• by Paul Gough , March 25, 2004

For its first separate upfront presentation in its three years of existence, Adult Swim conducted it in style.

Adult Swim is Cartoon Network's five-day-a-week strip of animation designed to reel in adults ages 18-34, particularly the young men who seem to have stopped watching as much TV. Usually it's packaged along with Cartoon Network and KidsWB. But at February's upfront presentation, Turner announced that it would hold an event in late March just for Adult Swim.

The strip--which includes original animation as well as favorites like "Futurama"--ranked number one in its time period during 2003 for men ages 18-34 and men ages 18-24 among basic cable networks. And, as Jack Wakshlag--chief research officer at Turner Broadcasting--pointed out at a separate presentation Wednesday afternoon, it even outperforms a lot of late-night broadcast talk shows in the demos.

On Thursday night, Cartoon Network announced that it would throw a life preserver to "Family Guy," an Emmy-winning animated show that ran on Fox from 1999 to 2002. Cartoon Network will produce at least 22 new episodes that will begin in early 2005 on Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. Fox will have the broadcast TV rights, and could run it on the network--although apparently, no decision has been made.

It's not the first time that "Family Guy" has been on Cartoon Network. Repeats have been there since April 2003, and have become Adult Swim's top-rated show. That and the DVD sales led Fox and Cartoon Network to revive the series.

This wasn't the only piece of news. Adult Swim, which now runs Sunday through Thursday night, will begin programming on Saturdays starting April 17. It will be focused on anime, with four shows.

There will also be five new programs on Adult Swim, including an untitled show that will feature actor Seth Green. It's also ordered more episodes of several shows, including InuYasha, Wolf's Rain, and Case Closed.

John O'Hara, senior vice president of Cartoon Network, said Thursday night that Adult Swim wasn't just doing well in the ratings. It brought between two and three times more revenues than the programming it replaced when Adult Swim went on the air in the fall of 2001. Cartoon Network declined to release specific data.

"The results have been nothing short of amazing," Kim McQuilken, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Cartoon Network, said in brief remarks.

In the trendy Tribeca nightclub The Knitting Factory, planners and buyers attending the event had to negotiate a line of bouncers and others who usually decide whether someone gets in or not. When they did get in, they found a trendy DJ, costumed characters who seemed to follow that DJ around, and a presentation that didn't take itself too seriously. It was designed more as a party than anything else, with about 15 minutes of a scheduled presentation sandwiched between an hour and a half of partying each.

And in customary Cartoon Network/Adult Swim fashion, the executives didn't take themselves seriously. On the screen in back of the executives: "Blah blah blah."