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

The background color represents weekday evenings and weekends.

Status: Partially Lost

On March 2nd, 1998, Cartoon Network began its second era called Powerhouse that was based on Raymond Scott's 1937 instrumental song of the same name. The bumpers were animated by Primal Screen with various announcers making voiceovers such as Phil Hartman, Harry Shearer, Keith David, Frank Welker, Tom Clark, Carey Means, Doug Preis and even the characters from their shows, items from said skits would turn black and/or white, forming a checkerboard pattern on the screen. Shows that air in other countries reuse the same animations. Since not all shows have their own bumpers they would end up using generic ones. There were also various Coming Up Next bumpers made.

Powerhouse Bumpers

The era had a pattern for the background colors for the time scheme. The colors used were yellow, green, purple, blue and red. Yellow for weekday mornings, green for weekday afternoons, purple for action cartoons (outside of Toonami), blue for weekday evenings and weekends and red for shows airing around midnights. Years later, Powerhouse launched on the channel's international versions.

1998-1999

Around summer or fall 1998, the red backgrounds were replaced by black ones, due to the older TV sets struggling to display red backgrounds. By fall and winter 1998, they also got 3 background colors with orange for Halloween, brown for Thanksgiving and white/light blue for Christmas. The era’s slogan was "Screwy, Ain’t It?." By the end of Thanksgiving 1999, the brown bumpers were discontinued.

2000-2001

On April 1st, 2000, the Boomerang block and channel was launched, which most Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros shows moved to it. Several months later, the orange, and white/light blue bumpers were also discontinued worldwide (excluding Japan). By 2001, the slogan, "Screwy, Ain’t It?" was replaced by "You With Us?" to promote the channel's Cartoon Cartoon Fridays block. When Adult Swim launched in fall 2001, the black background were then rarely used by the channel.

2002-2004

By the end of 2002 and the start of 2003, many changes to the bumpers were made with Doig Preis being the only announcer left, the Powerhouse theme was also removed entirely with the show bumpers using either their own theme songs or production music with the Up Next and generic bumpers using their own as well. The "You’re Watching" bumper were discontinued 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 dropped. 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 like Hamtaro only had bumpers airing on Cartoon Network Latin America along with show like Baby Looney Tunes and Duck Dodgers (they only used one WBRB bumper and BTTS bumper for their respective shows) airing until summer 2004 and by then, Time Squad and Captain Planet were the last two shows before the lunch of CN City with Japan being the last country to discontinue the Powerhouse bumpers with it lasting until the end of 2005.

Status

Over the years, many bumpers from old VHS recordings were uploaded online. As of 2024 most of the bumpers were found and it's currently unknown how many were made.

Gallery

Footage

A mega compilation of powerhouse bumpers.

Videos

Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse" song featured in many bumpers.

External Links

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