Cartoon Network - The Hypocrite - by Robert Wheeler (January 14th, 2001)

I'm sure we're all well aware of the major evils in the world plaguing the Sailor Moon community....Janice Sonski....Lisa Lumby-Richards..Nicole Thualt...Optimum Productions...Cloverway....DiC...Cartoon Network....wait a minute....Cartoon Network!?!? But I thought they were the good guys!! Well...That's what I thought as well until very recently. Ever since S premiered in early June on Toonami I have slowly but surely started to lose all respect I ever had for Cartoon Network. "But why??" you say. Well.....Hopefully in an hour from now (assuming that's how long it takes you to read this monster of an essay), you'll understand my hate for Cartoon Network. I, along with many other fans out there, knew that Sailor Moon S and SuperS were going to be dubbed since March of 2000. Apparently, the dubbing started in late February/early March. Because of this fact, I was very shocked when I heard that Sailor Moon S would premiere on Cartoon Network on June 12th. First off, I was in shock because Cartoon Network had only given one week to tell us about it (in other words, we found out June 6th). Now, given the fact that on June 6th, there was only one week until SMS premiered....Sailor Moon S would end up starting in the middle of the "R" story arc! In almost EVERY case previous, Cartoon Network had waited for the show to be in its right place before airing new episodes, why did they have to change things here? And why did they only give us a week's notice? With other "new episode" packages/new shows, they gave us AT LEAST a month. Why were they being so stingy now? Next on my mind was the issue that dubbing had started only 2 1/2 to 3 months prior to the announcement. It's next to impossible to dub 77 episodes in only 3 months. What exactly was going on?? Well, I was shocked to later find out that Cartoon Network had NOT received all the episodes before they started airing them. In fact, they hadn't even received all of S. The ending episodes of S hadn't even been done yet. At first, this didn't phase me, but later on it became a MAJOR issue. As I'm sure you're all aware, S and SuperS turned out into two seasons of Sailor Moon that had VERY POOR quality control. The whole series seemed very rushed and inconsistent. At first I didn't want to admit it to myself, but I eventually had to "face the music". Cartoon Network had ruined two seasons of Sailor Moon. Cartoon Network was EXTREMELY pushy with getting the new episodes, resulting in the rushed look of the episodes. Had Optimum had more time to dub the two series, I'm sure they would have turned out MUCH better than they did. Our "saviors of anime" had turned into the "demons of dubbing". Well, this was when my hate for Cartoon Network was born. As time went by, things just got worse and worse. Cartoon Network and Toonami gave us the "royal shaft" over and over and over again....What were they thinking? Over the past 6 months, I've seen our saviors turn into scum and worse yet, into hypocrites. First on the list of "Cartoon Network 'no-no's" are the skipped episodes. As most are aware, Cartoon Network skipped an episode from S and an episode from SuperS because the material in it was "too racy". Let's look at each episode and look at Cartoon Network's hypocrisy in each case. The episode skipped in S was a VERY important episode. It can be considered the first climax of the series, the episode where Hotaru is revealed to be Sailor Saturn. This episode was skipped because the daimon in the episode's boobs were hanging out. To counter this, Cartoon Network sent the episode back to Cloverway so that they could give her a digital bikini. This was bad mistake #1. You CANNOT skip THE MOST IMPORTANT EPISODE IN THE SERIES!!! That CANNOT BE DONE! Cartoon Network should have been ready for things like this. If Cartoon Network had actually watched the series through BEFORE starting to air it, this would not have happened. To make matters worse, in the Toonami show "Blue Submarine #6", there is a water person that is even LESS covered up than the daimon was! Yet it is somehow ok to show that.......Ok...Right now I can think of only one word and it starts with an "H" and