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ATV:

The logical next step for MTV Animation

by Michelle Klein-Häss

Last weekend was a major animation marathon on MTV: "MTV's Weird-ass Cartoons Weekend." They showed tons of Daria, which I'm not complaining about, and more than a few episodes of Celebrity Deathmatch, a show which I am beginning to tire of but still has its moments. They also highlighted the strong connection between animation and music videos by replaying last February's "Top Ten Animated Videos Of All Time" special, although it would have been nice if they had somehow found room on the list for the new Pearl Jam video, "Do The Evolution" which features art direction and design by "Spawn" creator/legend-in-his-own-mind Todd McFarlane. Since of course they wouldn't have the budget to re-animate the bridging sequences featuring Daria Morgendorffer and Jane Lane, it would have been impossible. But it would have been nice anyway -- I hate to admit it but Todd did well with this video.

There was one new item thrown into this mix: a documentary on MTV Animation called Toonumentary. A very short and somewhat throwaway 30-minute puff piece that seemed as if it was geared more towards a stockholders' meeting than as actual content on the network, it nonetheless brought a very important point home: MTV has more than enough material in its own vaults to start a new network completely devoted to edgy animation.

Think about it. MTV Networks, Inc. recently made a very big deal about their new multichannel lineup, geared towards DBS customers and cable companies with the new digital systems and plenty of channels to fill. However, they did not include an animation channel amongst the field...mostly they were allowing people to make the choice between the East Coast and West Coast feeds of the various networks.

To my mind, this is a mistake. Again, there's more than enough in MTV's own vaults to kick things off, from the catalogue of animated music videos they have been collecting in their vaults since 1981, to Liquid Television, to Æon Flux, to MTV Oddities, to Beavis and Butt-Head, all the way to Daria, Cartoon Sushi and Celebrity Deathmatch. Drawing selectively on Nickelodeon's library, perhaps with the early, classic Ren & Stimpy episodes, Rugrats and the current Oh Yeah! Cartoons shorts series, and also on Viacom's cartoon holdings like the Terrytoons which are now languishing in their vaults(no shit Gen-X and Nintendo Generation cartoon fans would love to see Heckle and Jeckle and Mighty Mouse again!)they could really have a decent lineup. Add to this MTV's new working relationship with Manga Entertainment on Cartoon Sushi and the possibility of running full-length Anime movies like "Ghost In The Shell" and "Ninja Scroll" and there's plenty to fill 24 hours worth of programming.

If you want leadership for the new channel, one need only look Abby Terkuhle's way. Mr. Terkuhle put it this way in an interview I did with him in 1996: "When I came here, that was my original job...keeping the tradition of the animated IDs alive. I mean, I'm not an animator, but I've always been a fan of animation." If you are to take Mr.Terkuhle at his word, he's an animation fan. Who better than to run a network full of edgy animation?

Once ATV gets on the air and starts expanding, a logical source for new talent would be a similar program to What A Cartoon at Cartoon Network and Oh Yeah! Cartoons on sister network Nickelodeon. Call it "Cartoons On The Edge" or something like that, then scout the best collegiate talent and recruit animation professionals with personal works. Ideally such a program involve a creator's rights policy, but then again, we're talking MTV Networks here so that's not likely.

I think that an ATV channel spun off from MTV would be more likely than the idea of a second, more edgy spinoff from The Cartoon Network that some fans have been proposing. Last time I spoke to Linda Simensky, VP in charge of Original Programming at CN, she hinted that edgier programming might be coming in the "Safe Harbor" hours of 10pm to 5am on CN now that there's a West Coast and East Coast feed. But so far that has yet to materialize. However, CN has a very unique responsibility now that Time Warner owns all of the classic Warner Bros. and MGM animated shorts and will have airing rights to all of them in the Year 2000...they are now custodians of a great big chunk of animation history, and perhaps should emphasise the historical aspects of animation more. MTV does not have that kind of historical material available to them, so logically they should look forward rather than backward.

One of the best assets MTV currently has at their disposal is perhaps the best animated series in current US domestic production: Daria. I have been a supporter of the show since it first aired, and my feelings about the show have only intensified after two seasons of great character development and excellent storylines. True, it's "Illustrated Radio" -- there is nothing about Daria that couldn't be done as live-action. Certainly Avery's First Law -- "Anything can happen in a Cartoon," -- is not observed here. But there's just something about the entire package: the writing, the character design and art direction, the strength of the stories, the pacing, etc. that elevates it above the norm.

Not since the original Ren & Stimpy have I been so enthusiastic about an animated series. I'm so enthusiastic that I took the plunge and built my own Daria fan site...the curious can follow this link to the site.

Unfortunately, I don't really think MTV knows what it has in the show. They had a genuine cultural phenomenon in Beavis & Butt-Head, a phenomenon fanned by things you simply cannot buy with publicity: a news media which became obsessed with finding dimwitted kids who had at first looked like they had emulated what they saw on the show. Never mind that all of the perpetrators in those so-called B&B Copycat cases all later were found to not have access to cable. There's nothing like a media storm to make a show a hit: just ask the creators of Married With Children about how much Terry Rakolta boosted their ratings.

This is not to say that MTV didn't have anything to do with The Little Weinerheads' success: they did a lot of promotion on the show, much to their credit. They put out merchandising fairly quickly, and kept it coming. But as far as other animated shows that MTV has fielded in B&B's wake goes, they have been less than supportive.

