Cartoon Network - "Night of the Vampire Robots" Promo (1995)

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This is a Cartoon Network promo for "Night of the Vampire Robots", an ultra-obscure movie marathon that also happened to be the first time Cartoon Network aired anime movies, years before "Toonami In-Flight Movies"!

"Night of the Vampire Robots" was a late-night, anime movie marathon that aired on Cartoon Network during the overnight hours of January 29, 1995. On that night, CN aired "Robot Carnival", "Vampire Hunter D" and "Twilight of the Cockroaches" (all dubbed and at the time owned by the long-defunct "Streamline Pictures") from Midnight to 6AM on what is today's Adult Swim "Action Saturdays" timeslot. It was the second-ever instance of anime on Cartoon Network (the first being the premiere of "G-Force: Guardians of Space" earlier that month on January 2, 1995) and a precursor to "Toonami Midnight Run", "Adult Swim Action" and late-night anime on CN overall.

All 3 of the aforementioned movies had previously been aired on other Turner networks (TBS, TNT) in similar late-night fashion throughout the early 1990's. Turner's broadcast prints of these movies were infamously remembered for having been heavily edited for mature content, violence and nudity on top of the standard time cuts. "Vampire Hunter D" in particular suffered the brunt of the editing and cuts, having been the most mature of the three movies. It's been said that the editing done by Turner's censors left "Vampire Hunter D" fragmented and almost incomprehensible, later being infamously dubbed as the "TBS cut" of VHD.

This early anime "experiment" was repeated a handful of times on CN throughout the rest of 1995, most notably again on July, 1995 as the "1995 Summer Anime Festival" with the same three movies and in late-primetime/overnight timeslots. It's been speculated that the purpose of these events was to "test the waters" for anime on the network, late-night or otherwise. Some promos for Cartoon Network aired during 1995 even touted it as having "the latest in Japanimation", but that didn't turn out to be the case at the time. If the waters were indeed being tested for anime on CN, then we've certainly come to reap the rewards from these experiments with "Toonami", it's late-night "Toonami Midnight Run" incarnation and most importantly "Adult Swim Action". All of this thanks, to "Night of the Vampire Robots".

Credit goes to "RetroJunk" for the clip. Enjoy!

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• cartoon
• network
• anime
• toonami
• adult
• swim
• promo
• commercial
• vampire
• hunter
• robot
• twilight

[christiantysoe]

I also have another question for you. Are any of these movies still in the Turner library?

[SuperAdventures]

@christiantysoe No. Like all movies aired on TV, TV/cable networks license them for a limited time. The U.S rights to the actual movies are in limbo I believe, as the companies who've owned them over the years (Streamline Pictures, Urban Vision) have gone under.

[ASurrealEntity]

I remember this. So happy I found it. I bet they censored the hell out of VHD. I also remember watching G-Force and Speed Racer around 1995-97 in the late hours. Cartoon Network was a huge part of my childhood.

[SuperAdventures]

@ASurrealEntity According to some sources yes, VHD was hacked pretty badly. The TV cut that aired on Turner's networks during the early-to-mid-1990's was said to have edited out most of the violence and suggestive content, leaving just a lot of dialogue.

[phubans]

Love it! That's how I got introduced to anime at the age of 12 when I watched Vampire Hunter D on this premiere and had my mind blown!

[jason2anime]

I remember this promo. This is when CN debut Japanese anime with this promo.

[rumbazz]

Was Vampire Hunter D edited?

[Johnlindsey289]

@phubans

It's on youtube

[phubans]

@Johnlindsey289 Yeah man! That's when I saw them, too... Remember Twilight of the Cockroaches? I can't find that anywhere.

[Johnlindsey289]

@phubans

Me too i was 12 back in 93 and also watched these with Heavy Metal, American Pop and Robot Carnival on TBS as these movies ruled my world.

[DOCTORDANification]

Tim and Eric RULES ALL OF YOUR ASSES! COACHELLA STRUT BETTER THAN CEE-LO!!!!!!!!!

[SatansMullet]

THIS is what got me into Anime!!!!