Web Animation Nights
Web Animation Nights was a Flarlandian television program created by Requiem of Whirlplash for Channel 14. It premiered in April 2000, with the rise of Flash animation and the internet. Web Animation Nights sought after looking at animated shorts from all over the internet, from Flarland and other countries of the world. During its first year, WAN ran on Fridays at 23:30 after The Friday Show finished, and reran on Sundays at 22:00. The success of the show led to TFS gaining a new audience during Saturday late nights at around 23:00 in 2001, partly due to TFS extending to 00:45 and being followed by a direct repeat of the entirety of the block. From season 2, it became a half-hour show.
Most of the cartoons seen on WAN were from Requiem of Whirlplash and Newgrounds. During the earliest stages of Newgrounds' BBS system, Flarlandian users had to customarily say "Support Flarland, Support TFS" in their signatures. Animators from all over the world got their work shown on television, however the "free" airing was considered distrustful for some, believing that the producers weren't receiving any money. It did help that most animators didn't go to Newgrounds and similar content hosting sites just to buy their contents, as many of the animators considered it as being "a hobby".
By November 2001, international broadcasters (outside of Flarland TV) were interested in getting the program, thus making more animations available to the mainstream. A Latin Sierran and Bensonian broadcaster, Locomotion, was the first foreign broadcaster to premiere it in late November, as the channel premiered back-to-back season 1 episodes, in order to fit in with the 30-minute slot. In December, XTV, a defunct Hopelandian must-carry cable channel, premiered season 1 in the same regime.
2002 brought the rise of Homestar Runner, a Sierran webtoon series created by The Brothers Chaps. The frequent release of new cartoons from TBC has led to entire editions of WAN being centered around the characters, especially Strong Bad. It is believed that XTV's viewers have stumbled upon Strong Bad's (then few) e-mails
Casual return[edit | edit source]
On July 22, 2020, Channel 14 announced a casual comeback of WAN serving a double purpose: the channel's thirtieth anniversary and the discontinuing of Flash. The program was scheduled to appear over the Christmas period. Twenty-four episodes of forty-five minutes each (without commercials) were made using cartoons featured in the program.
Notable animations[edit | edit source]
- Homestar Runner
- Salad Fingers
