Toonami

Toonami is the registered trademark of Cartoon Network, used initially for action-oriented programming blocks on Cartoon Network television channels worldwide. The block mostly showed American and Japanese cartoons, originating in the US on March 17, 1997. The block ended its run on September 20, 2008. It was revived on May 26, 2012, as a Saturday night anime block on Adult Swim. It  is currently a mature-geared "Midnight Run " incarnation.

Beginnings
In the animated world, Moltar began the program by sending probes to earth to retrieve data and transmit it through the Ghost Planet Studio, where "Space Ghost: Coast to Coast" was broadcast. After some time, Moltar passed the torch of being host to an AI named TOM, who was given the Ghost Planet vessel, GPS Absolution Mk I, to go through the universe and continue his work while he is stuck on Ghost Planet as punishment by Space Ghost.

Traversing the Depths of Space
With TOM (quite literally) in the driver's seat, Toonami began reaching out in new and unexpected programming and broadcast blocks(Midnight Run, Rising Sun); dumping comedy cartoons in favor of anime and video games.

At one point, an Intruder ate into the Absolution and killed TOM, leaving his successor, TOM 2 to take over and rid the vessel of the intruder. Tom hosted Hyper Space Movie Fridays after this, but got stuck once due to a computer virus.



Battle Ready
Sometime after, the Absolution was destroyed and SARA taken from it. TOM was destroyed, but rebuilt into a new body (referred to as TOM 3), and rescued SARA, building a new ship from scrap, dubbed the Absolution MK II.

The Midnight Run
The Midnight Run was a Toonami block that ran from 1999-2002, running from 12:00 a.m. EST to 5:00 a.m. on Saturaday(technically Sunday) from 1999 to 2000, where it was moved to the weekdays and ran from 12:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. until 2002. It consisted of series such as Sailor Moon, Voltron, Robotech, Dragon Ball Z, Gundam Wing, G Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam: 08th MS Team, Outlaw Star, among others. Midnight Run tended to have slightly more blood and violence than its day-time counterpart, at one point even running an uncut version of Gundam Wing.

The Rising Sun
A Saturday morning incarnation that started and ended in 2000, Toonami Rising Sun typically ran from 9:00 a.m. to noon. later it was changed to run from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. This block was somewhat hampered to avoid competing with sister network Kids' WB.

Kids' WB version
From July 30, 2001, until June 30, 2002, Kids WB aired a Toonami block that was, more or less, the Kids' WB lineup with the Toonami name. It was critically panned by industry observers, who noticed the action branding of the block did not translate content wise, which had added shows like Scooby-Doo and "The Nightmare Room", a live-action series created by Goosebumps author R. L. Stine. In spring 2002, Kids' WB announced that they would drop the Toonami name from their weekday lineup, once again making the Toonami brand exclusive to Cartoon Network.

Giant Robot Week
During the week of February 24–28, 2003, Cartoon Network aired on Toonami Giant Robot Week, a five-day special based on mecha series, which were licensed by A.D. Vision. The series shown were Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gigantor, Robotech , Martian Successor Nadesico, and Dai-Guard In the evening of the final day, the channel finished its salute to giant robots with the film The Iron Giant.

Toonami Rules Saturday Nights
On April 17, 2004, Cartoon Network moved Toonami from weekday afternoons to Saturday evenings with a new demographic of preteen and teen audiences while adding a new lighter-toned action franchise, Miguzi, to weekdays in its place.

Toonami also replaced the block known as Saturday Video Entertainment System or SVES. One big reason for the move from weekdays to Saturday nights was because some of the shows on the weekday lineup (such as Yu Yu Hakusho, Cyborg 009, and Rurouni Kenshin ) became too violent for a weekday broadcast on the network (although reruns of the TV-PG-rated Naruto  aired throughout early 2007 on weekday afternoons at 5:30 p.m. EST, though CN stopped all Miguzi promos before the show started). The new Toonami line-up showcased anime like Naruto, Rave Master, Duel Masters, Gundam SEED, One Piece, Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, Zatch Bell, and Pokemon Chronicles, as well as premiered North American productions like Teen Titans, Megas XLR , Justice League: Unlimited, and IGPX, Toonami's first and only original production co-produced by Production I.G. and Bandai Entertainment.

