Fans are reeling as Warner Bros. continues its trend of making cuts across the board, this time for a beloved TV brand dating back to the late 1990s. In recent years, the long-standing Hollywood studio (best known for owning beloved brands like DC Comics, Looney Toons, and Terminator) has gotten a bit of a reputation for slashing and cutting across its media portfolio, resulting in entire movies being scrapped (namely Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme) and a significant reduction in what the studio is doing on both the big and small screen.
In Warner Bros. Discovery's latest cut, the media company eliminated the beloved Cartoonito brand. This marks another step in the studio's journey towards significantly reeling back its animated output and turning its focus on its portfolio of animated characters and brands.
The Caroonito cut was spotted online by several animation-focused social media accounts. These insiders were quick to point out that the long-running preschool programming block on the Warner-owned Cartoon Network will no longer be on the schedule starting on Monday, May 26.
The Cartoonito block was first introduced in 2021 as a rebranded early childhood programming block, debuting with an eight-hour early morning lineup of acquired preschool-age TV series.
In the years since, the block has been significantly reduced, being pared down to a mere 90 minutes every weekday.
Now, the Cartoon Network sub-brand is noticeably absent from the channel's upcoming schedule, likely indicating that it will be taken off the air. This would end a storied part of the Cartoon Network brand, whose roots go back to 1996.
What Is Wrong at Cartoon Network?
This Cartoonito cut is just the latest story in a string of bad news for Cartoon Network and animated Warner Bros. (WB) content over the last couple of years.
While Warner has also outright canceled live-action projects since starting its quest to rein in its financials, the animated side of things has borne the brunt of WB's wrath.
Since the Warner Bros./Discovery merger in 2022, the studio has opted to significantly reduce its emphasis on animated content, which may ultimately not be good for a brand like Cartoon Network.
While right now, it seems to only be the Cartoonito block on the WB-owned channel, it feels like it is only a matter of time before it becomes more than that.
In a May 2025 piece on Cartoon Network, Bloomberg Screentime editor Felix Gillette posted that the animated brand may not be long for this world, as, after shifting the channel's focus to streaming several years ago, Warner now no longer sees children's programming (i.e., what would be found on Cartoon Network) as "a core part of Max’s strategy."
This has come to bear as the studio continues to remove animated content (from Cartoon Network and not) from its Max streaming service, resulting in dozens of series losing their streaming home
That is to say, with the sweeping changes ongoing at Warner Bros., it would not be all that surprising if Cartoon Network were to get the axe entirely, ending the channel's more than 30-year run on the air.
