From “Let’s do launch!”
to “Plans start at $10.99/month”

The capture is from July 12, 1998, nine days before the date on the page. There is no menu. Space Ghost sits in the top left corner, a tile in the top right reads JULY 11, and torn-looking pieces of other drawings float around the logo. Several of those pieces show as blank white cards.

The code holds almost no words. Its image descriptions are line, advertisement and ad, and the rest is copyright and legal text, signed A Time Warner Company. Forbes, looking back in 2024, dated the public launch to July 1998; an earlier version had been on AOL since 1996.^[1]

By December 1998 the games page was open, black, with four featured cards: Help the Powerpuff Girls defend Townsville!, The Jetson's kitchen has gone crazy!, Help Scooby survive Monster Manor! and The Spookiest sounds fom our vaults!, typo included. Under them is a plug-in notice: For help getting the Shockwave Plugin, click here.

In November 1999 the homepage is a collage of picture links packed edge to edge. Courage the Cowardly Dog gets a large panel, with BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID.

Above it, Mike, Lu & Og go native! at 8 p.m., under a corner tab that says ONLY ON CARTOON NETWORK. Smaller tiles lead to D.O.C. (the Department of Cartoons), Web Premiere Toons, Favorites with Toonami and a T.V. tile with a Powerpuff Girl.

Two small things give the year away. A brown box at the bottom reads Watch Catoon Network on 11/25 to see if you're a winner!, with the r missing from Cartoon. And a date tile in the top right shows FEB 03 on a capture made November 16. The code calls those two pictures month and day; why they show February on a November page, the capture doesn’t say.

In August 2000 Cartoon Network let its viewers pick a new TV series. The Big Pick ran over the weekend of August 25–27, with votes cast online or on a toll-free phone line during a 53-hour marathon of original programming.^[2] The winning pilot became The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy.^[3] Multichannel News reported it took 57% of the vote. By the 2003 capture, the homepage’s code names The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy among its pictures.

The June 2000 homepage, two months earlier, is a tighter grid of tiles. The middle tile announces a Cartoon Cartoon Summer and a new Ed, Edd n Eddy episode on Friday, June 23.

Around it are GAMES with a NEW! sticker, Boomerang, Toonami and a T.V. tile with Johnny Bravo that says Request Your Favorite Cartoons! A strip of character faces underneath adds: Click on your favorite toon star for their very own site!

The August 2001 capture is the page for visitors without Flash. Its address ends in index.getflash.html, and a red bar under the logo says WITHOUT THE FLASH PLUG-IN, YOU'RE MISSING HALF THE FUN! CLICK HERE TO GET FLASH! The line under it covers the other case: If you know you have Flash and feel you have reached this page in error, click here.

The biggest panel is Sponsored by Kellogg’s. Its right half says BIGPICK BREAKFAST.COM: YOU pick the STAR of the next Cartoon Network cereal! VOTE then PLAY the new “Cereal Shakedown” game! A year after The Big Pick chose a TV show, this Kellogg’s banner asks visitors to choose a cereal star. The left half promotes The New Cow and Chicken WEB SITE!, and a tile further down advertises Daft Punk’s Discovery with 4 FULLY ANIMATED VIDEOS.

The menu row has nine buttons, from HOME and GAMES to CARTOON ORBIT, TOONAMI and WEB PREMIERE TOONS. The character dropdown’s code lists 19 characters, from Batman to Tom and Jerry. And the footer changed owners: in 1999 and 2000 it said A Time Warner Company; in 2001 it says An AOL Time Warner Company.

The same report described Toonami Reactor, a 12-week streaming experiment that began in late March 2001 with Dragonball Z and Star Blazers episodes and interactive extras on one split screen. Broadband was best, it said, but a 56K modem is adequate to view most features and watch medium-quality streaming video without a problem.^[4]

By November 2002 the collage is gone. The homepage is a set of framed cards on muted green: a big WELCOME! card for a Hasbro sweepstakes (Your Sweepstakes Awaits, Sire!), a tall one for a premiere (Become an Official Member of the Kids Next Door team!), and a row of four under NOW FEATURING: PLAY, WATCH, ORBIT and SHOP. The ORBIT card has the clearest pitch on the page: COLLECT AND TRADE WITH FRIENDS AS MASTER OF YOUR OWN CARTOON ZONE.

