Toonami - Music and Games

Music and Games

Toonami always proved a haven for dance/electronica music throughout its history, using original compositions; first by skater/artist Tommy Guerrero from 1997 to 1999, and then by Atlanta-based composer Joe Boyd Vigil from 1999 to 2002, many of which were compiled in the CD Toonami: Deep Space Bass in 2001, which is now out of print. In 2003, DJ Clarknova took Toonami's beats (both old and new) and mixed them with sound bites from recent Toonami and Adult Swim shows. This resulted in an hour-long compilation of Toonami remixes, called the Toonami: Black Hole Megamix, but for unknown reasons was never published. However, the Megamix recently was hosted by Toonami Digital Arsenal, a popular unofficial Toonami multimedia site.

From 2003 through 2008, Toonami relied on original and library tracks from various artists from publisher Ninja Tune. On rare occasions, videos from musicians such as Daft Punk, Linkin Park, The White Stripes, Beck, and Gorillaz aired on the block.

Infrequently, Toonami aired reviews of video games. The reviews, delivered by T.O.M. and occasionally S.A.R.A., were fairly short and ran during commercial breaks. The hosts scored games on a 1 - 10 system: 10 signifying an excellent game, 1 signifying a very poor game. (The score system was originally 1 - 5 until 2001.) Two games were given a "?", Dropship: United Peace Force for PlayStation 2 because of many failed attempts to get past Level 6, and Slender by Marc "Parsec" Hadley of Parsec Productions because of not finding all eight pages in time, and the fright of looking at the Slender Man.

Also, T.O.M. was featured in the Cartoon Network MMORPG "Fusion Fall" as a NPC.