Prime time cartoon
Encyclopedia
A Prime time cartoon is the colloquial term for the animated television programming which is typically scheduled during prime time
.
(originally running on ABC
from September 30, 1960 – April 1, 1966) is generally considered the first cartoon to air in prime time, it was preceded by CBS Cartoon Theater, which aired reruns of Terrytoons
theatrical shorts for three months in 1956, and was hosted by a young Dick Van Dyke
. Following that series, The Gerald McBoing-Boing Show, a cartoon based on an Academy Award
-winning animated short, ran for a few months on Friday nights on CBS
from 1957 through to until 1958. Both shows, however, were designed to showcase theatrical cartoon shorts.
's original TV series were produced for prime time broadcast, and they continued to produce prime time TV cartoons up until the early 1970s. Such shows as The Huckleberry Hound Show and its spin-off, The Yogi Bear Show
, Quick Draw McGraw
, Top Cat
, Jonny Quest
, The Jetsons
, Wacky Races
, and especially The Flintstones
were originally broadcast during prime time hours, competing with live-action comedies, dramas, and quiz shows.
The first prime time animated series from Hanna-Barbera were The Ruff & Reddy Show
(1957) and The Huckleberry Hound Show (1958), though the studio hit its stride in 1960s when it scored with The Flintstones
. This was the first half-hour "sitcom" cartoon, and like many of its successors it was originally aired during prime time when the whole family would be watching television. The Flintstones was the first of several prime-time animated series from Hanna-Barbera, which included the acclaimed Jonny Quest
, generally thought of as Hanna-Barbera's best television work; however, prime time animation did not produce any other high-rated TV series, and Hanna-Barbera turned its efforts to the growing market for Saturday morning cartoon
s.
was a Hanna-Barbera
prime time American animated television series which ran from September 27, 1961 to April 18, 1962 for a run of 30 episodes on the ABC network on Wednesdays.
aired on Sunday nights on ABC from September 23, 1962 to March 3, 1963. Like The Flintstones, it was a half-hour family sitcom projecting contemporary American culture and lifestyle into another time period.
The original series, comprising 24 episodes, was made between 1962 and 1963 and was re-run on Saturday morning for decades. Its continuing popularity led to further episodes being produced for syndication between 1985 and 1987. The series was extensively merchandised and followed by two made for-TV movies and two theatrical feature films.
first aired on September 18, 1964 on the ABC network, and was an almost instant success, both critically and ratings
-wise. It was canceled after one season, not because of poor ratings, but because each episode of the show went over budget. Notably more realistic and detailed than previous Hanna-Barbera
prime time programs such as The Flintstones
and The Jetsons
, Jonny Quest required an attention to detail that ABC, a small network at the time, was unable to afford.
is an animated television series produced from 1972 to 1974 by Hanna-Barbera
which aired in first-run syndication in the United States. The show had first appeared as a one-time segment called "Love and the Old-Fashioned Father" on Love, American Style
.
Wait Till Your Father Gets Home was the only prime time animated sitcom to appear since The Flintstones
, more than ten years earlier. In the twenty-five year period from the end of The Flintstones, it was the only animated sitcom to run in prime time until The Simpsons
debuted.
in particular allowed a large number of animated TV specials to air on its network, and several of these have become cherished classics (now available on video). The Rankin-Bass studio produced a number of stop-motion specials geared towards popular holidays (including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
); while Bill Melendez's long-running series of Peanuts
specials won numerous awards.
decades later brought cartoons back to American prime time network television with the kind of success The Flintstones enjoyed. The 1990s saw the beginnings of a new wave of animated series targeted primarily to adults, after a lack of such a focus for over a decade. In 1989, The Simpsons, based on a short animated cartoon segment of The Tracey Ullman Show
, became the first prime time animated series since The Flintstones
to capture a sizable viewing audience. And it was The Simpsons in 1997 that ultimately broke The Flintstones record as the longest-running prime time animated series.
It was the first major hit series for the fledgling Fox network
, and it caused a minor sensation, entering popular culture and gaining wide acceptance. , The Simpsons appears to show no signs of stopping, and has surpassed Gunsmoke
as the longest-running fictional program in American television history. The Simpsons has become possibly the most successful work of animation ever made, and has also dominated the merchandise markets as well.
and Fish Police
were all prime time cartoons created by rival networks in the wake of the Fox network
's unprecedented success with The Simpsons, and all were critically drubbed and lasted less than a handful episodes before cancellation.
is an American
animated series that was originally broadcast on ABC
in 1994 (later on Fox
in 1995). The show was created by Al Jean
and Mike Reiss
, who were the show runner
s on The Simpsons
for two years. The show was produced by Gracie Films
in association with Columbia Pictures Television
, and was animated by Film Roman
.
bought the rights to air it shortly after its initial airing in the UK
, but ceased broadcasting the show after just three episodes. This was despite changes being made to the cartoon: cutting 4 minutes from each episode due to the 8 minutes of commercial time required and giving Eric an American accent to make the story revolve more around an American living in England
. The American version ran on NBC from August 12, 1998 to August 26, 1998.
, the show later moved to the The WB in 2000–2001. The last three episodes were not seen until 2003. Reruns previously aired on Trio, a cable television
network.
's highest rated series premiere to that point of the network's history; it lasted two seasons on UPN before its cancellation. The first season centered on the creation of a new product, the "Gruntmaster 6000": episodes one through three involved the idea process, (The Name, The Prototype, and The Competition respectively); the fourth (Testing) involved having it survive a malevolent company tester named "Bob Bastard", and the fifth (Elbonian Trip) was about production in the famine-stricken fourth-world country of Elbonia. The product was finally tested by an incredibly stupid family in Squiddler's Patch, Texas
, in the thirteenth and final episode of the season, "Infomercial", even though it had not been tested in a lab beforehand.
