Cancelled Cartoon Network Classics Block Makes Surprise Return to Adult Swim

Checkered Past, the formerly cancelled block of Cartoon Network classics, has made its surprise to return to Adult Swim heading into the new year. Checkered Past has been one of the coolest experiments seen with Adult Swim in some time. As Cartoon Network continues to change its broadcast schedule and expanded the time slot for its Adult Swim counterpart, a cool result of this was a special weekday block that brought back nostalgic Cartoon Network classics that were either not streaming or just harder to watch in general. But it was cancelled after two years.

Checkered Past was brought to an end with Adult Swim after two years of successful experimentation, but now it’s been brought back heading into the new year. Adult Swim continues to shake up its broadcast schedule with a number of shows both leaving the network and returning, and it seems one of those shake ups has also resulted in the return of the Checkered Past block with Dexter’s Laboratory leading the charge (as spotted by @Swimpedia on X).

Checkered Past Returns to Adult Swim

Checkered Past ended its run with Adult Swim earlier this Summer, but the block has now returned as of December 29th with episodes of Dexter’s Laboratory airing on 5:00PM ET during the weekdays. Unfortunately, this is the only classic series currently airing with the revived version of the block so it’s unclear as to what could be the plan for Checkered Past moving forward. It might be a full return of the block with more classics planned to join it later as the schedule further changes, or just might be a temporary band-aid until later in the year.

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Either way, it’s still a big deal as Checkered Past was a massive success with Adult Swim for its two year run. Its cancellation was a surprise, but now there’s going to be a lot more space on the schedule with the losses of key shows like King of the Hill and Futurama through the past year. This block brought back Cartoon Network shows that had since been removed from streaming services (and are impossible to watch), so that made it appointment television for those fans hoping to see each of these classics.

Why Dexter’s Laboratory?

As for why Dexter’s Laboratory is leading Checkered Past’s new era, it makes a ton of sense considering that it’s hard to watch elsewhere. It’s not available on any of the streaming platforms, and it’s created by Genndy Tartakovsky, who has a third season of Primal coming later this January as well. It’s a bit of synergy that’s perfect right now, so it does raises some more questions about the nostalgia block’s potential staying power moving forward.

Tartakovsky has no desire to ever return to Dexter’s Laboratory, however, as the creator revealed in a recent interview, “When my career dies, and I can’t sell a project or do anything else, that’s when [Dexter’s Laboratory] will return to save me and help pay my mortgage and everything,” the creator joked. “I think, the problem with [Dexter’s Laboratory] was the woman who played Dexter’s voice [Christine Cavanaugh], she passed away a while ago. I feel like her voice was the soul of the show, so it’s very hard for me to do an imitation. Unless we reimagine it in some other way.”

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HT – @Swimpedia on X