Now this struck me as curious. While The Addams Family has had 2 animated knockoffs over the years (one on NBC in 1973, and a later one on ABC in 1992--this was the one which was more or less inspired by the 90's live-action movies with Anjelica Huston and the late Raul Julia; it's also the only one that most people remember nowadays. I remember both series, which is just further testimony to how truly ancient I am), there has only ever been one attempt to bring The Munsters to animation: a TV movie titled The Mini-Munsters, which was initially broadcast on ABC on October 27, 1973. (I had never heard of it until 1 year when it was rebroadcast on the USA Network as a Halloween special, even though the actual story had nothing to do with Halloween. It had something to do with the family meeting 2 other relatives who were literally shipped in from Transylvania in a crate, and the 2 of them and an adolescent Eddie having wacky teenage adventures all over town, but I digress.) Was Boomerang really going to run a single 1-and-done TV special weekly throughout the month? But then a colleague cleared things up: Boom is going to run the Addams Family cartoon (the '92 version, of course; the '73 version hasn't seen the light of day in decades), but they won't be showing The Mini-Munsters; they're actually going to be showing the original live-action sitcom versions of both shows. Live-action sitcoms. On Boomerang.
Moment of silence as we play taps for Boomerang, folks.
Why am I now wearing a black band on my arm for Boomerang? Because this is the final nail in the coffin for this already stagnating channel. Boom had had more than its' share of problems for years now, mainly stemming from the simple fact that its' father, Turner Broadcasting, gives the channel the red-headed stepchild treatment, but the one compliment that I could always pay Boomerang is that it's always remained for the most part an-all animation channel (save for live-action/animation hybrids like The Banana Splits and the occasional cross-promotional stunt to appease their big brother Cartoon Network like running Hole in the Wall occasionally or playing Out of Jimmy's Head for a week). But that's over. Now that Boom will be running live-action shows for a month, the channel looms ever closer to hitting that giant iceberg on the horizon.
I know it's too, too easy to blame the boss, but the fault here lies with CN's current heads, Stuart Snyder and Rob Sorcher. It's become painfully obvious that Team Snycher doesn't have a fogging clue what to do with Boomerang, and their past history and success has been with hybrid networks like Nickelodeon, which ran both cartoons and live-action shows. They've never had to manage all-animation channels before signing on with CN, and they clearly don't know how to handle it. They've already began infesting Cartoon Network with live-action shows (thankfully, most of them have failed and they've since backed off of this considerably, but a few LA shows are still there) and now they're starting to do it here.
What really sticks in my craw about this is that many of the people I've spoken to are OK with this. They enjoyed The Munsters and The Addams Family as kids and feel that these shows will add some much needed variety to Boom. Do these people not see the utter hypocrisy in that statement? Saying "I'm OK with live-action shows airing on Boomerang as long as they're good live action shows" is like saying you'd be OK with Nick Jr. airing porno as long as it's quality porno. Good shows or not, it's still a deviation. Why was everybody so up in arms when Cartoon Network began embracing live-action shows and movies, but these same people are OK with Boomerang airing live-action? Would you also be OK with Comedy Central airing WW2 documentaries and bowling tournaments? Or ESPN airing country line-dancing programs? The last time I checked, Boomerang was "the home of classic cartoons", not "the home of every show that you liked from the 60's through the 80's". The only reason I can see why these shows aren't airing on TBS (which would be much better suited for them) is because Turner feels that they're too old for TBS and that kids wouldn't connect with them.
Boomerang has been running in a treadmill for years, and is badly in need of variety. Granted. No argument there. But embracing live-action is not the way to go, especially when Turner only airs about 1/5 of the cartoons that they have available to them in the Turner vault and in the Warner Brothers Animation library on Da Boom. There are several animated shows that Boom could be running to commemorate Halloween for October: why not air Dingbat and the Creeps on Boom? Why not unearth The Mini-Monsters for the month? Why not show Drak Pack in October? Heck, they could even show Rankin-Bass' Mad Monster Party and/or Mad, Mad, Mad Monsters, or contract WB to run Toonsylvania or Beetlejuice. Those tie in to the spooky them of Halloween, and more importantly, they are all ANIMATED. They could even run Casper's Scare School on Da Boom. No, it's not a great show or even a good show, but it is a spooky-themed toon that's animated. Turner is sitting on plenty of animated programs to infuse variety into their channel without having to embrace live-action. You want more variety on Boomerang, Snycher? Air more cartoons and a wider range of them.
Now that I've cooled off a bit, I'm willing to give Addams and Munsters a marginal pass on Boom since those shows are at least cartoonish in nature and Addams Family is based on a series of cartoons from the New Yorker magazine, provided that it's only for the month and Boom doesn't get into the habit of running live-action shows. But with Team Snycher at the helm, my delicate inner sense of pessimism tells me that this is the only the beginning, and it won't just be something that they do once as a goof and never again. It's only a matter of time before I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched turn up on Da Boom, and then I wouldn't be half-surprised to see Saved by the Bell or Pee-Wee's Playhouse pop up on the channel. Boomerang, mess though it was, was the last bastion that we animation lovers had, the only 24/7 animation station that up to now was still 24/7 animation. I hope that it's not destined to go the Nicktoons Network route and become progressively (and aggressively) toonless.
