Video of the Week: Tony Benedict and Willie Ito Talk Toons

 For this week's featured video, I thought we'd rewind the clock ten years back to this wonderful video starring two Hanna-Barbera legends, Willie Ito and the late Tony Benedict. This is an interview the two did at the 2016 Toronto Animation Arts Festival International, where much of the focus is on their time at Hanna-Barbera. There's some great stills also included in the video, and we even get a moment of the two doing what they do best. Can't really ask for more in a video about two of the greats.

Peter Cullen Hits the Big Time

 Last month, the one and only Peter Cullen passed away at the age of 85. Though most will remember him best for characters like Optimus Prime and Winnie the Pooh's Eeyore, his earliest roles were actually at Hanna-Barbera. Starting off with minor roles in 1979's Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, Cullen would have a recurring presence in their productions until The Pirates of Dark Water concluded in 1993 (acting against type, he voiced the villainous henchman Mantus). His voice could be found in many of their shows during that time, including The Smurfs, The Snorks, The Jetsons, and even the infamous rival of The Transformers, Challenge of the GoBots.

Normally, I don't talk a lot about Hanna-Barbera productions of the 70s and 80s, but there's no denying that the studio was still full of talent during this period, and Peter was no exception. He's voiced countless characters that have entertained generations, and today, I'm honoring him by looking back at an often forgotten portion of his career.

Below is a piece on Cullen that ran in the January 7th, 1974 edition of The Gazette, a paper from Cullen's birthplace, Montreal, Canada. You won't see any mention of cartoon voice-acting here. Rather, the focus is on Cullen's move away from CBC radio work to hitting it big on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. Peter was one of the many regulars on the show, joining a cast that included other greats like Steve Martin and Teri Garr. Certainly not a bad beginning for what would become quite the career if you ask me.

Cullen: Starting to Hit it Big

By L. Ian MacDonald

    It is going on three years since Montreal comedian Peter Cullen gave up on the CBC and gravitated to Los Angeles, where he now works steadily on the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour and the Bobby Goldsboro Show.
    He knew he was beginning to hit it in Hollywood this fall, when they invited him to play in a celebrity golf tournament at Pinehurst, North Carolina.
    This was before the fuel shortage forced airlines to curtail service and, for the occasion, 65 actors and their families were ferried across America in a chartered 727. 
    Peter Cullen, who plays to a 15 handicap, found himself paired with Roberto Di Vicenzo, the magnificent Argentinian player who once lost the Masters by marking down the wrong score.
    "I said, "Hey Roberto, you want me to keep score?" Cullen recalled the other day at the end of a Christmas visit with his family. 

    When it came time to perform at an elaborate dinner, nobody wanted to go on first. "I said, 'You want an icebreaker, I'll break the ice," said Cullen, who went out and broke up the place with his impressions of Richard Nixon and Howard Cosell. 
    This sort of willing attitude comes from working at the CBC, where all performers are underpaid and nobody is a star. Paradoxically, the CBC rehearsal hall mentality that drives our pest people out of the country, prepares them well for the Big Apple.
    If you can survive on a show with $7,000 budget, as Cullen did on a successive CBC comedy series, you can flourish on a $200,000 weekly production like Sonny and Cher.
    Having started as more or less as an announcer and a glorified extra, Cullen is beginning to find his level on America's top-rated and best produced variety series. On last week's show, he was given four minutes solo with the Cosell number. He has an offer to do a guest shot with Mary Tyler Moore. And he's involved in one or two series pilots with Blyebearde Productions, who put the Bonos on the TV map.
    So it's evident that if the bottom fell out of the Sonny and Cher market tomorrow, Cullen wouldn't lack for work.
    But at 32, Cullen apparently wants a bit more than that. Privately, he talks about putting aside enough money so that in a few years he might come home and go into the film business.
    California lifestyle, he says, is nothing beside his own city.
    And he asks about the CBC.
    "Tell me," he says, "is there anything for me here?"

An Ode to the Hanna-Barbera View Master Reels

 Out of all the old-school pieces of Hanna-Barbera merchandise that exist, I think the most charming of the lot has to be the Hanna-Barbera View Masters. What's so great about these you may ask? Instead of using traditional artwork to bring these characters and worlds to life, these reels used models and miniatures. Years before CGI was a thing, these reels were as close as you got to seeing these characters for real, and they are absolutely spectacular to look at.

