>>20302
I never cared for the old school Hanna-Barbera style where everything looked almost as flat as South Park. Hanna-Barbera was good for its time, because they did they best they could with the small budgets of '50s-'80s tv animation, but by the '90s they actually started having shows that looked a lot better. Then the old style made a comeback, with things like Dexter's Lab, Johnny Bravo, Powerpuff Girls, Kids Next Door, Billy and Mandy, and probably more that were more after my time. And don't get me wrong, I love Dexter's Lab and Johnny Bravo and Powerpuff Girls (the other ones were a bit after my time), but I'm not going to say that I didn't always think the visuals were a lot worse than the stuff made by Klasky-Csupo or Games Animation for Nickelodeon. Things like Rugrats and Rocko's Modern Life and most of their other shows. Klasky-Csupo had a weird "ugly" design style, but it worked for shows like Rugrats and Ahh! Real Monsters, and it actually looked like they were trying to draw things as having three dimensions. I'm not an animator and might not be explaining myself as well as I could, but look at Dexter's Lab and look at Rugrats. That difference is what I mean.
And the ironic part is that part of the influence on early Cartoon Network originals was John K, who previously made Ren & Stimpy, and you can certainly see a lot of early Hanna-Barbera influence on Ren & Stimpy. It does look a bit more flat than Doug or Rugrats sometimes, and with Cartoon Network basically originally being a Hanna-Barbera channel (and Hanna-Barbera literally making their earliest shows before they just became Cartoon Network Studios), it's a good fit. But John K is like the Rain Man of animation, and he managed to take good elements from Hanna-Barbera while mixing them with good elements from Warner Bros. and others and generally having good animation principles and philosophy, so while Hanna-Barbera was known for cheap, limited animation (which was better than the competition because they used what budgets they did have well), Ren & Stimpy had excellent animation, streets ahead of anything else I've mentioned here. Whether his influence on early Cartoon Network original shows was actually significant or not, my point is that their original shows felt like a huge regression toward cheaper, more limited animation and visual design in general. In short, it looks flat and no sir, I don't like it. Also note that John K. would later say he regretted his "flat period." But during that time he influenced things in ways I don't like. He also influenced things in ways I do like at the same time though, so it's tricky.
In terms of writing, I would argue that the shows I specifically mentioned there were particularly excellent in their writing, with characters and concepts having a surprising amount of depth. The shows did a good job being enjoyable by both kids and adults, with jokes that were smart enough that kids wouldn't really be expected to get them, for example. Of course Ren & Stimpy is a lot less about the writing than the other ones, but the writing was done in service of the animation, and does it well. Really I was mostly including Ren & Stimpy on that list for the animation. I just meant those four shows are way better than anything else Nickelodeon ever made. Though note that obviously not counting anything after the third seasons of Rugrats or Spongebob, and really obviously you should never ever subject yourself to the god awful abomination that is the Rocko's Modern Life Netflix movie.
Ren & Stimpy was still pretty good after John K. was fired though. And Adult Party Cartoon is great.
Unfortunately, CN proved to be more influential in the long run, as people who worked on shows like Dexter's Lab and Johnny Bravo went on to make shows like Family Guy and Fairly Oddparents, and bring their shitty visual style with them, if anything degenerating much further. Everything I'm saying really refers to the '90s. Both networks largely went to shit after that anyway.
Was Justice League Unlimited a Cartoon Network original? That show is excellent and up there with the best of all time. But I just think of the whole DC Animated Universe as one thing, and Batman aired on Fox Kids, and other shows aired on WB, and I forget which ones were which. Batman had the best visual style by far though (until the later seasons a few years later), and that's the one I know was Fox Kids.
>>20292
If I were as dumb as you, I'd think someone saying Cartoon Network was better would have to be trolling, since it isn't even close, IMO. But then I've been around for a long time and have been exposed to plenty of people with bad taste.
I'm Canadian and we never got either Nick or CN. All the shows were just aired on YTV. But I always noticed that the ones with good animation tended to have the Nickelodeon logo at the end.