Cartoon Network Website Shut Down

[Markus]

In memory of CN, here how the website looked back in August 2002 thanks to the Wayback Machine.

Welcome to CartoonNetwork.com!

The home of cartoons online. The best cartoons from the past and best new cartoons, on TV and on the web.

web.archive.org

There are screenshots from each year if you're interested to see those too.

 

[JulianRO]

Accessing the Japanese site first redirected me to the Boomerang UK site, and now it gives me the "502 Bad Gateway" error.

 

[RandomMe]

In memory of CN, here how the website looked back in August 2002 thanks to the Wayback Machine.

Welcome to CartoonNetwork.com!

The home of cartoons online. The best cartoons from the past and best new cartoons, on TV and on the web.

web.archive.org

Precisely the first look I remember. If memory serves I was browsing archived copies and in July it said "new look cartoonnetwork.com".

Latin America changed in early 2003. There was no localized Orbit let alone a localized Shop (not even in the more developed markets) so it was Play, Watch, Vote, Send.

 

[The Bloo Lagoon]

Accessing the Japanese site first redirected me to the Boomerang UK site, and now it gives me the "502 Bad Gateway" error.

For me: "Not secure" error, but bypassable. I use Chrome.

 

[RandomMe]

The first CN Europe website index:

Clicking on the Scandinavian flags took you to the first .nu index. Norway was one of Dexter's old robots IIRC. I think this was amended later on. These three floated.

The first CN Europe.com layour I remember, used from 2002 to 2006.

The first version of the Belgian index.

Later amended from countries to languages. A later update included Mojo on a boat.

More to follow

 

[The Bloo Lagoon]

A continuation of RandomMe's post.

June 2006 - early 2010, after the Hungarian and Romanian sites were launched. This site continued even after the Arrow era was introduced in 2009.

Early 2010 - May 2011. I don't know why it could survive after the current logo's rollout in 2010.

May 2011 - mid 2018. It was altered shortly after the introduction to be all-caps and have the countries in alphabetical order.

Mid 2018 - present.

 

[toonatic#_#]

It's weird seeing everybody going crazy over this news since the website's been a zombie since, like, 2018. The only interesting things on the site since then were some poor HTML5 games and essentially nothing else.

Also, I hate Zazlav as much as the next animation fan, but I think people are taking their hate-boners of him too far by complaining about every minor thing (such as STILL begging for Coyote Vs. Acme when any news for The Day The World Blew Up comes out).

 

[RandomMe]

Let's enjoy the European sites while we can before it's too late, even though the layout introduced in 2014 wasn't one I enjoyed to say the least

 

[RandomMe]

As of now, the CN USA site redirects me to CN PT's. Soon it will redirect us to Max PT because if the Romanians said, it's true.

 

[TheGuy]

I don't want to sound mean or something, but, the times where children's channels have websites kinda "faded" long ago.

For example, kids nowadays don't really play games on computers anymore, especially online ones despite the fact that they are easier to access. Nowadays kids usually play games like Roblox, Brawl Stars, and many other mobile games. CN also has some games in Play Store, so... yes. I don't wanna say that they can't be played on mobile but it's a little more harder.

Videos? Well, CN now has a lot of channels on YouTube where they post videos.

There was a different story 20 years ago, when there weren't smartphones, YouTube didn't exist, and people probably learned how to use a computer back then.

I know I'm gonna get off-topic, but, compare how Fox Kids and Jetix sites looked back in the 2000s and how the Disney ones look now (at least here in Europe).

It's indeed sad that the CN site did shut down, but unfortunately, this will likely continue with merging other websites or even shutting others.

I don't think people are really angry with the website being gone as it honestly makes sense it just that it's hard for many too leave an important part of their history

 

[RandomMe]

I don't think people are really angry with the website being gone as it honestly makes sense it just that it's hard for many too leave an important part of their history

Especially since the web game developers were left uncredited.

 

[The Overlord]

The Canadian CN website is still up, mainly because it's run by Corus, though that company is struggling too.

I am not surprised at this, I wonder how many kids still went to Cartoon Network website before it was shut down. More writing on the wall for cable. However, it's a bit of a shame that separate spaces for kids are disappearing. I think kids are expected to grow up a lot faster nowadays.

 

[zakawer2]

I definitely used to visit multiple international Cartoon Network websites when I was younger (not just the Denmark one, but also the ones of other countries, particularly the U.S. one).

 

[Daffyrocks]

Well, here goes. I first visited the (Romanian) Cartoon Network website back when I was in kindergarten. Can't exactly remember in which year, but it sure was some time before I officially got net installed at my house. I first heard about the site while watching the promo about it on TV (naturally, for a kid in the 2000s), which was the one where Dexter acceses it through his computer.