I dig these View Masters a lot, but unfortunately, I haven't really talked about them on this blog. So today, I'm going to share some of my favorite images found in these reels. Starting off with a literal bang, we've got this still of Yogi drumming away. I love how much Yogi pops against that red background, and the designs of the people wouldn't look too out of place in an actual Hanna-Barbera cartoon.

This next one focuses on Quick Draw McGraw, and boy do I love how this one is staged. It's got a lot of energy, between both the lasso and the expression on the cow's face. With only a dozen or so images included in each reel, the artists behind these did an amazing job making you feel like you got your money's worth with images like these.

This Flintstones reel has more going on in it than most of these do, but it still has all the quality and charm you'd expect from these. I love Bamm Bamm pulling Fred off the ground with just a finger, and you've gotta love Barney's head poking out.

If you'd like to know more about these reels and more importantly the people behind them, check out this great blog post on Florence Thomas, who did many of the models for the images seen above. I've also done posts showcasing sketches for both the Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear reels, which I'd also recommend to fans of these. While there's been lots of Hanna-Barbera merchandise over the years, I don't think any has come close to capturing the spirit of these characters the way these View Masters did. I'd love to see an animated project of some sort take inspiration from these models. If nothing else, it wouldn't be worse than some of the directions they've taken the characters lately!

My Favorite Don Messick Roles

 I'm not quite done with talking about Don Messick just yet. Consider this post a fun bonus if you will. Back in 2024, I put together a list of my top five favorite Daws Butler roles. Now, I'm doing the same for his frequent co-star. These are, in no particular order, my favorite voices Don Messick did for Hanna-Barbera. As I'm only including five, there's going to be more than a few great characters that won't make the list. I implore you to share some of your personal favorites in the comments below, no matter how well known or obscure they may be. Now, with that out of the way, let's get into the list.

Scooby-Doo

This one is a no-brainer. If you've been following this blog for long enough, you probably know I'm not the biggest Scooby-Doo guy these days, but it would feel almost criminal to not include him on this list. He's easily the most popular of the characters Don voiced, and for good reason. While he may be cowardly, when push comes to shove, he'll do what is right and stand up for his friends. As Don himself often pointed out, "He's got human foibles. He gets into problems, but he always lands on his feet."

Astro

Moving on from Scooby, we have his predecessor, Astro, who I honestly like more than ol' Scoob. His relationship with the Jetsons family is great stuff, particularly those with Elroy and George, which couldn't be more different from each other. Despite being very similar to Scooby, Astro does have plenty of qualities unique to him, one of those being Don Messick's performance. Like the character himself, Don's performance is more over the top and exaggerated, unlike Scooby-Doo, who is more cautious and unsure. You've also gotta hand it to Astro for being the only Jetsons character to have a spin-off series, for whatever that's worth.

Boo Boo

I ranked him as one of my favorite HB characters, so of course Boo Boo had to show up here as well. Boo Boo is the perfect accomplice to Yogi, and likewise, Messick's performance is perfect alongside Daws Butler as Yogi. Whereas Yogi's voice is big and over the top, Boo Boo is more quiet and cautious. He's very much the straight man in the duo, and though another actor could have made that quite boring, in the hands of Don Messick, he's anything but. It's hard not to think of his voice when seeing the character, and in my book, that's the mark of an extraordinary voice actor.

Benton Quest

While Don Messick wasn't the actor who originated the part of Dr. Benton Quest (that honor goes to the great John Stephenson), he's without a doubt the man who made him one of the more memorable fathers in animation history. While the voice of Benton isn't too different from Don's normal voice, there's a lot more to voiceover work than doing crazy voices. Messick brought Dr. Quest both a warmness and intelligence that was vital to the character. Beyond that, the fact that the show was an action-adventure series gave Messick the opportunity for some more serious character work, which is also appreciated. Besides, who wouldn't want their dad to be a genius that takes them all over the world?

