On Saturday, September 27, Anime Weekend Atlanta hosted a special panel presentation for Cartoon Network programming. Panelists included CN representatives -- Jeremy Mador, a writer/producer for the Adult Swim cards; a female (whose name I didn't catch), an AS department head; and Kevin Mason, a promo/interstitial writer.
Panel discussion mostly involved Q&A with the audience, during which CN reps offered some minor news on both Toonami and Adult Swim programming:
Beginning at 11:00 PM (EST) Sunday, October 5, three hours will be added to the Adult Swim block, expanding the timeslot from 11-2 to 11-5. (However, according to CN's TV schedule, it appears to be merely a repeat of the same episodes shown during the previous 3 hours.)
52 new episodes of Inuyasha will premiere in 2004, with movies planned to air as well.
CN will make an effort to regain ratings on Saturday nights, possibly by showing Anime movies, although no titles were mentioned (other than Inuyasha).
On suggestions of other Anime titles for CN to consider -- they've talked about Ranma 1/2, but they're "not sure it will ever happen." There are also "no plans" to pick up Neon Genesis Evangelion. They added that CN does have "a lot of new series" they're looking into for 2004, but nothing they can announce just yet.
On co-producing new episodes of other shows -- new Family Guy episodes aren't possible because it's "too expensive;" it costs $1 million per episode to produce. They "may look into co-producing other new shows in the future." On a related note, they said that Big O's ratings have "exceeded expectations." They are also talking about making IGPX into a series, co-producing it with Production IG (which also did Ghost In The Shell).
Lupin III was "rotated out" because "it didn't perform as well as hoped." In their words -- "Comedy destroys us," but they added that FLCL did "very well."
When asked if they will add more female-oriented programming, CN says they lost their "girl audience" to Disney -- Kim Possible and "teen soaps." Thus, they decided to go after the boys' market. They added, "We are trying to diversify, to pick up shows besides big robot action." In the future, they hope to offer more female-oriented daytime programming, like Totally Spies. And they reiterated that FLCL did very well in the ratings.
On the future of Sealab 2021, without Harry Goz -- they have written some scripts without Captain Murphy, but they are still trying to make a decision whether or not to replace him.
On future DVD releases of other CN originals -- it is possible, but it will largely depend on sales figures for the Space Ghost and Aqua Teen Hunger Force DVD box sets. They added that CN's online shop is "doing very well," thanks to AS merchandise sales.
For AS viewers curious to know the origin of the owl gags, it comes from two sources: Mike Lazzo bought a bunch of plastic owls and placed them all over the Williams Street offices; and there's a running visual gag on Futurama from Matt Groening's idea that owls would be "the rats of the future." Now you know.
As the panel ended and the audience vacated, they showed previews of something that appeared to be a new Adult Swim comedy, The Aquaman & Friends Action Hour. It looked hilarious -- styled similarly to Harvey Birdman, but with a lot more physical comedy and visual gags. I asked Kevin Mason about the show and he said it was a new comedy series which will only be aired on Cartoon Network Latin America. "Because of Justice League," Mason says, "we can't do Superfriends parodies."
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