The cards had a reason to look like screens. In a 2005 interview the site’s creative director, Art Roche, put it this way: When you page through our website you see all these little TV screens because that’s what we are. One aspect ratio, he said, gives us a modularity so that we can make those 4x3 ‘cards’ in three different sizes. His rule for the words was short too: Kids don’t read directions. Every click, he added, had to pay off: We want them always to get content in exchange for a click.^[5]

In November 2003 the cards turn turquoise and the bottom row changes. PLAY is now FREE GAMES, a new card says BUY GAMES, and WATCH stays; ORBIT is no longer in that row.

The BUY GAMES card explains itself in small capitals: GAMES WITH FULL-SCREEN GRAPHICS AND BONUS FEATURES THAT YOU CAN PLAY OFFLINE ANYTIME. DOWNLOAD A FREE GAME DEMO NOW! The big card is a Halloween one, Shocktober, with a NEW GAME! called Harum Scarum.

The June 2004 capture keeps the frame and swaps the art. Scooby-Doo fills the WELCOME! card with A NEW GAME, THAT’S WHAT’S NEW!, and Teen Titans on the right announce NEW EPISODES! NEW SITE! Some boxes are black in this capture, where Flash parts were hidden for the screenshot.

Those numbers come from a January 2005 Animation World Network report, and they count plays, not players.^[6]

The games page from January 4, 2007 shows the decade’s new parts. The CN logo is now two tilted cubes, and the tabs read GAMES, VIDEO, TOONAMI Jetstream and SHOP. The large box under 140+ FREE GAMES is blank in this capture. Its code still carries the message a visitor without the right plug-in saw: This Flash movie requires a newer version of the Flash plug-in.

The paid games are on the right, in an ad for POWER PLAY GAMES: PLAY OFFLINE. PLAY FULL-SCREEN. PLAY FOR KEEPS! Tag Team Titans costs $19.95, with a TRY IT FREE! button and PC ONLY in small print.

Jetstream was the video side. Cartoon Network and VIZ Media announced Toonami Jetstream in April 2006 as a free service with full-length episodes on demand, paid for by banner and video ads, planned to start on July 17.^[7] In July 2007 Nielsen//NetRatings measured 77 minutes per visitor on CartoonNetwork.com, a site record, and by August the site had more than 170 free games, Animation World Network reported.^[8]

On January 1, 2011 the games page sits in a blue 3D room and its banner gives a count: PLAY 237 ONLINE GAMES! Below are rows headed BADGE GAMES, ACTION GAMES, ADVENTURE GAMES, ARCADE, RACING and SPORTS. Every pictured tile in the BADGE GAMES row carries a round blue B, and three of the featured games show a player count, such as 2674 PLAYERS under Cannonbolt Pinball.

The page’s browser tab reads Cartoon Network Games | Free Online Games from Shows Like Ben 10, Star Wars and Pokemon! Kids could also build games. A box in the corner is labeled GAMES CREATED BY FANS, and the action list includes Star Wars: The Clone Wars Game Creator. The code has templates for the fan games’ credits, with the creator’s name left as a placeholder: Creator: {starwarsGCPlayerSet::alias}.

The June 2012 homepage has the flat CN block logo and a black menu: HOME, GAMES, SHOWS, COMMUNITY, SHOP, SCHEDULE, LIVE TV. Above it a member box says JOIN NOW IT’S FREE! next to a points bar reading 0 of 903; the 2013 code calls that bar points to next level. Under the menu runs a strip of character faces, with Finn from Adventure Time first.

