2002: A Year of Reinvention
Jeff Harris, January 4, 2003

Every major studio and almost every outlet was trying to reinvent itself. There were a lot of bold risks that occurred in Hollywood (home to many studios and media outlets), Atlanta (home of the Turner networks, particularly Cartoon Network), New York (home of some broadcast networks as well as MTV Networks), and beyond.

Like 2001, the animation industry in this country seemed like was shifting in two directions. Domestic television productions were becoming sparse on the nation's outlets while foreign television productions, particularly anime, was certainly coming into more homes. Even Nickelodeon, one of the last major kids networks not to air anime, eventually added Speed Racer as part of its SLAM Sunday afternoon action experiment. Anime became a part of the lineups of several cable networks, including Tech TV and International Channel as well as continuing as a building block for a pair of premium cable networks, Showtime Beyond and Action Channel. In 2002, anime was also a major part of a trio of future network developments, CNX (which is already on the air in the UK), Blackbelt TV, and The Anime Network (currently in Beta form in Philadelphia). The Anime Network is owned by ADV Films, a company that has become somewhat of the darling of the anime industry in 2002 by launching an original production company (ADV Pro), codeveloping the popular sci-fi action series Farscape into an animated series, and launching an American version of the popular Japanese anime magazine, Newtype.

The unabashed leaders of the anime television revolution remains Cartoon Network. In February of 2002, the checkerboard network launched a second installment of their weekend Adult Swim block for Saturday late-nights. Unofficially known as Adult Swim Action (in counterbalance to the Sunday night Adult Swim Comedy lineup), the new block premiered several new shows (Yu Yu Hakusho, Pilot Candidate, Gundam 0083, and InuYasha) while flirting with the acquisitions of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and the second season of The Big O before announcing three acquired series for the block (Lupin III, Reign, and Trigun), which will be reformatted in January 2003. Admittedly, Toonami wasn't in the radar of Cartoon Network for much of 2002, though they did get a quartet of anime acquisitions (Hamtaro, Zoids: Chaotic Century, G-Gundam, and Transformers: Armada) as well as new episodes of Dragonball and Dragonball Z.

Transformers: Armada was also a major part of an 80s revival that also occured in 2002. While most of the revival took place in the comics industry, a whole lot of 80s properties became revived with new series. He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Ultimate Muscle (based on the property that inspired the M.U.S.C.L.E. toy line), Inspector Gadget, Dennis the Menace, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, What's New Scooby-Doo? (okay, technically 60s and 70s, but those reruns were a major part of the 80s along with the newer episodes and movies that came out in the 80s), and Strawberry Shortcake were announced to be a part of several cable networks and broadcast blocks with new episodes while Thundercats, Teen Titans (a major 80s comic franchise), and a few others were rumored to be in development for the new year. Meanwhile, the original episodes of G.I. Joe returned to the airwaves after nearly a decade off the air. The original Transformers Generation One episodes became a hit on DVD.

Saturday mornings became a little more dismal for the broadcast networks. NBC is no longer considered a major player, but it too fell victim of allowing another company to program its shows (Discovery Kids is NBC's major programmer). ABC's programming is now primarily controlled by Disney Channel. CBS is controlled by Nickelodeon. Fox's programming is in the first year of a multiyear deal with 4Kids Entertainment while UPN is in the final year of being programmed by Disney, thus no longer providing children's programming after Fall '03. Only Kids' WB remains its own programmer, though most of its programming comes from outside of the Warner Bros. family (and this overreliance on 4Kids' properties could become a problem in the future).

Disney and Warner Bros. didn't have much luck in the film industry this year with animation. While Disney's Lilo and Stitch was a success, the rerelease of Beauty and the Beast and Return to Neverland didn't exactly light the world on fire. Their long-rumored Treasure Planet film was released to mixed reviews (the negative reviews came mostly from the critics who wanted "a traditional" cutesy Disney movie for the little kids) and considered a flop. Disney's release of Spirited Away was even more limited than it's previous Princess Mononoke, thus denying more potential audiences from seeing it, and yet, every theater the film was in had a huge box office take, not to mention being a frontrunner for this year's Best Animated Film Oscar. Disney's Miramax division actually acquired the second Ghost in the Shell film and quietly released a fifth Pokemon film to a record-low attendance for the once-mighty franchise. On the other side of the battlefield, Warner Bros. basically shot its own foot by mismarketing The Powerpuff Girls Movie to the teenybopper TRL crowds instead of the fans of the film. The live-action movie version of Scooby-Doo had a good opening, which caused the studio to prematurely greenlight a second (and possibly third) film, but it didn't exactly fill the crowds the weeks afterwards, thus considered a flop by the end of its theatrical run.

Dreamworks, winner of the first Best Animated Film Oscar for Shrek earlier in the year, kind of laid low with its critically-acclaimed Spirit: Horse of the Cimmeron. Sony Pictures was on a high with the CGI-heavy Spider-Man, the limited release of Metropolis, the CGI short Beware the Chub-Chubs, and ended with a thud for Eight Crazy Nights. Fox had Ice Age, the studio's first CGI film, which was pretty decent. Independent films such as Jonah made a bit of an impact.

Mainframe, the popular computer animation company from Canada, laid low for most of 2002. No new Mainframe productions premiered on television in the US, but many are still in development at both the Vancouver division as well as the new Los Angeles unit. In fact, one of Mainframe's highest profile productions, a new Spider-Man series for MTV, was originally scheduled for the fall of 2002. It has now been delayed indefinitely, but now the network is hoping for a summer 2003 premiere.

New shows from the big three kids networks made their mark in 2002. Disney's Kim Possible was the first action-animation that premiered on Disney Channel since Darkwing Duck many, many years ago. Nickelodeon premiered a series based on their new golden boy Jimmy Neutron, which was introduced in an Oscar-nominated film in 2001 (in a reversal, two Nicktoons, Hey Arnold! and The Wild Thornberrys, also became film stars with their own movies). Cartoon Network premiered a series of promising new shorts, including a new Longhair and Doubledome, a feline detective named Jeffrey Cat, and a mecha comedy Low Brow, as well as premiering Codename: Kids Next Door. ABC Family's Shinzo, Beyblade, Tokyo Pig also gained attention for a second.

I would be remissed if I didn't conclude this article by talking about the passing of two animation pioneers in 2002. Chuck Jones, legendary Warner Bros. and MGM animator, brought many characters to life, from Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, to The Grinch and his final character, Timber Wolf, and was one of the last surviving animators from the legendary Termite Terrace studio at Leon Schlesinger Productions. Ward Kimball was a member of the Disney equivalent of Termite Terrace membership, the Nine Old Men, and was a very influential animator for the studio for many years, working on characters like Mickey Mouse, Jiminy Cricket, and dozens others.