The second season featured seventeen episodes, bringing the total number of episodes to thirty. Unlike the first season, the episodes were not part of a larger story arc
and had a different storyline for each of the episodes (with the exception of episodes 29 and 30, Pregnancy and The Delivery). Elbonia was revisited once more in Hunger, Dogbert still managed to scam people in Art, Dilbert was accused of mass murder in The Trial, and Wally gets his own disciples in episode 16, The Shroud of Wally.
on the Fox Broadcasting Company
on January 31, 1999, after Super Bowl XXXIII
.
This episode attracted 22 million viewers. The show premiered as a regular series in April and ran for six additional episodes until the season finale in mid-May. The second season began on September 23, 1999, and suffered competition from other shows. After only two episodes of the second season, Family Guy was taken off the network's permanent schedule and shown irregularly thereafter. The show returned in March 2000 to finish airing the second season, which contained 21 episodes. The third season contained 22 episodes and began its run on July 11, 2001.
During its second and third-season runs, Fox frequently moved the show around different days and time slots with little or no notice and consequently, the show's ratings
suffered. When Family Guy was shown in the UK
, and when the DVD
s were subsequently released there (November 12, 2001), the first seven episodes of the second season were included with the first season, balancing them out with 14 episodes each.
There was a great deal of debate and rumor during the second and third seasons about whether Family Guy would be cancelled or renewed. Fox publicly announced that the show had been cancelled at the end of the second season. In an attempt to convince Fox to renew the show, dismayed fans created website
s, signed petitions, and wrote letters; some even sent actual diapers and baby food to the network to save Stewie
.
, to buy Family Guy also failed.
's late-night Adult Swim
block, where it continues to play . According to a Cartoon Network press release,
The series found further success on DVD
, when it was finally released for the U.S. market (NTSC
, Region 1) on April 15, 2003. Divided into two volumes, Family Guy sold 2.2 million DVD units in the first year, reportedly surpassing every other TV-based DVD released in 2003, including Sex and the City
and Friends
compilations. The significant Cartoon Network ratings combined with the unprecedented DVD sales, led to widespread rumors that Fox was in talks to revive the series.
On November 19, 2003, the E! Entertainment Television channel and its website (see below) reported that Fox was negotiating with Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane
to revive the show with 35 new episodes. In a February 27, 2004 interview with IGN
, Seth MacFarlane confirmed that Family Guy would resume production. MacFarlane provided even more information in a BBC interview.
On March 26, 2004, Fox officially announced that it had committed to producing at least 22 more episodes of Family Guy for broadcast in early 2005. Adult Swim
retained a window to run these episodes, starting on May 1, 2005. Seth MacFarlane was quoted as saying,
The fourth-season premiere of Family Guy, titled "North by North Quahog
", aired on Sunday, May 1, 2005, 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time
on Fox, and poked fun at the show's former troubles by showing a 2002 flashback with Peter
listing all of the Fox shows that would have to fail (and did) before Family Guy would be able to return. An important reason for the show's current success is the Sunday night time slot along with other Fox animated programs. Reruns of the fourth season began play during Adult Swim on June 9 of that year.
and David X. Cohen
wanted Futurama
to be shown at 8:30 Sunday nights, following The Simpsons
. Fox
disagreed, opting instead to show two episodes in the Sunday night lineup before moving the show to its regular time slot on Tuesday. Beginning its second broadcast season Futurama was again placed in the 8:30 Sunday spot, but by mid-season the show was moved again. This time, Futurama began airing in the 7 p.m. Sunday timeslot, its third position in under a year's time.
Due to the 7 p.m. Sunday timeslot the show was often preempted by sports and usually had a later than average season premiere. It also allowed the writers and animators to get ahead of the broadcast schedule so that episodes intended for one season were not aired until the following season. By the beginning of the fourth broadcast season all the episodes to be aired that season had already been completed and writers were working at least a year in advance.
on March 28, 1999 it managed 19 million viewers, tying for 11th overall in that week's Nielsen ratings
. The following week, airing at the same time, Futurama drew 14.2 million viewers. The show was then moved to Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m. Futuramas first episode airing on Tuesday drew 8.85 million viewers. Though its ratings were well below The Simpsons, Futurama's first season rated higher than competing animated series: King of the Hill
, Family Guy
, Dilbert
, South Park
and The PJs
.
When Futurama was effectively cancelled in 2003 it had averaged 6.4 million viewers for the first half of its fourth broadcast season.
, the animation producers, to fire its animators. Futurama was not included in Fox's fall 2003 lineup.
. 20th Century Fox announced that a sixth season of 26 half-hour episodes will premiere on Comedy Central on June 24, 2010.
Mission Hill Mission Hill
(formerly known as The Downtowners, although MTV
's production of the similarly titled Downtown
forced a name change) was an American animated television series that first aired on The WB in 1999. Although 13 episodes were produced, the show was cancelled after only six were aired. The show was put on hiatus by the WB Network after just two episodes due to poor ratings. It returned to the WB in the summer of 2000 but was cancelled after just four additional episodes. Nonetheless, the show went on to develop a cult following
, thanks to repeated airings of all 13 episodes on Teletoon's "Teletoon Unleashed" block, TBS' "Too Funny To Sleep
" block, and Cartoon Network
's Adult Swim
.
on NBC
, before the series was cancelled, due to a combination of low ratings and pressure from right-wing Christian groups. The show however was well received in countries such as United Kingdom
, Ireland
and Brazil
, where BBC Two
, RTE
and Fox respectively aired the entire series.
in 2000 before the series was cancelled. Several factors contributed to the cancellation, including low ratings, the show's not fitting in with ABC's other programming, unsuccessful test-screening to older audiences, and ABC's decision to air the shows out of order. ABC aired the fourth episode first, as opposed to the intended first episode, and then aired the second episode despite the fact that the second episode is the 'flashback' episode, and derives much of its humor from the fact that it flashes back almost exclusively to the first, unaired episode. In fact, the second episode aired without the scene from "Flintstone's List", the fictional RST Video rental that spoofed Schindler's List
.
NFL on Fox overrun Recently, King of the Hill
joined the ranks of other Fox series like Futurama
and Family Guy
in its placement within a questionable time slot and has faced frequent preemptions from sporting events (mostly Fox NFL Sunday
) featuring overtime play and post-game commentary. The series's tenth season was largely composed of episodes that did not get to air the previous season. The tenth season was also slated to be the last since the show passed the renewal deadline in September 2005, but due to high ratings in the 10th season, the series was renewed by Fox for an 11th season that began airing on January 28, 2007. Beginning this season, the show moved to the 8:30/7:30c time slot following The Simpsons
.
Beginning in the 2007 NFL season
, Fox NFL Sunday would have a pre-programmed hour of game overrun and postgame coverage, The O.T. Due to the nature of overtime in NFL football games, future preemptions of Fox's Sunday evening cartoon lineup should be minimized.
The Oblongs It premiered on April 1, 2001 on The WB
, but it failed to find an audience. On May 20, 2001, The WB aired "Disfigured Debbie," the second episode produced, as the season finale
, leaving five of the episodes unaired. A fan of the series who was writing an episode guide at TV Tome
informed creator Angus Oblong of the show's cancellation and rallied fans of the series to petition
and encourage the network to renew the show. Ultimately, the petition was unsuccessful. Later that same year, Canada
's Teletoon network began airing the series. Quickly, a large fanbase began to bloom. In August 2002, the series found a home on [Cartoon Network]'s Adult Swim
evening program schedule, where it received high ratings
due to many American fans discovering the series for the first time. When shown in Australia on free to air television in 2003, the show was pulled in the middle of the first episode (but was later shown in a late night/early morning timeslot). In 2005, the show began airing on TBS Superstation and was released on DVD
. The series is still shown on the weekends during the Adult Swim timeslots.
before its debut. Some were skeptical of Game Over due to UPN's track record with their cartoons, but the show generally received positive press upon its airing. Despite this, only six episodes were made, which aired on a variety of different days – the fourth and fifth episodes were broadcast on 2 April 2004, and the sixth episode ("Monkey Dearest") was not aired.
Father of the Pride The show was almost cancelled long before its broadcast following the near-death of Roy Horn in October 2003; but after his condition improved, both Siegfried and Roy urged NBC
to continue production of the show. The show was promoted heavily during NBC's coverage of the 2004 Summer Olympics
in Athens
, Greece
and garnered above average ratings
for the network, but the show received a negative response from TV
critics who considered the show to be nothing more than a gimmick and a shill for other NBC and DreamWorks
properties (two early episodes extensively featured The Today Show' s Matt Lauer
and another featured Donkey - voiced by Eddie Murphy
- from the DreamWorks movie Shrek
); some consider the show a mild version of the similar-styled show South Park
.
The show's ratings began to decline, and by November 2004 it was pulled from NBC's sweeps line-up. In early December 2004, the CEO of Dreamworks announced that that show was cancelled, a few months after it was initially aired. A DVD
version of the show has been made available, containing the original pilot, an alternate pilot (which draws heavily on the original), an un-aired episode, and one episode that was voice-recorded, but was not animated, and therefore remains at the storyboard stage. The show however continues to air, but outside the USA
.
Prime time
Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...
.
Before The Flintstones
While The FlintstonesThe Flintstones
The Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that screened from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones was about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next-door neighbor and best friend. It...
(originally running on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
from September 30, 1960 – April 1, 1966) is generally considered the first cartoon to air in prime time, it was preceded by CBS Cartoon Theater, which aired reruns of Terrytoons
Terrytoons
Terrytoons was an animation studio founded by Paul Terry. The studio, located in suburban New Rochelle, New York, operated from 1929 to 1968. Its most popular characters included Mighty Mouse, Gandy Goose, Sourpuss, Dinky Duck, Deputy Dawg, Luno and Heckle and Jeckle; these cartoons and all of its...
theatrical shorts for three months in 1956, and was hosted by a young Dick Van Dyke
Dick Van Dyke
Richard Wayne "Dick" Van Dyke is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer with a career spanning six decades. He is the older brother of Jerry Van Dyke, and father of Barry Van Dyke...
. Following that series, The Gerald McBoing-Boing Show, a cartoon based on an Academy Award
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
-winning animated short, ran for a few months on Friday nights on CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
from 1957 through to until 1958. Both shows, however, were designed to showcase theatrical cartoon shorts.
Hanna-Barbera
Many of Hanna-BarberaHanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century...
's original TV series were produced for prime time broadcast, and they continued to produce prime time TV cartoons up until the early 1970s. Such shows as The Huckleberry Hound Show and its spin-off, The Yogi Bear Show
The Yogi Bear Show
The Yogi Bear Show is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions about a fast-talking picnic basket stealing bear named Yogi. The show debuted in syndication on January 30 and ran for 33 episodes until December 30 in 1961 and included two segments, Snagglepuss and Yakky...
, Quick Draw McGraw
Quick Draw McGraw
The Quick Draw McGraw Show is the third cartoon television production created by Hanna-Barbera starring an anthropomorphic cartoon horse named Quick Draw McGraw following their success with The Ruff & Reddy Show and The Huckleberry Hound Show. The show debuted in syndication in the fall of 1959,...
, Top Cat
Top Cat
Top Cat is a Hanna-Barbera prime time animated television series which ran from September 27, 1961 to April 18, 1962 for a run of 30 episodes on the ABC network. Reruns are played on Cartoon Network's classic animation network Boomerang.-History:...
, Jonny Quest
Jonny Quest (TV series)
Jonny Quest – often casually referred to as The Adventures of Jonny Quest – is an American science fiction/adventure animated television series about a boy who accompanies his father on extraordinary adventures...
, The Jetsons
The Jetsons
The Jetsons is a animated American sitcom that was produced by Hanna-Barbera, originally airing in prime-time from 1962–1963 and again from 1985–1987...
, Wacky Races
Wacky Races
Wacky Races is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera. The series features 11 different cars racing against each other in various road rallies throughout North America, with each driver hoping to win the title of the "World's Wackiest Racer." Wacky Races ran on CBS from September...
, and especially The Flintstones
The Flintstones
The Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that screened from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones was about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next-door neighbor and best friend. It...
were originally broadcast during prime time hours, competing with live-action comedies, dramas, and quiz shows.
The first prime time animated series from Hanna-Barbera were The Ruff & Reddy Show
The Ruff & Reddy Show
The Ruff & Reddy Show is a Hanna-Barbera animated series starring Ruff, a straight and smart cat voiced by Don Messick, and Reddy, a dumb and stupid dog voiced by Daws Butler...
(1957) and The Huckleberry Hound Show (1958), though the studio hit its stride in 1960s when it scored with The Flintstones
The Flintstones
The Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that screened from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones was about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next-door neighbor and best friend. It...
. This was the first half-hour "sitcom" cartoon, and like many of its successors it was originally aired during prime time when the whole family would be watching television. The Flintstones was the first of several prime-time animated series from Hanna-Barbera, which included the acclaimed Jonny Quest
Jonny Quest (TV series)
Jonny Quest – often casually referred to as The Adventures of Jonny Quest – is an American science fiction/adventure animated television series about a boy who accompanies his father on extraordinary adventures...
, generally thought of as Hanna-Barbera's best television work; however, prime time animation did not produce any other high-rated TV series, and Hanna-Barbera turned its efforts to the growing market for Saturday morning cartoon
Saturday morning cartoon
A Saturday morning cartoon is the colloquial term for the animated television programming that has typically been scheduled on Saturday mornings on the major American television networks from the 1960s to the present; the genre's peak in popularity mostly ended in the 1990s while the popularity of...
s.
Top Cat
Top CatTop Cat
Top Cat is a Hanna-Barbera prime time animated television series which ran from September 27, 1961 to April 18, 1962 for a run of 30 episodes on the ABC network. Reruns are played on Cartoon Network's classic animation network Boomerang.-History:...
was a Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century...
prime time American animated television series which ran from September 27, 1961 to April 18, 1962 for a run of 30 episodes on the ABC network on Wednesdays.
The Jetsons
The JetsonsThe Jetsons
The Jetsons is a animated American sitcom that was produced by Hanna-Barbera, originally airing in prime-time from 1962–1963 and again from 1985–1987...
aired on Sunday nights on ABC from September 23, 1962 to March 3, 1963. Like The Flintstones, it was a half-hour family sitcom projecting contemporary American culture and lifestyle into another time period.
The original series, comprising 24 episodes, was made between 1962 and 1963 and was re-run on Saturday morning for decades. Its continuing popularity led to further episodes being produced for syndication between 1985 and 1987. The series was extensively merchandised and followed by two made for-TV movies and two theatrical feature films.
Jonny Quest
Jonny QuestJonny Quest (TV series)
Jonny Quest – often casually referred to as The Adventures of Jonny Quest – is an American science fiction/adventure animated television series about a boy who accompanies his father on extraordinary adventures...
first aired on September 18, 1964 on the ABC network, and was an almost instant success, both critically and ratings
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
-wise. It was canceled after one season, not because of poor ratings, but because each episode of the show went over budget. Notably more realistic and detailed than previous Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century...
prime time programs such as The Flintstones
The Flintstones
The Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that screened from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones was about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next-door neighbor and best friend. It...
and The Jetsons
The Jetsons
The Jetsons is a animated American sitcom that was produced by Hanna-Barbera, originally airing in prime-time from 1962–1963 and again from 1985–1987...
, Jonny Quest required an attention to detail that ABC, a small network at the time, was unable to afford.
Wait Till Your Father Gets Home
Wait Till Your Father Gets HomeWait Till Your Father Gets Home
Wait Till Your Father Gets Home was an animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera that aired in first-run syndication in the United States from 1972 to 1974...
is an animated television series produced from 1972 to 1974 by Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century...
which aired in first-run syndication in the United States. The show had first appeared as a one-time segment called "Love and the Old-Fashioned Father" on Love, American Style
Love, American Style
Love, American Style is an hour-long TV anthology produced by Paramount Television and originally aired between September 1969 and January 1974...
.
Wait Till Your Father Gets Home was the only prime time animated sitcom to appear since The Flintstones
The Flintstones
The Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that screened from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones was about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next-door neighbor and best friend. It...
, more than ten years earlier. In the twenty-five year period from the end of The Flintstones, it was the only animated sitcom to run in prime time until The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
debuted.
Prime time specials
The only inspired animated efforts on television during the period of the 1960s through the 1980s came from prime time animated TV specials. Because these one-shot cartoons were aired during prime-time hours (and thus had to appeal to adults as well as children), they had to obtain higher ratings than their Saturday and weekday counterparts. CBSCBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
in particular allowed a large number of animated TV specials to air on its network, and several of these have become cherished classics (now available on video). The Rankin-Bass studio produced a number of stop-motion specials geared towards popular holidays (including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer is a fictional reindeer with a glowing red nose. He is popularly known as "Santa's 9th Reindeer" and, when depicted, is the lead reindeer pulling Santa's sleigh on Christmas Eve. The luminosity of his nose is so great that it illuminates the team's path through...
); while Bill Melendez's long-running series of Peanuts
Peanuts
Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, which ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000, continuing in reruns afterward...
specials won numerous awards.
The Simpsons
Only the advent of The SimpsonsThe Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
decades later brought cartoons back to American prime time network television with the kind of success The Flintstones enjoyed. The 1990s saw the beginnings of a new wave of animated series targeted primarily to adults, after a lack of such a focus for over a decade. In 1989, The Simpsons, based on a short animated cartoon segment of The Tracey Ullman Show
The Tracey Ullman Show
The Tracey Ullman Show was an American television variety show, hosted by British comedian and onetime pop singer Tracey Ullman. It debuted on April 5, 1987 as the Fox network's second primetime series after Married... with Children, and ran until May 26, 1990. The show blended sketch comedy shorts...
, became the first prime time animated series since The Flintstones
The Flintstones
The Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that screened from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones was about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next-door neighbor and best friend. It...
to capture a sizable viewing audience. And it was The Simpsons in 1997 that ultimately broke The Flintstones record as the longest-running prime time animated series.
It was the first major hit series for the fledgling Fox network
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
, and it caused a minor sensation, entering popular culture and gaining wide acceptance. , The Simpsons appears to show no signs of stopping, and has surpassed Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
as the longest-running fictional program in American television history. The Simpsons has become possibly the most successful work of animation ever made, and has also dominated the merchandise markets as well.
Capitol Critters, Family Dog and Fish Police
Family Dog, Capitol CrittersCapitol Critters
Capitol Critters is an animated television series about the lives of mice, rats, and roaches who reside in the basement and walls of the White House in Washington, D.C...
and Fish Police
Fish Police
Fish Police is the name of a comic book series by cartoonist Steven Moncuse. The plot centers on law and crime in a fictional underwater metropolis with the protagonist, Inspector Gill, trying to solve various, often Mafia-related, crimes while avoiding being seduced by the extremely well endowed...
were all prime time cartoons created by rival networks in the wake of the Fox network
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
's unprecedented success with The Simpsons, and all were critically drubbed and lasted less than a handful episodes before cancellation.
The Critic
The CriticThe Critic
The Critic is an American prime time animated series revolving around the life of film critic Jay Sherman, voiced by actor Jon Lovitz. It was created by Al Jean and Mike Reiss, both of whom had worked as writers on The Simpsons. The Critic had 23 episodes produced, first broadcast on ABC in 1994,...
is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
animated series that was originally broadcast on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
in 1994 (later on Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
in 1995). The show was created by Al Jean
Al Jean
Al Jean is an award-winning American screenwriter and producer, best known for his work on The Simpsons. He was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan and graduated from Harvard University in 1981. Jean began his writing career in the 1980s with fellow Harvard alum Mike Reiss...
and Mike Reiss
Mike Reiss
Michael "Mike" Reiss is an American television comedy writer. He served as a show-runner, writer and producer for the animated series The Simpsons and co-created the animated series The Critic...
, who were the show runner
Show runner
Showrunner is a term of art originating in the United States and Canadian television industry referring to the person who is responsible for the day-to-day operation of a television seriesalthough such persons generally are credited as an executive producer...
s on The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
for two years. The show was produced by Gracie Films
Gracie Films
Gracie Films is an American film and television production company, created by James L. Brooks in 1986. The company has produced many award-winning films and television series, including Broadcast News, Jerry Maguire, and most notably The Simpsons...
in association with Columbia Pictures Television
Columbia Pictures Television
Columbia Pictures Television was the second name of the Columbia Pictures television division Screen Gems . The studio changed its name on September 4, 1974.-1974-1982:...
, and was animated by Film Roman
Film Roman
Film Roman is an animation studio founded by Phil Roman, best known for producing the animation for The Simpsons, King of the Hill for 20th Century Fox, as well as the Garfield and Peanuts animated TV specials....
.
Stressed Eric
NBCNBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
bought the rights to air it shortly after its initial airing in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, but ceased broadcasting the show after just three episodes. This was despite changes being made to the cartoon: cutting 4 minutes from each episode due to the 8 minutes of commercial time required and giving Eric an American accent to make the story revolve more around an American living in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The American version ran on NBC from August 12, 1998 to August 26, 1998.
The PJs
40 episodes were aired during the show's three-year run (1999–2001), and 6 left-over episodes were produced by the WB. Each episode took over two months to produce, owing to the laborious claymation process. Originally broadcast on FoxFox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
, the show later moved to the The WB in 2000–2001. The last three episodes were not seen until 2003. Reruns previously aired on Trio, a cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
network.
Dilbert
The first episode was broadcast on January 25, 1999, making it UPNUPN
United Paramount Network was a television network that was broadcast in over 200 markets in the United States from 1995 to 2006. UPN was originally owned by Viacom/Paramount and Chris-Craft Industries, the former of which, through the Paramount Television Group, produced most of the network's...
's highest rated series premiere to that point of the network's history; it lasted two seasons on UPN before its cancellation. The first season centered on the creation of a new product, the "Gruntmaster 6000": episodes one through three involved the idea process, (The Name, The Prototype, and The Competition respectively); the fourth (Testing) involved having it survive a malevolent company tester named "Bob Bastard", and the fifth (Elbonian Trip) was about production in the famine-stricken fourth-world country of Elbonia. The product was finally tested by an incredibly stupid family in Squiddler's Patch, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, in the thirteenth and final episode of the season, "Infomercial", even though it had not been tested in a lab beforehand.
The second season featured seventeen episodes, bringing the total number of episodes to thirty. Unlike the first season, the episodes were not part of a larger story arc
Story arc
A story arc is an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media such as television, comic books, comic strips, boardgames, video games, and in some cases, films. On a television program, for example, the story would unfold over many episodes. In television, the use of the story...
and had a different storyline for each of the episodes (with the exception of episodes 29 and 30, Pregnancy and The Delivery). Elbonia was revisited once more in Hunger, Dogbert still managed to scam people in Art, Dilbert was accused of mass murder in The Trial, and Wally gets his own disciples in episode 16, The Shroud of Wally.
Family Guy
Family Guy originally aired in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on the Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
on January 31, 1999, after Super Bowl XXXIII
Super Bowl XXXIII
Super Bowl XXXIII was an American football game played on January 31, 1999, at Pro Player Stadium in Miami, Florida to decide the National Football League champion, following the 1998 regular season. The American Football Conference champion Denver Broncos defeated the National Football...
.
This episode attracted 22 million viewers. The show premiered as a regular series in April and ran for six additional episodes until the season finale in mid-May. The second season began on September 23, 1999, and suffered competition from other shows. After only two episodes of the second season, Family Guy was taken off the network's permanent schedule and shown irregularly thereafter. The show returned in March 2000 to finish airing the second season, which contained 21 episodes. The third season contained 22 episodes and began its run on July 11, 2001.
During its second and third-season runs, Fox frequently moved the show around different days and time slots with little or no notice and consequently, the show's ratings
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
suffered. When Family Guy was shown in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, and when the DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
s were subsequently released there (November 12, 2001), the first seven episodes of the second season were included with the first season, balancing them out with 14 episodes each.
There was a great deal of debate and rumor during the second and third seasons about whether Family Guy would be cancelled or renewed. Fox publicly announced that the show had been cancelled at the end of the second season. In an attempt to convince Fox to renew the show, dismayed fans created website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
s, signed petitions, and wrote letters; some even sent actual diapers and baby food to the network to save Stewie
Stewie Griffin
Stewie Griffin is a fictional character from the animated television series Family Guy. Once obsessed with world domination and matricide, Stewie is the youngest child of Peter and Lois Griffin, and the brother of Chris and Meg....
.
Revival efforts
The show's cancellation in the third season was decried by fans, who renewed efforts to convince Fox to resurrect the show. An online petition was launched, garnering over 10,000 signatures within a few weeks. The petition gained over 100,000 signatures total, but this along with mass e-mailing and letter writing to Fox executives and organized street protests failed to save Family Guy. Later efforts to get other networks, particularly UPNUPN
United Paramount Network was a television network that was broadcast in over 200 markets in the United States from 1995 to 2006. UPN was originally owned by Viacom/Paramount and Chris-Craft Industries, the former of which, through the Paramount Television Group, produced most of the network's...
, to buy Family Guy also failed.
Return to television
In 2003, Family Guy gained its first syndicated run on Canada's Teletoon network, where it quickly gained massive popularity due to frequent airings. Several months later, reruns of the series finally found a permanent home at Cartoon NetworkCartoon Network (United States)
Cartoon Network is an American cable television network owned by Turner Broadcasting which primarily airs animated programming. The channel was launched on October 1, 1992 after Turner purchased the animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1991...
's late-night Adult Swim
Adult Swim
Adult Swim is an adult-oriented Cable network that shares channel space with Cartoon Network from 9:00 pm until 6:00 am ET/PT in the United States, and broadcasts in countries such as Australia and New Zealand...
block, where it continues to play . According to a Cartoon Network press release,
The series found further success on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
, when it was finally released for the U.S. market (NTSC
NTSC
NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...
, Region 1) on April 15, 2003. Divided into two volumes, Family Guy sold 2.2 million DVD units in the first year, reportedly surpassing every other TV-based DVD released in 2003, including Sex and the City
Sex and the City
Sex and the City is an American television comedy-drama series created by Darren Star and produced by HBO. Broadcast from 1998 until 2004, the original run of the show had a total of ninety-four episodes...
and Friends
Friends
Friends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in Manhattan. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television...
compilations. The significant Cartoon Network ratings combined with the unprecedented DVD sales, led to widespread rumors that Fox was in talks to revive the series.
On November 19, 2003, the E! Entertainment Television channel and its website (see below) reported that Fox was negotiating with Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane
Seth MacFarlane
Seth Woodbury MacFarlane is an American animator, writer, comedian, producer, actor, singer, voice actor, and director best known for creating the animated sitcoms Family Guy, American Dad! and The Cleveland Show, for which he also voices many of the shows' various characters.A native of Kent,...
to revive the show with 35 new episodes. In a February 27, 2004 interview with IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
, Seth MacFarlane confirmed that Family Guy would resume production. MacFarlane provided even more information in a BBC interview.
On March 26, 2004, Fox officially announced that it had committed to producing at least 22 more episodes of Family Guy for broadcast in early 2005. Adult Swim
Adult Swim
Adult Swim is an adult-oriented Cable network that shares channel space with Cartoon Network from 9:00 pm until 6:00 am ET/PT in the United States, and broadcasts in countries such as Australia and New Zealand...
retained a window to run these episodes, starting on May 1, 2005. Seth MacFarlane was quoted as saying,
The fourth-season premiere of Family Guy, titled "North by North Quahog
North by North Quahog
"North by North Quahog" is the first episode of season four of Family Guy, following the revival of the series three years after its cancellation in 2002...
", aired on Sunday, May 1, 2005, 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time
North American Eastern Time Zone
The Eastern Time Zone of the United States and Canada is a time zone that falls mostly along the east coast of North America. Its UTC time offset is −5 hrs during standard time and −4 hrs during daylight saving time...
on Fox, and poked fun at the show's former troubles by showing a 2002 flashback with Peter
Peter Griffin
Peter Griffin is a fictional character and the protagonist of the animated comedy series Family Guy and the patriarch of the Griffin family. He is voiced by cartoonist Seth MacFarlane and first appeared on television, along with the rest of the family in the 15-minute short on December 20, 1998....
listing all of the Fox shows that would have to fail (and did) before Family Guy would be able to return. An important reason for the show's current success is the Sunday night time slot along with other Fox animated programs. Reruns of the fourth season began play during Adult Swim on June 9 of that year.
Futurama
When it came to deciding when the show would air, creators Matt GroeningMatt Groening
Matthew Abram "Matt" Groening is an American cartoonist, screenwriter, and producer. He is the creator of the comic strip Life in Hell as well as two successful television series, The Simpsons and Futurama....
and David X. Cohen
David X. Cohen
David Samuel Cohen , primarily known as David X. Cohen, is an American television writer. He has written for The Simpsons and he is the head writer and executive producer of Futurama.-Early life:...
wanted Futurama
Futurama
Futurama is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a late 20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J...
to be shown at 8:30 Sunday nights, following The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
. Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
disagreed, opting instead to show two episodes in the Sunday night lineup before moving the show to its regular time slot on Tuesday. Beginning its second broadcast season Futurama was again placed in the 8:30 Sunday spot, but by mid-season the show was moved again. This time, Futurama began airing in the 7 p.m. Sunday timeslot, its third position in under a year's time.
Due to the 7 p.m. Sunday timeslot the show was often preempted by sports and usually had a later than average season premiere. It also allowed the writers and animators to get ahead of the broadcast schedule so that episodes intended for one season were not aired until the following season. By the beginning of the fourth broadcast season all the episodes to be aired that season had already been completed and writers were working at least a year in advance.
Ratings
When Futurama debuted in the Fox Sunday night line-up at 8:30 p.m. between The Simpsons and The X-FilesThe X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
on March 28, 1999 it managed 19 million viewers, tying for 11th overall in that week's Nielsen ratings
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
. The following week, airing at the same time, Futurama drew 14.2 million viewers. The show was then moved to Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m. Futuramas first episode airing on Tuesday drew 8.85 million viewers. Though its ratings were well below The Simpsons, Futurama's first season rated higher than competing animated series: King of the Hill
King of the Hill
King of the Hill is an American animated dramedy series created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, that ran from January 12, 1997, to May 6, 2010, on Fox network. It centers on the Hills, a working-class Methodist family in the fictional small town of Arlen, Texas...
, Family Guy
Family Guy
Family Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...
, Dilbert
Dilbert (TV series)
Dilbert is an animated television series spin-off of the comic strip of the same name, produced by Adelaide Productions, Idbox, and United Media and distributed by Columbia TriStar Television...
, South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
and The PJs
The PJs
The PJs is an American stop-motion animated television series created by Eddie Murphy, Larry Wilmore, and Steve Tompkins. It portrayed life in an urban public housing project, modeled after the Brewster-Douglass housing projects in Detroit that once housed Diana Ross & Lilly Tomlin...
.
When Futurama was effectively cancelled in 2003 it had averaged 6.4 million viewers for the first half of its fourth broadcast season.
Show status
Fox executives reportedly did not like the show and by the fourth season, Futurama was being aired erratically. Its time slot was regularly pre-empted by sports events, making it difficult to predict when new episodes would air. Fox also had not aired several episodes that had been produced for Seasons 3 and 4. Although Futurama was never officially canceled, midway through the production of the fourth season, Fox decided to let it go out of production and told the writers and animators to look for new jobs. Fox's decision to stop buying episodes of Futurama led Rough Draft StudiosRough Draft Studios
Rough Draft Studios, Inc. is an animation studio based in Glendale, California, United States, with its sister studio Rough Draft Korea located in Seoul, South Korea. RDS was founded in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California by Gregg Vanzo...
, the animation producers, to fire its animators. Futurama was not included in Fox's fall 2003 lineup.
Revival
In 2007, it was revealed that Futurama would be brought back, in the form of 4 straight to DVD movies, each of which would later be re edited into 4 episodes, for a total of 16, which would air on Comedy CentralComedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
. 20th Century Fox announced that a sixth season of 26 half-hour episodes will premiere on Comedy Central on June 24, 2010.
Mission Hill Mission Hill
Mission Hill
Mission Hill is an American animated television series that first aired on The WB in 1999. Although 18 episodes were planned, only 13 episodes were produced. The show was put on hiatus by the WB Network after two episodes due to poor ratings. It returned to the WB in the summer of 2000 but was...
(formerly known as The Downtowners, although MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
's production of the similarly titled Downtown
Downtown (TV series)
Downtown was an animated series on MTV on urban life, based on interviews with real people. The show follows a diverse and multiracial cast who live in New York City, and presents their everyday lives through quirky, humorous, and imaginative perspectives from the characters...
forced a name change) was an American animated television series that first aired on The WB in 1999. Although 13 episodes were produced, the show was cancelled after only six were aired. The show was put on hiatus by the WB Network after just two episodes due to poor ratings. It returned to the WB in the summer of 2000 but was cancelled after just four additional episodes. Nonetheless, the show went on to develop a cult following
Cult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
, thanks to repeated airings of all 13 episodes on Teletoon's "Teletoon Unleashed" block, TBS' "Too Funny To Sleep
Too Funny To Sleep
Too Funny To Sleep was a comedy block on TBS. It aired on Friday nights , and contained 4 half-hour shows. Too Funny To Sleep could be compared to Adult Swim both due to their intended audiences, shows, and the fact that they aired at night...
" block, and Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network is a name of television channels worldwide created by Turner Broadcasting which used to primarily show animated programming. The channel began broadcasting on October 1, 1992 in the United States....
's Adult Swim
Adult Swim
Adult Swim is an adult-oriented Cable network that shares channel space with Cartoon Network from 9:00 pm until 6:00 am ET/PT in the United States, and broadcasts in countries such as Australia and New Zealand...
.
God, the Devil and Bob
Thirteen episodes were made but only four were broadcast in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
, before the series was cancelled, due to a combination of low ratings and pressure from right-wing Christian groups. The show however was well received in countries such as United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, where BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
, RTE
RTE
RTÉ is the abbreviation for Raidió Teilifís Éireann, the public broadcasting service of the Republic of Ireland.RTE may also refer to:* Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 25th Prime Minister of Turkey...
and Fox respectively aired the entire series.
Clerks: The Animated Series
Only two episodes were aired on ABCAmerican Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
in 2000 before the series was cancelled. Several factors contributed to the cancellation, including low ratings, the show's not fitting in with ABC's other programming, unsuccessful test-screening to older audiences, and ABC's decision to air the shows out of order. ABC aired the fourth episode first, as opposed to the intended first episode, and then aired the second episode despite the fact that the second episode is the 'flashback' episode, and derives much of its humor from the fact that it flashes back almost exclusively to the first, unaired episode. In fact, the second episode aired without the scene from "Flintstone's List", the fictional RST Video rental that spoofed Schindler's List
Schindler's List
Schindler's List is a 1993 American film about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on the novel Schindler's Ark...
