Toonami Fan - Welcome Back, Jack

May 01st: What If Friday Night Is Toonami?

Cartoon Network might just be pulling the wool over all our eyes with this new action block. It is entirely possible that the "new" block is actually the next generation of Toonami, be it in name or spirit. So I decided to put together something along the lines of a grand recipe for a scrumptious fall Toonami block on Friday nights.

07:00 - Transformers: Animated
07:30 - Storm Hawks
08:00 - Ben 10: Alien Force
08:30 - The Secret Saturdays
09:00 - Star Wars: The Clone Wars
09:30 - Naruto
10:00 - One Piece
10:30 - Naruto
11:00 - Moribito: Guardian of the Sacred Spirit
11:30 - Star Wars: The Clone Wars encore

Let's dissect the recipe.

7PM - 8PM - The Appetizer

Prime Time Toonami has always used the first hour for...shall we say...lower targeting material. However, those shows often have some kind of older viewer appeal despite their toyetic nature. Transformers is pretty much the king of toyetic series, so it's certainly a good place to start. Storm Hawks has a second season on the way and it's a lot of fun so far, so I would like to see it return to Toonami. This little side dish is just to wet your appetite for the heartier dishes to follow.

Future Menu Selection: SGT Frog, Blue Dragon and KIBA
SGT Frog is just about the perfect warm-up show, if not for being a little bit less action-oriented than anything shown on Toonami since Bo-Bobo. Hopefully it can make it to Toonami some day. Blue Dragon certainly has a place on Toonami, but if it were to continue airing on the block it should be within the first hour rather than the last. KIBA is a card game based action series with a lot more edge than the likes of Yu-Gi-Oh, but as it is still a card based series I would put it in the first hour if ADV were to send to CN's way. (But I'd rather have SGT Frog.)

8PM - 9PM - The Meat

The meat of any prime time line-up on CN is the original series programming. Ben 10: Alien Force has already proven to be CN's new golden boy and rightfully so, because it is a pretty good series and a lot better than the original series in my opinion. Not a lot is known about The Secret Saturdays and the premiere is well over-due at this point. The show is centered around a family that keeps the mysteries of the world a secret. It seems a lot like Johnny Quest in terms of design. Perhaps Secret Saturdays should be at 8PM and Alien Force after it, but it's better to run a new show after an established one. Therefore, putting Alien Force before Saturday's should give it an excellent lead-in.

Future Menu Selection: Batman The Brave and the Bold, New Thundercats
I am aware that's technically an acquisition, but it will also be an exclusive. Thundercats is still suspiciously absent but I hope it comes out of hiding eventually.

9PM - 11PM - The Potatoes

I like a lot of starch in my dinner. Toonami has always had plenty. What's potatoes to the original action meat? Hard hitting acquisitions of course. Naruto, One Piece and the upcoming Star Wars animated series could prove to be the finest combination of acquired action series that the network has been able to lay on the same section of the plate in years. And the ratings (for acquisitions) will be phenomenal. Naruto gets two helpings in order to help the viewers sit through the fan-hated "filler season" of non-canon material, and also because it's a bread winner no matter how you slice it. However rather than stacking our Naruto one after the other it would seem a sandwich could work better. In this case One Piece sits snuggly between two slices of Naruto, toasted to shounen perfection. All this makes for an excellent lead-in to what some might call "the best part" of the meal.

Future Menu Selections: Guardian's of Luna, Time Jam: Valerian and Lauraline, Hunter x Hunter, Naruto ShippuddenCN may let these slip through their fingers, and Hunter x Hunter is starting to show it's age, but they would all fit into this scenario quite nicely so I had to bring them up. If you want to read more about those you can check out my 2008 show possibilities round up. Naruto Shippudden should be obvious, but I thought I would mention it anyway. If they keep the current double premiere schedule then we should reach Shippudden by late November. In which case Naruto could go back to one premiere at week after Star Wars, followed by One Piece and another acquisition.

11PM - 12AM - The Desert

I have mentioned Moribito on Toonami Fan a few times now, and while it still is not a sure thing for Toonami... I am becoming increasingly hopeful that it won't be buried on Adult Swim. What makes this one show so great? I cannot really say for sure, but the idea behind airing it in this slot is to make it the perfect bridge into Adult Swim - and also let Toonami finish the night off with the most "mature" thing they have on hand. That, in my opinion is the natural order of things. Star Wars gets an encore because well...it's freak'n Star Wars, and it would make an excellent lead-in to Adult Swim given the franchise's popularity among adult audiences. Ideally, they could do without that encore but this is Cartoon Network we're talking about. They rarely fill a schedule with different shows in each slot. You may be wondering why I stepped into Adult Swim time. Well, Adult Swim knows 11PM-12AM on Friday and Saturday are going to be their weakest rated hours in the week, so they could give those hours back to CN if CN has a use for them. And by that I mean they have shows that will get better ratings with their core audiences in those hours than Adult Swim could manage with their own shows. Given the nature of those nights for older viewer ratings I would have to assume CN could easily do better.

Future Menu Selections - Gurren Laagan and Gundam 00
What is a Toonami line-up without mecha? Adult Swim might be eyeing Gurren due to the Gainax production (as they love FLCL and it is the closest thing to FLCL that Gainax has also produced). Gundam 00 ushers in the triumphant return of Gundam to Toonami. The similarities to Wing have been noted by Nick. Those attributes could give it an edge over other Gundam series still homeless, and I would imagine that the wounds from SEED's fall out have healed with time. Hopefully CN will give Gundam another shot. Gundam 00 seems like the perfect show to change their opinion on the franchise's worth.

Bon Appétit!

I got a little carried away with the food terminology there didn't I? Now I made myself hungry... Where was I? Oh right... So that is one delicious possibility for a Toonami line-up this fall when Cartoon Network makes Friday the action premiere block. We can't say for sure if that block is or is not Toonami at this time, but if it is then we could be in for quite a treat. Hopefully my musings did sway CN to do the opposite of what I am dreaming of. I think I'll go grab a snack now.