeks people would tweet begging for it to come back and Adult Swim would run friendly updates every night between commercial breaks.

They had set the internet ablaze once again. Everywhere you looked their were youtube vides, tributes, blog posts, even a rap song about bringing it back, which would be endorsed by Adult Swim. And after almost a month, on May 16^th it happened. Adult Swim had a press conference and announced on social media the official revival on Toonami as of May 26^th. And thus throughout the internet screams of joy were heard from every corner and as the official hash tag stated by Adult Swim was seen everywhere #ToonamisBackBitches.

 

Toonami would relaunch in full succession. Originally with a smaller lineup but would expand to add everyone’s favorite classics and new hits that Toonami faithful enjoyed. In only a few months Toonami would return to it’s original midnight run status. And almost year later they’re running stronger then ever. Toonami’s look as been redesigned once again, it has a great programming line up and is set to launch English dubs of extremely popular and long awaited shows such as the English dub of Sword Art Online. This news came recently out a Anime Boston and is sure to boast Toonami viewership even more with the exclusivity to air one of the most popular animes in years.

And so after reading all these posts, I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about Toonami and may be watching it yourself now. As for me I’ll continue to support it as long as it exists. All I got to say is to all you Toonami faithful reading this. Stay Gold.

History Of Toonami Part 2 The Golden Years

Hello and welcome back to the History of Toonami part 2. Today we’ll be picking up rite from where we left off last week.

Between the time of the year 2000 to 2003 the creators would expand upon T.O.M.’s universe by introducing TIEs (Total Immersion Events) used to both promote Cartoon Network related events and add more original content to the programming. They would consists of mini episodes that would air each week beginning in September of 2000 and would further the development of Toonami. The first one The Intruder would both introduce T.O.M.’s companion AI S.A.R.A. and further T.O.M. to T.O.M. 2.0 who would be voiced by Steven Blum from this iteration forward.

The next TIE would be called Lockdown and began in September of 2001.  It would help launch Cartoon Network’s first MORPG and also set a record-breaking number of page views and ratings. This TIE focused on T.O.M. fighting to save the ship from an attack by a giant trash compactor gone haywire.

click here for playlist of all the episodes

The third TIE event would be called Trapped in Hyperspace and took place in September of 2002. During this TIE  a computer virus takes over the ship setting it on a crash course with earth. During this time S.A.R.A. is down and T.O.M. has to plug into the ship’s database to save her.

The final TIE event that occurred in September of 2003 did not go along with the usual plot. This time instead of an adventure involving T.O.M. they used it to air a mini series called Immortal Grand Prix. It was an anime mini series created and launched by the Producers of the Toonami as a way to pilot their series they dreamed of making into their own anime series. The rating went well and made it’s American debut in 2005 on Toonami is a full series. The original mini series would become a stand alone based on the universe.

On April 17th 2004 Toonami would be moved to Saturday evenings. This was because of some of the more violent and adult themed animes beginning to be aired on it.  It would run this way all the way up to March 16th 2007. On March 17th Toonami celebrated it’s milestone achievement, 10 years in the business.  It was celebrated with a revamping of the universe introducing a new (and less well received) T.O.M. and companions in an all new location. 

On Saturday September 20, 2008, Cartoon Network ended Toonami. Employees who worked on the block moved to other parts of the channel. Toonami Jetstream (The online anime streaming site) remained with the Toonami name until January 30, 2009. At the end of Toonami's final airing, the host, T.O.M. ended the block with a brief, final monologue, backed by the song "Cascade" by Tycho as shown in this video.

Join us next week when we talk about how Toonami would come to rise gain from it’s ashes.

History Of Toonami Part 1 The Inception

Today I’m going to talk to all of you about the history of one of my favorite programming blocks of all time Toonami. For those of you that don’t know, Toonami is a timeblock most known for its run time on Saturday nights from 12 midnight until 6 in the morning, also code named The Midnight Run. It focuses on showing mostly anime but also has American animated television shows as well and usually consists of a video game review. Anyway let’s get into the history of this awesome programming block.

