In the memory of cartoon network

When I was a little girl there were constant wars over who would control the television set. Our house was divided into three fronts with my grandpa and dad rooting for the news/sports channel, my grandmother and mom wanted the cookery show or some random serial. I was the lone soldier of the third front but I had weapons which were lethal. If constant pleadings or a puppy face didnt work, a teardop was enough to do the trick(Ha!). So the warrior had control over a channel nobody else in the house wanted to watch- Cartoon Network.

I think we got cable television only when i turned about five or six. Before that it used to be Ramayana, Mahabharata and Krishna and other random mythological shows on Doordarshan and infotainment shows like Surabhi (I may have sent a dozen postcards for their contest questions in that era when SMSes were unheard of) and I would sulk every week as to how they would never pick my postcard in the winning entry which would win a train ride to some hill station in North India. 6 p.m every evening was reserved for Disney Hour. You dare change the channel when Disney Hour was on!

I guess we got a colour television and cable network only in 1996 or 97. It was like seeing a brand new world.It had something for everyone. It had a news show called "Aaj tak" which ended with the presenter saying "yeh thi khabrein aaj tak, intezar kariye kal tak". (Who would have imagined that it would later morph into a 24 hour nonsensical news channel). And it had Khana Khazana for the ladies which always had a catchline that said "Namak swadanusar". And then there was Close up Antakshari in which the only constant feature was Anu kapoor.

However, what caught my fancy was a channel that showed cartoons all day! I felt William Hanna and Joseph Barbera were godsent people. Cartoon Network had the most amazing cartoons anyone could have ever asked for. While on one hand there were the Flintstones (Fred Flinstone) and their modern stone age family on the other hand it was the Jetsons and their family of the future. Captain planet was is and will always remain my favourite character. There was a time I pretended being a planeteer and wore 5 rings symbolising the same.Yogi bear,Swat Kats,The Addams Family, Josie and the Pussycats and the adventures of Penelope Pitstop or the geek boy Dexter were essential for my happy existence. I totally adored Powerpuff girls(still do) and Scooby's all star laff a lympics and I wish they showed 'em still. But with the initial cartoon network there was one major disappointment. At night all the cartoons would get warped in a dynamite sorta thing and then some lame english movie channel called TNT would come on air. That would also serve as my deadline for my bedtime ( 9 p.m sheesh!)

I do not recall when but it was probably somewhere close to the late nineties that Cartoon Network became a 24 hr channel. And with that came new cartoons like Johnny Quest and Pokemon and I am Weasel and The Roadrunner show. All of which formed my favourites. As much as I liked them, I hated Johnny Bravo and Courage the Cowardly Dog.

I always thought things get better with age. Somehow I don't feel the same for my once upon a time beloved channel anymore. With the checkerboard style of cartoon network giving way to a more 'sleek' looking CN I feel the quality of cartoons deteriorated to a great extent. The awesomest cartoons got replaced by lame ones like Chhota Bheem and Gali gali sim sim and Chowder among others.

I WANT THE OLD CARTOON NETWORK BACK!!