Not all good things can last forever, but some of these ‘00s cartoons got pulled way before
their time. Was too much money to blame? If you thought Aqua Teen Hunger Force was weird,
just wait until you find out why its creators say it was canceled.
One of the biggest cartoons of the 2000s, Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender
spawned several comics as well as a sequel series, The Legend of Korra.
In 2010, a live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender hit theaters and bombed
spectacularly. According to the critic's consensus on Rotten Tomatoes, the M.
Night Shyamalan film ended up with a devastating critics' score of just 5 percent. The worst thing
about it is that Nickelodeon reportedly only axed the cartoon because Shyamalan showed an interest
in making a feature film. Former head writer for the series, Aaron Ehasz, tweeted in 2019 -
"Truthfully, there was a moment in time when we all thought we would
do a fourth season of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Then along came M. Night..."
Shyamalan defended his movie during an interview with IGN,
reminding everyone that he made it for kids, saying -
"You could make it for that same audience, which is what I did — for
nine- and ten-year-olds — or you could do the Transformers version and have Megan Fox."
Or you could've gone with the third option and made it,
you know, a good movie. At least M. Night can go back to the show for some comfort.
"I'm not looking for anyone's approval. I know who I am."
Teen Titans Go! has grown into the jewel in the Cartoon Network crown since it started airing
in 2013, but there's a certain section of the DC fandom that can't stand the show — namely,
fans of the original Teen Titans. The first animated iteration of the teenage superhero
team debuted in 2003, and their adventures were initially scheduled to last for a total
of four seasons. The show's popularity led to a fifth season, and the way that ended
made it seem as though a sixth was definitely in the pipeline… but it never materialized.
Viewers began to panic when a source close to the show told the blog Titans Tower that
the chances of getting a sixth season were slim. The blog attempted to mobilize fans,
but their protests were in vain — Cartoon Network axed the superhero series in 2006.
There's been plenty of rumors about who is to blame for the cancellation in the years since,
with some blaming Cartoon Network and others pointing the finger at Warner Bros. Animation,
who created the show. David Slack, a former producer on Teen Titans,
said in a 2017 tweet that he's, quote, "heard different answers" from different people.
Some have told him that the ratings fell because the "Trigon season" was "too scary" for its target
audience. But others said that it was Mattel that wanted it killed: the company entered into a
master toy license agreement with Cartoon Network in 2006, and Bandai had the show's toy deal.
Invader Zim is regularly ranked among Nickelodeon's best shows,
despite the fact that it didn't even make it to the end of its second season.
Created by writer and cartoonist Jhonen Vasquez, the show was pulled after just
27 episodes. A Christmas special aired in December 2002, then Zim disappeared — but
why? According to Vasquez, it was a mixture of things. He wrote in a 2010 blog post -
"In the end, even I couldn't give you the whole and accurate truth for why the show got pulled.
The most likely culprits are simply ratings and the sheer expense of the show,
which was monstrously expensive at the time."
According to Richard Horvitz, who voiced the title character,
the September 11th attacks likely played a big part in Invader Zim's demise, as he told SyFy -
"At that time, given the mood of the country at the time,
I don't think people wanted to see shows that were about any kind of destruction or
anything that had to do with someone trying to conquer the Earth."
Long before Phil Lord and Chris Miller spearheaded Hollywood franchises, they created a cartoon
that launched their careers and got a lot of attention overseas. Clone High, which followed
teenage clones of historical figures as they navigated high school together, debuted in 2002,
but it was pulled the following year after just a single 13-episode season. MTV didn't cancel
the show due to low ratings or poor critical reception. Instead, the network was forced to
act after a massive outcry over the portrayal of Mahatma Gandhi — or Gandhi's clone, as it were.
Lord and Miller portrayed Gandhi as a particularly horny teenager,
and it didn't go over well in India.
"Joan and Cleo living together, if that curtain wasn't there I'd be
seeing some naughty babe on chick action right about now. (laughs)"
The show never aired there, but when people caught wind of what Clone High had done
to one of their national treasures, there were hunger strikes and calls
to have MTV's license to broadcast in India revoked. Miller told Entertainment Weekly -
"I guess not all publicity is good publicity, as it turns out. It was a really crazy story,
but they didn't want us to talk about it at all. We were sort of gagged about it for years."
However, in 2021 Lord and Miller revealed that HBO Max has ordered two seasons for a revival.
The 1990s animated Spider-Man series is often considered the best of all the web-slinger's
cartoons, but for Gen Z kids, it's all about The Spectacular Spider-Man. The show, which debuted
in March 2008 and lasted until November 2009, was well received by fans and critics alike. So
why did Sony stop making it? In short, the studio gave up its Spider-Man TV rights, which returned
fully to Marvel. Instead of continuing with the popular The Spectacular Spider-Man, Marvel decided
to wipe the slate clean and start over with a brand new Spidey show, Ultimate Spider-Man.
According to The Spectacular Spider-Man's supervising producer and story editor,
Greg Weisman, nobody at Marvel contacted him about continuing
the show after the rights switch, which he took as a sign. He told IGN -
"I've heard nothing directly from Marvel,
but I think the Ultimate Spider-Man announcement makes it fairly clear that Spectacular is over."
The Simpsons was never going to be an easy act to follow, but Matt Groening thinks he did a pretty
good job with Futurama. The animated sci-fi sitcom debuted in 1999 and got off to a rocky start.