The middle of the page is a dark empty area. The saved page puts a Flash feature in this area; our screenshot hides it and keeps its space blank. Below it, a GAMES card shows Regular Show’s Park Strikers, and a CHECK list. card says Regular Show New Episodes! and Mondays at 8/7c.

The browser tab in both years reads Cartoon Network | Free Games and Online Video from Ben 10, Star Wars and Adventure Time! In June 2013 the menu turns white, gets icons, and FULL EPISODES becomes one of its four big buttons. The code lags behind: the saved June 2012 page still contains TM & © 2011 Cartoon Network., though the footer in our still shows 2012.

From the June 2014 capture the first thing under the menu is a cyan bar with one word, GAMES, and a big tile with a pink NEW badge: Adventure Time, These Lumps. The browser tab changes to Cartoon Network | Free Games, Online Videos, Full Episodes, and Kids TV Shows and keeps that wording in every capture through 2022. The code still carries an old warning: This website requires the Flash 10.1 (or higher) player.

The cyan games layout continues in the 2015 to 2017 captures, led by Clarence in Blamburger, Gumball in Battle Bowlers and the Powerpuff Girls in Morning Mayhem. The games directory got the same look, a white box headed CARTOON NETWORK GAMES with BY SHOW, BY CATEGORY and MOST POPULAR.

On November 30, 2018 the games tile gives way to a drawing with no color in it. Gumball, a snowman and a girl in earmuffs stand in black outline under JOIN THE MERRY MASHUP. The bar under the drawing explains: YOUR ARTWORK COULD BE ON TV! and HELP US COLOR OUR HOLIDAY CARTOON, with a GO NOW button.

It is the 2000 idea again. Kids at a computer were asked to shape what ran on the channel, this time by coloring instead of voting. Further down is an Unlocked Full Episodes section with Teen Titans Go! in The Groover, beside separate MOBILE APP and UNLOCKED! buttons.

Then GAMES is back at the top. Ben 10 leads in Omnitrix Shadow in November 2019, and Unikitty in Rainbow Rage in June 2020, with Teen Titans Go! and Gumball games stacked beside them.

In June 2021 the top of the homepage turns dark and the headline is pink: UNLOCKED FULL EPISODES. The cards are episodes now, Teen Titans Go! in A Little Help Please, Craig of the Creek in Power Punchers and Gumball in Teachers, with MOBILE APP and UNLOCKED! buttons beside them. The games moved down the page, led by Ben 10 Alien Rivals.

The December 2022 capture keeps the layout. Its lead episode is A Doom Patrol Thanksgiving from Teen Titans Go!, and the VIDEO menu’s code now lists Cartoonito. We have no 2023 frame: both requests for the US homepage ended on Cartoon Network’s German and Brazilian sites.

The games directory was still running on January 2, 2024, our last capture of it. Ben 10 Alien Rivals was still the big tile.

By August 9, 2024 Warner Bros. Discovery had shut the US Cartoon Network website and sent its visitors to Max.^[9][10] TheWrap quoted the pop-up that greeted them: Looking for episodes of your favorite Cartoon Network shows? Check out what’s available to stream on Max (subscription required). A spokesperson said the company was focusing on shows and social media where we find consumers are the most engaged. The TV channel stayed on the air.^[9]

Our last three frames are captures of the Max page the address led to, so they are not cartoonnetwork.com pages. The August 14, 2024 one, above, shows the CN logo on a night sky with Adventure Time characters and the line Come on in! Spend some quality time with your kids’ favorites. Under it: Plans start at $9.99/month. The lower parts of the 2024 and 2025 replays are blank, so those two frames show only the top.

In June 2025 the art, the welcome text and the $9.99 price are the same; a sports label in the menu and the button color change. In June 2026 the service is called HBO Max, the art shows Craig of the Creek, and the price line reads Plans start at $10.99/month.

1998 · Let’s do launch!1998 · Then2026 · Plans start at $10.99/month2026 · Max

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The 1998 page offered ten t-shirts a day to announce a website. The 2026 page sells a monthly plan, and the website it announced is gone.