TV Trash: Codename: Kids Next Door

Codename: Kids Next Door is an upcoming episode of TV Trash by Chris Lee Moore (a.k.a. RowdyCMoore) discussing how Codename: Kids Next Door turned Cartoon Network into "the Worst Place for Cartoons".

Transcript
RowdyCMoore: Welcome to TV Trash. Now, originally, when I said Cartoon Network went downhill in the mid-2000s, it was because of the live crap they pushed like Out Of Jimmy's Head. But even before I took a look at Superjail!, I realized that MrEnter might've actually been right that the 2000s as a whole were NOT Cartoon Network's best decade at all!

Like I said in my review of Superjail!, the worst cartoon ever made, The 2000s were a more chaotic time for television animation, and the same thing applies with Cartoon Network. As it turns out, Jim Samples as new CEO of Cartoon Network was more unpleasant than I could imagine. Yeah, he may have been one of the reasons Family Guy went downhill after it got revived in 2005. And the AOL Time Warner years... brought in a lot of the WORST moves that Cartoon Network has ever done. A majority of Cartoon Network original shows from the 2000s just really don't hold up at all. It's very clear that Jim Samples was actually supportive of Chris Savino for ruining two of the network's greatest shows of the 1990s.

People say that the CN City era was considered the best era for Cartoon Network, just because it had characters interacting with each other in a CGI background. These bumpers may have been fine if they were used on occasion, but given that Jim Samples ran CN to the ground at the time, it's proof that just because the bumpers were expensive doesn't mean they hold up at all! Hell, these bumpers were so expensive, that the animators and voice actors weren't even given BREAKS during those times!! It shows that the people involved did not care for these bumpers at all, as it came out towards the end of the Cartoon Cartoons roster. And there's a reason we don't mention Cartoon Network's live-action shows from the 2010s, and why we wanna pretend they don't exist, because that would've ruined the whole experience of CN in the 2010s the same way Teen Titans Go! would.

But before we had Johnny Test, I realized that Cartoon Network's downfall not only began with new management in 2001, along with the closure of Hanna-Barbera, and Chris Savino ruining both shows, but in 2002, we were given one of the most unpleasant excuses for a cartoon ever! Codename: Kids Next Door.

This show was the creation of Mr. Tom Warburton, who previously worked as character designer on Disney's Pepper Ann. Supposedly, he had originally pitched the concept of Kenny and the Chimp in 1998 to Cartoon Network, and the kids next door was originally made to be side characters in Kenny and the Chimp, but the studio heads didn't want it. Looking back, I fell as if Kenny and the Chimp was best left rejected.

But unfortunately, Jim Samples, who took control of CN after Betty Cohen left in 2001, hosted a contest for viewers to vote for which new Cartoon Cartoon would come to be. And of all the pilots on Cartoon Network's Big Pick 2001, the viewers gave the Kids Next Door the most votes. You could've voted on Kitty Bobo, but nope! You instead voted for the Kids Next Door, And thanks to those viewers, Cartoon Network had supposedly rejected Kitty Bobo, a show that could've been a great show, in favor of... something that ACTUALLY teaches kids of the mid-to-late 2000s to act like asshats!!

And I thought Johnny Test was exhibit A towards the claim that Cartoon Network and Warner went downhill in the mid-2000s! Nope, we could've had Kitty Bobo, but we ended up with the Kids Next Door in 2002. The show that ACTUALLY killed off the Cartoon Cartoon name in 2003, and Cartoon Network would never be the same again until 2010!!