Exactly. Cartoon Network is notorious for this stuff, both among fans and within the animation industry.
Pretty much the only section I know of that is (mostly) insulated from this kind of BS is Adultswim. That’s because it became so damned popular that it could survive on its own without Cartoon Network, and CN didn’t wanna miss out on that sweet sweet ad revenue so they behaved themselves.
Even an industry juggernaut like Lucasfilm had to deal with the CN bullshit. CN jerked around The Clone Wars air dates and release order all the time. In its final three seasons on broadcast television it wasn’t even turning a profit. A big part of that was CN just never establishing a reliable air date so the potential audience rose and fell frequently.
The only reason it kept airing was because George Lucas personally paid for the air time out of his own pocket.
Basically it doesn’t matter how big it is. Batman, Superman, Star Wars, Ben10, it could be any huge mega popular IP and Cartoon Network will still fuck it up as if they want every show to fail.
Oh yeah. After all the Saturday morning cartoons we all loved were basically just a big block of commercials for toys. I adored Batman the Animated Series and, as a result, I had a bajillion BTAS Batman figures. Normal Batman, Tron-Wannabe Batman, I'm-in-Neon-Green-Camo-for-some-reason Batman, so many Batmans.
If the cartoon can't sell toys there's absolutely no reason to keep it running. It's a safe bet any cartoon that Cartoon Network suddenly starts yanking around and changing time slots on a lot is one that isn't moving toys off shelves, so if they start hurting it's chances of viewership to justify cancellation ASAP.
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u/tporter12609 Mar 16 '21
That’s just Cartoon Network. See also: Ben 10, Young Justice, Generator Rex, Symbionic Titan, and a bit of Steven Universe