Toonami

Toonami is an animated programming block on Cartoon Network geared toward action-oriented programming, mostly consisting of American cartoons and Japanese anime. The name is a combination of the words cartoon and tsunami, suggesting that the block is a "tidal wave" of animated shows. The block originated in the US on March 17, 1997 and ended its run on September 20, 2008. It was revived on Saturday May 26, 2012, as a mature-geared "Midnight Run" incarnation on Adult Swim.

History
Toonami was Cartoon Network's primary action-animation block, which made its world premiere on Monday, March 17, 1997, initially replacing Power Zone, Cartoon Network's most recent incarnation of the Super Adventures block which had been a staple on the network since October 1, 1992. Toonami was originally a weekday afternoon cartoon and action block hosted by Space Ghost villain-turned-producer Moltar at the Ghost Planet Industries building from 1997 to July 9, 1999.

In the animated world, Moltar began the program by sending his mobile satalite probe,Clyde 49, 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.

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.

Total Immersion Events
Starting in September 2000, Toonami presented special interactive events known as Total Immersion Events or TIEs. These TIEs took place both on-air during Toonami and online at the official site, Toonami.com, and always occurred the week that the block's most popular series, Dragon Ball Z, returned for a new season. The very first TIE was The Intruder, which introduced T.O.M.'s companion, an AI matrix known as S.A.R.A. The Intruder was an eight episode mini-series that aired during Toonami from September 18, 2000 up until September 27, 2000. It resulted in the rebirth of T.O.M., upgrading his appearance from a short Bomberman-esque character (voiced by Sonny Strait) to a taller, darker, deeper-voiced incarnation dubbed T.O.M. 2.0 (voiced by Steve Blum).

The following TIE, Lockdown, aired between September 17–21, 2001, and included the introduction of CartoonNetwork.com's first MORPG as well as a record-breaking amount of page views and ratings for the network. During Lockdown T.O.M. fights to save the Absolution from an attack by a giant trash compactor.

Trapped in Hyperspace, the next TIE, ran for a week from September 16–20, 2002. The ship's computer, S.A.R.A. was infected by a computer virus and T.O.M. became trapped in hyperspace. T.O.M. eventually destroys the virus before the absolution hits Earth. The Intruder and Lockdown aired in the UK, but did not achieve the same amount of success as their American airings.

The TIE in September 2003 was a diversion from the T.O.M. and S.A.R.A. adventures and introduced a new, 2D universe. Immortal Grand Prix (IGPX), created by Toonami producers Sean Akins and Jason DeMarco and produced by anime studio Production I.G. It aired in five short installments and served as a pilot for the first Toonami original series, which premiered in November 2005.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Online video services
On March 26, 2001, Cartoon Network launched Toonami Reactor, their first online streaming video service. The three-month service featured streaming episodes from Dragon Ball Z and Star Blazers, the latter of which was an online-exclusive series. Editorial content was provided by the now-defunct Animerica Magazine, published by VIZ Media. After the three-month "trial run" was over, Cartoon Network took it offline and completely revamped it.

On November 14, 2001, Cartoon Network relaunched Toonami Reactor with all online-exclusive programs such as Star Blazers, Patlabor, The Harlock Saga, and Record of Lodoss War as well as videos from Daft Punk and Toonami-themed games. In the summer of 2002, Toonami Reactor was revamped again under the Adult Swim brand and, with a joint venture with VIZ's Weekly Shonen Jump, programmed it as "Adult Swim Pipeline."

On April 25, 2006, a little over five years since the launch of the now-defunct Toonami Reactor, Cartoon Network and VIZ Media announced plans to launch Toonami Jetstream, a new ad-supported streaming video service featuring Toonami series like Naruto, Samurai Jack, Megas XLR and IGPX. As well as the internet webcast premieres of Hikaru no Go, MÄR, Eyeshield 21, The Prince of Tennis, MegaMan Star Force, Kiba, MegaMan NT Warriors, and Zoids: Genesis, the latter two of which never ended up being streamed.

Toonami Jetstream launched on July 17, 2006 (after a brief unofficial sneak preview that began on July 14), and offered episodes of Naruto, Hikaru no Go, MÄR, Zatch Bell!, Pokémon, Blue Dragon, Samurai Jack, Kiba, Storm Hawks and Transformers: Animated. On January 30, 2009, Toonami Jetstream ended its run. After Jetstream's end, many of the shows aired until their cancellation on Cartoon Network Video on its main web site.

In 2012, Adult Swim rebranded their action videos section as "Toonami shows."

Programs List
List of programs broadcast by Toonami.

Music
Toonami proved to be a haven for music throughout it's history, using original compositions; first by skater/artist Tommy Guerrero from 1997 to 1999, and then by Atlanta-based composer Joe Boyd Vigil from 1999 to 2002, many of which were compiled in the CD Toonami: Deep Space Bass in 2001, which is now out of print. In 2003, DJ Clarknova (the alias of Toonami co-founder Jason DeMarco) took Toonami's beats (both old and new) and mixed them with sound bites from recent Toonami and Adult Swim shows. This resulted in an hour-long compilation of Toonami remixes, called the Toonami: Black Hole Megamix, but for unknown reasons was never published. However, the Megamix recently was hosted by Toonami Digital Arsenal, a popular unofficial Toonami multimedia site. DJ Clarknova then released another Toonami album, entitled Toonami: Supernova Megamix, on Christmas Eve of 2012 as a free download through the official Toonami Tumblr webpage.

From 2003 through 2008, Toonami relied on original and library tracks from various artists from publisher Ninja Tune. On rare occasions, videos from musicians such as Daft Punk, Linkin Park, The White Stripes, Beck, and Gorillaz aired on the block.

Video Game Reviews
Infrequently throughout it's history, Toonami aired Video Game Reviews, written by Jason DeMarco and/or Gill Austin. The reviews, delivered by T.O.M. and occasionally S.A.R.A., were fairly short and ran during commercial breaks. The hosts scored the games on a 1 - 10 system: 10 signifying an excellent game, 1 signifying a very poor game. (The score system was originally 1 - 5 until 2001.)

Two games were given a "?" rating, Dropship: United Peace Force for the PlayStation 2 (because of many failed attempts to get past Level 6) and Slender by Marc "Parsec" Hadley of Parsec Productions (because of not finding all eight pages in time, and the fright of looking at the Slender Man).

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)
 * Johnny Ray (1998-2008; 2012-present)
 * Sara Hardy (2002-2008; 2012-present)
 * Brent Busby (2005-2008; 2012-present)
 * Chris Hartley (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). 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, Gundam Wing, Tenchi Muyo!, Outlaw Star, The Big O, YuYu Hakusho, and Blue Submarine No. 6. Trigun, Astro Boy, and Gigantor, three series that were never shown on the original Toonami, were also shown. T.O.M. also presented a review of Mass Effect 3 and promoted the recent DVD releases of the series shown that night. 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, etc. This all will happend sometime during April. It was also announced that Toonami had acquired the rights to show the anime One Piece.