I know, I know. The year's not over yet, but there's only a few days left, so now's as good of time as any to talk about the year that was 2003.
2003 saw a lot of obvious changes for this site. The biggest of the changes was, of course, the site's name. The site began the year as CNX: Toonami Revolution, a site solely dedicated to the Toonami block on Cartoon Network. Strangely, my attraction to the block wasn't as strong as, say, 2000, but that didn't mean that they didn't try. We got a whole lot of events around the beginning of the year, like the premieres of the final four episodes of Zoids: Chaotic Century, .hack//SIGN, Yu Yu Hakusho, Rurouni Kenshin, and Cyborg 009, but nothing as out of the blue as Giant Robot Week, which aired programming from ADV Films, a company that has a massive library. Yeah, Giant Robot Week was nothing more than a tease to the viewers, but it was kind of interesting. An abysmal failure in execution (which I did talk about in "Giant Robot Weak", but they get an A for effort.
In April, I bid adieu to the CNX name officially. Why? A whole lot of factors led to the inevitable name change, many of which I talked about here. The biggest of these factors is my frustration with the direction of Cartoon Network, which continued its downward spiral in 2003 under the reign of Jim Samples. Don't get me wrong, the only part of Cartoon Network which actually works is Adult Swim. Every other part of the programming seems to suffer from time to time, and the near absence of classic animation and traditional brands like The Flintstones and The Jetsons completely gone from the lineup were just unacceptable. I feel somewhere in the minds of TimeWarner execs there's a belief that Samples' extreme disdain towards any Looney Tunes programming on Cartoon Network was a lead factor in the disappointing draw for Looney Tunes movie. Are there any customers without satellite television that has Boomerang on their cable lineups? I dropped the CNX name because it had to be done, and my site had to evolve with the times. Thus, CNX became The X Bridge. It was The Bridge, but when I got the new domain name, I changed the site to reflect the new domain name of the site.
I wrote several articles this year, but most of the year, I've been inundated with several distractions. I've dealt with commissions, deaths, jury duty, and continuing to take care of my grandfather. Life isn't perfect, and I've seen my share of ups and downs in 2003. Wish I could have accomplished a whole lot more this year than I did. I'm not saying that 2003 for me was a complete failure, but 2004 is another year. Another chance to do what I want to do.
I've found that I don't exactly have as much time to go online as much as I used to, so you'll probably be seeing less of these in the coming weeks. I'll be on the boards as often as I can, and on the front page, I'll be posting yearend reviews from Toonami to the HFIL to everything else. In the meantime, here are a few questions to ponder over until the next time.
Where the heck is Low Brow?
When will Cartoon Network actually listen to its viewers?
Why is it that Frederator Productions Nicktoons so much better than the other studios' Nicktoons (admit it, you've seen My Life as A Teenage Robot and enjoyed it . . . I know I have)? Oh, wait, I do know this answer! Because Frederator is what Hanna-Barbera/Cartoon Network Studios shorts USED to be.
Who says all good anime and manga are made in Japan?
*end tranmission*
Jeff Harris,
The X Bridge Creator/Webmaster
December 12, 2003
