| Sunday, April 16, 2006 |
23:39 - There's something happening here
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I should have been paying closer attention to the Adult Swim bumps tonight... I'm sure they'd have explained why the bug in the bottom right of the screen now reads [crappy 1980's live action tv network].
It's clearly a reference to the fact that they've been running ads for a week or two now saying that Saved By the Bell—yeah, that show—will be appearing on Adult Swim at midnight. The ads and related bumps have had a sort of a nod-nod-wink-wink quality to them, mostly in being played suspiciously straight and sarcasm-free, unlike how they've advertised any other show. I've been sure that they were leading up to something, and I've been hoping that it's not simply that shows like Robot Chicken and Tom Goes to the Mayor are all just steps along a road leading away from "real" animation and toward plain old live action shows.
The bumps tonight now all end with that same [crappy 1980's live action tv network] signature, even when there's no clue to its significance in the bumps themselves. I'm starting to wonder whether showing Saved By the Bell is some kind of contractual thing foisted on them by the higher-ups, and the Adult Swim people are only going along with it against their will—and lashing out in the way they still have open to them, the just-in-time editorial channels of their own bumps.
Then again, it's probably something a lot more innocuous, like an immense prank just to drum up interest and press now that the tide of public opinion is turning against their nonstop flogging of Seth McFarlane vehicles.
UPDATE: Apparently it's no joke; Cartoon Network is merely officially starting to suck. Or at least to stop caring about sticking to its mission.
Methinks I'm going to have to start reverting back to my pre-[adult swim] viewing fare of things like The Man Show and Star Trek: TNG, both of which show up on G4 (the video game network), and CSI on Spike TV.
Hmm. I guess it's a lot easier to come up with ideas for new cable channels than to come up with sustainable shows to fill them. At least the History Channel still talks about, you know, history...
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Brian Tiemann