ends with "ypocrite". On to the next skipped episode. In the SuperS season, yet ANOTHER episode was skipped. Although not as important to the series as the one skipped in S, it was still rather important. It was the episode where Rei gets her "Mars Flame Sniper" attack. While I can SOMEWHAT see the logic in skipping the episode from S, the skipping of this episode was inexcusable. The reason this episode was SUPPOSEDLY skipped was because of the Lemures and its butt. Cartoon Network thought that the Lemures was too racy and thus more footage should be cut out. Now...If the "butt" was the real issue (which it had to have been...I can't see any other reason as to why the episode should have been skipped) this makes Cartoon Network the BIGGEST BUNCH OF HYPOCRITES TO EVER WALK THE FACE OF THIS EARTH. Not only have I seen butts in many of the shows Cartoon Network airs, I've seen butts in shows that CARTOON NETWORK MAKES THEMSELVES!! In "I am Weasel", "I are Baboon" has his testicles showing the ENTIRE TIME (and yes, if that ACTUALLY is a baboon, that is not his butt, those are testicles, watch the Discovery Channel). In Cow and Chicken, Cow's butt is constantly showing and there are numbers of sick "milking" jokes. In Dexter's Lab, I remember one specific incidence where Dexter is by the pool and his bathing suit falls off to reveal his very white butt. So, if this is ok, why isn't it ok on "Sailor Moon"? Well, many people argue that "Cartoony Nudity" is ok, but nudity in animation that is more realistic, like Sailor Moon, is not ok. Also, nudity in animals is quite alright, while nudity of people isn't so good. While in most cases I would agree with you, but in this case that is simply not true. The Lemures in this episode can't get ANY MORE CARTOONY!! This is probably THE MOST CARTOONY MONSTER OF THE DAY IN THE ENTIRE SERIES! Not only that....IT WAS A FREAKING MONKEY!! It's a monkey! In fact, I could start to DIRECTLY compare it with Baboon from "I am weasel"!!! There is NO difference at all! Honestly, how much more hypocritical can you get? Not much...... To further add salt to the wound, Cartoon Network has never come out and said that they skipped an episode and that they were sorry for screwing up the schedule. In fact, I e-mailed Toonami once about the subject only to get back the reply "We have never skipped any episode of Sailor Moon. They are always shown in order." If you haven't guessed already, by this time I was rather enraged, but it only gets worse from here. When SuperS was about to air, I often times found myself talking to our great co-webmaster Dan, about when Cartoon Network was going to start to air commercials advertising Sailor Moon SuperS? The premiere grew closer and closer....up until the day of the premiere. No advertisements. Weeks passed...Still no advertisements. Myself and Dan started to grow angry, so in an interview that was held with Sean Akins (the founder and executive of Toonami), we asked why there had been no advertisement for SuperS. His reply only angered us further. He replied saying that it was unfair of us to say something like that, since Toonami always advertises its new episodes and that he remembered making advertisements for new Sailor Moon episodes. True, back in June, there WAS advertisements...but only for 38 episodes (which only 37 aired in the initial run...). To this day, there still has been no Sailor Moon SuperS advertisements and Sean Akins STILL looks like a dumbass. Along with the issue of advertisements, I'm sure that anyone who watches Toonami regularly sees the LONG commercials Toonami makes advertising itself (such as the "Excuse Our Dust" and "Space Is the Place" commercials). Something that I began to notice is that, while these commercials are rather heavy in Toonami shows, they are EXTREMELY LIGHT in using Sailor Moon clips. In the "Excuse Our Dust" commercial, there were COUNTLESS clips from Ronin Warriors, Gundam Wing, DBZ, and Tenchi....yet there was only ONE clip from Sailor Moon. Just one. A rather short clip too (about half a second). Why is it that Sailor Moon must always receive the shaft from Toonami??? First they rush the season causing poor quality control, then they don't advertise SuperS....now