Impractical Jokers Season 7? Cancelled Or Renewed Status ...

I am fascinated by champion design and am excited to learn about what champions didn't become as much as what they did, not because I believe that their initial designs were better, but there's just so much damn creativity and awesome ideas that I believe should've been allowed to exist to some degree in a better world.
I don't have trivia on every single champion because Riot doesn't publicly disclose every idea they tried out (they "icebox"/"put on hold" rather than outright cancel, as some ideas may be revisited in the future, so they like to keep their better ideas under wraps), but here's a list of some of my favorite ideas from the champions Riot has spoken up about.
(note: these might be common knowledge to some, but I felt like making this post on the offchance you don't because chances are that nobody's aware of all of these. If you do, congrats!)
AATROX: For his 2018 VGU, a few abilities were tested:

• One version of his ultimate would have created a "war zone" that would reduce the death timers of both allies and enemies who died in it. It was a crazy "fiesta zone", but it caused too many balance problems.
• He had another ability to offer the chance for allies to become Darkin -- Aatrox would drop his sword for someone to pick up, and they'd pay a "Blood Price" for it for bonus stats and a revive with Aatrox's R.

AHRI: From Riot's ORIGINS post:

• An early version of Ahri had no fox ears and her nine tails were really just suggestions from the shape of her dress. They thought it was too lame, and so they focused on making her a proper foxgirl instead of an "artificially unique one".
• An early version of her ultimate had her dash infinitely over time, basically turning herself into an Ezreal ult. Senior game designer Colt "Ezreal" Hallam claimed "We had to change this ultimate due to its interactions with the Dominion map, which is easily one of my biggest regrets on the character."

AKALI: For her 2018 VGU, they considered letting her "ride" projectiles from other champions (say, a Jinx rocket), but it was too impractical and annoying to work with. They also made it so her smoke bomb created a dragon-shaped billow in the center (which was shown in her rework's teaser image), but it was cut for clarity.
APHELIOS: From Riot's Champ Insights post:

• They originally wanted to make him a mage, specifically "a classic wizard archetype" with many potential combo-attacks (Invoker, anyone?), but in practice he was functionally identical to other mages in playstyle.
• They came up with the "gunswap marksman" idea first, champion identity second, and explored a bunch. My personal favorite is "Braum’s mean older brother, who carried a totem pole that channeled Freljordian animal spirits to swap abilities," who was specifically cut because his design implied he was tanky.
  
• CertainlyT originally suggested Aphelios carry as much as 25 guns, and also suggested that his power be based off the stage of the real life moon. Ngl, I hope he wasn't joking, godspeed
  

AURELION SOL: As some of you might know, ASol was originally planned to be a different champ: a long, serpentine storm dragon named Ao Shin. He was reworked because Riot had a lot of trouble with the technical aspects of the idea -- He was apparently "10-12 Teemos in length" and they wanted him to be able to wrap his body around enemies, but this made it hard for him to hide in bushes, and it consumed a ton of his power budget (he needed to be fast enough to move around enemies and tanky enough to survive them fighting back).
AZIR: Lotttttt of stuff from his ORIGINS post, too much to include here. the tl;dr version was that he was envisioned as a sand mage named Seth since 2013-14, and was reworked countless times due to technical and creative issues.
BARD: Originally for his passive, Riot gave him the ability to go through several different color versions of Meeps that would boost his abilities, and they would all continuously follow behind him like Pikmin. Testing made them prefer simpler upgrades to basic attacks over his abilities, resulting in his passive's current state.
DIANA: Yknow how that recent rework where they made her Moonfall (circle-surrounding ability) her ultimate? It turns out this was (kind of) the original plan when she was first made: it was a channeled AoE that dealt true damage based off a resource called "Scorn", but was replaced for being "toxic and nearly impossible to counter."
EKKO: They wanted to make his ultimate be able to properly rewind enemies along with him, but no matter what they tried, it was considered too busted and confusing. Also, they were developing Bard alongside him, and during a phase in playtesting, Bard had an ultimate where he would globally silence enemies, making games with both of them being globally annoyed no matter what.
EVELYNN: From her Champ Insights revolving her 2017 VGU, Riot originally wanted to make her scarier and demonic, with "spider legs, cracked porcelain skin with shadows pushing their way out, the cavity of a missing eye you could peer into and see three eyes within." They thought it was too much.
GALIO: One idea for a passive in his 2017 VGU was the ability to roost on top of turrets (or the remains of one), allowing him to cast spells at an increased range. When he jumped off, he could also chain it into his ultimate.
GANGPLANK: One tested idea for his 2015 VGU was an ultimate nicknamed "Pirate Gundam", summoning a giant, tanky unit that would either fire cannonballs or do a nerfed version of Malphite's ult. It didn't work out since it felt too powerful and required a ton of additional focus in visuals to implement it in game.
GNAR: Originally, Mega Gnar's ult had him swallow a unit whole, and was directly said to have inspired Tahm Kench's entire "devour" mechanic. This is a case of a good idea being reused for later -- the ability tested well, but they preferred it be the core mechanic to a new champion than tacked onto someone as uncontrollable as Gnar.
JHIN: From his Champ Insights, Jhin was originally envisioned as a "mysterious robot cowboy bounty hunting sniper" codenamed Deadeye. His design was fragmented, but while Jhin became a new psycho artist gunman, the design inspired his High Noon skin.
JINX: From her ORIGINS post:

• Originally they wanted her to be "a weapon-swapping ADC, like a ranged Udyr" (or a primordial Aphelios, lol) where her abilities just switched to a different gun for her basic attacks. Riot found this pattern pretty boring after a while, so all she has left of the gunswap is her Q.
• They tested out a bunch of different ultimates. My favorite is "Circle of Cats", fired a bomb across the map that surrounded the first enemy hit with magic smoke, causing enemies who crossed it to turn into harmless kittens, but it's just not as direct as making them explode outright.

KAI'SA: She was always meant to be a marksman, but went through different ideas in ideation. Concepts included an ex-Purifier (Lucian's faction), a Vampire hunter that became a vampire, a Zaunite life-essence-drainer, and even an idea that she was part of a new breed of void monster trying to imitate humans.
KAYN: Originally they wanted Kayn to be Xayah and Rakan's nemesis (and was codenamed during development as "Nemesis"), but they decided to cut this because his relationship with Zed and conflict with Rhaast was more interesting.
MISS FORTUNE: Riot toyed with giving her a new voiceover around 2018 (around the same time they recorded the voiceover for her Gun Goddess skin), but it was scrapped after they tested some lines out and internal feedback was mixed; nobody could really agree on what they were looking for from her characterization, and they concluded that changing it was a worse decision than leaving it be.
MORDEKAISER: Lots of really cool ideas were thrown around for his 2019 VGU:

• They toyed with giving Mordekaiser more interactions in dialogue, but most were cut because they didn't want to make him "chatty or conversational". One cut line was a first encounter line for Kled where he asks "What is... a taco?"
• One early idea was that his armor was meant to be based off the Immortal Bastion (formerly his giant fortress in Noxus), and so he looked architectural.
• Sooooo many scrapped abilities, including ones that interacted with the Death Realm. Favorites include a passive that automatically enslaved the souls of enemies he killed, and a circular missile that sent enemies it passed over into the Death Realm.

MORGANA: For her dual VGU with Kayle, they tested some new abilities on her just to see if there was anything worth changing. One significant ability was making her ult have tiers like with Kayle, with each rank giving her new stats, but the only one that stuck was giving her bonus movement speed.
NUNU and WILLUMP:

• One early story pitch for their 2018 VGU was that they were part of a traveling circus who secretly stole artifacts from Lissandra. The Frostguard found out and slaughtered their tribe, but Nunu managed to steal a true ice artifact that gave them snowball-making powers.
  
• One of their tested abilities was having Nunu toss out a climbing rope to lasso an enemy, which prevented them from moving beyond the two's radius. It sounds like it had potential, but only that.
  

ORNN:

• From his development post, Ornn was in the works since around 2013, so he went through a lot of different design ideas (too many to list here), some of which influenced other champions like the 2014 VGU of Sion.
  
• One version of his ultimate was "Murderhenge", where he summoned a giant volcano that erupted boulders across the area, and if Ornn charged into one of the boulders, they'd explode and damage enemies. It was "Fun as hell but way too random and noisy."
  
• An idea for his passive that he could forge his own weapons to affect his basic attacks for a while, like an extra hammer for AoE, a blade for piercing damage, and an axe for CC.
  

PYKE:

• Pyke was planned to be an "assassin support" from day one, and went through a bunch of ability experimentation. My favorite was a "kidnap spell" where he'd mark his current position, then could dash forward, and if he collided with a champion, he'd yank them both back to the starting point.
  
