Adult Swim To Offer Streaming Video Option

Julio Capote wrote to mention a press release making the rounds stating that Adult Swim will be allowing viewers to watch shows via streaming video. From the article: "Starting Sept. 16, AdultSwim.com will offer full-length episodes of these and other programs in an initiative Cartoon Network is calling Friday Night Fix. Each week between 11 p.m.-6 a.m. ET, a selection of current and fan-requested shows will be available for free viewing. There also will be previews of episodes scheduled to debut the next Sunday" The official Williams Street announcement is also available.

Comments

Cool!

[FlyByPC]

Cartoons are a lot more interesting (and more intellectually stimulating) than most of what's on TV these days.

This is perfect for...

[Orinthe]

This is perfect for me and my roommate--we are college students with our own apartment, and can't afford to get even basic cable service ($52.95/mo?!). We have netflix instead, which is fine for me since I don't watch TV anyway, but she misses her Adult Swim. Internet is a necessity, though, so we have 5Mbps downstream cable internet (more than enough for streaming video). Now we can get the one thing we were missing out on--free and legal!

Thank you, Cartoon Network!

Is it really that popular?

[Anonymous Coward]

First off, I'm a woman, so that may taint my perspective. I just don't get adults who watch the Cartoon Network. Cartoons are for kids. They are written and drawn to catch the eye of children who respond to bright colors and geometric shapes.

My feeling is that adults should probably have grown out of that stage. I know one big exception that everyone will automatically pounce on is "what about anime?" But what about anime? Do you prefer watching ridiculously drawn women in nothing more than a couple strips of leather battling multi-armed beasts? Isn't there something fundamentally wrong with someone who associates a children's cartoon with sexiness? I don't want to say that such a person is a pedophile, but I don't think we can deny that anime capitalizes on schoolgirl uniforms as a form of sexual enticement.

I love geek guys. I love it when they talk about math and science or get wrapped up in talking about technology. I just kind of cringe when I hear them talking about anime. I feel like I'm looking at someone a couple years away from being raided by the FBI for soliciting sex with a minor in a chatroom.

Re:Is it really that popular?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cartoons are for kids

No, they are not. Just like videogames can be for adults and for children - cartoons are for whoever their intended audience is. You, madam, are the idiot parent that would buy age 17+ rated games for your 4-year old child (like, say, "Silent Hill"), then attempt to whine to the press because "all games should be for children" when you find little Johnny playing a survival horror game that involves significant quantites of blood, undead children, entrails - and a visit to hell.

When cartoons were first introduced they were shown to an adult audience. They were at times the subversive underdog of cinema, on occasion being biting political commentaries. No difference here from books or movies - cartoons and videogames are just like any other medium.

They are written and drawn to catch the eye of children who respond to bright colors and geometric shapes

No offense, ma'am, but that's bullshit and an incredibly naive oversimplification. Yes, some cartoons are designed for children. But many aren't. Look at the writing of Invader Zim or any of the Adult Swim set as mentioned in this Slashdot article (Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Space Ghost, SeaLab, Harvey Birdman) - and you'd find that most of the humour goes straight over the heads of any kids watching. It's more funny, more daring - and more subversive - than a world full of "prime time" entertainment that's supposed to be for "adults".

For example, Aqua Teen Hunger Force (one of my current favorites) - is in no way suitable for children. One of the episodes in the recent series had a character (Shake) deliberately kill himself so he could haunt another (Meatwad). Shake writes a bitterly funny and abusive suicide note, swallows a handful of sleeping pills, sticks a car exhaust in his mouth, fills a pool with pirana fish, drops a toaster into the water, then jumps in. And when returning from beyond the grave, he asks another character to bring him back "with math". (Another joke involves the phrase "we are so fucking retarded"). The episode is extraordinarily funny, and in no way for children.

The best animated movies (like, say, The Incredibles) - have done so well at the box office because they are clever enough to work on two levels - to entertain the kids as the adults expect the movie to, but to also give the adults an enjoyable experience (with the lines that the kids don't get) so that the adults won't mind seeing the movie again or recommending it to their adult friends.

I would actually state that "prime time" TV is dangerous to children because it presents an oversimplified, vacuum sealed, sugar-coated, advertiser-approved view of the world that does nothing except teach people to be good little consumer whores.

But what about anime? Do you prefer watching ridiculously drawn women in nothing more than a couple strips of leather battling multi-armed beasts?

Yes, I do. The adult female figure is frickin' gorgeous. Ask any straight male if he likes watching naked women in pornography - 90% will say yes, the other 10% are liars or they're dating a porn star. And I also like watching "Xena, Warrior Princess" (well, I did once) who fights monsters in leather - but that doesn't mean I stalk Lucy Lawless. (I do, however, enjoy dating tall women - and I wouldn't consider it a negative point if they happened to know how to fight monsters and handle weaponry).

Isn't there something fundamentally wrong with someone who associates a children's cartoon with sexiness?

Excuse me? I don't know about you, but I would not want my child watching "ridiculously drawn women" (as you put it), any more than I would want them watching, say The Playboy Channel. This is adult material, inappropriate for children. Do not let your children watch cartoons and anime intended for adults.

I don't want to say that such a person is a pedophile, but I don't think we can deny that anime capitalizes on schoolgirl uniforms as a form of sexual enticement.

