[adult swimming]

I've really been on a Cartoon Network kick lately. Its become the only network I reliably watch. Its weird, too, because most of their programming doesn't interest me at all. All the kiddie toons in the day are fine, but ultimately don't interest me. Most of their anime bores me at best. Seriously, does anyone understand Dragonball Z? That show just weirds me out, and this is from someone who actually has a perverse appreciate for Pokemon.

But what CN has that I like, I like a lot. Family Guy and Futurama continue to incredibly funny and eminantly watchable. Cowboy Bebop is back on the schedule, which is great. I finally watched the Bebop movie (which I've owned for months) and am continually impressed with the show. Its so unlike most Anime. Its all very naturalistic. It imagines a world not that dissimiliar to our own, and the characters are all very human. All trying to put on an image that they can never quite maintain. Never mind the stylish directing. And the Sunday night line-up is just pure gold. Harvey Birdman is back and airing their episodes from the begining. Seriously, watch it. Sundays at 11:30 from not through June. I mean it. I'm also finally getting to enjoy "Home Movies", which has new episodes airing at 11pm on Sundays. And dependanble goodness from the Aqua Teens, Space Ghost, etc. has made the Sunday [adult swim] block a favorite part of my TV week and something I genuinely look forward too, even when I know what's on.

I guess part of that is the brilliant bumps they show in commercial breaks. Always funny. It may not be as fresh as it first was, when out of no where they had these conversational and irreverantly honest pages of text in the breaks, but it's holding up. They're also trying new things with the same sensibility. For instance, all this week, they've been showing elaborately produced "Happy Hollidays" ads complete with amusingly cliche images of Christmas/Haunukah/Kwanzaa celebrations. You know the kind of thing you see for a couple seconds on your local station for a Happy _____ spot. Except they went way overboard with this doubtlessly liscensed video and made it a joke in and of itself. But the best thing?

It's late February. And no, its not part of one of those "Christmas in ______" network events. Who does those in late February, anyway? No, they just started running out nowhere with no explanation whatsoever. I just love that.