Transformers Animated Removed from Cartoon Network's Saturday lineup

that bites.....oddly enough I noticed that CN never airs the first 3 episodes of animated ("tarnsform and roll out 1, 2, and 3)...i wonder why

They easily could have produced many more episode by giving more screen time to the bot that we only saw a few seconds in on average two episodes. Increase from 2 up to 4 or more episodes each and from just 10 seconds to at least 1 min screen time in each episode.

It fells like they wasted many chances to tell more stories or continue existing ones for the background characters.

Do any of you feel like they did a better job with the background characters then the companies had intended?
Instead of random drones with 5 sec screentime they got real transformers with serious thought out history etc?

I don't think it was so much as Hasbro anymore. I think CN was giving them the run around and more than likely wanted more than they were getting. Hasbro said that's a no go and talked to Discovery and BOOM this is CN's back lash.

IMHO: Good riddance. I never cared for it; the characters redesigned were mildly interesting for me at best. I agree with some of other comments about a failed link between the BayFormers and TFA. Might have helped.

Personally, I would have loved to have seen something more modern - maybe a GI Joe Resolute style G1 re-imagining, which could pull in the Classics/Universe line to boot.

The idiot who decided to cancel Transformers Animated just a month before a new Transfomers movie was released should be fired.

Unless, of course, that they know something that we don't and they are ready to release a movie-related Transformers series.

That's so true.

No wonder Hasbro finally told 'em to fuck off and bought half a channel.

It is like you read my mind. I too am waiting for the REAL Transformers to come. Hopefully the next cartoon is much better.

Well, so much for trying to catch reruns to catch up with my DVD-R this summer.
(At least there's YouTube still... I hope).

CN's startin to blow a little

People need to understand that CN and Hasbro are businesses, and like other businesses, they need to make money (if not, then whats the point of staying open).

Here's how it works; Cartoon Network said (according to the ratings they released, go to their website), TFA had good ratings (not the best but more than enough to stay afloat), but will soon no longer be.

These are the reasons for CN:

1. CN must pay a franchising cost (for using the transformers brand name).
2. They will soon no longer have any new toy support.
3. It had rough start causing it to loose many "speculating" or "first time" viewers.
4. The new movie coming out will make them loose "the average crowd" which makes up a rough estimate of about 60% -75% of the viewers.
5. Most toy profits (average of 80% to 90%) go to Hasbro.

These are for Hasbro:

1. The movie hype will lead to a MAJOR decrease in TFA toy sales because
-Kids will mainly and/or only be interested in movie toys.

-There are only so many repaints and variations of transformers molds that can be made.

-With the mainstream consumers heading towards the movie, the die, manufacturing and shipping costs will squeeze the profit margin too much for it to be considered a good investment.

-Having multiple toy lines out will cause a "friendly conflict".

2. Transformers: Animated had a rough start with little to no promotion (except for YTV Canada who aired at least 6 commercials in 2 weeks and had a talk about it with their between-cartoon chats). Yes, it was their fault, but what can they do now, The damage is done).

3. Another restart/reboot, THIS TIME WITH THEIR OWN NETWORK, who will most likely be able to carry the next show FOR AT LEAST 2 years (till TF3 comes out) with good advertising will be a better thing.

4. No toys at the beginning of TFA made the average viewers loose interest in the toys (think about it, if you're AN AVERAGE KID, how long will you keep the though " I need a Wingblade Prime!" or "I need Omega Supreme!" in your head).

5. The loss of viewers for TFA was exponential [it eventually picked up again (season 2 and 3) but the mainstream audience was lost and when they came back they had no clue what was going on and most of them don't just "hop onto youtube and check it out" and so they left again) and thus it was a lost cause for there on out (in a general, financial view).

So, this is why TFA was canceled , not that the ratings we're bad but it would be like computers, sure 2GB ddr2 RAM is good but it's soon to be outdated by DDR3.

So don't hate on CN or Hasbro, it just future investment.

Njthemonster.

Not that I disagree with your premise, but how does this work out for Batman brave and the bold (Owned by DC, toys by mattel) and clone wars (owned by lucas and toys by hasbro)?

Cartoon network doesn't get any of the huge advantages from being able to pimp their own franchise like Ben10 but yet Batman and clonewars reruns are getting the PRIME TIME slots with double-seasons ordered in 26 episode batches.

There has got to be some sort of ratings component as look at the competition for Animated. Batman and clonewars simply blow it away in pretty much all arenas. I think if you look at the action BOYS shows animated simply performed worse than the alternatives.

Goodnight Sweet Prince...

Even in death, TFA can't get the treatment it deserves.

nkelsch:

it is not that franchise cost for Star Wars and Batman aren't hindering profits but the franchise will SQUEEZE the profit margin for TFA WHEN THE MOVIE will steal the viewers from TFA.