they just kind of ignore that Sailor Moon is even a Toonami show! But the injustice doesn't just stop with Sailor Moon, almost all Toonami shows (minus DBZ which Toonami is sleeping with) have received the shaft at one time or another, and this is all because of the sheer stupidity of Cartoon Network. In actuality, the sheer stupidity of Cartoon Network can be traced back to one man, Sean Akins. In a recent interview that he did, I can only sit back and laugh as he says one incorrect thing after the next. In the interview (which can be found at www.fantasticon.com), Sean says so many idiotic things, it's almost unreal. When asked about an uncut DBZ on the midnight run, Sean says that he doesn't think that Funimation wants a "uncut version" floating around (even though there already IS an uncut version) and that it wouldn't be able to run on Cartoon Network (even though it's almost identical to the cut version minus a bit of blood here and there). It's also in this interview where he denies that Cartoon Network didn't make SuperS promos and calls the question unfair since he always makes sure that new episodes get promos (I think you've been slacking, Sean). If you want to hear more of Sean's idiotic, drunken ramblings, head over to fantasticon to hear it for yourself. Now, let's move onto Cartoon Network's hypocrisy in shows OTHER than Sailor Moon. I'm sure that EVERYONE is WELL AWARE of Toonami's "Cigarette" issue. They will not show cigarettes on Cartoon Network, and if they have to, they'll paint them out of their shows. Now, while this would be fine and dandy if they did this to all shows, they oftentimes will let cigarettes go untouched while in other shows make them into "smoking toothpicks". Anyway, what's the big deal with smoking anyways? As long as it's not being used in a manner that would make kids want it, what's the big deal? I see no harm in having Dr. Briefs have a Cigarette in his mouth (which doesn't even look like a real cigarette, and he's not even smoking it, it's just in his mouth). If Goku were smoking one, that would be different, but it's not like kids are going "Oh! I want to be like Dr. Briefs!! GIVE ME CIGARETTES!!!"......Now while Cartoon Network forbids smoking in shows such as Blue Submarine #6 and DBZ, it seems perfectly alright to have a Lemures blow cigarette smoke into Ami's face in Sailor Moon, and for them to air two batman movies in which a main character is smoking away, and seems to enjoy it as well. All of this leads to one thing, hypocrisy. They should rename the freaking network "Hypocrisy Network"..... So....that's it...right?? I'm afraid not. As I said above, Sailor Moon is not the only Toonami show getting the shaft from Cartoon Network. It seems that Toonami just loves to let DBZ overshadow the rest of the Toonami shows. DBZ gets special privileges that the other shows can't have such as getting new intros very often, new music in the Toonami openings, and being heavily advertised. Now I do understand that DBZ is Toonami's highest rated show, but just because of that does not mean that the other shows should always get the shaft. With all the other shows, Toonami rarely changes their opening animation or opening music, and if the shows are advertised (which they usually aren't), they'll just use old commercials they used when the episodes were new (ie - "Gundam Wing! New episodes!!") and add new voice overs (ie - "watch Gundam Wing! *same animation as previous commercial played*"). So basically, the end result is DBZ's commercials and intros for Toonami look great, while the other shows' commercials and intros are very shoddily made. That's a rather big "no-no" in my book, especially after Sean Akins always proclaims that he loves every Toonami show just as much as the next *cough*liar*cough*. Well....after all this....what else could there be to dig Cartoon Network a bigger hole than they already have?? Well...if you've ever been to www.toonami.com, you'll know that it gets MUCH worse. I'm not going to go into much detail, but let's just say that the information that they have there is just laughable. I don't think I've EVER seen information that could be more mixed up and wrong, not even on fan pages. This is by far THE WORST. Here's an excerpt from one of their pages (remember, the site is SUPPOSED to be talking about the dub here)....."Sailor Neptune, whose real name is Michiru, is a quiet, but brilliant, girl. As Sailor Neptune, she has the power to control water. Her close friend and cousin, Sailor Uranus (also known as Haruka) is the more athletic and outgoing of the two."