
Cartoon Network didn’t start as the quirky, experimental channel it later became. Originally, it simply played classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons. In the spring of 1993, a team at Cartoon Network, headed by executive Mike Lazzo, wanted to add shows for adults to the channel’s regular schedule of Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry. When they couldn’t get funding for new shows, they created a pilot anyway – Space Ghost Coast to Coast. The idea was unusual: take a little-known superhero from the 1960s and turn him into a silly talk show host. Surprisingly, it worked! The show debuted in April 1994 at 11 p.m. and quickly gained a devoted young adult audience. Over its six seasons, the network discovered that a third of its viewers were adults, revealing a real opportunity to create programming specifically for them.