Back in the year 1997 a little place called William Street created a cartoon block called Toonami. Toonami was hosted by former Space Ghost villain Moltar. As a host Moltar would talk about certain things, give speeches, say witty things, but his primary job was to give us (the viewers) some cartoon goodness.

Around near the end of 1999 we saw the end of Moltar's career and a start of a new one. Toonami had a whole new look and feel to it. It was now hosted by TOM on his ship the Absolution. It was a step up from the Moltar days. They showed the 'newest' in American and Japanese cartoons, while incorporating other things like game reviews and TIEs (Total Immersion Events).

The first TIE, The Intruder, was one of 'epic' proportions and through this sought the end of good old TOM 1.

And ever since then Toonami grew, with cool music from Joe Boyd Vigil (who I've met) and other artist. Newer shows, newer looks, and more extra goodies.

But good things can't always last for ever, there always has to be that one imbecile at a meeting who votes for a very drastic change.

3.17.07 marked the day that Toonami would be ruined forever. It was bad enough the block was moved to Saturdays but they changed the whole look into some ridiculous. And as if the look didn't cut it, they put up some ridiculous shows as well such as One Piece and Bobobo-bobo-Bobobo (I think that's it). A number of old and new fans were not pleased with this change but sadly there is nothing us fans can do about it.

This topic is here so we can discuss the birth, rise, and fall of Toonami, Cartoon Network's biggest cartoon block.

I do miss my Tenchi and Cowboy Bebop, I'll tell you what. Cartoons were always better back then, though. Nickelodeon is a screaming example.

Tenchi Muyo is a classic, my favorite character on that show was Ryoko. She was nuts.

Yes, they were better back then.

Am I the only one who misses Yu Yu Hakashow? (Or however it's spelled)

Yu Yu Hakusho was alright, but if you've seen the rest of that show you'd know why they took it off Toonami.

Pfft too much continuity for me....I use to love Toonami back when it had Robotech and Johnny Quest

Toonami was originally the "action cartoon" block on CN. This is back when they only had leftovers from TNT and TBS. All it was then was Robotech, Voltron, Thundercats, Johnny Quest. It ran pretty much every day of the week. Due to the appearance of shows like Ronin Warriors, Sailor Moon, and Outlaw Star that it became a hit with hardcore otaku. This spawned off the Midnight Run, which on its own spawned off a little something called Adult Swim(might've heard of it!). It even ran on Kids WB for a year. However, in 2004, it was moved to a once a week timeslot on Saturdays, to be replaced by the now defunct Miguzi which was like Toonami Lite. There was also the Toonami UK channel in Britain, which was cancelled as of last spring after 4 years of programming. For some unknown reason, the regular Sat. run of Toonami was cut in half from 4 hours to 2 hours, which now features 2 premiere episodes of Naruto, a premiere episode of One Piece(with the new Funimation dub), and an extremely over-rerunned Dragonball Z.

Love how Cartoon Network managed to screw up all these blocks

Cartoon Network itself is f*cked up, have you seen it lately?

Cartoon Network f**ked themselves in the arse when they decided to remove Looney Tunes from the lineup and put it on a separate network called Boomerang. That's where all the classic, good stuff is. Bugs & Daffy, Fred & Barney, Tom & Jerry--they're all on Boomerang.

That move I didn't mind so much.

After 2004 when Toonami and Cartoon Network made some drastic changes is when I was irked.

Toonami used to be awesome.... I remember always tuning in to watch Reboot (Yeah... I liked it ok!) and Tenchi. I always liked Tom though. Hell Ialso played the little games they had during that whole intruder thing. The one where you play a robot and gotta get stuff... it was sweet..

Now we have this..weird robot thing that sounds like tom...but isn't Tom T_T

I'm assuming you guys are talking about America, because in the UK we had an entire Toonami channel.

It started out great with shows like Outlaw Star, Samurai Jack and Tenchi Muyo. And plenty more of course. But eventually the good shows started to vanish and worse shows seem to come along. The lineup seemed to deteriorate until one day, Toonami just disappeared.

And yeah, Cartoon Network or Nickolodeon hasn't been good in a long time. Cow and Chicken, Johnny Bravo, Dexters Lab, Courage the Cowardly Dog, I Am Weasel for Cartoon Network. Ren and Stimpy and those other shows I can't remember the name of for Nickelodeon. Now these young kids have to grow up with all the crap on Nickolodeon like Drake and Josh and whatever else is on. And Cartoon Network can't keep a new show for five seconds, probably because the show is so awful the creators decided to kill themselves.

