News

Although the pandemic has really hit a lot of us hard, we must try to stay vigilant and try to keep our eyes glued to some cartoons as much as possible! No really, as morale drops and we feel pressure from the powers that be, try to find a place to go to keep you from falling into that dark cavern that is emptiness and depression.

As we go into a new year, have hope and joy for the things that we do have and the things that are coming over the horizon. Because even though things look bleak, our best days are yet to come! Although I work full-time as a software developer, I do try to keep ToonJet updated with new cartoons and content when I have a second or two in order to keep that dark, empty cavern lit with our favorite cartoons. I made a commitment years ago to try to track down some of my favorite cartoons of yesteryear and share them, and I hope to continue to hold up that commitment.

So, here's to a new year with new cartoons to look forward to. Share them with your friends, and if you have kids, be sure to pass on our glorious toony history with them as well! God bless you and your family, and here's to a fruitful new year!

--J.T. Blevins

Let me tell you a story. I started ToonJet in 2008 to introduce the current generation to a bit of culture from my childhood (I mean, I watched a lot of cartoons in my youth, but they weren't released in my childhood. I'm not that old...just FYI :D). At the time, there were no good places to watch cartoons online, so I began sharing my collection. Once I got a ways into development of the website, I decided to pursue monetizing my work as an incentive to stay busy.

A few years later, the YouTube corporate machine came barrelling through and began hitting me with copyright claims (at least a hundred) and demonetizing my videos at every turn. Soon, Google also deactivated all Adsense ads on ToonJet. I realized that hosting the videos myself would be too expensive for a hobbyist like myself, so eventually, I looked for other outlets to handle video streaming, with or without monetization. Cartoons are a love of mine, and I wasn't going to let the corporation snuff out the little guy. I went through several, and all of them eventually either shut down or started narrowing their focus so that only certain types of videos were allowed.

All of this is to say that although I love posting cartoons and made it a hobby of mine to be able to bring you the coolest in public domain videos, it hasn't been without its difficulties. I am announcing that the site is now set up to accept tips in the form of cryptocurrency through the Brave web browser. If you want to contribute to further development on ToonJet and you're already a Brave user, click on the triangle icon in the address bar and get started with BAT (Brave's Basic Attention Tokens).

Either way, ToonJet will always strive to bring you the best cartoon classics, so stick with us. The corporations can take your money but they can't take your soul!

So, since I haven't posted much news since I have been in school the last couple of years, I figured I would share a few things that were going on.

Next week I start school back. It's the beginning of my Senior year in college, so it's kind of exciting for me. I was in summer school trying to earn some credits up until August 11th, so I only got about a 2 week break in between classes. In that time, I have been able to experiment with some new website design techniques I have learned in school.

A couple of days ago, however, I had two new problems arise with this very website. First, my server crashed. Not just crashed, but really crashed. The system my sites were running on would not boot up but just for a few seconds, and then shut down again. Probably fried the motherboard. That was only the first problem.

Then, I received an email from Google stating the Youtube account I have been using to upload some of the videos seen on ToonJet was being shut down because of non-compliance with their terms. Not the first time this has happened, but when you're only uploading public domain videos, it's kind of hard to make that case.

So first of all, I have migrated my entire server to another machine. I began keeping backups of all of my data and files for this very reason. It isn't perfect, but it cost me under $100 and it seems to be working marvelously so far. As far as the other problem, you have probably noticed that I have begun to use Vimeo as the new video server. You may still see some Youtube videos on ToonJet, but going forward, I will be using Vimeo exclusively, and probably migrating some of the old videos over to Vimeo as well.

One good thing that came of all of this was I had a chance to go back and troubleshoot some problems the site was having with signups. I noticed a huge gap in time between signups, and realized that the signup system wasn't working at all. So, I went in and  found the problem and hopefully all is well with that now.

Whether you're an old friend of ToonJet or just coming aboard, welcome and let's enjoy some cartoons, shall we?

--J.T. Blevins

     Years ago, I started ToonJet as a project to hone my skills as a web programmer, and as to support my addiction to cartoons, which has been a problem since the days of Saturday mornings spent sitting in front of the television laughing at cartoons that were already over 40 years old. Thirty years later, here I am writing about some of those same cartoons which have brought joy to children the world over. I consider cartoons a part of our heritage, and something that should be shared with everyone.

     Over the past couple of years, as I have done pretty much throughout my entire life, I have gone through changes, including losing a job that was challenging, rewarding, stable and a major source of income, helping my children as they grow and face challenges at school, starting back to school myself at the age of 36. I have somehow managed to balance all of this with my other obsessions, including ToonJet and other projects that I have begun with varying degrees of success.

     Although ToonJet doesn't directly compete with some of the newest of technologies, I have tried to incorporate features that I thought that people would appreciate, including the social aspects that allow you to favorite cartoons, leave comments, rate them, and actually interact based on what brought you here, which was more than likely an interest in cartoons.

     Apparently over the years as I have neglected the site more than I wanted to, readership has dropped somewhat. Even so, ToonJet receives hundreds of visitors per day, and gets tens of thousands of pageviews each month! As I am sure you noticed, ToonJet once ran on two major sources of income. One being advertising revenue which was gained through the video-serving company, Blip.tv. As of October 8th of last year, I was notified that ToonJet did not fit into Blip's producer lineup, and my account was discontinued. This came as a blow, as I had to quickly find a way to keep the videos online, and I was able to migrate ToonJet's library of 500+ videos over to Youtube within the course of a month or so.

