Cartoon Network
A product of Ted Turner's (now sold) vast empire, Cartoon Network was a showcase channel for Hanna-Barbera's extensive archive of classic animation. It became an instant powerhouse for cable in the 1990s, airing both older and new cartoons. The newer projects led to pioneering shows in their own right, amongst them Dexter's Laboratory, Cow and Chicken, Johnny Bravo, The Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack, the latter leading to two original Star Wars: Clone Wars mini-series.
Cartoon Network eventually expanded itself with greater amounts of original content, soon shuffling its "vintage" animation to a new channel, "Boomerang". New programming blocks such as Toonami, "Miguzi" and "Adult Swim" aimed more towards early-teen and adult animation fans, and helped to bring in a new lease on life for the anime movement.
In 1998, the Toonami block broadcast the final five episodes of season two of Beast Wars, a welcome development since otherwise American fans would not have seen them for many months and would have been vulnerable to spoilers from dirty Canadians. In 2002, Cartoon Network revived He-Man for all of ten minutes, and also turned their heads towards Transformers, airing all three "seasons" of the Unicron Trilogy. They served as the distributors of Transformers Animated, which featured many of the talents who brought Cartoon Network some of their bigger action-cartoons like Teen Titans and Ben 10.
