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Sam Register may be one of the most influential people in animation that you’ve never heard of. For more than 30 years, he’s been working at Cartoon Network or Warner Bros. Animation in one way or another. Most recently, he was the head of Warner Bros. Animation, Cartoon Network Studios, and Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe, but that ends next week when he will be abruptly leaving the company.

It is a massive shift in the organization and comes with very little warning. Typically, we would expect a change like this to be planned for months or even years and, importantly, a successor to be clearly lined up to ensure a smooth transition. It was announced that Warner Bros.TV Group chair Channing Dungey and Sam Register had “mutually agreed not to renew his contract,” meaning that he will be leaving the company next week. 

Dungey said in a memo to employees that a search is currently underway for Register’s replacement. Meanwhile, individual department heads will lead their departments until the recruitment process is finished.

Sam Register has been in animation since 1994, when he worked on Cartoon Network series like Chowder, Clone Wars, and Ben 10. To give you an idea of how long he has been at the network, he launched the very first Cartoon Network website in 1998. Since becoming the head of Warner Bros. Animation in 2008, he greenlit successful series like Harley Quinn, Young Justice, Teen Titans Go!, and the Animaniacs revival.

Remarkably, while Warner Bros. has famously struggled to build a successful film franchise from DC Comics characters, they have had numerous hit animated series under Register, including Batman: Caped Crusader, Creature Commandos, and My Adventures with Superman.

We don’t know exactly why Warner Bros. didn’t want to renew Sam Register’s contract, nor do we know why they left it so late to finally decide to part ways. The move comes at a time when Paramount continues to pursue purchasing Warner Bros., which would likely result in massive restructuring of the company anyway. Whatever the reason, it marks a huge change in one of the world’s biggest animation studios. 

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