Sketch

Saturday schedule is out. No Rewind in sight of course. Family Guy is on Saturdays too but slightly earlier than the 10-11:30 time it's expected to have on weeknights so it benefits Toonami even less, huzzah... I guess we'll see if Family Guy is also on 9:30-11 on Sundays and Saturday isn't just the odd man out where it inexplicably airs earlier. Either way, we really don't need an hour of Rick before Toonami and frankly I wish Family Guy was directly before Toonami but I'd compromise with 1 Rick before Toonami. Just seems a bit questionable to not keep the Family Guy airing window consistent with weeknights.

Bad call releasing this in December shortly after Moana 2 and only a week before Sonic 3. They're also flatly admitting they fast-tracked this movie to keep the IP rights at WB/D so ultimately it served its purpose while simultaneously hurting the prospects of any other animated drama being made at a major studio. With a 30 million budget and probably like 10 million in advertising, they can possibly break even with digital sales and home media, especially if it can stay in theaters a few more weeks and get at least a couple million each week but smart money says they never expected this to make money, just hopefully not lose a bunch.

They could shift everything down for Daima on Jan 11th then back up on Jan 18th if they have nothing else but I am inclined to think they have 2 shows lined up for January, especially if they’ve been sitting on MHA S7.

Baring the extremely peculiar scenario where Toonami not only gets Daima before CR and also runs eps 1-3 as an event to mirror the theatrical release because Toei wills it… all signs point toward an IFG marathon to stall an extra week for Daima (1 day after CR), MHA S7 or another show. So probably IFG marathon on 1/4, Daima on 1/11 shifting everything down at least 1 week and maybe MHA on 1/18 at 12:30 DeMarco has redeclared his intention to leave social media after Jan 1st so expect no answers from him about anything.

Both better and worse than my expectation where Blue Exorcist stays ahead of One Piece and Naruto doesn't have to start over once a week. But a more positive expectation is both Daima and MHA in January, everything shifts down and the block runs till 4am with 4 premieres and 4 reruns.

If they can just run KOTH at 5pm they'll do it. They'll keep the buffer for now and see how it goes but KOTH is all but certain to do better than Checkered Past.

To all the people that said the month of DBZ Kai was "normal" scheduling for the holidays and told me I was jumping to conclusions... They sure fooled you into thinking everything was fine. I'm not sure how because the warning signs were pretty bright and glaring. I'm not happy to be right but I saw it coming and I am basically past the mourning period. I'm only sad about Sailor Moon. Naruto had it's time and DBZ Kai is unfortunately sticking around till the contract expires. Absolutely no surprise that the moment the fat man returned, Rewind wasn't worth the cost anymore.

People always use TTG as the example but besides that ridiculous marathon week for the 400th ep, they only air it a few times a day and not even in the most watchable slots. It’s been that way for two years I think. Regular Show airs more often and Gumball is usually the show filling the most slots. They are nonetheless a stagnant channel which refuses to take risks. MAWS and IFG should have aired on CN time but they were too chicken shit to do it and Michael O is content to let CN starve to fill AS’ pantry as much as he can. I don’t think Toonami gets any better without DeMarco but it probably doesn’t get any worse either. At any rate, I saw the movie on IMAX and it was fine. Left me with no strong feelings one way or the other. I saw it with my father who is in his 60s and he enjoyed himself and didn’t realize it was anime till the credits roll. Prior to seeing it I thought I’d probably want to see it more than once in theaters but to be honest I have no strong desire to do so any time soon which is a true mark of a Jason DeMarco and Joseph Chou co-production.

I’ve been thinking about this and honestly it probably won’t mess with AS as badly as some because how much does AS even rely on WB/D for programming? They almost entirely generate ad revenue using 3rd party licenses so the issue of not being able to buy from another division of their parent company isn’t so different than the current situation. AS will potentially get less shows it shares with Max and Max will continue to get shows that never touch AS. But of course licensing requires money. It’s unlikely they can generate the ad-revenue necessary to keep paying Disney for FOX reruns. So unless the spun off company can financially support AS’ acquisition needs they’re gonna be cooked pretty fast. That said the cable asset company will have few gems as reliable in young adult ad-revenue as AS so it could get some priority at least among the former Turner networks. Its gonna be harder to keep the lights on without a doubt and eventually the WB/D will deem a block largely fueled by 3rd party programming as unnecessary. They can redirect those viewers to Max or at least they’ll think they can.

Well that’s certainly bad for Adult Swim on cable.

If it's just DBZ Kai they can even justify it because the bumps will already have been made for Saturday Toonami. If it's just DBZ Kai and Sailor Moon then they can get by with rotating the same bumps they have been using and never even need to tap Steve to record something much less produce new TOM and Sara footage. The only additional cost then is securing more Sailor Moon for now which they certainly don't have to do unless they really want to but it will be a pretty negligible expense all things considered. You're right about them being cautious with phasing out Checkered Past because its troublesome to un-kill something later.

