Adult Swim’s Cartoon Network Classics Block Is Living Up to Expectations

Adult Swim expanded its programming block earlier this Summer with a slate of Cartoon Network classic shows, and it turns out that the Checkered Past block has been a surprising success that’s living up to the expectations of those running the network. It was announced earlier this year that Adult Swim would be expanding two extra hours into the early evenings, and part of this expansion is used for a new weekday block that brings back some of the major Cartoon Network classic original series for new reruns. Ratings for the block have been a success with the target demo, and Adult Swim has taken note. 

Adult Swim president Michael Ouweleen opened up about Checkered Past’s debut on the network this Summer during their New York Comic Con 2023 panel, Ouweleen explained that the block started as a result of the response to Cartoon Network’s 30th Anniversary celebration and had since expanded into a full programming idea of its own that the network kind of just rolled with. And seeing its success is a big boon to those involved bringing it to life. 

How Did Checkered Past Happen at Adult Swim? 

“Kim Manning and the programming team, they work on both Cartoon and Adult Swim and thought. ‘Let’s just bring back the original, so this is going to get muddied, maybe not,” Ouweleen explained how Turner handled its original programming at first. “Ted Turner bought the [Hanna-Barbera] library, bought the MGM library, and he said to us, ‘Use those libraries.’ And the programming team at the time wanted to make an original series and he said, ‘Don’t. I spent all my money…And out of that frustration came Space Ghost Coast to Coast, which is the beginning of Adult Swim.” 

Continuing further, “Meanwhile though, I don’t know what changed, but something changed and the first wave of Cartoon Network Originals started at the same time. So that’s Dexter’s Lab, and Cow and Chicken and then quickly Billy and Mandy and all those...They had the What-a-Cartoon program and there was shorts every week that we would air and such a great hit ratio. The first three or four series all worked, which is that’s kind of amazing.” Then it led into the anniversary celebration. 

“So for the 30th anniversary as a stunt, we just sort of like let’s [air] these and it did really well, did well with adult audiences. So Kim and I were like, ‘Geez, we should just be bringing these back for more.‘ And then someone at William Street came up with the name Checkered Past, which is just so funny…The way we view running these networks is, ‘Oh, people out there like the same stuff we do. And so why don’t we put this stuff out there and it’s in our minds,’ It’s a conversation with you all and we thought you would love to watch Dexter or whatever. 

And this look into the past is helping the future too as Ouweleen stated, “Those shows are more mature than probably we thought at the time. We probably ruined your neuropathways back then when you were growing up. And it’s all one thing to us and leads in naturally. It has been helping us introduce some new series on Adult Swim. It feels totally natural to us. Even when those originals were made, we didn’t think of them as being for kids and we always thought of them as being for anyone who liked animation, and that’s where we are now.”

How have you been liking Checkered Past on Adult Swim? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animation and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!