Originally it was launched as Cartoon Network’s primary action block and was hosted by Moltar, a villain from the show Space Ghost turned producer who would host  the program block from fictional Ghost Planet Industries. It would air in the afternoon ours of weekdays from 1997 to July 9^th, 1999. The original Toonami would pale in comparison to the rest of it’s lifespan.

On July 10^th 1999 Toonami was relaunched and started on its road to becoming the modern day Toonami. It introduced a new Broadcast station, The Ghost Planet Spaceship Absolution and it’s new host T.O.M. originally voiced by Sonny Strait. It then introduced the midnight run. The midnight run was the new programin gblock that it would run on. It would consist of a Saturday night/Sunday morning air time from 12 midnight to 5 a.m. It would remain this way until March of 2000 where it would become a weeknight 1 hour long format until January 2003. 

Come Back next week as we continue on the history of Toonami!

Cartoon Potluck Episode 1 Spongebob

Hey everybody here's the first installment of the new podcast series, Cartoon Potluck. A series dedicated to talking about all types of cartoons. CLICK HERE to listen to Cartoon Potluck Episode 1

Garret Brown

Today I’d like to take the time to go over the achievement that Garret Brown has made in the movie industry. If you don’t know who he is you may be able recognize his work in this clip.

Still don’t know? He was the man operating the fantastic camera work in these shots, the steady cam. Inventor and original operator, this device was made to allow great and smooth action shots that did not require the use of a rail system to operate the camera. His first big use of this technology he invented was in Star Wars Episode VI : Return of The Jedi where he filmed the footage that would be used as the blue screen footage for the speeder bike scene on Endor. He would then work on the set of Rocky where the fast paced action shots needed to be filmed in locations, during time periods, and on a budget that couldn’t afford to use rails.

Over the years he has created many patents in the related field, 50 to be exact. This includes things like Steadycam junior which is generally used in consumer cameras and cell phones as well as the Skycam used to record stadium events such as Football. He has now recently been accepted into The National Inventors Hall of Fame. In a recent interview, Brown recollected back to his time spent inventing the stabilizer for it and recalled his time he spent locking himself in a motel room to focus on his work. So I salute you Mr. Brown for all the achievements you’ve made and how much you and your technology has contributed to the industry.

NBS's Drama Renewals And What It Means To Me

NBC has announced the dramas they plan to renew for another season starting in Fall of 2013. Two that I am very attached too are Parenthood and Revolution, which I will be discussing today. Revolution is a action drama created by J.J. Abrams. It takes place in a world where there hasn’t been power for 15 years. The main character is a girl named Charlie who lives in the newly formed Monroe Republic, located in New England area of North America. The show features a great cast that really is the glue of the series. The vision behind it is well placed, I mean who wouldn’t want to see people running around modern cities with bows, muskets and swords? The character complexity though is the real point that you get out of this. You see the human anatomy reacting at it’s core (or how me assume it would) in these situations and the acting is believable. Also you become very attached to the character and that you can’t help to cry and be scared along with them.

On the other hand we have Parenthood. Parenthood is a show that focuses on the Braverman family and them facing the problems in the modern world and faces modern morals dilemmas. These include things such as interracial dating, the job market cancer and many more. The main reoccurring modern problem is that the son Max has asperger syndrome. As someone who has that it really touched me and also brought a lot of attention to it as it’s being seen more frequently. Plus the show being the first of it’s kind to really focus on aspergers brought a lot of attention to it. While it is a bit unrealistic, in the sense that most people don’t go through all these problems among only 3 household families, they still do a good production job of doing it. And the actors do a good job as portraying normal people and so when you watch you feel like you can say “yes that’s me” or “yes that’s my life”. Anyway I’m really excited for these shows to pick up with another season in the Fall and until then I guess I’ll be going back and watching older episodes. If you like to see all the other dramas that they renewed you can click right here. Until next week, I’m Mike “Movie Maker” Knowles, and I’m out.