Thread by @animatedplus

TNN/Spike TV's "failed" attempt to complete with Adult Swim (thread)

After the success of Adult Swim in 2001, the next few years we saw many attempts at different networks trying adult animation. TNN made their attempt at this is 2003.

Brief history. TNN was originally the Nashville network airing country shows, The National Network focusing on general entertainment, Spike focusing on men (later general entertainment). It is currently known as Paramount Network.

In 2002, after seeing the success of Adult Swim and with plans to rebrand as Spike TV, the network announced that they would plan a new adult animation slate of programming.

Adult animation's biggest demographic are males so adult animation on a men's network seemed like a sure bet.

They picked up 3 original series:
-Ren & Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon (based on the Nickelodeon series)
-Gary the Rat (based on the web series)
-Stripperella

Due to Ren & Stimpy getting a new adult series on TNN, all reruns were removed from Nickelodeon in late 2002 and moved to TNN in the mid 2003. The series remained on the then-new Nicktoons channel.

They were planned to be the inagural series for the new Spike TV channel in June 2003, but due to a legal issue with Spike Lee, the channel remained as TNN until August 2003.

The block and most of the shows didn't actually start being promoted or shown to the public until about a month before they premiered, giving little time to have the shows have time to be discovered.

It was officially named "The Strip" with city themed bumps featuring the shows.

At the time The Strip was first announced, Adult Swim only aired a couple time a week and only for a few hours, but by the time The Strip launched AS aired almost every night and they just got the rights to Futurama and Family Guy, so the competition got much more fierce.

The block debuted on June 26, 2003 and aired every Thursday (Adult Swim's encore night)

10:00: Ren & Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon
10:30: Gary the Rat
11:00: Stripperella
11:30: Ren & Stimpy (original series)

These episodes encored every Sunday at 8pm.

Suprisingly, the ratings were a hit, critical reception was mixed, but the block brought in high numbers (up 200% than normal) when it premiered, doing better than most of Adult Swim's original series. These shows even aired outside of the block on Spike's regular schedule.

Ren & Stimpy Adult Pary Cartoon and Stripperella were the hard hitters, both shows were frequently the most watched shows.

Gary the Rat didn't have much luck, it was cheaply animated wasn't as mature as the other shows and its only hook was "it has Kelsey Grammer in it". Stripperella had backing from Stan Lee and Adult Party Cartoon had the backing of the original series.

After about a month on the air, the block was placed on hiatus. The main reason being was the slow production of Adult Party Cartoon and Stripperella. Like with the original series John K. struggled to meet deadlines and many episodes weren't ready to air.

President of Spike TV announced the block would be put "on hold" and will return later on. The channel's weakest show, Gary the Rat had all of its episodes completed and it resumed airing episode in the fall. It was cancelled in December 2003.

Their next animated show "This Just In!" (which is now mostly lost media), premiered in early 2004, along with the return of Stripperella, but both didn't perform very well and were both cancelled by mid-2004.

Spike's last hope for successful animation was Adult Party Cartoon and the new series from Klasky Csupo, Immigrants, both planned for an August premiere. August came and neither both shows made it to air.

Immigrants was released as a movie in 2008.

So what happened? How did a once successful block become a huge failure in just a year? The answer simply is...the network changed gears. At the time of the block's beginning's Spike/TNN targeted men, but for the next year they experimented with programming to see what fits.

And in 2004, adult animation just didn't fit for the network anymore, that long hiatus really pulled the viewers away. The channel had acquired more sports programming and more acquired series that worked out better for them.

None of the animated content was really cancelled, it was just put on hold and never went back in production (article from 2004)

Stripperella had its entire series released on DVD in 2005 and was on Hulu for a while, comics based on the show were planned to be made but differences between Spike and Pamela Anderson stopped it from happening.

FUN FACT: Stan Lee and Spike TV were sued for the show, with a stripper from Florida claiming that Stan Lee stole the idea from her while she gave him a lap dance. Which was likely the main thing that gave the series tons of promotion.

Adult Party Cartoon was the most remembered show (for imfamous reasons). It pretty much slandered the franchise and made Nick want to do little with the show outside of reruns from time to time. Most people confuse these episodes as part of the main series

A DVD released in 2006

Long story short, had things continue to move smoothly and properly spaced things out, their adult animation slate could've been a success, to this day, they're the only adult animation block to have beaten Adult Swim in ratings.