Muttley

Last but not least, I've got to give props to Dick Dastardly's nasty accomplice, Muttley. Though he's another canine character like Astro and Scooby, he might be the most unique fellow out of all of these guys. He doesn't have the character of someone like Dr. Quest or Scooby, nor does he have much of a vocabulary. Despite all that, Messick makes the character memorable with one of the most recognizable laughs in animation history. While Muttley wasn't the only character Messick played to have that distinct laugh, it's hard not to think of him when you hear it. How many other characters can you think of that are remembered from just a simple laugh? The character was a terrific sidekick to the also memorable Dick Dastardly, and their hijinks were definitely a high point of Wacky Races. Muttley is proof that a great actor can make even the simplest of roles ones worth remembering, and I think that's one of the great things about Don Messick. Just like Daws Butler and Mel Blanc, he created so many characters that endure to this day. No matter where you go, people know not just who Scooby-Doo is, but what he sounds like. If that's not an impressive legacy, I don't know what is.

Video of the Week: A Don Messick Demonstration

 To close out this week long celebration of Don Messick, I've got quite the video for you all to check out. This comes from the late Paul Maher's great archives, and showcases Don at what I believe is a charity event from the late 1980s. It's a pretty long video, and throughout Messick discusses everything from his early work to The Duck Factory. He also demonstrates many of his voices, including the New Zealand kiwi bird that was mentioned in Monday's post. Give it a look down below!

Don Messick Tributes

 On October 24th, 1997, Don Messick passed away at the age of 71 following a stroke. His passing was a huge blow to the animation world, and an outpouring of support from the community soon followed. Today, I'm sharing several of the great tributes that were put out in honor of the one and only Don Messick.

Here's a tribute from the year 2000 by Brett Rogers, a freelance writer who often wrote for Animation World Magazine. It also features some fantastic quotes from Messick, originally sourced from an interview Rogers conducted with him back in 1995. 

Scott Innes, who took over the role of Scooby-Doo following Messick's retirement and knew him in his later years, wrote this poem in honor of the vocal giant.

Hanna-Barbera themselves put out this touching piece in Don's memory, featuring Shaggy and Scooby-Doo in mourning. The artwork was drawn by Iwao Takamoto, a Hanna-Barbera mainstay and character designer for the Scooby-Doo cast.

Lastly, Mark Evanier, a man who has written many a comic book and cartoon, put together this extremely well written piece on Messick shortly after his passing. Though Don Messick passed away almost thirty years ago, his legacy will no doubt endure for years to come, and not simply because of his characters. It is the memories and the ways he impacted the lives of so many that I personally think will be his greatest legacy of all.

Messick Enters The Duck Factory

 Don Messick could be found in cartoons, radio, and commercials, but in his career that spanned over fifty years, Messick only had one major on-camera role. That, my friends, was The Duck Factory.

Never heard of it? That's for good reason. It was a sitcom that aired on NBC for only three months in 1984. It follows the employees of the titular Duck Factory, an animation studio behind the popular in-universe animated series, "The Dippy Duck Show." Messick plays, rather fittingly, a voice actor known as Wally Wooster, allowing Messick to show his vocal talents even in a live-action setting. 

The show in general had quite an impressive ensemble cast. Jay Tarses, a writer for The Bob Newhart Show, portrays a writer at the studio. Jack Gilford and Clarence Gilyard Jr. both play artists, while Teresa Ganzel, another HB voice actor, is Sheree Winkler, who runs the company. And for the lead role of cartoonist Skip Tarkenton, we have some guy named Jim Carrey. Never heard of him before. 

While this all sounds fun and it definitely has the makings of a sitcom classic, the show itself is just kind of fine. It's nothing horrible for sure, but it's also not that great, either. But if you'd like to judge the show yourself, check out the first episode below. The other twelve are also available online, as the show has unfortunately never been released in full on home video. It's certainly not the best show, but it's great to see Messick perform a role for once rather than simply hear him. 

Don Messick Commercials

 As yesterday's post pointed out, in addition to his work in cartoons and radio, Don Messick was also often heard in many commercials throughout the years. Today, I'm going to share three of them, all from different eras of Don's career.

Starting off, here's Don (sounding a lot like Droopy) being heard in an international highway signs public service announcement from the 1960s. However, he's not alone here. Tell me if the other voice in this clip sounds familiar?

Jumping forward to 1981, we can hear Messick in this Green Giant commercial, voicing Mr. Owl (no, not that one). No longer informing viewers about traffic safety, Messick instead tells them about the wonders of Green Giant Niblets Corn.

