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 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 use generic ones. There was also Coming Up Next bumpers, too.
Powerhouse Bumpers
The era had a pattern for the background colors for the time scheme. The original pattern was 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, the era spread internationally.
1998-1999
Around summer or fall of 1998, 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.
2000-2001
On April 1st, 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 the channel's Cartoon Cartoon Fridays block. When Adult Swim launched in fall 2001, the black background were rarely used.
2002-2004
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 & 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 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.