Groening wanted Futurama to air directly after The Simpsons on a Sunday evening,
but Fox only kept it there for two episodes before shifting the show to a Tuesday. The way Groening
tells it, the network had it in for his new show right from the start. He told Chortle in 2003 -
"The people at Fox didn't ever support the show, and it wasn't to their taste,
and in my opinion, they're out of their minds. But they don't like The Simpsons,
either. The idea of a TV show that they haven't gotten their greasy fingers all
over creatively drives them nuts. That's why almost everything else is so lousy."
"Yes I'm afraid the brainless drones who run the network canceled our license."
Fortunately, Groening got the chance to continue the story when Futurama was picked up by Comedy
Central in 2008. It ran until 2013, when it was canceled again — but then in 2022,
plans were announced for another series revival, this time courtesy of Hulu.
It's never been the most well-known Disney Channel cartoon, but American Dragon:
Jake Long was reportedly pretty popular with viewers during its two-year run.
Jake Long even showed up in an episode of Lilo & Stitch: The Series,
seemingly indicating that the Mouse House saw the character as a keeper. That wasn't the case,
however — American Dragon: Jake Long was canceled after two seasons in 2007.
It seems the damage was done when the powers that be decided to change the animation style.
In an interview shared by a fan site set up to save the show, creator Jeff Goode said -
"The second season had a different director, and we decided to take the opportunity to try
some things with the art that we didn't get a chance to do in the first season."
Whatever the ultimate reason for the cancellation,
efforts to get a third season greenlit were ultimately unsuccessful.
At the turn of the millennium, filmmaker Kevin Smith held some real sway. The New Jersey native
burst onto the scene with the slacker comedy Clerks in 1994 and quickly established himself
as the new voice of Gen X with 1995's Mallrats and 1997's Chasing Amy. Smith hyped up Clerks:
The Animated Series ahead of its premiere in May 2000, but to call it a short-lived
series would be an understatement — ABC yanked it just two episodes into the six-episode order.
So what happened? Well, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
when ABC picked up Clerks, it was in third place as a network, and it was willing to take chances
on Smith's bizarre project. However, the head honchos at Disney weren't crazy about the series,
which in turn affected ABC's opinion on the show. Secondly, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
came along and brought a massive audience over to the channel, and as Smith himself put it -
"Before, nothing was working. Now, they don't need risky and risque projects like ours."
A wonderfully weird show that aired for three seasons during the twilight of the 2000s,
C.H. Greenblatt's Chowder won a Primetime Emmy and was nominated
for six Annie Awards during its run. The Cartoon Network series debuted in 2007,
but Greenblatt had been working on it for several years by that stage. He told Toon Zone -
"I think it was probably a concept that I was doodling back when I was
working on SpongeBob. I was just kind of filling sketchbooks full of ideas,
so probably the late '90s, beginning of 2000."
Chowder's cancellation wasn't related to its performance. It was simply the victim of a
change in strategy. In an effort to compete with Nickelodeon and Disney's live-action content,
Cartoon Network introduced a new block called CN Real, debuting a bunch of kid-friendly reality
shows. Execs had a risky new vision for the channel, and Chowder wasn't part of it. So,
Greenblatt used the free time to plan a vacation to Japan, saying on his Nerd Armada blog -
"I didn't really think there'd be this many upsides to having a show officially
canceled by a network, but I'm feeling happier than I've been in a long time."
Nothing encapsulates the irreverence of
'00s late-night cartoons quite like Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
"Where do you two think you're going?"
"Wherever the hell we want."
"Not without me!"
"We going to see Little Brittle, at the old folks home."
"Go - without me."
The long-time king of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block, Dave Willis and Matt Maiellaro's show about
three living food items sharing a run-down place in New Jersey began as a spin-off of Space Ghost
Coast to Coast. However, it would soon surpass the parody talk show in terms of popularity.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force debuted in 2000 and would go on to dominate for a decade and then some,
running until 2015. When Maiellaro and Willis sat down with Vice days after the
first episode of the final season premiered, the co-creators took aim at the network, saying -
"It's actually quite shocking and a bummer at the same time. The show does well,
it generates a lot of revenue, it's not too expensive to make.
So for them to let it go is just a bit odd. We call it odd behavior."
The pair doubled down on these claims during an interview with WABE a few weeks later.
Both men were adamant that the show was still generating plenty of cash, saying -
"They got tired of the trucks pulling up
and dumping it on the loading dock. It wasn't our decision."
After creating Dexter's Laboratory for Cartoon Network, Genndy Tartakovsky became one of the
company's biggest assets. It wasn't long before Tartakovsky came to them with another
original idea, one less about the laughs and more about action. As he told IndieWire -
"I pitched it as, 'It's a samurai, who gets transplanted into the future,
he walks around and fights robots with his sword,
and there's not a lot of dialogue, and it's super stylized,' and then we went for it."
Samurai Jack debuted in 2001 and quickly gained a cult following,
but it came to an abrupt end in 2004, with no conclusion offered.
Did Cartoon Network lose interest in Jack's journey, or was Tartakovsky the one that
decided to call it quits? The truth is, it was mutual, with the creator telling The Verge -
"At the end of the fourth season, we were all burnt out. The network
didn't know what they wanted to do, I didn't know what I wanted to do."
So Tartakovsky decided to finish the series at four seasons when he was offered the
chance to spearhead Star Wars: Clone Wars, but luckily for him and Samurai Jack fans,
he got the chance to wrap the story up with a mini-series in 2017.
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