.
NFL on Fox overrun Recently, King of the Hill
King of the Hill
King of the Hill is an American animated dramedy series created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, that ran from January 12, 1997, to May 6, 2010, on Fox network. It centers on the Hills, a working-class Methodist family in the fictional small town of Arlen, Texas...
joined the ranks of other Fox series like Futurama
Futurama
Futurama is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a late 20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J...
and Family Guy
Family Guy
Family Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...
in its placement within a questionable time slot and has faced frequent preemptions from sporting events (mostly Fox NFL Sunday
FOX NFL Sunday
Fox NFL Sunday is the pregame show for the TV show NFL on Fox. The program is broadcast on Fox television affiliates nationwide. The audio portion of the show is broadcast over the Fox Sports Radio network, distributed by Premiere Radio Networks...
) featuring overtime play and post-game commentary. The series's tenth season was largely composed of episodes that did not get to air the previous season. The tenth season was also slated to be the last since the show passed the renewal deadline in September 2005, but due to high ratings in the 10th season, the series was renewed by Fox for an 11th season that began airing on January 28, 2007. Beginning this season, the show moved to the 8:30/7:30c time slot following The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
.
Beginning in the 2007 NFL season
2007 NFL season
The 2007 NFL season was the 88th regular season of the National Football League.Regular-season play was held from September 6 to December 30....
, Fox NFL Sunday would have a pre-programmed hour of game overrun and postgame coverage, The O.T. Due to the nature of overtime in NFL football games, future preemptions of Fox's Sunday evening cartoon lineup should be minimized.
The Oblongs It premiered on April 1, 2001 on The WB
The WB Television Network
The WB Television Network is a former television network in the United States that was launched on January 11, 1995 as a joint venture between Warner Bros. and Tribune Broadcasting. On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation and Warner Bros...
, but it failed to find an audience. On May 20, 2001, The WB aired "Disfigured Debbie," the second episode produced, as the season finale
Season finale
A season finale is the final episode of a season of a television program...
, leaving five of the episodes unaired. A fan of the series who was writing an episode guide at TV Tome
TV Tome
TV Tome was a U.S. based website devoted to informational guides for English-language television shows and the people involved in their production. It was run mainly by volunteer editors, with the assistance of user contributions...
informed creator Angus Oblong of the show's cancellation and rallied fans of the series to petition
Petition
A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer....
and encourage the network to renew the show. Ultimately, the petition was unsuccessful. Later that same year, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
's Teletoon network began airing the series. Quickly, a large fanbase began to bloom. In August 2002, the series found a home on [Cartoon Network]'s Adult Swim
Adult Swim
Adult Swim is an adult-oriented Cable network that shares channel space with Cartoon Network from 9:00 pm until 6:00 am ET/PT in the United States, and broadcasts in countries such as Australia and New Zealand...
evening program schedule, where it received high ratings
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
due to many American fans discovering the series for the first time. When shown in Australia on free to air television in 2003, the show was pulled in the middle of the first episode (but was later shown in a late night/early morning timeslot). In 2005, the show began airing on TBS Superstation and was released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
. The series is still shown on the weekends during the Adult Swim timeslots.
Game Over
Game Over was heavily hyped by UPNUPN
United Paramount Network was a television network that was broadcast in over 200 markets in the United States from 1995 to 2006. UPN was originally owned by Viacom/Paramount and Chris-Craft Industries, the former of which, through the Paramount Television Group, produced most of the network's...
before its debut. Some were skeptical of Game Over due to UPN's track record with their cartoons, but the show generally received positive press upon its airing. Despite this, only six episodes were made, which aired on a variety of different days – the fourth and fifth episodes were broadcast on 2 April 2004, and the sixth episode ("Monkey Dearest") was not aired.
Father of the Pride The show was almost cancelled long before its broadcast following the near-death of Roy Horn in October 2003; but after his condition improved, both Siegfried and Roy urged NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
to continue production of the show. The show was promoted heavily during NBC's coverage of the 2004 Summer Olympics
2004 Summer Olympics
The 2004 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad, was a premier international multi-sport event held in Athens, Greece from August 13 to August 29, 2004 with the motto Welcome Home. 10,625 athletes competed, some 600 more than expected, accompanied by 5,501 team...
in Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
and garnered above average ratings
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
for the network, but the show received a negative response from TV
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
critics who considered the show to be nothing more than a gimmick and a shill for other NBC and DreamWorks
DreamWorks
DreamWorks Pictures, also known as DreamWorks, LLC, DreamWorks SKG, DreamWorks II Distribution Co., LLC, DreamWorks Studios or DW Studios, LLC, is an American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games and television programming...
properties (two early episodes extensively featured The Today Show
Matt Lauer
Matthew Todd "Matt" Lauer . is an American television journalist best known as the host of NBC's The Today Show since 1997. He was previously a news anchor in New York and a local talk-show host in Boston, Philadelphia, Providence and Richmond...
and another featured Donkey - voiced by Eddie Murphy
Eddie Murphy
Edward Regan "Eddie" Murphy is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, singer, director, and musician....
- from the DreamWorks movie Shrek
Shrek
Shrek is a 2001 American computer-animated fantasy comedy film directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, featuring the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow. Loosely based on William Steig's 1990 fairy tale picture book Shrek!...
); some consider the show a mild version of the similar-styled show South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
.
The show's ratings began to decline, and by November 2004 it was pulled from NBC's sweeps line-up. In early December 2004, the CEO of Dreamworks announced that that show was cancelled, a few months after it was initially aired. A DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
version of the show has been made available, containing the original pilot, an alternate pilot (which draws heavily on the original), an un-aired episode, and one episode that was voice-recorded, but was not animated, and therefore remains at the storyboard stage. The show however continues to air, but outside the USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.