I first got over the site at my aunt's house, where she introduced me to it. I did get fascinated of what it used to offer back then. It had a fun home page, their own pop-up ads on the sides (not the third-party s@#t you see today almost anywhere on the web), all colorful, many Flash games that were REALLY WORTH PLAYING, a page for every show that also had character profiles, it generally was amazing. I kept going over the site almost everytime we went over again to my auntie, until I started going over it at my house when we finally got wire net.

As the time went by, I kept playing on the Romanian site and I also discovered the original American one, at first being somehow shocked at there being an English version and looking different than our site. Plus, I was even more surprised to see that site having pages for even more shows than on the Romanian one, including series that I didn't hear about back then plus some others that also aired here but we lacked the page for it. Plus, there were games that the Romanian site didn't have, a thing that hooked me even more to access the American site as much as our local one. Then I also discovered "other foreign sites that looked like the local one, plus even an English one that had page shows that we did not."

I continued to play on both American and the local CN websites, but mostly the Romanian one, until the interest started to gradually reduce itself after I found more interesting things to do on the net. I remember being impressed by the special mini-flash site of Total Drama Island (from 2009), plus they added a Chowder game there without adding its own page of the show (that was before the "Arrow rebrand" of the site).

Then came 2009 when the site got a refresh of its look altogether. More show pages were added while they got rid of some others (and not just the ones of series not airing on the channel anymore, though they did keep the one of Johnny Bravo despite it never returning to the regular CN schedule until 2013-2014!). But the important thing was that the site still had the things and features that made it great. In 2011 I stopped having interest of going and playing on the CN websites, I stopped having track of what they were adding or removing.

At this point I am aware that all the sites of CN basically act more like a formal page of the channel where they promote it, more than having the interaction that made it stand out in the past. All that is left with are cheap games that are more targeted towards the toodlers, with the apps being the "new norm" when it comes to gaming, plus the clip videos that basically can also be found on the YouTube channels, thus nothing anymore special. They don't have schedule pages, they don't have character profiles, basically what made the sites look the more attractive. I never payed much attention to the USA site, but I know it underwent the same fate as the foreign ones. Basically, the sites remained almost nothing more than simple pages to promote the channel's image on the web.

Like everyone else here, I will forever cherish the memories I have with cartoonnetwork.ro, as well as with cartoonnetwork.com. It's not a good choice, but at the same time, kids would rather play games on their tablets or phones these days, plus watch clips on YouTube. Simple as that

So R.I.P. the USA, Latin American and APAC Cartoon Network sites, while now I await the closedown and redirect to Max of the EMEA pages as well (cause yeah, at this point this is veeery predictable)

 

[themidnightlore]

Okay. But what happens when the sites of CN UK, Germany and Italy get shut down? You can't redirect them to MAX because there's no MAX here.

 

[The Bloo Lagoon]

Okay. But what happens when the sites of CN UK, Germany and Italy get shut down? You can't redirect them to MAX because there's no MAX here.

I think they will do the APAC way: redirecting them to the respective Youtube channels.

 

[Francisque]

I think they will do the APAC way: redirecting them to the respective Youtube channels.

That seems more likely, for the time being, or even a page on Discovery or something

But we still aren't sure they're closing them down in the EMEA area

Things usually a BIT differently here, although yes, times are probably leading to its death even in EMEA

 

[Daffyrocks]

That seems more likely, for the time being, or even a page on Discovery or something

It doesn't make sense to redirect a former CN site to Discovery, the two brand names barely having anything to do with each other.

More likely, they will redirect to the respective YouTube channels, like @BlooCNBoy02 said

 

[The Bloo Lagoon]

It doesn't make sense to redirect a former CN site to Discovery, the two brand names barely having anything to do with each other.

The sites of the completely Hungarian Discovery channels - Discovery and TLC - were already shutdown in 2021 and 2015 respectively. The former redirects to the Facebook page, while the latter used to do that too, but now it gives an error message.

 

[Francisque]

It doesn't make sense to redirect a former CN site to Discovery, the two brand names barely having anything to do with each other.

More likely, they will redirect to the respective YouTube channels, like @BlooCNBoy02 said

It's the same company though, albeit not the same department

Plus, Discovery in certain countries enjoys a popularity unmatched by Warner, such as in Italy, with its heavy FTA presence

Plus x2, some websites such as the Italian one are still strong and are home of WBD full stop

In a way or the other, they would also have to shut down the Boing and Cartoonito websites in Italy, which might prove to be more unpopular moves