Finally, you can't really talk about Don Messick without talking about Scooby-Doo, and over the years, Messick voiced the character in plenty of commercials. This one aired on Cartoon Network in 1994, and as you can guess, is a commercial promoting the show airing on the channel. Once again, Messick is joined by one of his frequent animation costars. This time, it's Casey Kasem as Shaggy. Definitely a short promo, but a sweet one all the same.

Don Messick at 100

Yes, you read that right. It was on this day 100 years ago that one of the voice acting greats, Don Messick, was born in Buffalo, New York. There's a lot one can say about Mr. Messick. You can discuss his characters, his love of ventriloquism, his charity work, the list goes on. This week, you're getting five straight posts of nothing but Don Messick. Today, we're starting with this surprisingly in-depth profile on Messick from the Santa Barbara News, published on January 24th, 1987. Messick reflects on his career, bumping into Bela Lugosi, and a favorite character of his you've probably never heard of.

I think that's enough out of me, though. Enjoy this deep dive into one of the best to ever do it, and then some! 

A man of a thousand voices

By Joan Crowder

    You might not recognize the face, but you've certainly heard his voice. He's been a flea, a talking spoon, a lemon, even a Rice Krispie. He's Scooby Doo, Bam Bam, Boo Boo Bear, Ranger Smith, Muttley the dog, Astro, and Papa Smurf.
    If you're more inclined toward the classical, you've heard Don Messick's voice on the local classical music radio station KDB (1490 AM, 93.7 FM).
    "When my voice started to change at about 13, I discovered it had an amazing flexibility," Messick said in an interview at his home and studio. "My parents gave me my first ventriloquist's dummy, and I bought a book and practiced in front of a mirror. I sent away for my second dummy, Woody de Forest," Messick said, introducing Woody who sat on the window seat in Messick's living room, along with Scooby Doo and a menagerie of stuffed animals and puppets.
    As he introduced these friends, each in its own voice, he explained that each one is dear to him, reminding him of various phases of his career. Woody donned a uniform and went in the service with Messick when he was drafted at 18. The little kiwi bird hand puppet recently toured children's hospitals in New Zealand with Messick, and Scooby, well, "'Scooby Doo' was the longest running network cartoon, running for 16 years before going into syndication."
    "The Smurfs" cartoon is in its seventh year, and Messick says he likes being Papa Smurf "because he has a good image." He gets fan letters for Papa Smurf. One girl wrote about a problem she had and said she wanted to know what advice Papa Smurf could give her. 

    Messick said radio and television are not as impersonal as one might think. He once got a braille fan letter for Scooby Doo and has kept up the correspondence with the blind girl from Pennsylvania who sent it. She and Messick correspond with cassettes.
    "It's nice to realize that you can have a one-to-one relationship through the immediacy of TV," Messick said.
    Messick had his first radio program at age 15, a 15-minute sitcom patterned after his favorite radio programs of the time, Jack Benny, Fibber McGee, Burns and Allen. He did all the voices himself—live.
    When he was drafted, during WWII, he met many people in broadcasting who later helped him break into the business. He worked in special services as an entertainer toward the end of his time in the service. When he got out, he became a free-lance radio actor on such shows as "Let George Do It" and "Night Beat."
    He had attended acting school in his home town of Baltimore and appeared on various radio shows. "I played a lot of doctors," Messick said. "I guess I had a good doctor voice."
    After the army, Messick went to New York for what he calls his "starving era." He appeared on the "Ted Mack Show" under various names. He said they sprinkled the amateur show with some quality so it wouldn't be too bad.
    It was during this time that he appeared as a ghost in a midnight spook show with Bela Lugosi. "Lugosi and his wife had a suite at a big hotel, and I didn't have any place to stay, so they invited me to share their suite."
    Messick and Woody did their ventriloquist act regularly on the "Horace Heidt Show" on television and they went on the road with the Dick Contino Company.
    When Messick came to Los Angeles in the 50s, he worked for six years on the "Beanie and Cecil" puppet show, doing a grueling three shows a day, five days a week.
    He got his start in cartoons at MGM, when he substituted for the regular voice of Droopy the Dog, Messick said, in Droopy's voice.
    "At the time they were releasing backlogs of cartoons because animation as they were doing it then, like Disney and the old Tom and Jerry cartoons, was too expensive for TV."
    Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were the pioneers of limited animation, and Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, and Scooby Doo came out of that movement. 
    "We do the voices first, then they animate to the voices," Messick explained. "With the voice-overs you do your job and get out fast."