A Month of Miyazaki
On Saturday, March 18, 2006, just past the block's ninth anniversary, Toonami began airing A Month of Miyazaki, a four-week celebration of the works of acclaimed qnime director Hayao Miyazaki. Like sibling station TCM's similar marathon in January 2006, Toonami aired a different movie every week between Toonami anniversaries (the marathon began on the weekend of the ninth anniversary of the block and ended the week before the second anniversary of the block's move to Saturday nights). The films scheduled for A Month of Miyazaki (which all aired uncut and unedited as per Miyazaki's policy not to have his films altered). However, there were many complaints due to the large number of commercial interruptions during the films, with commercial breaks cutting in about every 20 minutes. The movies were as follows:
 * Spirited Away
 * Princess Mononoke
 * Castle In the Sky
 * Nausica of the Valley of the Wind

3.17.07 (Toonami's 10th anniversary)
On January 27, 2007, a teaser commercial aired during the Xiaolin Showdown marathon on Cartoon Network featuring close up shots of larger Clydes (the remote robot explorers that have been a fixture of Toonami since the beginning) along with the date 3/17/07 and T.O.M.'s chest emblem glowing blue.

On March 17, 2007, Toonami celebrated its 10th anniversary with a new packaging and numerous montages celebrating the block. T.O.M. was revamped into a shorter robot who was a commander of a jungle control room called Flowus 3  with a trio of new robots- Flash ,D and a new Clyde.

The montages included a look at past hosts, former logos, and a decade's worth of clips and voiceovers from shows that aired on Toonami. There were a total of 4 montages, all of them having different clips. Three of them were one minute long.

As part of the anniversary (and to coincide with Cartoon Network's March Movie Madness event), Toonami planned another month of movies:


 * March 3 - The Invincible Iron Man
 * March 10 - Mosaic
 * March 17 - Hellboy: Blood and Iron
 * March 24 - Stan Lee Presents: The Condor
 * March 31 - Spirited Away and Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo

Key people
Current
 * Steve Blum (2000–2008; 2012–present)
 * Mike Lazzo (1997–2008; 2012–present)
 * Jason DeMarco (1997–2008;2012–present)
 * Gill Austin (1997-2008;2012-present)
 * Howard Parker (2012-present)
 * Kim Manning (2012-present)

Former
 * Peter Cullen (1999–2008)
 * Sonny Strait (1999–2000)
 * Joe Boyd Vigil (1997–2002)
 * C. Martin Croker (1997–1999)
 * Sean Akins (1997-2008)

Ending
On Saturday, September 20, 2008, Cartoon Network canceled the block and Toonami aired its final transmission. Employees who worked on the block went to other parts of the channel. Anime was mostly handled by Adult Swim, and a new block titled "CN Real" replaced Toonami on Saturday nights afterwards. Toonami Jetstream remained without the Toonami name until January 2009. At the end of Toonami's final airing, the host, voiced by Steve Blum, ended the block with a final monologue simply reading:


 * "Well this is the end beautiful friends, after more than 11 years this is Toonami's final broadcast. It's been a lot of fun. And we'd like to thank each and every one of you who made this journey with us. Toonami wouldn't have been anything without you. Hopefully, we've left you with some good memories. So, until we meet again, stay gold...Bang."

The last part echoed the final words of the character Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop, who was also voiced by Steve Blum in the English dub of the anime.

Adult Swim April Fools Joke and Toonami Relaunch
On midnight of April 1, 2012, just past Toonami's 15th anniversary, Adult Swim, which generally changes its programming for April Fools' Day, began to play The Room (as they had done the past several years).[1] The scene then switched to T.O.M. (in an updated version of his third incarnation) aboard the Absolution, greeting the viewers while commenting that it is April Fools' Day, before introducing that week's scheduled episode of Bleach. The Toonami-related programming and bumpers continued throughout the night, featuring Dragon Ball Z, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, ''Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki, Outlaw Star, The Big O, YuYu Hakusho, Blue Submarine No. 6, Trigun, Astro Boy, and Gigantor''. T.O.M. also presented a review of Mass Effect 3 and promoted the recent DVD releases. April 1st, 2012 will be forever heralded as "The Day That No 90's Kid Slept".

The following day, Adult Swim posted a message to their Twitter page, simply stating, "Want it back? Let us know. #BringBackToonami". On April 4, Adult Swim followed up this tweet with one stating, "#BringBackToonami We've heard you. Thank you for your passion and interest - stay tuned."

On May 16, 2012 Adult Swim tweeted that Toonami will be returning on May 26, 2012, at the same time, starting the Twitter hashtag #ToonamisBackBitches. Executives are saying that voice actor Steve Blum will be continuing to voice main character TOM, who is the host of the block, and TOM will remain in his "TOM 3.5" form from now on.

During the official Toonami panel at Momocon 2013, it was announced that both TOM and the Absolution would be updated to TOM 5 and The Absolution Mk III, and the look would get a major overhaul. Which means a new logo, now next later promo, ect. This all will happend sometime during April. It was also announced that Toonami had acquired the rights to show the anime One Piece.