July 10, 1999. It
was Midnight. I had no idea why I was
still awake, probably waiting for Dragon Ball Z to pop up on Cartoon
Network. As 12am arrived, my TV screen
was greeted to a gorgeously vast nebula with the word “Toonami” slowly arriving
on screen. Then the hull of a long ship
casually glided across the screen.
Inside, dark hallways, wide though, not the claustrophobic kind like in
Ridley Scott’s Alien. Those hallways
soon lit up as we inched closer to the bridge of the ship. As soon as the door opened, the drums kicked
in and a nice, smooth beat filled the air.
As the music played, a small Robot made his way up the elevator to the
bridge and took his seat in what I’d assume was the Captain’s Chair. Our tiny Captain laid it all out: His name was
Tom and he was the new Moltar. This was
the birth of the “New Toonami”. From
this point on, Ghost Planet Industries would no longer be the main hub of the
action block. It would now be
transmitted from this deep space vessel, “The Absolution”. Same shows, same vibe but a new host and a
new look…
Holy S*** this was a mind blowing thing to
experience.
And to christen the dawn of
a new era, Toonami went big.
Toonami’s
Midnight Run was the new hang out for anyone who wanted to stay up late
watching Anime on Saturday nights.
This
wasn’t just a normal couple hours of extra Toonami time either.
The block went for broke, with a 5, yes 5
HOUR long block of Toonami goodness.
Naturally, Toonami’s heaviest hitters, Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon,
led the charge with two episode spread out over the course of the evening.
Other Anime offerings included classics like
Robotech
Ronin Warriors, G-Force and
Voltron, while the rest of the night featured non Anime Toonami titles like
Thundercats, Reboot, The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest and The Powerpuff
Girls.
Basically, it was 5 long hours of
action and thrills with a new captain at the helm.
Tom was one of the coolest TV personalities out
there.
This was a guy with the best job
in the universe and he knew it but never rubbed it in.
He was always felt like the awesome big
brother who loved to share his action cartoon collection with us.
Originally voiced by Sonny Straight (Krillin
from Dragon Ball Z), Tom was eventually killed off (in a rather grizzly fashion)
and replaced with a brand new model and a brand new voice, one that continues
to travel with each upgraded Tom model to this day.
For many, Steve Blum is known as one of the
most important voice actors in Anime with a plethora of characters including
Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop, Kazuma from S-cry-Ed, and Roger Smith from The
Big O.
Before all of those, he was Tom
and he carried on Sonny’s too cool for school attitude with the character but
he also had an extra bit of wisdom in his personality.
He was still fun but he was also super
supportive, offering uplifting advice to young viewers out there about being
fine with being themselves and leaning on friends in time of need.
There’s definitely more I want to say about
Steve Blum and his portrayal of Tom but let’s save that for a later episode.
Barely a year after The Midnight Run was commissioned,
the Saturday night block was eventually taken away and replaced with a shorter,
but more frequent schedule.
The new
Midnight Run ran from 12am-1am Monday through Friday.
To offset the disappointment of losing 5
hours of entertainment on Saturdays, Toonami did something a bit radical for
its initial weeknight Midnight Run.
That
came in the form of Gundam Wing being shown completely uncut at Midnight.
Yep, for the entirety of Gundam Wing’s first
historic run on Toonami, you could watch an episode in the afternoon edited,
then come back at Midnight for all the blood, swearing and more intense scenes
that had to be removed.
You even got a
couple of episode titles being restored.
Duo Maxwell’s moniquer, “The God of Death” was a no-no for afternoon
ears so it was changed to “The Great Destroyer”.
At Midnight though, “Duo: The God of Death
Once Again” and “The God of Death Meets Zero” got their due.
Seeing the Midnight Run as a way to attract a
more late night adult audience, Toonami ran many of its heaviest action
heavyweights during the weeknight era including Dragon Ball Z, Tenchi Muyo,
Outlaw Star, The Big O.
Additionally,
the success of Gundam Wing uncut urged Toonami to air Mobile Suit Gundam: The
08
th MS Team and Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, as
Midnight Run exclusives…though both were edited even at a late night time slot.
While the Midnight Run became to go to late night hangout
for nightowls, Toonami had another time slot in mind for extra air time. We all remember waking up early on Saturday
Mornings to watch Power Rangers, Disney Cartoons and Pokemon. Well Toonami remembered that too and sought
to throw their hat into that ring dominated by Fox Kids and Kids WB. Enter Toonami: The Rising Sun. Unlike the Midnight Run, there wasn’t really
much different about this block than your everyday Toonami broadcast during the
week. It was just another time to catch
up on shows you might’ve missed during the week or act as a nice little bonus
introduction for Toonami newbies. For
extra incentive to tune in, The Rising Sun became the home of a special
exclusive: The Premiere of the Garlic Jr Saga on Dragon Ball Z. Granted, new DBZ was something we were all
waiting for…buttttt I’ll be honest, Garlic Jr Saga is one of the shows few
fillers and it isn’t exactly a great one.
We’d have to wait a bit longer for the stuff we’d really been waiting
for…oh right, not here to talk about that.
The Rising Sun’s runtime varied over its three year lifespan, beginning
anywhere from 9am-11am and lasting til between 12pm and 1pm. So for upwards of three hours, you got a mix
of Anime from Sailor Moon to Gundam Wing, Tenchi Muyo and Ronin Warriors to
classic Saturday Morning staples like The Powerpuff Girls and the animated
legends that were Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated
Series.
The Midnight Run and The Rising Sun would see their lives
continue for about 3-4 years before both programming blocks were cancelled in
the wake of some shake ups going on behind the scenes with Toonami. Still, they were a great way to kick off the
new Toonami that would feature a lot of its mainstays during its first era:
Tom, the Absolution, longer programming runs, experiments with more uncut
Anime, the music videos and sage words from our host (more on those
later). This was the birth of my
personal Golden Age of Toonami and while I hardly saw the Rising Sun and only
got to see one straight 5 hour block of the OG Midnight Run, I’ve got a lot of
fond memories of the weeknight Midnight Runs and sneaking a peak at Gundam Wing
Uncut on a school night. Hell yeah,
Toonami was the place to be whenever I could be there.
Next Time: Remember when I mentioned the original Tom was
killed?
Well there’s a story behind
that…an entire event actually...which started a lore no one saw coming with a
simple afternoon action block.
Toonami
Flashback Friday delves into the Total Immersion Events, a super sized all new
episode (unintended but you’ll see why) as part of our Katsucon Week right here
at the Gundam Anime Corner.
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