They had winners with Æon Flux and MTV Oddities: The Maxx, but they didn't stand behind them where it counted -- renewals for the shows. I'm sure Peter Chung had more than a season't worth of 22-minute shows in him, but we'll never know because MTV decided not to renew the series. There have been rumors of anAF movie, but no dice so far. And the AF videogame perished in the destruction of Viacom New Media.

They treated The Maxx with even less respect. Perhaps it was because the characters were creator-owned, perhaps it was because Image Comics probably had a stronger claim to merchandising the series than MTV did. The only Maxx-related tie-in from MTV was a poorly sequenced videocassette which edited the shows down so that the entire thing could fit on an 120-minute VHS cassette. Never mind that there are longer cassettes available to duplicators without resorting to the thin 8-hour tape that nobody likes...they crammed 135 minutes worth of programming onto a 120 minute tape by the questionable editing job.

Beyond marketing, the story of The Maxx, Julie and Sarah has stretched on far beyond the original 12 comics on which the series was based. They had plenty of material for a new season, and when I interviewed Sam Kieth in 1996 he expressed hope that a second season would be picked up. Sorry Sam...it didn't happen.

There will be a third season of Daria -- it was budgeted when the second season was approved. This happened hot on the heels of the success of the first two episodes. But will there be a fourth and fifth season? Will there be enough episodes made to make the "magic number" of 65 which is the lower limit of what indie TV stations want in a syndication package? Does MTV have enough confidence to stand behind the show and see it through?

I hope so, dammit! Daria is perhaps MTV's best chance at syndicating one of their shows after first-run. Will we ever see Beavis and Butt-Head in syndication? Maybe on Comedy Central or another cable network, but not on broadcast TV. Æon Flux? Gimme a break...too bloody, too sexy, and certainly not enough episodes to make a package. The Maxx? Too violent, too cerebral. And again, not enough episodes. But Daria is a natural, particularly next to the teen-targeted shows that run during late afternoon to early evening on a lot of indie stations.

If I were Abby Terkuhle, how would I deal with expanding the Daria audience? Here's a few ideas, and Mr. Terkuhle, if you are reading this, you are welcome to them.

First: cross-promotion of the show on Nickelodeon. I have been mentioning it here on this website ever since my initial review of the show, and I've been a broken record about it since. Nick has aired shows about High School kids before...remember Clarissa Explains It All? And outside of some mild language and one episode which has a sequence where Daria and Trent break parental consent laws about body piercing in "Pierce Me" there is nothing objectionable about the show.

In fact, Daria Morgendorffer is a fine role model for pre-teen and teenage girls to emulate. She's smart, she maintains an excellent grade-point average, she doesn't smoke, drink, take drugs or have sex. She's college bound after she graduates High School.

Perhaps parents might have pause about the fact that she is also sarcastic, mistrustful of authority and often very vocal about that mistrust. But then again, sarcasm and mistrust of authority have been Nick staples ever since You Can't Do That On Television.

Daria would be ideal in the cleanup spot on the Saturday night Snick lineup. What do they have there now...Animorphs? Jeez, that's a really fresh program to have there in this spot...can you say "Go, go Power Rangers?" I knew you could.

At the very least, MTV should advertise the show on Nick, particularly the 3pm weekday showings.

Second: make a strong commitment to the show. To the tune of funding it for the fourth and fifth seasons to bring the episode count to that "magic number" of 65. Perhaps also this commitment should extend further, to one Daria theatrical feature, to be released after the fifth season shows all its episodes. Remember the success of Beavis and Butt-Head Do America: a $10 Million budget brought back a tenfold profit after video sales and overseas screenings were taken into consideration.

Third: Merchandising, merchandising, merchandising. The Daria store recently put up on MTV's website, (a turnkey operation subcontracted to an e-commerce firm...the URL is a dead giveaway) is a start. Beavis and Butt-Head-related merchandise flew out of the stores. Get Daria merchandise in the same stores at which the B&B merchandise sold well.

Fourth: On a related note -- play up the characters the fans like. There is only one Trent t-shirt. It's apparently only available through the catalogue of the mailorder store "Just Nikki," and the quote on the T-shirt isn't even from Trent...it's a miscredited quote from Trent's pal Jesse. Way to get on the side of the fans, MTV. And how about more items with Jane on them? There's only one now, a little velvet bag again available through "Just Nikki."

Fifth: More promotion on MTV would be nice, folks. Pushing the hell out of Celebrity Deathmatch, Road Rules and The Real World while ignoring the second most successful (in Nielsen terms) show on your schedule is really shortsighted. Daria got a lot of play during the "Weird-ass Cartoons Weekend," but you wouldn't know it from the promos they ran. They've also played Daria marathons in the past few months, but never with much fanfare. There has not been a promotion marketing Daria since the "Daria Day" marathon in February which celebrated the beginning of the second season.

Sixth: Next season, distribute the new episodes a little more intelligently. How's this: release a new episode every month, with an extra episode thrown in amongst the repeats on one random month? It's better than a clump in February and March and a clump in July and August with repeats in between. Yes, when you send the shows out to the overseas production houses, you do it in batches. But that doesn't mean you have to release them that way.

It seems like, despite MTV's lukewarm treatment of Daria, the show's been successful. There's a huge fan base out there, not only in the United States but also through showings of the show on MTV Europe. And Nickelodeon's Canadian doppleganger YTV is also now just starting to run Daria, hopefully with similar success. MTV could settle for the mild success they have had with the show, or they can have a phenom on their hands if only they'd move intelligently. The choice, ultimately, is theirs to make.

If you have a rebuttal to this editorial, send it to mhass703@2cowherd.net. We'll be happy to post it here.

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