But you CAN pick your shows!
Or at least ya could once or twice...
A long time ago, in a galaxy called Atlanta, the folks at Cartoon Network decided to let the viewers pick which of the networks pilots would become a series. The first time they did, there were only three to choose from:
The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy
Whatever Happened to Robot Jones
Longhair and Doubledome
And vote the viewers did!
Billy and Mandy, as you know, won and went on to make 6 seasons... but Robot Jones got one season of love, and Longhair and Doubledone got a 2nd try at a pilot.
A couple years later, Cartoon Network decided to do it again... this time with ten (count 'em) TEN sooper huge pilots:
Kids Next Door
Captain Sturdy
A Kitty Bobo Show
Ferret and Parrot
My Freaky Family
Yee Haw and Doo Dah
Imp, Inc.
Swaroop
Utica Cartoon
Major Flake
And in the spirit of competition... we were asked to make campaign posters. Here's mine:

I don't think we ever were able to clean up all the glitter and gold spray paint i got all over the apartment.
But like the spaz I am... I had to take it even further. I made up these postcards:


(don't bother sending anything to that address... i don't live there anymore!)
I sent 'em EVERYWHERE. I dropped off piles in comic shops, toy stores, pizza parlors, schools, and snuck them into people's bags when they weren't looking.
I posted on all sorts of internet animation forums, chats, message boards, pokemon trading card game websites, etc screaming 'VOTE FOR MY CARTOON!'
And when the Big Pick Weekend FINALLY came, I had to find out who won JUUUUUUST like everyone else. By watching it on TV.
First they showed the 2nd runner up...
I was THISCLOSE to the TV...
"pleeeeeeease don't be my cartoon please don't be my cartoon..."
It was My Freaky Family...
I breathed a sigh of relief and sat through the 7 minutes of my friend John Macintyre's cartoon and then a 17 hour commercial break (of what felt like 17 hours).
And then they aired the first runner up...
My face WAS even closer to the TV screen than before, if that's possible....
pleeeeeeeasedon'tbemycartoonpleasedon'tbemycartoon..."
It was 'kitty bobo'.
So i sit through 7 minutes of my friend Kevin Kaliher's cartoon... who helped me do layouts for KND, no less! And then there's ANOTHER 32 year commercial break before they show the winner of the Big Pick Weekend...
My nose is smooshed against the TV... my wife has me in a headlock...
We wait...
Not breathing...
Now, for those of you intimate with the KND pilot, 'No P in the Ool', it starts with a black screen. After a second or two you hear a phone ring.
All I needed to hear was half a beat of that phone ring and I knew.
My wife screamed and started running around the apartment like a lunatic.
I just put my head down on the floor and exhaled.
Then the phone rang all night.
Dude...
Final tally:
Kids Next Door 60,631 27.4 percent
A Kitty Bobo Show 28,770 13.0 percent
My Freaky Family 25,022 11.3 percent
You can read more about the Big Pick Weekend over at the ever informative Toon Zone:
http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=3857