I didn’t anticipate them merely shortening CKP or Rewind to an hour. That’s certainly a way to keep them around but still make room for earlier FOX. Rewind feels like more of an all or nothing situation to me but given they haven’t been able to secure a 4th show and Naruto looks to be dead weight, they might want to shrink to an hour for just Sailor Moon and DBZ Kai. Seems increasingly less likely that they will buy more Sailor Moon eps though so either they rerun what they have or Rewind carries on as DBZ Kai power hour till they see fit to sunset Rewind. If they do pull Rewind in January then they might let CKP have Fridays back for the 5pm hour and IMO CKP should be on at 5pm on Saturdays as well. Conversely I could also see DBZ Kai becoming the weekday buffer show before KOTH branded as Toonami Rewind or not. Maybe they’ll even run Sailor Moon reruns on weekdays in the 5pm hour if they can rerun those 46 episodes at least once each (exactly 1 ep did rerun so far). I don’t expect Naruto to stick around if Rewind doesn’t remain an 2 hour block but they could toss it onto Saturday Toonami to get their money’s worth out of the contract or just cut their losses. What I’d like to see is MAWS reruns at 5pm maybe paired with DBZ Kai. Having Young Justice or a DCAU show would be preferable but that requires WBD to act friendly for once so far chance. At any rate, I think they will ease into deciding what to do with the 5pm hour. Try a few things then inevitably head for the Hill’s.

Sigh… it’s dead

Okay after this episode this whole squabble in the town feels more worth bothering with but there’s just 3 episodes left now and they’re gonna have to do a lot in those to feel like this season wasn’t just a prologue. But this felt more like wrestling than any prior fight so that’s a step in the right direction. Bernie Hulking out definitely feels like some Broly / Kaulifa memberberries though.

I am hearing good things as well. So that’s something.

No unique intro for Rewind about the schedule change. Be on the look out for a new block promo or a total lack of Rewind promos.

I can completely believe that. Anyway, I took a look at how well Family Guy does on Comedy Central. It has reruns in the 200k range, some higher but not reaching 300k. It will probably do better on AS but even 300k seems unlikely. Big Bang Theory on TBS see’s less than 300k these days but still tops the rerun chart.

I do wonder how much this can lift Adult Swim’s 200k average. When it left the loss AS had was pretty similar to the boost FXX got but it will still be on FXX and Comedy Central which will surely diminish its impact even if people still prefer to watch it on AS. At the very least, airing it 10-11:30 and shifting American Dad and Bob’s Burgers earlier should improve the prime time average while Family Guy lifts 11:30-1 and probably late late night with the encore. But the question is, how much? It could surprise us by how greatly or minimally the total day average increases.

Toei will Toei but it does seem rather likely Toonami is part of the reason for the wait.

I would certainly prefer they not run more FOX shows 5-7pm but if they can do it the only thing that would stop them is a desire to keep CKP and/or Toonami Rewind around but ad dollars speak louder and they know Hank and Bob will do better in those hours than old CN shows, Sailor Moon, DBZ and Naruto. Rewind costs some money so it's more likely to leave than CKP especially when it looks like Sailor Moon might be the only life blood and getting other shows for the block will be a pain and also cost more money. Even if they can get Sailor Moon R, then what? Keep the same shows going once a week to diminishing returns? It doesn't seem very sustainable and if they just want to keep airing Sailor Moon they can do so on Saturday. But the oops all Kai schedule for December certainly feels more like they're winding down the Rewind. CKP to its credit is doing some neat things for the holidays though that could also be it's last gasp before going off the air. The Family Guy 3 day marathon runs from 7pm-5am, of course they're still airing something at 5am, probably Bob's Burgers and whose to say they aren't also airing Bob's Burgers before 7pm those days along with King of the Hill? They just can't air Family Guy before 7pm due to content restrictions. There is a plausible way CKP and Rewind retain some necessity and that's if AS got the 4pm hour soon and with Family Guy back its entirely possible they will do it in 2025. Then Toonami can be back in it's original time slot of 4pm-6pm maybe but the last thing I want to see if for CN to lose another hour to Adult Swim.

Eh… if they value Daima as much as they valued Super then 11:30 isn’t entirely off the table but that’s only if it’s required by Toei or (much less likely) they actually have 5-6 other premieres airing at the same time as Daima. But yeah it’s probably only going to happen if Toei insists on it. If Toonami has Daima then they probably will announce it soon. Friday seems likely. And if they aren’t starting it till Jan 11th then they will announce a marathon for Jan 4th (probably Fight Girl but they could certainly f around and run a DBZ Kai marathon or something). Really wondering if CR will upload the first 3 episodes of Daima on Jan 10th, just 2 eps or only the first one. And maybe just maybe Toonami will air more than 1 ep the first night. It’s already a long first episode but they could maybe show the first two as an event premiere. It’s wishful thinking I know.

Jan 4th on Toonami isn’t improbable yet but Jan 11th seems much more likely unless CR gets the dub exclusively for a bit.

Welp Family Guy is back in January airing 10-11:30 and unless they lost King of the Hill or Bob’s Burgers that means they can easily fill 5pm-10pm with 3 episodes of American Dad, 3 episodes of Bob’s Burgers and 4 episodes of King of the Hill before Planet Namek even explodes so you might be right about them only getting 50-52 eps of DBZ Kai Guy.

I’m not surprised. Once Disney let CC have it non-exclusively it was a very real possibility for AS to get it back. I think we know why Rewind is plowing through Goku vs Freeza and just dropped Naruto outright. The experimental phase is over. Bow down to the Disney owned overlords as AS 5-11:30 becomes FXX Mini 5-7pm King of the Hill x 4 7-8:30 Bob’s Burgers x 3 8:30-10 American Dad x 3 10-11:30 Family Guy x 3

That seemed like pretty significant moment and all I could think was "you couldn't have done something more dynamic with the posing or the camera position?" The trailers have shown off some pretty nice stuff but that scene ain't it.