If it wasn't for Cartoon Network in the USA, Friday nights weren't dead zones on prime time thanks to it. Technically CN was competing with other cable networks at that time of night, generally between 7 and 11, when primetime shows are on.
This aversion was made because Friday nights mean that the weekend was about to start and most people were out. However, most pizza places (understand it as places like Chuck E. Cheese's, which we never had) had their TVs turned on Cartoon Network.
CN launched Cartoon Cartoon Fridays on June 11th, 1999.
As the video shows, the first segment was the "CCF lottery". In this first phase, all schedule bumpers were live-action and featured guest stars like Jack Horkheimer, host of "Star Gazer", a show that aired on PBS stations (mostly before they shut down every night) up until his death in 2010, an NFL football player, a meteorologist, the Grambling State Marching Band and others.
CCF premiered in great success, but the live-action format was quite difficult for the CN of the time. On June 9th, 2000, it got it's first revamp, which led to define a generation of (let's just say) three years of Friday nights:
This format was times more successful than the previous one, mostly because the "cartoon characters as hosts" motif probably suited well. Prroduction was now at the hands of Primal Logic, who proceeded to design the City era in 2004.
A Halloween special, called "Scare-Toon Scare-Toon Fright-Days" was broadcast on October 4th, 2002, featuring two direct-to-video Scooby-Doo movies (a sign that later on, CN USA would show most of them all the time) and new episodes of Courage, the Cowardly Dog and Grim and Evil.
There were also CC Weekends on various feeds and the block was a worldwide success, airing for a while on CN UK, CN SEA, CN BR, CN LA and CN AU. CN AU kept with it until late 2007, where it was replaced by "The All New Show Show" hosted by Bloo.
Unfortunately, the one thing we don't have golden ages is... they end.
On May 19th, 2003, CCF aired on CN USA for the final time, but the last CCF wasn't symbolic. They didn't know that their temporary replacement, Summer Fridays was yet to come and they didn't do something special for the last edition.
Stay tuned for part 2 of this Friday night spotlight where we look at CN USA on Friday nights after CCF's demise.
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