Cartoon Network (partially lost "Powerhouse" bumpers from TV channel; 1998-2004)

The background color represents weekday evenings and weekends.

Status: Partially Lost

On March 2, 1998, the Checkerboard and Starburst era ended, with the legendary Powerhouse era starting it’s legacy. The era was based on Raymond Scott’s song. In the bumpers, they were made by Primal Screen, and most of the bumpers had announcers making voiceovers such as Phil Hartman, Harry Shearer, Keith David, Frank Welker, Tom Clark, Carey Means, Doug Preis, and of course, the characters from their shows. Commonly, items from said skits would turn black and/or white, forming a checkerboard pattern on the screen. However, outside USA, shows that air in different countries reuse the same animations other than using their own. Not all bumpers have their own bumpers, so shows that did not have their own bumpers would use generic bumpers. There was also Coming Up Next bumpers, too.

The era had a pattern for the background colors for the time scheme. The original pattern was yellow, green, purple, blue, and red. Yellow meant weekday mornings, green meant weekday afternoons, purple meant action cartoons (outside of Toonami), blue meant weekday evenings and weekends, and red meant midnights. Months and years later, the era spread internationally. Around summer or fall of 98, the red backgrounds started to become replaced by black backgrounds, due to the older TV sets could not display red backgrounds very well. By fall and winter of 1998, they also got 3 background colors with orange being Halloween, brown being Thanksgiving, and white/light blue being Christmas. The era’s slogan was “Screwy, Ain’t It?”.

By the end of Thanksgiving 1999, the brown bumpers were dropped.

On April 1, 2000, the Boomerang block and channel was launched, which most Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros shows moved to Boomerang. Several months later, the orange, and white/light blue bumpers were also dropped. The 2 background color bumpers were still used in Japan.

By 2001, the slogan, “Screwy, Ain’t It?” was replaced by “You With Us?” to promote Cartoon Cartoon Fridays, and when Adult Swim got released in fall 2001, the black background was used not that much, but was also not removed entirely.

By the end of 2002 and the start of 2003, there was many changes. There was only one announcer left, that being Doig Preis. The Powerhouse theme was removed and for the show bumpers, they used either their own theme songs or their production music, and for Up Next and generic bumpers, they used their own music. The “You’re Watching” bumper for the show bumpers was removed entirely. The yellow, green and black bumpers were removed from the show bumpers, still remaining on Up Next bumpers until May 2003, with the black bumper being removed entirely due to Adult Swim expanding. The voiceovers by the characters from their shows were removed entirely. They also dropped their slogan that promoted Cartoon Cartoon Fridays. They also stopped using new show bumpers when new shows would release in 2003. Some shows actually never got their own bumpers like when Hamtaro used show styled bumpers unlike other Powerhouse bumpers despite having their own in Latin America, when Grim and Evil divided into two shows, Baby Looney Tunes, and Duck Dodgers. And speaking of bumpers, they only used only one WBRB bumper and BTTS bumper for the shows. They still used these bumpers until summer of 2004. And by 2004, Time Squad and Captain Planet were the last two shows before CN City launched. Japan was the last country to end the Powerhouse bumpers with it lasting until the end of 2005. This era became popular because of its sheer variety of high-quality programming, and was one of their longest-lasting eras. Most of the bumpers are lost by then.

Gallery

A mega compilation of powerhouse bumpers.

External Links

• Cartoon Network Wiki page on the channel's Powerhouse era.
• Cartoon Network Wiki page listing most of the Powerhouse bumpers.