Ted Turner

Fans that were born from the growing appreciation of classic animation own a debt to media mogul Ted Turner, whom he passed away at age 87 this week. He founded CNN on a period where any news entertainment started to come biaised, playing his own part to the success of the Atlanta Braves baseball team, was a philanthropist and activist and also, managed to acquired the whole MGM and Hanna-Barbera studios of old for himself.

This is the last element that we couldn't ignore, that without him and his bold motives of keep his company growing, animation in the Western side would perhaps not be the same. And probably the biggest animation property that Turner have make it profitable and lasting a legacy that perists again today are Scooby-Doo and sure, Tom and Jerry!

The latter is the reason why Cartoon Network was born, in 1992. In the '00s, this is them -- not Looney Tunes -- that Warner Home Video started a trend to release and re-release the packaging of the same 100+ shorts producing for MGM (Mostly the Hanna-Barbera era). By the '00s, the cat-and-mouse pair was seen everywhere in the world, even more than Looney Tunes, if they could afford a bigger profit to it and more importantly, to save them the costs to pay the dubbing cast. (Like the way here in years, the same 1949-1966 Road Runners keeped to playing at fillers for a off day or something. Apparently, Europpeans find them too "violent" to be seen unless here, but it's not so the case.)

Easily the most biggest attention of Turner's career and lifetime have not to do with CNN, Cartoon Network of his impressive catalog. It have to do about... his activist engagement for Earth. The creation of Captain Planet, as banal it looked like, had influenced younger generations to be more careful with our planet, to recycle more instead to fill the landfills sites, stop the biggest monopolies who menace the more poorer areas, and a hero that is not a woman, when his own mission is to save the planet is all the more revolutionnary, even for '90s standards. Ted Turner really were ahead of its time and we must to greetings him for that.

Little controvery aside, by the suicide of his father and also, his own son, his company make omitted any scene that are about a character who suicide himself with a pistol or the references of black-American caricatures. Fortunately, it only affect his own TV sets without removed it completely from the original film prints. That annoyed tons of American fans at that time blogs and forums became that popular, but to its credits, it had harm more Turner than what his detractors could saying.

Whether he do right or wrong, Ted Turner deserve to be remembered for have saved the classic animation out of oblivion and make us growth a new generation of fans for study, enjoy and appreciate the hard work tons of animation artists have doing in the glory days of Fleischer/Famous Popeyes, Warner Bros., (Both were ex-A.A.P. TV properties which Time Warner saved it in 1995) Hanna-Barbera or MGM. And also to his efforts for a much greenery and eco-fridnely world. He will sorely missed when this crual world only advantage the fewer rich-brats who may benefit it.