Monday, October 24, 2016

Toons After Dark: Downtown (1999)

By the end of the 90's, MTV was looking for the next big hit cartoon. It had been two years since Beavis & Butt-Head had ended, and its spinoff series, Daria, needed something to complement it on the schedule.

Downtown, they say, should've been it. Series creator Chris Prynoski had worked on "Beavis & Butt-Head Do America", and was given the green light to develop his own series. Unfortunately, one season of 13 episodes was all Prynoski got, as MTV, seeing the ratings, cancelled Downtown. Prynoski, however, persevered, and would later work on Megas XLR for Cartoon Network, and Motorcity for DisneyXD. Both of those series were also short-lived for whatever reason.

I never got to see the show, so there isn't going to be a rating. For now, scope the episode, "The Con", with WWE superstar the Undertaker as a special guest star.

2 comments:

Goldstar said...

As you mentioned in the article, Chris Prynoski, along with Butch Lukic, would go on to create Megas XLR for Cartoon Network. One of the characters from the main cast of Downtown, Goat, was also a recurring character on Megas. Chris Prynoski seemed to have been harboring some resentment towards MTV for cancelling Downtown after a single season; a running joke on Megas XLR was the presence of a cable TV network called Pop TV (an obvious parody of MTV). A billboard, station or satellite bearing the Pop TV logo would be destroyed in every episode of Megas.

hobbyfan said...

And, today, there exists a Pop TV network, which was the former TV Guide Channel. Go figure.