Re:Is it really that popular?

[zakezuke]

First off, I'm a woman, so that may taint my perspective. I just don't get adults who watch the Cartoon Network. Cartoons are for kids. They are written and drawn to catch the eye of children who respond to bright colors and geometric shapes.

Cartoons are for kids? I've seen some cartoons that would make your nose hair curl. Animation is a medium no more or less respectable than any other form. The key difference with Animation is you require less studio space, you don't have to go on location, you don't have to pay people to sit for hours and and deal with crafty make-up.

Now part of the reason that people like my self started to like Japanese Animation was the fact that many shows actually told the story. StarBlazers is a great example of this, many of us as children woke up at 5ish am before school just to catch the next sequence in a long story. Something like Ulysses 31 a childs adaptation of the Odyssey done up sci-fi style. Given the choice between a story or Hanna Barbera any day. And as far as entertainment for kids is concerned... I'd rather give them something with substance like "The Mysterious Cities of Gold" than Pokémon. South Park described that best... "It's not that it's violent, It's just stupid!".

Not all animation is for children. While I'll freely admit that there is much in the way of odd looking women wereing very little or even more odd sailor uniforms... there is other stuff that are full length movies.

Isn't there something fundamentally wrong with someone who associates a children's cartoon with sexiness?

Talk to a cultrue that has laws against filming nudity below the belt. I'm not a henti fan.

I love geek guys. I love it when they talk about math and science or get wrapped up in talking about technology. I just kind of cringe when I hear them talking about anime.

To each their own.

I don't want to say that such a person is a pedophile, but I don't think we can deny that anime capitalizes on schoolgirl uniforms as a form of sexual enticement. ....

I feel like I'm looking at someone a couple years away from being raided by the FBI for soliciting sex with a minor in a chatroom.

Oh good gawd... the funny thing is while this is a total troll I totally see people who don't understand the concept of what a pedophile is and somehow associate liking animation with being a mentaly disturbed wacko. Pedophiles are people who fucked up they are threatened by secondary sexual attributes and only get their hots on for children. And anyone who enjoyes animated women with huge bazongas and a leather strip or worse yet tigerskin (lum) is pretty much not in that class of sicko. If a guy likes boobies.... a pedo he is not. Some people who enjoy Henti might be a little bit off IMHO... but as long as the stuff they enjoy is between concenting adults I could care less.

It's rather a western idea that animation is for children. Anime isn't typicaly for children. I don't understand why, perhaps land cost is at a premium and it's cheaper to hire artists. Perhaps there are special effects that can't really be pulled off in a cost effective way other than the use of animation. Hendi I believe exists because of laws regarding pornography... either that or it's hard to find people to be degraded in such awful aways... couldn't tell ya. Or perhaps people like the artistic style. But there are tons of reasons why someone might choose to go animated rather than live action.

So don't enjoy animation all you want. Don't enjoy anime all you want. But when you see the popularity of television shows like "Friends" "Three's Company" or "Gilligan's Island", not to speak of all the "Survivor" spinoffs ask your self how much respect you'd have for people who watch that crap. While you may not enjoy Anime... Anime at the very least in almost all cases, even Anime geard tward kids at the very minimum has a story. There might even be a sub-plot. It might not be a good story but that is a vast improvement to "Simple Life". Simply put... I have more respect for a person who watches Speed Racer of all things than "Simple Life".

Re:I want more!

[CRCulver]

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but if movie producers can't make a profit selling movies, they won't continue to make movies.

Hollywood is still making a profit on films in spite of file-sharing. There have been various news stories of late how the industry has been cooking the books to complain of losing money due to P2P when in fact profits are huge.

And I don't like the idea of getting sued.

None of the RIAA et al. lawsuits were against downloaders, whose behaviour is questionably legal, but rather against those who were offering files to others. Download all you want without fear as long as you don't upload, although that you make you a leech, and some peers would ban you.

Plus, the victims of lawsuits were generally in the America and a few other countries. In Romania, where I live half the year, people offer huge collections of films and music for download with no fear, and their ISPs usually provide a city-wide network to facilitate the sharing. Sucks to be you if you are stuck in the US all the time.

Re:Streaming video?

[ultranova]

Actually, it is done in flash, then exported to video. My friend "animates" Harvey Birdman. Flash is the future of low budget 2d animation for sure. A couple o fshows on Nickolodeon are done in flash as well.

I've tried to do animation using SVG and Inkscape, but that has turned out to be a truly horrendous task. It's a pity, really - the format itself seems well-suited for animation, apart from some oddities (like storing path control points in a string rather than XML tags of their own). Having an infinite resolution in both time and space (the animation is time-key-based, so you can interpolate as many frames as wanted between keypoints, and of course vector graphics can be scaled freely) is a very nice feature...

Any change that we'll be seeing open-source SVG animation tools ?

Re:Streaming video?

[The Original Yama]

Cowboy Bebop is only half as good in the dubbed form that Cartoon Network airs. A lot gets lost in the translation (tone of voice, etc.). IMHO shows should be broadcast in the manner in which they were originally intended.

Are people really so illiterate as to prefer an inferior dub over a sub? Why do the networks insult our intelligence so?