(reposted from Cohost)

Okay, so let's rewind back to the year 2009. The television airwaves went from analog to digital to make room for cell phone traffic, and that had the bonus of letting channels split their broadcasts into several sub-channels. Suddenly, all kinds of networks with specialized content started popping up over the air; feeling a bit like cable in its early, pre-homogenous days.

Of course, since you're getting them for free, these new stations felt like store-brand imitations of popular cable networks. You've got your movie channel (ThisTV), your black American focused channel (Bounce), your oldies channel (the surprisingly good Me-TV), and maybe a few off-shoots of PBS like Sprout and Create. For cartoons, rapidly fading from over the air broadcasts due to industry regulations, you had Ion Television's Qubo. And let me tell you, that network was one hell of a ride.

Apart from PBS, Qubo was the only source of cartoons for Gen-Z kids whose parents couldn't afford cable. That was quite unfortunate for them, as Qubo was not only store brand Cartoon Network, it was the kind of cartoon network that Ned Flanders would make his kids watch. If a show wasn't educational, it was (gently) religious, and they all seemed to be pulled out of a dumpster somewhere. Qubo had its own version of Adult Swim called Night Owl, but Night Owl only got as racy as the Canadian import Spliced (imagine SpongeBob Squarepants meets the Island of Doctor Moreau) and Filmation shows like He-Man and BraveStarr. (Fun for the Gen-X parents, probably bouncing a fussy baby on their knees.)

Qubo lasted for about a decade with its collection of cartoon cast-offs, but was recently plucked off the air by Ion Networks' new owner E.W. Scripps. It's left something of a misshapen footprint in the distant corner of my memory. Occasionally, I'll think about Spliced, or Jane and the Dragon, or Jacob Two-Two, or my personal favorite Rupert, and my mind goes back to a television network that seemed to come out of nowhere, then vanished when nobody was looking.