Dancing With Who Brung You

Two years ago, Cartoon Network announced that they would not be renewing the shows Teen Titans or Justice League Unlimited for the spring 2006 season, despite both shows' incredible popularity among the teenage demographics, and the associated sales of merchandise and the new Teen Titans Go! comic book.

The reason that the network gave for their decision was twofold: first, they wanted to focus on the more independent, original series that had gained them appeal in the first place. In addition to bringing new content to the network, these new shows help give fresh animators and writers the chance to cut their teeth on major mass-marketed products. Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack come to mind.

Nevermind that they cancelled Samurai Jack after just a couple of seasons.

Secondly, they wanted to get away from the superhero-type shows that Titans and JLA both represented. This was partly because they were having issues working with Warner Brothers Animation, which produced said superhero-type shows, and partly because they apparently just weren't big fans of how Warner Brothers was running their operation.

They also said that Titans just wasn't popular enough. Nevermind that it was one of their highest-rated series.

So they replaced Teen Titans with a series of shows in their old-episode time slot (Monday through Thursday at 6:00 PM Eastern), and in the new-episode slot showed Transformers: Cybertron, Zatch Bell, Wulin Warriors, Shaolin Showdown, and old Titans episodes.

So now that the network didn't have a Saturday evening show to bring in ratings, they brought in a new show for the Fall 2006 season: Fantastic Four, which is not an original show that brings out the talents of fresh young animators and writers. It's also a superhero show. And it's produced by Warner Brothers.