Cartoon Network is not dead, says Warner Bros. — but its future is uncertain

On Wednesday, Warner Bros. Television Gathering laid off 82 staffers across prearranged, unscripted, and animation divisions, a Warner Bros. representative affirmed to FishHead. The company will leave 43 of the presently unfilled positions vacant. While the three brand labels Warner Bros. Animation (WBA), Cartoon Network Studios (CNS), and Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe will remain distinct, WBA and CNS improvement and creation teams will be brought under one division.

According to Deadline, Warner Bros. has also ventured back on its initial decision to shutter the Warner Bros. Television Workshop, which was intended to cultivate new talent and give a pipeline that many in the animation business have refered to as invaluable in assisting marginalized creators with breaking into an exceptionally cutthroat field. The workshop will be moved to Discovery’s Variety, Value, and Incorporation unit.

These changes at Cartoon Network Studios come at when a portion of its cartoons have already become harder to track down and watch. The cuts also arrive closely following Discovery’s acquisition of Warner Media from AT&T. HBO Max and Discovery In addition to are set to become one streaming help in 2023. After taking over in April, President David Zaslav, who recently ran Discovery, vowed to cut $3 billion from the company, and he’s taken an aggressive approach to arrive.

Zaslav has made great on the promise, and mainly in the area of classification entertainment. In August, Discovery laid off 14% of HBO Max staff and canceled the Batgirl film. Later that month, cherished cartoons were yanked from HBO Max, catching off-guard the cartoons’ creators. Many Sesame Road episodes were taken off of the streaming platform, and other shows were totally eliminated — including fan favorite alright K.O.! – How about we Be Legends, as well as Vastness Train, which ran for four seasons and is done airing on Cartoon Network. (It can fortunately still be tracked down on other streaming administrations.) Other shows like Day Camp Island and Victor and Valentino actually air on Cartoon Network, regardless of whether you can’t track down them on HBO’s streaming help.

According to Variety, “result will remain the same,” following WNA and CNS consolidating — yet the reaction from animation industry inhabitants and intellectuals has not been as optimistic. Cartoon Blend declared the studio “gone,” which motivated pushback from a Cartoon Network staffer. FishHead addressed a Warner Bros. representative who said that CNS is not disappearing and that it actually has many undertakings being developed. The real issue is the way this joint division will define its boundaries, which pretty much relies upon what watchers actually watch and what the company considers profitable.

For the most part, diving into each individual animation studios’ back catalog elevates the distinctions between the two throughout the long term — a distinction many of us who grew up watching and fixating on Cartoon Network’s various cartoon blocks could easily distinguish, even before the consolidation and layoffs. It’s hard to know how these two studios will meet up, especially after these layoffs have left such countless talented representatives jobless.

Warner Bros. Animation (WBA) created a few real jewels, especially during the 1950s-1960s, including Tom and Jerry, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Sprinter, The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo, and obviously, Looney Tunes. In any case, throughout the long term, WBA has cut to this familiar formula, pretty much endlessly rehashing its classic IPs and airing them on Cartoon Network. As a youngster I checked out watch variants of Scooby-Doo, Looney Tunes, and Tom and Jerry. As an adult I can in any case watch these identical characters — and not simply through reruns.

While Warner Bros. Animation’s engraving feels emblematic of the past, Cartoon Network Studios has created significant and historic shows throughout the span of time that have also gone the distance. Indeed, there are reboots, notably of Cartoon Network’s unimaginably popular late ’90s and early 2000s series, as Powerpuff Young ladies and various iterations of Ben 10. In any case, there are also bangers and a lot of paradigm-moving programming, from shows that solidified the all-young lady action team (Powerpuff Young ladies, obviously), to shows that followed anime, similar to Samurai Jack. And that’s also Cartoon Network’s Toonami block, which presented various children in the U.S. to anime before it captivated a Western audience — and which aired Pokémon for a long time.

CNS was also one of few major animation studios to highlight strange characters during the 2010s — especially sapphic romances — laying the preparation for other animated shows. Adventure Time, which appeared in 2010 and ran for 10 seasons, was as of late able to pay off the “Bubbline” romance that sparked between Princess Bubblegum and Marceline; the two flirtatiously met in 2011’s “Go with me.” Princess Bubblegum later snoozes Marceline’s shirt, and the show’s 2018 finale seals the deal with a kiss. 2013’s Steven Universe would proceed to become one of the most darling and influential contemporary strange cartoons with a cast of non-binary Crystal Jewels, various gay characters, and a superb wedding episode.

The steady stream of LGBTQ+ animated television that can now be found across streaming administrations owes such a huge amount to these Cartoon Network Studio titans. Warner Bros.’ own Velma is a lesbian! This would have been unthinkable years ago, even as Hayley Kiyoko (called “Lesbian Jesus” by her fans) portrayed her in the made-for-television films that aired in 2009 and 2010.

However CNS in all actuality does in any case exist after this consolidation, layoffs actually have genuine results. According to The Daily Beast, countless the HBO Max leaders laid off in August were minorities. Previous Warner Bros. representatives speculated to The Daily Beast at the time that this was expected an ideological shift, with content directed towards a not so much different but rather more “Center America” audience. Presently we’re seeing changes at an animation studio known for forward-thinking programming. How WBA and CNS will cooperate is an open inquiry – as well as whether unforgettable, envelope-pushing cartoons will remain a need at a conglomerate with a way of thinking based on reality entertainment.

Cartoon Network is not dead, says Warner Bros. — but its future is uncertain

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