The History of Cartoon Network - Chapter 3: The launch

Last time, we talked about how CN was conceived thanks to their acquisition of Hanna-Barbera in 1991. Now let's talk about the channel's launch and carriage when it first started.

The video seen here is the launch promo. Eventually they came up with the launch date of October 1st. At noon, the channel launched.

Unfortunately, there seems to be no video of how it launched. According to a newspaper, this was how it launched, and I'm quoting it:
"In a private ceremony Thursday, Turner himself will launch the channel with the push of an Acme dynamite plunger on the front lawn of Turner Broadcasting System Inc.'s facility on Techwood Drive.
The plunger will spark a fuse, which will explode a barrel of colored chicken feathers and confetti. Then, on a huge TV screen will pop the picture: a cartoon character named Droopy Dog introducing the world to Turner's new "cartoon universe"."
Unfortunately, the channel could only be seen by lucky people living in New York, Washington DC, Detroit and Philadelphia. But what about Atlanta? It could only be seen privately by Ted Turner until they decided to expand the channel nationwide.
Anyway, the first show on the channel was "Droopy's Guide to the Cartoon Network". Yes, you've heard it, "the Cartoon Network", and until 1995 it was "the Cartoon Network" on promos. The first cartoon on the channel was Rhapsody Rabbit, but in recent years some people claim that The Great Piggy Bank Robbery was shown.
Initially, the channel could get more availability thanks to package deals involving TNT, hence the "Cartoon Network on TNT" block, which eventually triggered the timeshared channel that was broadcast to the EMEA region less than a year after it launched in the USA. We'll see that in due course.