On Wednesday, Warner Bros. TV Group laid off 82 staffers throughout scripted, unscripted, and animation divisions, a Warner Bros. consultant confirmed to Polygon. The corporate will go away 43 of the presently unfilled positions empty. Whereas the three model labels Warner Bros. Animation (WBA), Cartoon Community Studios (CNS), and Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe will stay distinct, WBA and CNS improvement and manufacturing groups can be introduced below one division.
In keeping with Deadline, Warner Bros. has additionally stepped again on its preliminary resolution to shutter the Warner Bros. Tv Workshop, which was designed to foster new expertise and supply a pipeline that many within the animation business have cited as invaluable in serving to marginalized creators break right into a extremely aggressive discipline. The workshop can be moved to Discovery’s Range, Fairness, and Inclusion unit.
These adjustments at Cartoon Community Studios come at a time when a few of its cartoons have already grow to be more durable to trace down and watch. The cuts additionally arrive on the heels of Discovery’s acquisition of Warner Media from AT&T. HBO Max and Discovery Plus are set to grow to be one streaming service in 2023. After taking on in April, CEO David Zaslav, who beforehand ran Discovery, pledged to chop $3 billion from the corporate, and he’s taken an aggressive method to get there.
Zaslav has made good on the promise, and primarily within the space of style leisure. In August, Discovery laid off 14% of HBO Max employees and canceled the Batgirl film. Later that month, beloved cartoons have been yanked from HBO Max, blindsiding the cartoons’ creators. Dozens of Sesame Road episodes have been taken off of the streaming platform, and different exhibits have been completely eliminated — together with fan favourite OK Ok.O.! – Let’s Be Heroes, in addition to Infinity Prepare, which ran for 4 seasons and is now not airing on Cartoon Community. (It could actually fortunately nonetheless be discovered on different streaming companies.) Different exhibits like Summer season Camp Island and Victor and Valentino nonetheless air on Cartoon Community, even when you can’t discover them on HBO’s streaming service.
In keeping with Selection, “output will stay the identical,” following WNA and CNS consolidating — however the response from animation business denizens and pundits has not been as optimistic. Cartoon Brew declared the studio “gone,” which impressed pushback from a Cartoon Community staffer. Polygon spoke to a Warner Bros. consultant who stated that CNS just isn’t disappearing and that it nonetheless has many initiatives in improvement. The actual query is how this joint division will set its priorities, which kind of is dependent upon what viewers truly watch and what the corporate deems worthwhile.
Largely, digging into every respective animation studios’ again catalog heightens the variations between the 2 through the years — a distinction many people who grew up watching and obsessing over Cartoon Community’s varied cartoon blocks may simply establish, even earlier than the consolidation and layoffs. It’s onerous to understand how these two studios will come collectively, particularly after these layoffs have left so many proficient staff jobless.
Warner Bros. Animation (WBA) created some actual gems, particularly within the Fifties-Nineteen Sixties, together with Tom & Jerry, Wile E. Coyote and the Highway Runner, The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo, and naturally, Looney Tunes. However through the years, WBA has hewed to this acquainted formulation, kind of rehashing and rehashing its basic IPs and airing them on Cartoon Community. As a child I tuned in to observe variations of Scooby-Doo, Looney Tunes, and Tom & Jerry. As an grownup I can nonetheless watch these similar characters — and never simply via reruns.
Whereas Warner Bros. Animation’s imprint feels emblematic of the previous, Cartoon Community Studios has produced important and ground-breaking exhibits over the course of time which have additionally stood the take a look at of time. Sure, there are reboots, notably of Cartoon Community’s extremely in style late ‘90s and early 2000s sequence, like Powerpuff Ladies and quite a few iterations of Ben 10. However there are additionally bangers and loads of paradigm-shifting programming, from exhibits that cemented the all-girl motion workforce (Powerpuff Ladies, after all), to exhibits that took cues from anime, like Samurai Jack. And that’s to not point out Cartoon Community’s Toonami block, which launched quite a few youngsters within the U.S. to anime earlier than it captivated a Western viewers — and which aired Pokémon for a few years.
Picture: Cartoon Community
CNS was additionally certainly one of few main animation studios to highlight queer characters within the 2010s — particularly sapphic romances — laying the groundwork for different animated exhibits. Journey Time, which debuted in 2010 and ran for 10 seasons, was solely not too long ago in a position to repay the “Bubbline” romance that sparked between Princess Bubblegum and Marceline; the 2 flirtatiously met in 2011’s “Go With Me.” Princess Bubblegum later sleeps in Marceline’s shirt, and the present’s 2018 finale seals the take care of a kiss. 2013’s Steven Universe would go on to grow to be probably the most beloved and influential modern queer cartoons with a solid of non-binary Crystal Gems, quite a few homosexual characters, and an exquisite wedding ceremony episode.
The regular trickle of LGBTQ+ animated tv that may now be discovered throughout streaming companies owes a lot to those Cartoon Community Studio titans. Warner Bros.’ personal Velma is a lesbian! This might have been unthinkable years in the past, whilst Hayley Kiyoko (referred to as “Lesbian Jesus” by her followers) portrayed her within the made-for-television movies that aired in 2009 and 2010.
Although CNS does nonetheless exist after this consolidation, layoffs nonetheless have very actual penalties. In keeping with The Day by day Beast, numerous the HBO Max executives laid off in August have been folks of coloration. Former Warner Bros. staff purported to The Day by day Beast on the time that this was due an ideological shift, with content material steered in the direction of a much less numerous and extra “Center America” viewers. Now we’re seeing adjustments at an animation studio recognized for forward-thinking programming. How WBA and CNS will work collectively is an open query – in addition to whether or not unforgettable, envelope-pushing cartoons will stay a precedence at a conglomerate with a philosophy constructed on actuality leisure.
