This is how you cultivate IP.

Since we're in the middle of a thread about the business of television, content libraries, and intellectual property, I thought it would be a good time to look at examples of doing it right, particularly since these examples give me an excuse to post more Friday videos.

Cartoon Network Groovies were a great illustration of how to take characters from the catalog (some like Atom Ant and Quickdraw McGraw, all but forgotten) keep them in the public eye, package them in an appealing way, and even make them surprisingly hip.

Imagine a channel that showed a bunch of music videos during commercial breaks. These videos featured footage from the shows the network aired, and sometimes even had original animation made for it. And here's the kicker: many songs were done by prominent artists like They Might Be Giants, Will.i.am, and even Devo. Prepare to be surprised, as this was Cartoon Network during the late 1990s/early 2000s.