May 12, 2022

Again, Cartoon Network is making a live-action show.

HBO Max and the Cartoon Network have plans to air 3 new live-action productions.

Long-time readers of this site will probably have experienced a sense of deja vu with this announcement. In 2006, Stu Snyder, Executive VP and COO of Turner Animation, found himself the mother of bad ideas when he decided to start programming live-action shows on the Cartoon network. 7 years later, after his live-action efforts failed to gain traction, the Cartoon Network resumed producing fully animated content, and Snyder was looking for a new job.

Fast forward to February of last year and with a new cartoon network live-action show called Family Mashup from Hannah Montana it was announced with little fanfare by Raven co-creator Michael Poryes. But it was the first live-action show announced by the network since the short-lived incredible crew in 2013.

That same month, Tom Ascheim, then the boss of the cartoon network, took part in a discussion at Kidscreen, saying that the channel had even greater ambitions in live-action, and that his administration was "moving away from animation faster than boys" before returning to it as a young adult, according to his data. She explained that she believed it would increase viewership among girls "getting older."

Almost certainly unrelated to the network's live-action plan, Warner Bros. Discovery just announced that Ascheim would leave the company, and his position was eliminated.

Here's what we know so far about the new live-action work.

HBO Max and the Cartoon Network have teamed up in a pair of American Girl Specials, the first of which is American Girl: Corinne Tan.

The network and Streamers are also teaming up on a live-action series of music titled Home Sweet Rome.