You’d expect to be, like, so over cartoons by the time you hit college. Cartoon Network is making sure that doesn’t happen
Master Shake and Fry, from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, challenge Hanna-Barbera’s
Snagglepuss to a friendly game of five-card stud.
Story by Matt Peters
Illustrations by Patrick J. Kellett
It all began innocently enough. Erin Moore was sitting in her dormroom one night shortly before heading off to bed when a trip through 70-some TV channels suddenly took a turn for the worse. When her dial stopped at channel 29, she found herself staring at a talking chunk of meat.
Although it may sound like the formula for a nightmare, Moore was intrigued. She returned night after night, eventually forming a habit that only the Betty Ford Clinic could cure.
Moore would not be the first or the last to be stricken with Late Night Binge Cartooning, a growing epidemic among college students.
What started out as an attempt to fall asleep turned into her first hit of Adult Swim. Remember, it’s always free the first time.
“I think the first show I came across was Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” she says. “At first I was like, ‘What the heck is this?’ I couldn’t understand it, but it was just so funny. After a while I started taping some of them and asking people if they’d heard of it. Really, no one else had at that point.”
Moore’s habit has now extended to watching Adult Swim as often as her schedule allows and homemade cardboard cutouts of Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s Mooninites, a set of characters who look like they came right out of an Atari game, adorn her wall.
A Growing Epidemic
As it turns out, Moore isn’t alone among her college-aged peers. Viewers between the ages of 18 and 34 have shown a resoundingly enthusiastic response to Adult Swim. While Jay Leno and David Letterman have dominated late-night TV in the past, cable upstarts like the Cartoon Network are now giving the kings of comedy a run for their money.
Adult Swim currently runs six nights a week from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m., and includes everything: Fox rejects—Futurama and Family Guy; classic cartoon resurrections—Sealab 2021 and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law; original programming—The Oblongs and Home Movies; and anime—Trigun and Cowboy Bebop. The 11-to-2 block continues to be the No. 1-rated time block on basic cable for adults between the ages of 18 and 34. According to a Cartoon Network report released in September, programming has grown by 26 percent and ratings by 17 percent since last year.
“Having it not make any sense is part of the appeal”
Cartoon Network is no longer just for kids. Three years ago the animation junkies at Cartoon Network ushered in a new block of programming signifying that kiddies should leave the premises, much to the delight of bored college students everywhere. Building off of the success of such adult-oriented shows as The Simpsons and South Park, the block has continued to grow.
Where most cartoons are targeted toward younger audiences, Adult Swim thrives on content that is obviously not meant for children. A disclaimer runs before each show during the time block, and the cartoons have been assigned a TV-14 rating. Adult Swim’s cartoons take potty humor, sexual innuendo and trippy cartoon characters and mix them with just a hint of political commentary.
Most people point to Space Ghost Coast to Coast as the origin of this programming. The show, in which Hanna-Barbara cartoon character Space
Ghost was revived to host a late-night talk show, eventually spawned several other late-night, anti-virginal-eyes-and-ears programming.
Moore and her friend Kelly Walsh now make Adult Swim their own must-see TV, watching it as often as possible. The Korb Hall neighbors delight in watching obscenity and animation collide.
Walsh says her first reaction was one of confusion: “This is Cartoon Network? This is supposed to be a kid’s channel.”
“I was happy to see they were doing something like this because it’s obviously successful,” Moore says. “It beats showing reruns of Huckleberry Hound and Snaggle Tooth. It’s been great for the network, I’m sure. It’s brought a whole different demographic to watch their lineups late night.”