All Aboard the USA Cartoon Express

Apr 02, 2009

5 years after the launch of the USA network a much-storied animated block of programming took to the airwaves, the USA Cartoon Express. Premiering in 1982, the Cartoon Express was home to some of the most popular syndicated cartoons of the last 30 years. The show was launched as afternoon filler and at first was mostly populated with b-rate material from the Hanna-Barbera library such as Inch High, Private Eye, Dynomutt and Dog Wonder.

The cartoons were strung together with cartoon shorts of an animated train conducted by Hudson the Bear. As the show gathered steam, they added better material like Scooby-Doo and The Smurfs.

In 1993 the Cartoon Express switch tracks and started broadcasting in the morning, instead of the afternoon. The show “host segments” also changed. They went from the classic train design to a sleek bullet train look. While the lineup of the show remained strong, especially with the addition of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, their attempt to introduce original programming failed — I guess the world just was not ready for an animated version of “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “Problem Child”.

I have been watching Problem Child on YouTube and can see why it did not catch on.

The massive media mergers of the 1990s brought USA under the umbrella of NBC Universal Cable. They eventually decided to pull all of the animation off their channels and on September 15, 1996, the Cartoon Express made its last stop.

The USA Cartoon Express has left a legacy in memories. For many years it was the only home to cartoons that would have otherwise been overlooked. Just check out this roster: