Powerhouse was the third era of Cartoon Network. It began on March 2, 1998, transitioning out of the Checkerboard and Starburst eras, and ended in the early morning of June 14, 2004. It was succeeded by the CN City era. The first program to air under the Powerhouse era was O Canada and the last program to air under the era was Captain Planet. "Screwy, Ain't It" was the slogan for the era until 2001, along with the secondary slogan "You With Us?" (to promote Cartoon Cartoon Fridays).

The Powerhouse era was used by Cartoon Network Europe from 1999 to 2002. Latin America also used this look from April 30, 1998 to December 31, 2004, while in Asia and Australia, this era lasted from 1998 and August 22, 1999 until September 30, 2005. In Japan, this era aired from 1999 to December 31, 2005.

Description

"For its first comprehensive reface, Cartoon Network wanted to focus on what makes cartoons cartoony. This package featured new animation of the network stars from many major animation studios including Warner Brothers, MGM and Hanna-Barbera. Of course, the styling had to be very true to the original characters. Each show was placed in an iconic situation on stylized, monochromatic backgrounds that changed color depending on the time of day. The long-running package showcased Primal Screen's animation, music and sound design. It became the international identity for the network, requiring that Primal Screen make custom elements for the UK, Latin America and Japan. In total, we made over 300 distinct spots for this system, each have a unique narrative and title treatments recall classic cartoons." - Primal Screen^[1]

Bumpers

The era was named after the Raymond Scott composition "Powerhouse", which was the musical theme for most bumpers and graphical elements of this period. However, on January 20, 2003, the Powerhouse music was removed from the bumpers and replaced with a series of generic fanfares and library themes, due to the fact Turner Broadcasting lost the rights to Raymond Scott's iconic theme. Also, the "You're Watching" bumper and the yellow, green, and dark blue/black backgrounds for the bumpers were also removed in 2003 (with the strange exceptions of the "Coming Up Next" bumpers until May 2003), leaving only the blue and purple backgrounds still in use until 2004.

The first set of Powerhouse bumpers aired at launch during March 1998 were: Tom & Jerry, Scooby-Doo, Cow and Chicken, and Batman. The colors used for the Powerhouse branding referred to different time periods. Yellow was used for weekday mornings, green was used for weekday afternoons, blue was used for weekday evenings as well as all day long on the weekends, while dark blue/black was used for midnights and late night periods. Purple was used for action cartoons, orange was used for Halloween, brown was used for Thanksgiving, and white/light blue was used for Christmas. Red was originally the color used for midnights and late night periods until around July 1998, when the color was replaced with black/dark blue due to older TV sets not handling the intense red very well. The bumpers for this era were animated by Todd Wahnish.

When the Powerhouse era was slightly updated in 2003, not only was the original music removed from the "We'll Be Right Back" and "Back to the Show" bumpers, but the yellow, green, and dark blue/black backgrounds of those bumpers and the "You're Watching" bumper were also removed, leaving the blue and purple backgrounds seen during those bumpers seen from 2003 to 2004. However the yellow and green backgrounds were not removed entirely from the network, as the "Coming Up Next" bumpers often contained the green and yellow backgrounds until May 2003. These continued to be mixed with the blue and purple "We'll Be Right Back" and "Back to the Show" bumpers until June 2004.

In the "We'll Be Right Back" and "Back to the Show" bumpers for many shows in evening time, primetime in weekdays and weekends, the era's announcers Clark, Hartman, Shearer and Sanders (with the exception of David and Means) were replaced as announcers by CN characters. The characters who had voiceovers were: Yakko, Dot, Bugs, Daffy, Yosemite Sam, Beetlejuice (note: he also voiced one of the Wrecking Ball bumpers), Buster Bunny, Scooby, Shaggy, various monsters from A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, Dexter, Dexter's computer helper, Dee Dee, Mandark, Johnny Bravo, Cow, Chicken, I.M. Weasel, I.R. Baboon, the Red Guy, the narrator of the Powerpuff Girls (he also voiced 3 coming up next bumpers), Ed, Edd, Eddy, Mike, Lu, Courage, Eustace, Muriel, and the news announcer from Sheep in the Big City. The bumpers with the characters as the announcers were used until 2003 when the Powerhouse bumpers were overhauled, and Doug Preis, who previously did announce a set of Bugs & Daffy promos from 1999 to 2001, took over as announcer around February/March 2002.

Some of the Hanna-Barbera shows, especially most of the Hanna-Barbera segment shows did not get any Powerhouse bumpers, mainly due to its obscurity and some programs already airing on the Boomerang block. And in April 2000, most of the Hanna-Barbera programs, especially some programs that are lesser-known moved to the Boomerang block and the Boomerang channel, and the programs had stayed on the block and channel since. Only very few Hanna-Barbera programs managed to get their own 2003 revisions of the Powerhouse bumpers.

