I haven’t really been following all the animated DC cartoon news, but Beware the Batman, the dark (!) CGI cartoon telling Batman’s early days and team-up with Katana, has been pulled by the Cartoon Network, although tweets indicate it may return in January, when the heat will be on. It’s scarily reminiscent, in fact nearly identical to how they pulled Young Justice about a year ago. If you can get by the horrifying Bad Grandpa wrapper on the site, IGN has salient details and analysis. In a statement, CN said
“Currently, Beware the Batman is no longer on our air. DC Nation will continue on Saturday mornings at 10/9c with new exclusive shorts and a full hour of encore episodes of Teen Titans Go!”
IGN’s Scott Collura worries that CN doesn’t seem to be pushing the DC Nation block much, and certainly, more humorous takes on the characters, such as Teen Titans Go! have been doing better in the ratings. Like I say, I haven’t been following the ins and outs of the cartoon world as well as I should (time being finite) but at NYCC I was chatting with some people who do and it was observed that comics fans clamor for dark serious stuff and detest Teen Titans Go! but general audiences seem to like it better. Right now, anyway.
As an aside, it cannot be stressed enough that it was the 90s superhero cartoons, X-men and the Timm/Dini Batman: TAS that kept these characters alive for youngsters when the comics publishers abandoned that audience completely. The cartoons reached both boys AND girls and really paved the way for the more diverse audience for the characters you see today. In other words: CARTOONS GOOD.
My 6 year old loves Teen Titan Go. He’s reasonably interested in Beware the Batman because he likes Batman but likes Ben 10 more and enjoys Batman Brave and the Bold even more.
I strongly suspect that this is a complete audience mismatch on Cartoon Network’s part – the DC Nation block is an hour of cartoons at 10am on Saturdays. Lighter adventure shows and comedy shows are going to do better than a continuity heavy show like Beware the Batman or Young Justice – both of which seemed to be targeting the “teenager and older” demographic rather than the group that wakes up on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons.
And it should be noted that the 90s superhero cartoons like Batman and Superman performed their best n afternoon afterschool cartoon blocks, not Saturday mornings. It was a different audience then and I’d be surprised if it still wasn’t a different audience today.
If this opens the door for more Brave And The Bold, I’d be ecstatic. It’s not only a super fun show but from a corporate standpoint, it’s a great way to introduce younger consumers to the DC back catalogue of properties. My 8 year is a fan of B’wana Beast thanks to that show. B’wana Beast, for cripes sake! He didn’t care for either Beware The Batman or Green Lantern: TAS despite being huge fans of both characters. (We both loved Young Justice, though, so maybe in his case it’s more the CGI look than the grim’n’gritty take that turned him off).
My sons had a hard time caring about Beware the Batman, though I liked it. But we all agree that Teen Titans Go is great.
Teen Titans Go is surprisingly really, really good. I say surprisingly because normally corporate cartoons like that are kinda stale and bland, but Go is a lot of fun.
Bring back Batman Beyond.
Jer is right on the money. I can’t speak to the quality of this show (only seen one episode), but it seems like the sort of thing that belongs on weekdays between 4 and 6pm. Saturday morning has belonged to the little ones since the early 00’s; middle schoolers and teens have moved on to different timeslots. It almost feels like CN wants these shows to fail, because scheduling tweaks could easily bring in better ratings.
With most everyeone DVRing shows these days, doesn’t it make what timeslot its shown in, irrelevant?
All a kid has to do is say to a parent, “Mommy/Daddy, please record that for me”
The afterschool TV watching demographic doesn’t exist anymore. At least not in the age range that B:TAS, etc. primarily attracted.
Ding ding, Snikt Snakt. My kids — for the record, HUGE fans of Teen Titans Go, DC’s between-cartoons shorts and the GL Animated Series but lukewarm on Beware the Batman — haven’t watched live TV in years.
The DC nation block has been more than neglected the the trend of 20-Something-LOL-Wut comedy seems to be the winning formula in this age. laughter is cheap and nuanced drama for kids is tedious. I rly enjoyed Beware the Batman and the late Green Lantern series(and a bit of Young Justice) but I think those shows are more nostalgic relics of the 90s.
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