    Residual fees for doing the cartoon voices have changed over the years, Messick said. Originally, under the Screen Actors Guild, after a cartoon's sixth run, the actors got no more fees. This was revised in the mid-60s to eight, then 10 runs. Now the residuals continue ad infinitum, but drop off after the 10th run.
    Payment varies for a commercial. If it is shown during a program, such as a commercial that interrupts a movie, payment is higher than if it is a "wild spot," which is shown between programs.
    A new two-hour Hanna-Barbera special, "The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones" are being filmed currently and Messick goes to Los Angeles to work on those. He is Astro, the family dog.
    He is also the voice of the lemon for Lemon Joy and Snap, of Snap, Crackle and Pop cereal fame. He's been a flea, a mosquito, and a hornet on the Raid commercials. He regularly auditions for cartoons and commercials through his agent, Charles Stern, in Los Angeles.
    He said when he first got the job as Joy lemon, he was flown to New York to "sit in the studio for hours" while they got the animation ready for his voice. He said he liked the trips to New York, but the method was too time consuming. Now they send him a video of the animation and he dubs the voice.
    Messick has come out from behind the screen in recent years to do live performances for children in hospitals all over the country and in England and New Zealand. He got started on this project through Kentucky Fried Chicken's support campaign for the March of Dimes. He was asked to travel to major cities to appear on talk shows and interviews to explain the work of the charity. He was asked to do a similar thing for the Spastic Children's Society in England and for the Crippled Children's Group in New Zealand.
    While he was shopping in New Zealand, Messick saw a kiwi bird hand puppet, and decided to adopt it for his appearances with the children in the hospitals there. He gave the little bird a New Zealand accent and it was a big hit. Now it's one of his favorite characters. He demonstrated the little fellow's accent in a conversation with Scooby Doo. The two voices interacted swiftly as Messick switched from the New Zealand accent to the Scooby voice.
    In addition to the satisfaction he gets from entertaining, Messick said the tours have given him insight into how much can be done through technology for the handicapped now. "I have gotten acquainted with some of these people who could do nothing. Now they are able to activate machinery which enables them to communicate and do things."
    The touring has an added advantage for Messick. "It gives me a chance to get into radio facilities of all kinds," he said. "In England radio stations are often in beautiful old manor houses, and I got to visit the BBC in London."
    Messick said he enjoys announcing for the KDB classical musical station here. He tapes the programs in his Sundial Studio, and he said he learns a lot about classical music and composers by doing it.
    The studio, an eight-track facility, is also used by local advertising organizations to tape commercials, sound effects and production music.
    Messick said he spends a good deal of time in the studio. "Radio is still my first love," he said with a smile.

Video of the Week: Adult Swim Watercooler Bumps

When Adult Swim launched in 2001, Cartoon Network produced a series of bumpers to help promote the new block. These are known nowadays as the "Watercooler" bumpers, and are basically exactly what you think they are. Each one has a different pair of cartoon characters chatting at the watercooler. They were made primarily for Adult Swim, but were also frequently used to promote the main Cartoon Network channel as well, hence the CN logo seen at the end of these. Check out the series below!

They're Not for Air

Adult Swim has had a lot of memorable promos and bumpers over the years, but one of the more obscure ones (and a personal favorite of mine) has to be the "Not for Air" bumpers. These aired early on in Adult Swim's history, and are pretty simple. They're short clips of old Hanna-Barbera cartoons with a heavy dose of unnecessary censorship added into the mix. Not exactly highbrow humor, but they're funny for what they are. Below is a Flintstones bumper, based on the episode "Fred's New Boss".

This second bumper focuses on Jonny Quest, and is much shorter than the previous clip. That being said, there's still plenty of censor bleeps to be found here.

Last but most certainly not least, Scooby-Doo and the gang also got in on the fun with this bumper. I'm a little surprised Scooby was included in these, as by this point the character was beginning to become "off-limits" for Adult Swim to use. But here, we get to see him in all of his censored glory!

