How an April Fools Day Joke Revived Toonami

By 2012, April Fools Day on Adult Swim had become a fun, albeit predictable, event. The nighttime programming block had fallen into the routine of airing The Room—a legendary 2003 independent film (which has been called “the Citizen Kane of bad movies”) spearheaded by cinematic Swiss army knife Tommy Wiseau. By midnight of April 1, 2012, nobody had any reason to believe that this year would be any different. The (excruciatingly long) opening credits sequence began, and for almost 30 whole seconds everything was the way it had been in the years before—until, that is, the movie faded to black for a moment, revealing that a dark blue robot was watching the movie. “Oh hi, Adult Swim,” the robot with Steve Blum's voice said, “I got the results of the test back. I definitely have April Fools.” The robot, as many anime fans instantly recognized, was TOM: the host of a beloved anime programming block called Toonami that aired on Cartoon Network between 1997 and 2008. A brief animation played after TOM made his quip, the Toonami logo appeared on-screen, and an episode of Bleach began to play. Without any warning, Toonami was airing on television for the first time in almost four years—and anime fans across the U.S. lost their collective mind.

To understand how this happened and why it was such a big deal, we first need to rewind back to the 2000s. Originally, the anime-and-action-cartoon programming block aired on weekday afternoons, but in 2004 it got moved to Saturday nights. It's hard to understate how massive a role Toonami played in anime's burst of popularity in the West throughout the 90s by shaping tastes and making anime more accessible in its heyday. Such was its success that within a few years, even Cartoon Network started airing some anime as well (the only anime it had ever aired before the debut of Toonami was Speed Racer). Furthermore, an adult-oriented nighttime programming block on the same channel called Adult Swim started up in 2001, and an anime called Cowboy Bebop was included in its original lineup. Over the years, both Cartoon Network and Adult Swim would continue to air more anime outside of Toonami (and in fact, Adult Swim even started its own anime-centric block called Adult Swim Action in 2002, which featured some anime that had previously aired on Toonami). But even then, Toonami still felt different. It had its own host (a robot named TOM, though he reincarnated a few times), its own lore, the occasional game review, and unlike Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, anime was a foremost part of Toonami's identity—it felt lovingly tailored specifically for anime fans in a way Cartoon Network and Adult Swim never would be. Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, Naruto, and Gundam Wing are only a few of the anime that found massive success airing on Toonami, and dominated Western anime fan culture for several years.

But by 2008, Toonami had become a shadow of its former self. Once four-hours-long, it spent most of the year with its time cut in half and saturated with Naruto episodes—a far cry from the gateway to discovering a variety of new anime that it once was. The kids who grew up with Toonami's biggest hits like Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon were now older and looking for anime that felt a little more dark or mature. And while Toonami had the extremely popular Naruto, Adult Swim had the likes of InuYasha, Bleach, FullMetal Alchemist, and Cowboy Bebop among plenty of other immensely successful anime that fit the bill—quality and quantity. While anime was never Adult Swim's primary focus, it had nonetheless become an anime powerhouse in its own right, and seemed to take over Toonami's status as the U.S.'s largest anime tastemaker in the mid and late 2000s. Factoring in the massive recession happening on top of all this, and the only thing shocking about Cartoon Network's announcing the cancellation of Toonami at Anime Weekend Atlanta 2008 (they cited declining viewership as the reason why) was how Toonami managed to last as long as it did. The final Toonami block would air the same evening the announcement was made: September 20, 2008.

Much to the disappointment of longtime fans, Toonami didn't go out with so much as a fizzle. Its time wasn't extended, it didn't re-run any of its classic hits—nothing was out of the ordinary. It was the same two-hour block it had been for some time, half of which was spent airing Naruto (the other half was an episode of Ben 10: Alien Force, followed by an episode of Samurai Jack). If not for a clip of TOM saying goodbye at the end, then that evening's block wouldn't have felt like an ending for anything—let alone a once-great programming block that managed to stay on the air for 11 years. While saddened by it, most fans discussing the announcement online seemed to be understanding of the decision, and accepted it pretty quickly. In Memoriam-style posts and content looking back fondly on Toonami's glory days and wondering where it all went wrong (when Toonami got moved to Saturday nights probably marked the beginning of the end, many agreed) seemed to outnumber petitions to undo the cancellation and outraged posts by a landslide. Thus quietly ended Toonami.