The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, Codename: Kids Next Door, and Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones? were the last three shows to receive new Powerhouse bumpers in 2002. In 2001-2002, some of the newer shows started to gain their own show-styled bumpers instead of using Powerhouse-styled bumpers. When the 2003 revision took place, most of the newer shows did not get any Powerhouse bumpers. Most of the newer shows would only air on blocks, especially with action and anime programming, especially with returning Toonami programming when Saturday Video Entertainment System was launched.

In 2003, the Magazine era started running concurrent with the Powerhouse era. Most of the newer shows that started airing after the 2003 revision of the Powerhouse era used the Magazine bumpers, those being Duck Dodgers, Teen Titans, Jackie Chan Adventures, Pokémon, Samurai Jack, Totally Spies, Sitting Ducks, Justice League, Yu-Gi-Oh, X-Men Evolution, and Pecola.

After Adult Swim signed off at 5:00am on June 14, 2004, Time Squad and Captain Planet were the final two shows to air under the Powerhouse era. At 6:00am, the City era debuted and The Powerpuff Girls was the first show to air under the City era. Also, when the Midnight Run aired or after Adult Swim signed off during that time, the dark blue/black "Coming Up Next" bumpers were also used.

Programming

Programming Strategy

With the transition from both the Checkerboard and Starburst eras to the Powerhouse era, the network slowly began to feature their original series more prominently. A total of 14 original series were produced during this era. This eventually led to the classic animation programming block, Boomerang, being split off into its own network in April 2000. Several classic Hanna-Barbera series were gradually moved to Boomerang, with CN's Boomerang block being removed in late 2004.

During this era several notable programming blocks were introduced including: Cartoon Network's Cartoon Theatre, a movie block that aired on CN from July 1998 to 2007; Cartoon Cartoon Fridays, a weekly programming block through which the network premiered new episodes of its original series; and Adult Swim, a late-night block aimed at a more mature audience that would become it's own channel and take over the entire night schedule in 2005 (despite still sharing channel space with Cartoon Network). By the CN City era, CN was largely more aimed at children, in contrast to Cohen's initial psychographic approach.

When the Friday-themed program blocks were not airing at any time of the week, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and Evil Con Carne episodes that first aired on Grim & Evil were the only episodes seen during the Powerhouse era's normal weekly and weekend programming.

CN Original Series

• Space Ghost Coast to Coast​ (later moved to Adult Swim; ended April 13, 2004)
• Dexter's Laboratory​ (ended November 20, 2003)
• Johnny Bravo
• Cow and Chicken​ (ended August 13, 1999)
• I Am Weasel (ended March 2, 2000)
• The Powerpuff Girls (premiered November 18, 1998)
• Ed, Edd n Eddy (premiered January 4, 1999)
• Mike, Lu & Og (November 12, 1999 and ended on May 27, 2001)
• Courage the Cowardly Dog (November 12, 1999 and ended November 22, 2002)
• Sheep in the Big City (November 17, 2000 and ended April 7, 2002)
• Time Squad (June 8, 2001 and ended November 26, 2003)
• Samurai Jack (premiered August 10, 2001)
• Grim & Evil (August 24, 2001 and ended October 18, 2002)
• Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones? (July 19, 2002 and ended November 14, 2003)
• Codename: Kids Next Door (premiered December 6, 2002)
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy (premiered June 13, 2003)
• Evil Con Carne (premiered July 11, 2003)
• Star Wars: Clone Wars (premiered November 7, 2003)
• Megas XLR (premiered May 1, 2004)

Acquired series

Unused logo pitches

John W. Golden's (a former motion designer at Primal Screen, who developed the "Powerhouse" branding package) design reel features two variations of the Cartoon Network logo appear on gradient backgrounds, resembling the visual style of the Powerhouse branding.^[2] It is possible that these logo variations were part of a proposal to rebrand the channel's logo in conjunction with the Powerhouse package. However, this potential rebranding was not implemented, and Cartoon Network continued to use its established checkerboard logo during this period.

The word "CARTOON" is written in bold, black-and-white block letters, each letter appearing to tilt slightly in different directions, creating a playful, wavy effect.

The word "CARTOON" is in the same bold, black-and-white block letters, but this time, the letters are arranged more symmetrically and straight. Below "CARTOON," there is a small, black rectangle with the word “NETWORK” in white, also in a bold font.

See also

• CN City
• Yes!
• Summer 2007
• Powerhouse bumpers

References