...I prove my point. "Cousin" and "Haruka and Michiru" should NEVER be on the same page, EVER. I'm not even going to mention the HORRIBLE loading times that this page has with slower modems (like mine). This site needs to A.) Be taken down, or B.) Be completely revamped. Go to it only at your own risk. Well, this is pretty much everything in the past that Cartoon Network has done to make my nerves go numb, but unfortunately, the madness will continue on for who knows how long. For instance, coming Monday (the 15th of January), Cartoon Network SHOULD start over from episode one of the first season. You see, when Toonami gets new episodes, they usually play them through once, then re-run the new episodes once, and then start back at the beginning. Since Sailor Moon had a special case (two sets of new episodes), they played S twice then SuperS twice. The last episode of SuperS in its re-run aired on the 12th (this past Friday). So according to Toonami's rules of airing, they should start back at episode one, "A Moon Star Is Born". However, according to Cartoon Network's schedules, the episode that will play on Monday will be "Star Struck, Bad Luck", the first episode of S. I'm sure this will piss off a few thousand dubbies who miss their beloved Terri Hawkes and Stephanie Morgenstern (or whatever her name was). But it doesn't even stop there! Cartoon Network is even STILL giving Sailor Moon the shaft!! Aparently, Sailor Moon R the movie will air during the Rising Sun, Saturday, February 17th at 11AM. I'm left wondering why?? Why not air it during the movie hour on Friday like you do with every other freaking movie!?! Wouldn't it get better ratings Friday night rather than Saturday morning??? Cartoon Network....stupid...stupid... So now, whether you be dubbie or purist, should have a reason to not like Cartoon Network. Hopefully you'll see eye to eye with me when I say that Cartoon Network officially sucks. I hoped that the evidence was overwhelming, and that if you took Cartoon Network to court this would be more than enough evidence to move towards a "guilty" verdict. Anyway, it is my belief that we as a whole should stop treating Cartoon Networks like saviors and angels, and more like the hypocritical scumbags that they really are. Thank You *bows*

Other Editorials

Why Fan Translations Are Still Necessary - by Dan Bednarski (May 16th, 2011) Sailor Moon Re-launch in North America: What I'd Like to See - by Dan Bednarski (January 22nd, 2011) Can we start to put an end to the stupidity? - by Dan Bednarski (September 19th, 2010) Goodbyes Are Always the Hardest - by Robert Wheeler (May 4th, 2005) Goodbye SOS. Good Riddance or Fond Farewell? - by Robert Wheeler (December 16th, 2004) The Trouble With Whiners - by Robert Wheeler (October 10th, 2004) Uncut Sailor Moon: Worth the Wait? - Part 2 - by Dan Bednarski (January 6th, 2004) Uncut Sailor Moon: Worth the Wait? - Part 1 - by Dan Bednarski (September 23rd, 2003) Disliking Vs. Hating - by Robert Wheeler (April 3rd, 2002) The Twelve Dubs of Christmas - by Tiffany Wood (December 23rd, 2001) Optimum Productions? Flagrant False Advertising... - by Robert Wheeler (September 3rd, 2001) The Anime Translation and American Society Problem - by Dan Bednarski (August 6th, 2001) Pioneer's First SMS Release: Heart Collection I - by Dan Bednarski (March 5th, 2001) Annoyance: A Letter to the People - by Tiffany Wood (February 9th, 2001) Cartoon Network - The Hypocrite - by Robert Wheeler (January 14th, 2001) Moonian Rhapsody - by Tiffany Wood (December 25th, 2000) Does Your Site Suck? (Repost) - by Tiffany Wood (October 28th, 2000) The North American Sailor Moon World - by Dan Bednarski (September 26th, 2000) The Trouble With Dubbies - by Robert Wheeler (September 13th, 2000) Sailor Moon Fansubs - by Dan Bednarski (August 13th, 2000) Does Your Site Suck? - by Tiffany Wood (August 6th, 2000)