In the years following Toonami's cancellation, any lingering conversations about it amongst fans were usually less about bringing it back, and more about being nostalgic for its late 90s/early 2000s lineups. People missed Toonami, that much was clear, but they missed a certain type of Toonami. They missed the anime-centric block that was chock-loaded with a variety of iconic hits—not the glorified Naruto block it eventually became. But with Cartoon Network airing fewer and fewer anime, the idea that Toonami would ever come back seemed less likely than ever.

Enter fellow-programming block Adult Swim in the early months of 2012.

“Usually Adult Swim has a brainstorm about what we might do for April Fools Day on any given year, where everyone throws out ideas and we see what sticks,” recalled Toonami co-creator Jason DeMarco, “Mike Lazzo tossed out “what if we just brought Toonami back for a night, just switched over and it was suddenly like you were in 1999 and watching Cartoon Network?” Everyone loved the idea immediately, and the conversation very quickly moved on to “how the heck can we pull this off?””

Considering the dilapidated state of Toonami at the time of its cancellation, it comes as little shock that—per DeMarco—there hadn't been any meaningful conversations about getting it back on the air prior to this meeting. (“Previous to the April Fools conversation we had, I swear, never ONCE talked in any serious way about bringing Toonami back. We just didn't think it was possible.”) This idea to bring Toonami back for a night must've felt as sudden and out-of-the-blue as any idea possibly could've been—but this speed bump wasn't enough to stop the April Fools Toonami revival from happening.

With only a few months to plan everything, Adult Swim's work was cut out for them. “We made a list of what we thought were the definitive Toonami shows,” said DeMarco. “Then we strategized with Kim Manning, our head of programming, how best to approach distributors to see who might be willing to give us a one time license for, like, one episode of a show. We had no idea at all if any of them would work with us on such a weird request.”

Just like the original vision for this idea, the lineup Adult Swim ultimately ended up with was one that mostly felt like it could've pulled straight out of a schedule from 1999: Bleach, Dragon Ball Z, Gundam Wing, Tenchi Muyo, Outlaw Star, The Big O, Yu Yu Hakusho, Blue Submarine No. 6, Trigun, Astro Boy, and ending the night with Gigantor. Bleach was a particularly interesting addition to this lineup, not only because it was the only show that came out after 2000 (with the partial exceptions of The Big O and Blue Submarine No. 6, which began in late 90s but didn't finish til after the turn of the millennium), but also because it was the only show on the lineup that was an Adult Swim show, as opposed to a Toonami show. But it was, nonetheless, part of Toonami tonight. And even though Bleach wasn't traditional Toonami fare, TOM's appearance, Steve Blum's familiar voice, and the fact that any anime was airing at all was more than enough to signal to the viewers that at least for tonight, the Toonami people missed was back.

As the night went on and viewers saw how increasingly nostalgic the lineup became, the reminiscent fans couldn't help but express their excitement on social media—which, importantly, also helped to rapidly spread the word that this was happening. Searching for tweets and posts with words like “Toonami” or “Dragon Ball Z” during the night of March 31-April 1, 2012 showcases the elated thoughts of countless anime fans, intent to watch Toonami until its final moments—whatever plans they had for the upcoming morning be damned. So abundant were the tweets about it that “Toonami” (and some adjacent words/phrases like “Outlaw Star”, “Gundam Wing”, etc) quickly became one of the top trending topics on Twitter that evening. Said DeMarco about the fan reactions, “It was incredible, one of the first experiences of my life where I really saw the power of social media to create a collective experience around a particular event as it unfolds. Seeing it blow up on Twitter and watching the mentions just grow, and keep growing, was amazing. All of us were texting each other that night as the event unfolded, and we all stayed up all night having a blast reading the reactions. Just a super great experience for all of us. We came in to work the following Monday still excited and talking about how amazing the response was.”

