A new deal between Cartoon Network and Netflix has led to the release of a wide selection of both old and new series, including some of the cutting-edge work done on Adult Swim. So if you’ve ever needed an excuse to get high and watch cartoons, this is it. The new offerings include classic ’90s fare like “Dexter’s Laboratory,” “Johnny Bravo,” “Ed, Edd n Eddy,” “Courage the Cowardly Dog” and “Samurai Jack,” alongside modern 21st-century series like “Adventure Time,” “The Boondocks,” “Regular Show” and “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.”
They’re not all amazing (“Cow & Chicken,” I’m looking at you), but having them on Netflix is one step closer to getting a centralized streaming platform that can replace cable television once and for all. As is, Netflix has huge holes in its sizable television programming (“Community” is available on Netflix in Canada, but not here in the states, even though all the other NBC Thursday night series are online due to contract issues), but if a notoriously stingy company like Cartoon Network can finally loosen up, the future of streaming might finally be here.
But I digress — let’s talk about some cartoons. If you’re on Netflix and in the mood for something astoundingly weird, then you should immediately start with “Courage the Cowardly Dog.” The series is a David Lynch-ian abstraction of Middle America nothingness with every episode putting Courage up against some very frightening “bad guys,” like a cursed Egyptian tablet or a cool cat with some badass theme music. If it doesn’t make you laugh, it’ll at least convince you to never leave California.
Among the new additions is a show bursting at the seams with imagination — in some cases, almost literally. The foster home for imaginary friends at the center of “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends” begins with an epic three-part introduction along with its cast of unbelievable characters. It functions with a unique rhythm, thanks to characters like Wilt, an enormously tall basketball-playing imaginary friend who holds a dark past beneath his boundless optimism and his wonky, stubby left arm.
A million things could be said for “Adventure Time,” but I’ll simply describe it as the most hilarious, spaced out post-apocalyptic display of surrealism that television has ever seen. It’s definitely worth a look. Compared to the kitschy, nostalgic Adult Swim series “Venture Brothers,” “Adventure Time” is downright sci-fi. It tells the tale of an old school family of adventurers, including the clueless, wannabe detective duo the Venture sons, their insecure father-with-daddy-issues and their superhuman bodyguard as they’re chased around the globe by their self-proclaimed arch-nemesis, the Monarch. An integral part of Adult Swim’s distortion of cartoon tropes and classics, “Adventure Time” keeps the characters weirdly human even amid the most bizarre situations.
Adult Swim’s mission statement is to air programming so strange that a channel surfer would have to sit down to watch what happens — and their shows like “Children’s Hospital” and “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” are defined by their unpredictability. Something may be lost without the commercials, but either way, it proves that the level of creativity on display over at Cartoon Network is an unparalleled one.
