The Cartoon Network 2012 Upfront took place this afternoon. The CN Upfront is typically split into a presentation and a show. I don’t geek out too often, but the show half of the Upfront was pretty impressive this year.
With this being the year of their 20th Anniversary they decided to use live demonstrations to help give their audience a peek behind the scenes. The performance showcased three areas of animation: voice acting, sound effects creation and scoring. A live voice acting session was performed by Jeremy Shada, John DiMaggio, Tom Kenny, Penn Ward, J.G. Quintel, William Salyers and Sam Marin. They reprised their roles from Adventure Time and Regular Show with footage from the two playing on a screen behind them. To keep the show snappy, they switched between scenes from each show to give the two groups ample time to really show their stuff. Some of the recognizable scenes included the one where Lumpy Space Princess tries to make herself smooth by punching out all of her lumps (Adventure Time, “Loyalty to the King”) and the “Synchronize our Watches” song (Regular Show, “The Power”).
The next performance in the show featured a gentleman on stage using various props to recreate the sound effects to a scene from The Amazing World of Gumball episode, “The Curse”. Needless to say, it was very well done. The audience applauded at the job done as the clip ended. Who can argue with it probably being tremendously fun and gratifying to punch tires and toss a shopping cart around in front of an audience? I’ve included the clip that they played in the background of the performance.
NEW YORK, March 28, 2012 — A tuxedoed Penn Ward, creator of Cartoon Network’s #1 hit animated series Adventure Time, takes center stage at the Roseland Ballroom to salute the network’s 20th Anniversary at its annual advertising Upfront presentation. Penn strummed his ukulele as part of a live, 38-piece orchestra playing classic and original show-theme music that accompanied a dazzling onscreen retrospective of Cartoon Network programming highlights across its 20-year history.
For the score demonstration, they removed the back part of the stage to reveal a live orchestra, who then proceeded to play a medley of theme songs. Some of the voice actors (I believe it was DiMaggio, Kenny, Salyers and Quintel. My apologies if I’m off there; it was dark and I was kind of caught off-guard by the live orchestra.) came back to provide voices and sound effects where appropriate. They started out with The Flintstones theme and DiMaggio yelling out Fred’s famous catch phrase. Other shows, shorts and themes included were The Jetsons, classic Looney Tunes (a couple of times, using Raymond Scott’s “Powerhouse” and later on, the overture of “The Barber of Seville” by Gioachino Rossini), Jonny Quest, Scooby Doo, a clip of Tom and Jerry (to “Powerhouse” again), Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Cow and Chicken, Johnny Bravo, Ed, Edd ‘n’ Eddy, Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Teen Titans, Chowder, Camp Lazlo, Ben 10, Star Wars: Clone Wars, The Amazing World of Gumball, and Adventure Time (where we were treated to Penn Ward playing a ukulele and singing part of the theme). I’m not going to lie, that was really cool. The entire medley ended with a swinging, big band rendition of “The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down”.