The outpouring of love from fans was so immense that while the idea of bringing Toonami back began as a joke, it suddenly no longer felt like one to Adult Swim by that next day back at work. Thus, they tweeted that fans could let them know how badly they wanted Toonami to return permanently with the hashtag #BringBackToonami. Not only did this tweet itself garner well over 10,000 retweets (and get the hashtag trending in a matter of hours), but several voice actors and prominent entities in the anime industry even made their own posts featuring the hashtag. Fan made videos, Facebook pages, and petitions dedicated to supporting the hashtag began to appear one after the other. Nerdcore rapper Richie Branson even made a rap about it (which would later be used in an Adult Swim bumper). If it wasn't already abundantly obvious (which it was), then it was now: Now that they knew what Toonami was capable of (once again) being, and that it could air on Adult Swim rather than Cartoon Network, people wanted Toonami back for real.

After a little over a month of cheers to bring back Toonami, Adult Swim finally announced on May 16 with the hashtag #ToonamisBackBitches that it would be back on Adult Swim (presumably indefinitely) in just a few days, the late night between May 26 and 27. The lineup, it was soon announced after a few days of speculation, would be three hours long and would then repeat itself (meaning it would be on air for a total of 6 hours) and would mostly be anime that had previously aired on Adult Swim such as Bleach and Cowboy Bebop, but also the new-to-U.S.-TV titles Casshern Sins and Deadman Wonderland (shows like Naruto and Dragon Ball Z, DeMarco tweeted, were simply too expensive).

Following the announcement, exuberant forum threads, blog posts, tweets, and videos about the hashtag's success and Toonami's confirmed revival plastered the walls of every online anime community. Richie Branson even made another rap about it to celebrate. In many ways, this marriage of Toonami and Adult Swim felt like a fitting one–they were already both on the same channel, both aired in the evening/at night, and a lot of anime fans spent their younger years in a Toonami to Adult Swim pipeline anyways. This felt perfect.

Despite all the anticipation and fanfare that led up to it, whether or not the night between May 26 and 27 was more than just moderately successful for Toonami depends on who you ask. While its revival made plenty of headlines, many fans lost interest when they saw its mostly-recycled lineup (many were hoping for a higher concentration of shows that either hadn't previously aired in the U.S. or aired in the 90s) which was largely the result of time and money constraints.

“Basically the reaction to [the April Fools] event, combined with the responses to [the Adult Swim tweet about bringing back Toonami], allowed us to come to Lazzo with a request to bring it back for real,” recalled DeMarco, “Gill and I had a plan within a week and brought him a way to do it CHEAP and FAST. And thankfully he said yes. We set a target launch date, and started sprinted towards that date immediately."

Nonetheless, when ratings came to light a few days later, while they seemed good to many (Deadman Wonderland, for example, ranked #1 in its time slot among adults age 18-24), DeMarco would describe the Toonami revival's inaugural weekend as having gone, “OKAY. Not bad but not measurably better than the week before. We need to do better. Hopefully we will!”

Encouraged by better ratings the following week, (“We're doing well! I'm encouraged.” DeMarco tweeted about it) Toonami marched on—its impact on anime, while not as large as it once was, still tangible. A few weeks prior to its airing on Adult Swim, Deadman Wonderland was on 59,860 user's lists on MyAnimeList. A month into Toonami's revival (June 26), it went up to appearing on 66,110 lists even though it had long since finished airing in Japan (April-July 2011). Casshern Sins—which originally aired in Japan between 2008 and 2009—went from being on 26,671 user's lists on May 4, 2012, to 28,852 on June 28, 2012. These numbers neither 100% definitively prove how many people continually tuned in to this new Toonami, nor are they even particularly earth-shattering, but they do help to further illustrate the influence Toonami was having in the early days of its revival.

Despite the perilous times Adult Swim, like a lot of broadcast television, is currently trying to navigate, Toonami has remained a fixture of Adult Swim in the ten years since its revival began. It's since aired the wildly popular likes of My Hero Academia, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, One Punch Man, The Promised Neverland, among plenty of other such anime. While it's less of the trendsetter it once was and more of a trend reaffirmer, it still feels much more like the generation-shaping Toonami people knew and loved in the 90s/early 2000s again (as opposed to the zombified state it was in throughout 2008). And Steve Blum, by the way, is still voicing TOM. Adult Swim has also since become more involved in anime than ever by way of producing a few projects (including, but not limited to, the recently announced Housing Complex C and two new seasons of FLCL).

