USA Cartoon Express

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USA Cartoon Express logo.

The USA Cartoon Express was a popular television programming block of animation on the USA Network from 1982 to 1998. The Express was the first structured animation block on cable television, predating Nickelodeon's animation blocks by half a decade and Cartoon Network by more than a decade.

1 Hanna-Barbera
2 Changes for 1994
3 Terrytoons and the USA Action Extreme Team
4 The end of an era
5 Programs aired on USA Cartoon Express
6 External links

[edit] Hanna-Barbera

The initial lineup was comprised mostly of reruns from the Hanna-Barbera library. Well-known properties like The Huckleberry Hound Show, Yogi Bear, Space Ghost, and Jonny Quest shared space with lesser-known properties like Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch, Inch High, Private Eye, Dynomutt, Dog Wonder, and countless others, as well as numerous spinoffs of The Flintstones such as The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show. By the end of the decade, a more diverse lineup of cartoons aired on the Cartoon Express, including The Smurfs, G.I. Joe, Transformers, The Real Ghostbusters, Jem, Robotech, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and Scooby-Doo.

In 1991, Turner Broadcasting purchased Hanna-Barbera and launched Cartoon Network a year later, thus taking a chunk of Cartoon Express programming with it. The only Hanna-Barbera programs remaining on the Cartoon Express were Scooby-Doo, which didn't leave the Express until 1994, and The Smurfs, which stayed until 1995.

[edit] Changes for 1994

In the fall of 1994, USA moved Cartoon Express from weekday afternoons to weekday mornings, in addition to its Sunday morning lineup, and revamped the entire look of the block from an orange locomotive motiff to a silvery bullet train motiff. Taking a cue from Nickelodeon's Nicktoons, USA launched numerous original series. The first two Cartoon Express original series, The Itsy-Bitsy Spider and Problem Child (based on the film franchise), didn't catch on with viewers.

[edit] Terrytoons and the USA Action Extreme Team

USA later briefly acquired the broadcast rights to Terrytoons shorts like Deputy Dawg and Mighty Mouse, and DC Comics-related cartoons such as Superfriends. Making Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the new marquee series on the block, USA revamped the final two hours of Cartoon Express as USA Action Extreme Team with the launch of shows based on the Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat video game franchises and Savage Dragon comic book franchise. After the original series and TMNT left the air, the Cartoon Express was revamped into a weekday morning-only all-action block, with programs like Mighty Max, Sailor Moon, Ronin Warriors, and Gargoyles as the primary shows. Reruns of Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) also appeared on USA Cartoon Express after ABC cancelled the series.

[edit] The end of an era

By the summer of 1998, USA Networks had ended animation blocks on all its outlets, including the Cartoon Quest and also Sci-Fi Channel's The Animation Station, ending a franchise that had been a part of USA since 1982.