     This month, ToonJet was dealt another blow, losing the ability to display Google Adsense ads anywhere on the site, in part because the videos were embedded "from other hosts", being Google's own Youtube. This put the site's revenue effectively at around zero dollars.

     But, I am writing this to say that I don't plan to discontinue ToonJet anytime soon. Whether the site still makes money or not, I plan to try to keep it working for as long as I can. It has not been easy. If it had been anyone else, they would have surely walked away by now. These examples are only a small sample of the problems I have faced with the silly little site featuring Dinky the Dog as its mascot, but we have come this far. Why stop now?

     You will probably continue to see some form of advertising or another, but even so, I am in the process of finding ways to reduce the clutter, especially on the main page. I believe people still want to watch the cartoons that have been replaced with bold 3D animation and modern cartoons that kids today will understand. Whether the major companies today want to allow you to "waste" your time watching those lost classics of yesteryear, I will keep the site up for as long as possible, whether it makes money or not. So for those who continue to stick around, I know I've said it before, but thank you.

Take a moment to honor all of our veterans and military servicemen who gave their lives to keep our country safe and free. Happy Memorial Day!

On February 5th, ToonJet.com visitors who browsed the site on a mobile phone began to experience the new ToonJet mobile site! In all honesty, the format has been in the works for a couple of years, but never completed. Hopefully the final version holds up to the cartoon-lovers who want to experience classic toons on the go. Obviously, it is not going to be perfect by any means, and the features may not work exactly as expected 100% of the time, but hopefully over time the kinks will all get ironed out. But in my opinion, when browsing the site on a handheld screen, it is much more helpful to be able to actually read the site and to be able to see the videos rather than making your eyeballs explode from squinting so hard! :) And like I mentioned, it is far from perfect, and there are features that I want to implement, but may not be able to for some time, so please no hate mail...just joking. I like hearing from fans of the site, even if you are an avid hater. So, without further ado, go to your nearest phone and check it out!

I wanted to take the time to thank everyone who visits ToonJet regularly. I was recently separated from my day job, and I am now attending college. I have been blessed enough to be able to use the revenue from ToonJet to pay for my classes so far. I am pursuing a degree in Computer Science with a concentration in Information Technology so that I can continue doing what I love, but also make it my profession. So far, I have not had to get student loans for my classes because of the money I had saved up from ToonJet over the last five years. If all continues to go well, I may be able to pay for all of my college classes solely with the money from ToonJet and my other couple of websites! So, ToonJet will stay on track for as long as I can keep on doing it.

On another note, I have been updating ToonJet with some minor improvements. Most of them (as usual) are on the backend, but one thing that might be of interest is the ToonJet ToonFeed. I have updated the links to reflect the correct ToonFeed link. The old one was created with Feedburner, but I have since created an RSS system built into the ToonJet website. You can subscribe to this link through various services, such as Google Reader, or if you click on it in Firefox, you can add it to your live feeds as a bookmark.

Once again, thanks for your support. Thanks for helping me to live my dream and I hope to see you around!

--J.T. Blevins

I know you're asking, "What can I do to promote the best classic cartoon site ever?" I often find myself thinking this, so I can relate. If you want to help promote ToonJet and keep up with the latest in cartoon news, like us on FaceBook! Or, if you're a Google Plus pioneer, check us out on there, as well. ToonJet would love your support, as building our army of toon-heads is always ongoing. Thanks for watching, and hope to see you there!

--J.T. Blevins

Just thought I would say that I have been working on some minor upgrades that might go unnoticed by most ToonJet visitors, but they mainly consist of a lot of technical changes, making the inner workings of the site work much faster, meaning faster loading times, better performance, etc. I also changed the login function so as to whisk you back to where you were after you log in. It may not be the most exciting upgrade, but I thought I would share it anyway. As always, thanks for watching!

--J.T.

This past Monday, I had hernia surgery. Not because I wanted to, but because I am such a hard worker that my muscles blew a hole in my abdominal wall. Yes, it is that dramatic.

I'm not sure exactly what I was doing to explode my abdomen. It could have been when I was lifting giant pieces of wood to build an orphanage for poor abandoned children.

Perhaps it was when I wrestled a lion to save an african tribe. Wow, the gratitude in those little starving children's eyes...

I hate to sound like I'm tooting my own horn, but maybe it was when I was rapelling down a rock face and met with certain doom when a boulder began to fall on me and the 3 month old child I was carrying with me to get him to his mother who would certainly die without a vial of his blood to fight off a rare disease.

Regardless of the reason, I hope you will keep me in your prayers. I am beginning to recover slowly with the help of the internet, Facebook, and my video games. I am also trying to make some updates to ToonJet when I am able. I will be out of work until the beginning of June, and then I will be working and going back to college. In the meantime, I won't be receiving my full paycheck so if you would like to help out and make a donation, feel free. Here is the Paypal donation link:

Thanks everybody for your support, and here is to a hundred more years of cartoons!

Thank you,

--J.T. Blevins