The Groovies

Prepare yourself for a double dose of nostalgia here; we're going back to the nineties to see how Cartoon Network (and its sister channels Boomerang and Tooncast) launched a fun marketing campaign which is still an internet sensation.

My dad and I used to watch cartoons together. Actually, most times, he would be watching cartoons and I would come and join him. His favorite was the ever-classic Flintstones, which first aired in 1960 and only ran for six years. Wow! It's so prevalent today that I thought it had run for decades, until I looked it up! But he also loved The Jetsons, Atom Ant (and, by the way, still sometimes barges into my bedroom in the morning with the clarion call "Up and at 'em, Atom Ant!" to wake me up), and the whole Looney Tunes gang. Most of these cartoons had well and truly faded out in the nineties, when I was in the prime cartoon-watching age range. And then, something happened:  the Cartoon Network Groovies.

In the nineties and 2000s, Cartoon Network began airing two-minute cartoon-based songs by famous bands. Most of them are still on Youtube for easy viewing. Among these were Atom's Theme (Atom Ant, '65-'68), Jabberjaw:  Running Underwater (Jabberjaw, '76-'78), Musical Evolution (Josie and the Pussycats, '70-'71), and Yogi Bear, Live at Jellystone (The Yogi Bear Show, 1961). Mixed in with these classics were songs for new cartoons, like Dexter's Lab (1996-2003), The Powerpuff Girls (1998-2005), Ed, Edd n Eddy (1999-2009), and Johnny Bravo (1997-2004).

The mix served to create, in little hearts like mine, the sense that I knew and loved each and every one of the shows from the songs:  the older songs got a bit of the devotion that I routinely displayed for the Powerpuff Girls and Ed, Edd n Eddy; the newer stuff acquired a healthy dose of nostalgia because they were associated with shows that, while older and not nearly as long-run, had proven to be much more enduring. I was hooked. And that marketing campaign is still working through Youtube.

This video, the Powerpuff Girls' "Signal in the Sky" has 113k views:

Josie and the Pussycats, have 431k views on this video:

Then, of course, there's Yogi Bear's popular video, with 912k views.

And my personal favorite, Jabberjaw's "Jabberjaw:  Running Underwater" with 932k.

But by far, the runaway winner is Ed, Edd n Eddy with "The Incredible Shrinking Day" and an absolutely astounding fanbase - more than 1,500,000 views!

Clearly, then, cartoons are an easy, easy target for nostalgia marketing. There are two entire television stations devoted to nostalgic cartoons, Boomerang and Tooncast. Some of the shows even date back as far as 2011, which just goes to show that it's never too early for a marketer to capitalize on nostalgia. And it'll keep going for as long as kids still learn to recognize phrases like "No respect! nyuk nyuk nyuk" and "I'm smarter than your av-er-age bear!"

I know this entire class is about marketing tricks, which often has a bad connotation. In cases like this, though, I don't think it is a bad thing. After all, cartoons bring families together; siblings stop fighting when they have the option of watching cartoons instead; parents and children really can bond over cartoons, old and new; and let's be honest, after a frustrating day, is there anything better than the baseless, senseless, and overall harmless violence of cartoons? Maybe, then, it's not right to call nostalgic cartoons a marketing trick or ploy; maybe it's a conscious effort to keep a good thing going and, hey, make money by the bucket while you do. So here's to the Groovies, binding generations of cartoons together.