Adult Swim Posters

 Here's a cool piece of early Adult-Swim advertising. This is a set of five posters commissioned by Cartoon Network in 2001 to advertise the then-forthcoming Adult Swim block. Each poster is for a different show, and sports a lot of color and character. Below is the Aqua Teen Hunger Force poster, for example.

Here are two for Space Ghost and it's spin-off, The Brak Show, respectively. Space Ghost had been running on CN since 1994, but Brak was all-new and made specifically for Adult Swim. Unfortunately, it didn't have quite the same staying power that Space Ghost did, and was ended in 2003 after three seasons.

The last two shows represented in this set are Sealab 2021 and Harvey Birdman. Despite premiering alongside the channel, Cowboy Bebop and Home Movies didn't get any posters, which I assume was the fault of licensing more than anything else. Even so, these posters are still a great set, and they're a nice throwback to the early years of Adult Swim. Speaking of, remember when Adult Swim was only on two nights a week? Nowadays, I'm pretty sure it's on more than Cartoon Network itself is!

Diving Into Adult Swim

 It was 25 years ago this week that Adult Swim debuted on Cartoon Network. In the years since, it has been the go-to place for edgy, off-kilter slices of adult animation, but in its early years, it gave aging Hanna-Barbera properties a whole new life.

Of the six shows that run on the block's first night, all but two of them were based in some part on older Hanna-Barbera titles. Everyone knows all about Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, but you can't forget its spin-off, The Brak Show, or other series like Sealab 2021 and Harvey Birdman. Much like Space Ghost, these shows brought back often forgotten Hanna-Barbera characters, and spun them into wildly diverging directions. Even in the years since, Hanna-Barbera has remained a core part of Adult Swim's identity. Several of the previously mentioned shows got spin-offs of their own, and newer series like Mike Tyson Mysteries were clear homages to the Hanna-Barbera cartoons of yesteryear. 

Adult Swim has changed a lot over the years, but it's (in my opinion at least) stayed far more true to its roots than Cartoon Network has as of late. To celebrate its 25th and the impact it has had on animation, let's go back to the beginning with this piece from the Chicago Tribune, dated September 1st, 2001. It's a good preview for the block and several of its programs, which premiered the following evening. Also included in this post is a collection of several early Adult Swim promos, which I'm sure will be more than familiar for a lot of you.

'Adult Swim' hopes to make a splash

By Allan Johnson

    Fox's "The Simpsons" paved the way for animated series that attract older teens and adults. But few cartoons since have matched that level of sophisticated, subversive humor without crossing into comedy that many find unsuitable, or worse, not funny.
    Cartoon Network has had some success in this area with its witty and hip "Space Ghost Coast to Coast." The channel has wisely inserted the half-hour spinoff, "The Brak Show," starring the ghost host's dumbfounded talk show crewmate, into a three-hour block of animation for viewers age 18 to 34.
    The umbrella block, called "Adult Swim," premieres Sunday from 9 p.m. to midnight (it encores the same time Thursdays). The shows have ratings ranging from TV-PG to TV-14. They also show why doing funny, adult animated comedy is so tricky.
    There are several offerings besides the delightful "Space Ghost" and "Brak" (a sendup of those unreal 1960s family sitcoms):
    "Home Movies" is an amusing but failed 1999 UPN series in which a cast of voice actors improvise scenes, and the animation is derived from what they make up.
    "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law" is a lawyer who looks like the DC Comics character Hawkman and takes on quirky criminal cases involving various Hanna-Barbera characters. The opener is a nasty custody battle between Dr. Benton Quest and his "longtime partner" Race Bannon for Quest's son Jonny and Jonny's friend Hadji. The semiserious, semi comical voice of Birdman is from Steppenwolf's Gary Cole of "Midnight Caller."
    "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" is a detective unit made up of a talking milkshake, hamburger meat and an order of fries. How it sounds is just how it is—simple and flat.
    "Sealab 2021," a really, really updated version of the 1970s Hanna-Barbera cartoon featuring an underwater city. How updated? A female crewmate seeks one of the males of the crew to father her child. The premise reaches, but rarely scores. Japanese "anime" series "Cowboy Bebop," another "Adult Swim" show, wasn't available.