Where are you Freakazoid? ;_;

Bekefel
I'm assuming you guys are talking about America, because in the UK we had an entire Toonami channel.

It started out great with shows like Outlaw Star, Samurai Jack and Tenchi Muyo. And plenty more of course. But eventually the good shows started to vanish and worse shows seem to come along. The lineup seemed to deteriorate until one day, Toonami just disappeared.

And yeah, Cartoon Network or Nickolodeon hasn't been good in a long time. Cow and Chicken, Johnny Bravo, Dexters Lab, Courage the Cowardly Dog, I Am Weasel for Cartoon Network. Ren and Stimpy and those other shows I can't remember the name of for Nickelodeon. Now these young kids have to grow up with all the crap on Nickolodeon like Drake and Josh and whatever else is on. And Cartoon Network can't keep a new show for five seconds, probably because the show is so awful the creators decided to kill themselves.

Where are you Freakazoid? ;_;

Yes, we're talking about the American Toonami, but as you said the lineup deteriorated so it wouldn't make any difference. You must of got it late over there though, because Toonami over here started with cartoons like Thundercats and Voltron back in 97.

I'll admit it, I actually like Drake & Josh, and some of the other shows on Nick. BUT Nick is supposed to have cartoons and they barely have any of those anymore.

Freakazoid, sadly, will never return. :(

Ocka
Now we have this..weird robot thing that sounds like tom...but isn't Tom T_T

The sad and unfortunate truth is that it really is Tom. I watched a video and the creators said that before they didn't have the money to animate a face, so that's why TOMs 1-3 looked like that. But now since they have enough money, they go and make it all retarded and give him a face. He didn't need a face or some crazy rusty body. He was fine just the way he was on his Absolution with Sarah.

its funny that you mention this, i'm actually watching the gundam wing series as i type :P
i too miss the old toonami. coming back home after school to watch dragonballz, gundam wing, and then tenchi muyo was utter bliss. it's a shame they had to cut it's "cool" demeanor".
and i can see how one would hate the 4kids version of one piece, but give the funimation one a chance. it's actually really really good. 1,000 steps up from the 4kids version.
bo-bobo should have never been translated into english, cuz...well...nothing makes sense and the japanese references are lost.
toonami still lives on though, it's called "adult swim".
cheers.

I too miss the good old days of afternoon cartoon 'awesome-ness'.

To be honest, I enjoyed the 4Kids version better than I do the Funimation version. For 2 simple reasons, the intro and voice overs. No their using the DBZ talent and it just doesn't sit well with me.

Bobobo was a retarded show, if you watched more than one episode you'd get a headache. Seriously.

has/is suffering the same fate as Toonami. It's become nothing more than crap.

i never imagined someone would prefer the 4kids opening rap to the translated japanese song of one piece. but i guess that topic is subjective...now anyways. adult swims shows may have gone slightly downhill, but at least it's still targeted to adult audiences and hasn't taken that kiddie plunge of doom.

As I am sure it will never do that, it has taken a plunge and I don't think 'slightly' is the correct term.

As with Toonami, has some really ridiculous programming. Most of the names to these shows escape me as of now but I've seen clips from them and they are all ridiculous. It's sad really.

Yeah, I actually did like the rap. It actually explained the show in that little amount of time.

I miss Yu Yu Hakusho and Reboot.

Two amazing shows that I will never, ever see again.

Priest_Revan
I miss Yu Yu Hakusho and Reboot.

Two amazing shows that I will never, ever see again.

Reboot is being revived.

It's going to start off from the last season's cliffhanger.

I loved Reboot. I'f been waiting ages for that promised revival though.

it's being made into a trilogy i heard.

The art for it is amazing.

BlueFlame_Studios

Priest_Revan
I miss Yu Yu Hakusho and Reboot.

Two amazing shows that I will never, ever see again.

Reboot is being revived.

It's going to start off from the last season's cliffhanger.

For real?!? Sweet. :)

Yeah, look up: Reboot Revival.

The Toonami Jetstream ain't too bad. I wish they did more episodes of Megas XLR though.

You just convinced me to watch Outlaw Star again. Pretty soon I'm going to have to ban myself from youtube during the week, too.

Make sure you don't watch the Toonami edit. They totally left out the obligatory hot springs episode.

jalford
I wish they did more episodes of Megas XLR though.

Yeah, same here. And the REAL messed up thing is that Megas never came out on DvD. I find that really odd because I know the show had a pretty decent fanbase.

But if you do want to see more Megas, YouTube can suffice.

I keep hoping Titmouse will release their own DVD of Megas like they did with Downtown. There's even some promos for the original Lowbrow pilot they pitched to Cartoon Network.