2022 is a unique year for Toonami, as it gets to celebrate not only the 25th anniversary of its original airing, but also the 10th anniversary of its revival. “It's just amazing to me that this is the tenth year of the Adult Swim iteration of Toonami. It's very rare that a person gets to have a second chance at creative work once it's been cancelled or wrapped up by the rights holders,” reflected DeMarco, “It's something that in our case, only happened with the unique combination of fan love and network freedom that Toonami and Adult Swim have. It's been an amazing experience for all of us at Toonami, and one that never ceases to give us joy. We just hope we are giving that joy back.”

Below is the full interview that I had with DeMarco about how Toonami got brought back from the grave:

On April 1, 2012, Toonami once again aired as an April Fools Day joke, despite its 2008 cancellation. How involved were you in the process of making this happen?

Very much so. I believe it was actually Mike Lazzo's idea in one of our brainstorming meetings we had about April Fools. He brought it up as a lark, and Gill Austin and I immediately walked out of that meeting beginning to try to figure out how to pull it off with no time and no money.

What made you (and/or Adult Swim) want to bring Toonami back after its 2008 cancellation?

Well those of us who had worked on Toonami had made our peace with its cancellation. But when we were offered a small chance to bring it back we knew we had to try. It had become clear to us in the years after it was cancelled in 2008 that there were people who WANTED it back.

How (and when) did plans to bring Toonami back start?

I believe it was two and a half months before April Fools Day 2012. Usually Adult Swim has a brainstorm about what we might do for April Fools Day on any given year, where everyone throws out ideas and we see what sticks. Mike Lazzo tossed out “what if we just brought Toonami back for a night, just switched over and it was suddenly like you were in 1999 and watching Cartoon Network?” Everyone loved the idea immediately, and the conversation very quickly moved on to “how the heck can we pull this off?”

Was the plan always to bring it back via an April Fools Day joke? If not, how did that happen?

Previous to the April Fools conversation we had, I swear, never ONCE talked in any serious way about bringing Toonami back. We just didn't think it was possible.

How did the shows that aired for this get picked?

We made a list of what we thought were the definitive Toonami shows. Then we strategized with Kim Manning, our head of programming, how best to approach distributors to see who might be willing to give us a one time license for, like, one episode of a show. We had no idea at all if any of them would work with us on such a weird request.

How was the reception to the April Fools Day joke? Any particularly memorable reactions?

It was incredible, one of the first experiences of my life where I really saw the power of social media to create a collective experience around a particular event as it unfolds. Seeing it blow up on Twitter and watching the mentions just grow, and keep growing, was amazing. All of us were texting each other that night as the event unfolded, and we all stayed up all night having a blast reading the reactions. Just a super great experience for all of us. We came in to work the following Monday still excited and talking about how amazing the response was.

The call from fans to bring back Toonami after this April Fools Day joke was pretty much immediate, and the next day Adult Swim tweeted, "Want it back? Let us know. #BringBackToonami"--did all this directly contribute to Toonami's full revival a few months later?

Very much so. Basically the reaction to the event, combined with the responses to that Tweet, allowed us to come to Lazzo with a request to bring it back for real. Gill and I had a plan within a week and brought him a way to do it CHEAP and FAST. And thankfully he said yes. We set a target launch date, and started sprinted towards that date immediately.

10 years later, and Adult Swim is more involved in anime production than ever, such as through 2 new seasons of FLCL, Housing Complex C, and Uzumaki. How important has the revival of Toonami been to all this?

It's interesting. Obviously, anime and action have been a part of Adult Swim's DNA since the network's beginning. And even without Toonami returning, it's highly likely that Adult Swim would still be airing anime. Whether or not they would air AS MUCH anime or action, and move into original productions… I don't know. I'm gonna say that would be unlikely without a weekly Toonami block.

Any other thoughts/reflections/fun facts about Toonami's 2012 April Fools Day joke?

Refection-wise, it's just amazing to me that this is the tenth year of the Adult Swim iteration of Toonami. It's very rare that a person gets to have a second chance at creative work once it's been cancelled or wrapped up by the rights holders. It's something that in our case, only happened with the unique combination of fan love and network freedom that Toonami and Adult Swim have. It's been an amazing experience for all of us at Toonami, and one that never ceases to give us joy. We just hope we are giving that joy back.