I like almost all eras of CN including now, but 2005 was my favorite year. It's like a line graph where it hits it peak in 2005, and then starts going downward fast (before picking up again in about 2010). 2005 was when cartoon cartoons and shows being made around that time were balanced pretty evenly. 2005 was also a great year for Toonami, with TOM 3 and better western programming like Ben 10, Teen Titans, and Justice League, while still showing good anime, though it was mostly shonen.
Re: What do you think was the best year of CN?
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The network's history is too expansive for me to single out just one year, but I think that 1996-2007 was a decent period for Cartoon Network. It was when the Cartoon-Cartoons began airing (before the What-A-Cartoon! project, CN was mostly just The Hanna-Barbera Reruns Channel), in 1996 Turner merged with Time-Warner, allowing for more Warner Brothers shorts and WB owned series such as Justice League.
There were decent programming blocks like Toonami, Miguzi, Cartoon-Cartoon Fridays/Fridays, Funny for Your Face, You Are Here, Har Har Tharsdays, etc.; even the wraparounds with TOM, Erin and the gang, King Nood and the like were entertaining. This era featured some of the network's most innovative and entertaining bumps: the Powerhouse bumps and the City bumps. There were good shows running on Friday and Saturday nights. The network wasn't afraid to appeal to girls and other animation lovers besides just young boys; we had shows like O Canada, Sunday Pants,The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, 6Teen, Code LYOKO and Totally Spies! (I wasn't a huge fan of the latter 3 shows, but they reflected how all-inclusive the network was at that time). Adult Swim debuted in 2001 and only ran a few times a week; it wouldn't start wearing out its' welcome 'til later.
Re: What do you think was the best year of CN?
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I don't know if there's actually 1 best year, but I will say that 2004 was a pretty good year for Cartoon Network because that was the year that CN moved Toonami from weekday afternoons to Saturday nights. Not that this move itself was an improvement, but then there was actually sometheing good on to watch on a Saturday night. The 04 Toonami had a killer lineup:
That was 2 straight hours of animated goodness. That lineup shall rule eternally.
CN began to slack in the years between 2005 and 2006, which was the infamous "Fall Is Something That Grown-Ups invented" era, but then things picked up again in 2007 when Chowder made it's debut on CN's Fried Dynamite. The era that spawned such program blocks as Har-Har Tharsdays and You Are Here was enjoyable also. Neither of these blocks were around for very long, but when they were around, they were good.
