Warner Bros. Discovery kills its Boomerang streamer, folds some of its shows into Max

Bear with us for a second here: Does Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav just really fucking hate Scooby-Doo?

It’s the first thought that passed through our minds this afternoon, after Deadline reported that WBD was officially shutting down Boomerang, the former cable network-turned-on-demand streaming service for Warner’s library of classic cartoons. (Including a large number of the many, many Scooby-Doo shows from the last half-century of animation.) Sure, a number of the ‘toons from the low-cost streaming option will get moved over to the company’s Max line, including a bunch of the Scooby stuff. But between this and the studio’s treatment of trashed animated film Scoob: Holiday Haunt, it’s hard not to imagine Zaslav as a child, cowering while watching an animated theme park owner in a $9 ghost costume menace teenagers, the young boy whispering to himself “Someday, David, that inarticulate dog will taste our vengeance.”

Boomerang’s history stretches back to 1992, when it originated as a programming block on Cartoon Network, home to the channel’s extensive library of older cartoons (including a bunch of the old Hanna-Barbera stuff). It was spun off as a separate cable network in 2000, and got a relaunch in 2015, including a brief effort to focus on new version of old cartoons like Looney Tunes and Scooby-Doo. When its cable coverage started to fall apart a few years later, Warner Bros. figured they could sell it as a standalone VOD service as an option for parents to plunk kids down in front of, charging $6 a month for the privilege.

News of Boomerang’s shuttering comes not long after Paramount announced it was making a similar move, killing off the kid-aimed Noggin and folding some of its content into Paramount+. Meanwhile, existing Boomerang subscribers will have their accounts transferred over to Max, apparently at no additional charge.