As much as I hate to say it, I reckon this is bang on the money. Most kids are dumb and cannot see past aesthetic. The ironic thing is that animated was considerably more intelligent than the movie, and I hope the smarter and/or imaginitive kids realise that, and see it is technically more grown up. I know I owe a lot of my analytical skill to bw, where an intelligent show respecteded my intelligence enough to leave questions and open ends you could try and answer if you looked deep enough (like poetry except actually entertaining).

I hope some day these kids look back on animated and realise in this way which franchise was actually the more grown-up, clever, and respected them more.

(Just for the record, I have nothing against bayformers, in fact I heartily enjoyed the 1st and am looking forward to rotf. And Reign of Starcsream was excellent, and to an inverse of what I have said here, very interesting. But I digress).

To be fair, the ghostbusters cartoon you are talking about (the only one to predate the real ghostbusters) was in no way affliated with the films and actually predates them, the copyright was why the cartoon based on the films had to be called the real ghostbusters rather than just ghostbusters. Sorry to go off topic with a brief cartoon history lesson there.

In summary, poor animated. No wonder hasbro bought half a channel, they and cn did not seem to get on.

Uh I don't think TFA was THAT much of a masterpiece really, Kids Next Door had better writing, it's on the same level of other kid action shows.

In fact most people seem to exagerate TFA's level of writing, Megatron's cunning for example, he never really did anything he just continued with his crazy plans until "amazing writing" gave him the means out of nowhere (Suddenly Omega Supreme teleports in front of Lugnut? Constructicons showing up at the best time possible? Autobots leaving the key with the old man at the worst time possible? Heh, yeah, right.) but people swear that he's Darth Vader combined with Death Note's kid,

I don't think people on these boards really give CN shows enough credit. Many of their shows were revolutionary and very good. KND was a perfect example. I keep seeing people crap on Chowder as an example but Chowder is pretty dang funny and really has some fine examples of the American Animated 'Doubletake' that could be compared to Looney Tunes.

While not all their shows are my cup of tea, they do make some really really good ones that really hold up that TFA simply can't compare to. I love TFA because I like transformers and the show appeals to me, not because it was a quality show.

This.

Cartoon Network maybe putting out alot of crap right now, but Chowder is one of the funnier shows they currently air and KND was one of their best series with a surprising amount of depth.

man that sucks.. was hoping to watch re-runs

Bumblebeast, I love your avatar!!

I think it's a known fact that no one cares about shows like TDI/TDA, Chowder, Flap Shit, Johnny Shit, etc...

No seriously, what the fuck...

Not to piss in anyone's wounds... in fact, this is just pretty pissy... and in return, we have this CN REAL thing coming... WTEverLovin'F?!?!?

They do air it on Kabillion on Demand if you have a cable system that supports On Demand. Its under Transformers selection right now, and has all 3 episodes together so its without ads for about 45min, 1 ad, then finishes the last 45min. Pretty cool to watch it this way. I just saw it last nite.

This is rediculous.

Why is CN so saturated with these comedy shows.
A little chowder now and then is ok, but where'sthe action !

I remember as a kid I had, power rangers, bettle borgs, Digimon, samurai x, gundam wing etc... too choose from on a Saturday morning.

When I try to put my mind in that of a Kid, I still think that modern Saturday morning line ups are TERRIBLE !

Most of the shows don't even have a useful continuity.

I don't even understand the bad ratings.

Do you mean to tell me that kids find transformers more [gay] than"Batman the brave and the bold" and "secret saturdays"

WTF wtf WTF !!!

DOES NOT COMPUTE

Clone Wars
Batman: Brave and the bold
Secret Saturdays
Ben 10: Alien Force
Bakugan
YuGiOh 5D
Chaotic
Pokemon

That is a solid amount of 'action shows'...

Cartoon Network isn't like it was when I started watching it. Thank godness that they still have Tom and Jerry. Total Drama Island is good, along with 6teen and esp Boondocks. But they have to many marathons, too many back to back shows. and the animes is on way too late. The fact that they are putting "reality shows" are crap. Turner should make a new channel before CN ends up like MTV (were MTV was supposed to be all M's but they lied).

I didn't like TFA as much as other TFs. But they should have put it on a decent afternoon hour. They killed Teen Titans, Toonami, and now TFA. "A pox on them"

YuGiOh=Bukagon=Chaotic= reruns of shows of the same style as "beyblade"

That kind of stuff went out of style. I remember seeing tons of kids playing with beyblades. I certainly don't see that level of enthusiam for Bukagon.

Pokemon is an old show, and doesn't really count.

The only show you mentioned there which can even be taken somewhat seriously is the Ben 10. Everything else is corny !

Well, the issue is, Pokemon and YuGiOh5d are both 'new episode' every saturday... And I can confirm that Pokemon card game and YuGiOh card games are still hot shit as they have banished us wargammers from having the game shop on weekends. Every weekend is tons of kids playing those card games.

The rest pretty much are re-plays of the new episode friday night.

CN has lots of action shows on the line up as much as we don't care for them.

I has a sad The Transformers Animated and Ben 10 Alien Force time block was the first reason for me to wake up early on a Saturday since the 90's. It's a shame both shows were short-run and ended prematurely. If it's any solace, at least these shows had generally satisfying (but admittedly rushed) conclusions.

Who knows TF-A may be back on Saturdays at some point.
I'm recording a DVD for my nephew and today the ad for the Sat. line up still had TF in there. CN may just be trying out some other shows for a while. CN may put them back in in a month or 2. If not, I can just keep recording M-F.

Off topic: I just noticed I have over 100 posts now, yeay!!!!!

Ok...I know Ill get introuble for overly using bad language, so Ill just sencor everything... what an @$$ load of God **** bull F*** CN is such an asshole! No way can you remove a series as good as that from its saturday slot and replace it with some got **** s**tty @$$ Chaotic! that show is pure @$$ it sux @$$ from a yeast infected rat oozing straw!!!

The two shows I highlighted are already on their home channel of 4Kids TV. Most of these shows suck. I want Animated instead of these lame shows.

You know I don't understnad how any of those shows keep on getting more episodes and seasons while shows like Animated and Spectacular Spiderman are either canned or on hiatus.

Apparently in contrast to what we all thought, Cartoon Network had no rights to Transformers Animated,

This is a quote from their website:

"Hasbro logo and TRANSFORMERS ANIMATED and all related characters are trademarks of Hasbro and are used with permission. © 2009 Hasbro. All Rights Reserved."

That just means Hasbro has trademarks, the actual show's production and airing is CN's.

Actually, that means that they can't use anything related to transformers anymore, i.e. Optimus Prime, Rachet, Cybertron, ect. so it pretty much got canned by them (like how do you rename every main character, and keep the same show).

Seeing as they were given permission to do the show in the first place, I don't see how that's the case.

Even if it was, Hasbro having the rights doesn't mean they asked for the show to be stopped. It could be CN, who had permission, just didn't want to do it anymore.

*facepalm*

CN had rights, otherwise they wouldn't have broadcast the show (and CN is printed on the back of TF:A merchindise, too). It's that simple.

That means that they can't use anything related to transformers (that they have trademark to) anymore, i.e. Optimus Prime, Rachet, Cybertron, ect. so it pretty much got canned by them (like how do you rename every main character, and keep the same show).

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand your point is...?

I don't think you understand how this stuff works.

1) Hasbro always had these rights. They licensed them out or otherwise formed an agreement with CN. We don't know the exact terms of this agreement. The copyright boilerplate on the bottom of that website means nothing

2) Either party deciding they didn't want to continue the relationship means no more Animated. Either the deal expired, and one or both parties did not want to continue it, or one of them wanted out and made a way.

3) If Hasbro had decided they wanted out, yes, it means that CN would no longer have access to the Transformers franchise. However, if it had been CN that decided they didn't want to continue with Animated, Hasbro would have no longer had the resources to produce the show. In either case, the end result is the same: no more Animated.

We'll probably never know the entire story, and "evidence" like this is grasping at straws that aren't even there.

Well. YTV still airs TFA!

MTL

Agreed. 'Cartoon' Network is the biggest sack of shit on this whole planet. Why did I put asterisks on the word Cartoon? Because quite honestly, it's not even Cartoon Network anymore. It's Live Action With A Small Mix Of Cartoons Thrown Into The Mix Network. Freaking ridiculous. All of my favorite cartoons of the past have been replaced with either live-action shows or horrendously bad animated cartoons. Good thing I got Boomerang. Hell, even Nickelodeon is better than Cartoon Network now; atleast they have SpongeBob and Penguins of Madagascar.

Cartoon network is not a sack of shit. They are just trying to adjust to changing patterns in kids programing. Live action Hannah montana, jonas Bros, I Carly stuff is what kids are watching nowadays. If CN wasnt to remain a viable kids network then they have to air live programing. All of your favorite cartoons are being replaced because enough people arent watching them. The Anime bubble has popped and nothing stepped up to fill the void.


Also I cant believe people are still debating why this show went away. Networks such as CN want to own their shows, such as Ben 10, so they can profit from all the additional sales or merchandise an such. That is why TF's will never be the focus on Cartoon Network, Nicktoons, or whatever. Even if a show that CN owns is half as popular as TF They still make more money with their own property.
Hasbro knows this and thats why they are venturing more in to media. So that they can promote their core brands. Hence the upcoming Hasbro network. TF: animated was the work of a partnership, the partnership is over. Move on people

I don't really care since I don't watch it any more.

Well it's back on now I saw the commercial