The channel has a few programming stunts up their sleeve as well. Johnny and fellow cartoon lothario Pepé LePew join up for a Valentine’s Day marathon, while the Great (and green) Gazoo hosts a close-to-St. Patrick’s Day block of Flintstones episodes.

In yet another demonstration of corporate synergy, Cartoon Network is planning a mid-February NBA All-Star Slam. Live-action NBA players will be coaching the Network’s stars in interstitial segments created by the channel’s on-air promotion department. The interstitials wrap around first runs of sports-themed cartoons — while leading up to (and cross-promoting) that evening’s TNT airing of the NBA All-Star game.

Cartoon Network’s one-off specials like Party Wagon are allowing animators new areas to experiment. © Cartoon Network.

Going from the micro to the macro, the final 10 ‘micro-episodes’ of Star Wars: Clone Wars and a one-hour, Easter-themed Baby Looney Tunes special air in the spring. In February, however, the channel unveils Party Wagon, an original feature length animated movie from Hey Arnold creator Craig Bartlett. “It’s a comedy Western with tons of adventure,” says Higgins. “It has a real Indiana Jones feel to it; it’s about fun, not fighting. It started over year ago under Mike Lazzo as a potential Adult Swim project. We realized it had broader appeal, a huge amount of kid appeal, so it’s going on the general network. Who knows, maybe because people heard we were doing Party Wagon that westerns are now coming into vogue.”

Speaking of Adult Swim, the late night block will see a new anime series join its ranks, Witch Hunter Robin together with 10 new episodes of Harvey Birdman, Attorney and Law. As for the remainder of the year, Higgins promises more news at its “Upfront” presentation to the advertising industry in late February. When asked about his wish list, Higgins is optimistic. “Everything’s going to come in time. Do I wish we had Nickelodeon’s ratings? Sure I do. We’re a lot younger than Nick and I’m sure that’s happen over time; I’m sure someday they’re going to be saying ‘I wish we had Cartoon Network’s ratings.’ Other than that, my only other wish is that we had The Simpsons on the network.”

2003 was a very good year for Nickelodeon veteran Eric Coleman, apart from his August promotion to vp of animation development and production. In an exceptionally competitive marketplace, Nickelodeon has been very carefully nurturing and exploiting its core assets while bringing new product into its animation mix.

“The Rugrats spin-off, All Grown Up, was our highest-rated premiere ever, it was huge,” says Coleman. “It was great news for us to see that kids are still embracing these characters. Our audience has grown up with them and they want to see what they’re up to. The series premiered a couple of weeks ago and so far the ratings have been solid.”

My Life as a Teenage Robot led all Annie TV nominees with five nods. © Nickelodeon.

Coleman also describes the anime-influenced My Life as a Teenage Robot, Nick’s other ‘03 premiere as “performing solidly” and notes that it led the TV pack in Annie Award nominations. “We’re quite pleased with how our shows are doing and now we’re focusing on maintaining our momentum for the upcoming year.

“There’s a lot of heat around our top-rated shows. SpongeBob SquarePants is still a runaway hit and there’s no sign going away any time soon. In fact, the “SpongeBob House Party” episode was the highest-rated SpongeBob ever and we were very pleased with that. Fairly OddParents is coming on strong and it’s now our second highest rated show on Nick and I believe on all of kids TV as well. It’s gaining a lot of momentum and we plan to begin stripping it in September.”

Nick’s move into occasional mini feature-length, hour-long episodes of its most popular shows has paid off as well. The ‘Operation: Rescue Jet Fusion!’ episode of Jimmy Neutron was that series’ highest rated episode, leading the way for four more to air over the summer, according to Coleman. “We’ll be showing The Jimmy/Timmy Power Hour, a crossover between Jimmy Neutron and Timmy from Fairly OddParents. It will actually switch back and forth between CG and 2D, for all those people who ever wondered what Timmy looks like in 3D and Jimmy looks like in 2D.