• While coming up with identities for a "dark assassin support", one of the ideas was making him a Shuriman sand wraith (influencing his Sand Wraith skin), and an undead yordle from the Shadow Isles (HEY RIOT, WHAT THE FUCK, I HOPE YOU REUSE THIS)
  

QIYANA:

• Originally, Riot wanted Ixtal to be a faction from a completely new continent away from Runeterra, and Qiyana was supposed to be from a race of metal people (or an "alloy girl"), but they simply didn't have the time or bandwidth to accomplish this.
• She was supposed to be able to use fire in her kit, but there isn't enough fire in any map to gain it from. Also, her ult was supposed to explode the ENTIRE river.

QUINN:

• She was originally envisioned as a "two-handed sword assassin", but then someone asked "Why not ranged?" and her design changed.
  
• An early version of her passive had Valor find any enemy below 30% max HP and suppress them for "some obscene amount of time".
  
• Her full title is supposed to be "Quinn and Valor", but due to client tech issues, she could only be referred to as simply "Quinn" once she left PBE. (given Nunu and Willump years later, this is probably no longer an issue. Any time, Riot!)
  

RAKAN and XAYAH: The two were conceived as a "botlane duo", so different ways they could do duo mechanics were tested:

• One idea was for them to be "a Storm Shaman and a Storm Elemental", where one could summon a lightning cloud to shock enemies and another with a gust of wind to blow it into place. They also tested giving them each a Vel'Koz beam that could combine into a single crazy "megabeam".
• Another idea was that the two would be vampires and would operate by a day/night cycle (hi, Dota 2) that made them more powerful at night, but it was considered "one too many layers" since they already had the duo mechanics.
• The two originally had a mechanic where if one of them died, they could still attach themselves to the other and continue fighting, which became the basis for Yuumi's kit.
• Xayah had a vast amount of work done on her for her kit -- one of her ults eventually became Kai'Sa's, one ability was basically Ahri's W but with only one projectile, one passive granted her up to 10 stacks of bonus damage from using basic attacks (which was "1v9"-levels of busted), and a mechanic kinda like Fiora's passive where she could target a side of a target for bonus damage, which got narrower but more powerful the more it was hit.

RAMMUS: The reason Rammus is so quiet is because when Riot (very early on in the game's life, to remind you) did try to give him a proper voiceover, but it sucked and they recorded a new one in 15 minutes. The rest is history!
RIVEN: From her ORIGINS post, Riven went through a lot of kit experimentation, especially with her ultimate. The descriptions of what they tried with her are much funnier than anything I can relay.
RYZE: Not exactly to do with the champion himself, but for his "Call to Power" short, there exists an unused model of a Zaunite assassin and concept art of him with a little girl (who I believe is Daisy from Annie's short?)
SHACO: Sometime around 2017, they tested giving him a rework. One of the tested abilities was an ultimate where he turned himself into a missle that fired in a direction. When he collided with Yasuo's Wind Wall, he never came back. "The entire design team stood up and gave the Yasuo player a standing ovation."
SYLAS: He was envisioned as a "copycat" champion since the beginning, but went through different ideas:

• One idea was that he was this Houdini-esque magic escape artist who let Demacia capture him just to prove he could escape... but then ended up trapped for 20 years because of their petricite. Smooth.
  
• They originally tried making him more of a mage -- his original Q eventually became Neeko's Q, and he had a "prison break" move that let him cleanse CC, but it didn't work out. They changed him into a brawler because they found it was more versatile to use enemy ultimates around.
  

TALIYAH: From her Champ Insights:

• Originally they wanted Taliyah's abilities to be much more destructive, with an ultimate that could outright remove any natural terrain. This was cut because nobody really knew how to make this look right, and the ability felt more a support champ than a self-reliant mage.
  
• One idea to go along with her "weaver" concept was to give her a "spool" that could gather up rocks that she could fire back onto her enemies. This implied that she had abilities that she could charge up, but she eventually ended up with none.
  

URGOT: A few, kind of wacky ideas were tested for his 2017 VGU:

• Riot initially toyed with Urgot being a waaaaaay more theatrical, Batman-style villain (think Joker or Penguin) where he'd toy with his enemies with deranged playfulness before killing them. His taunt was a full minute long, and his ultimate had him pull out a pipe organ to play a song and give an evil monologue as he dragged his enemies to death -- the only reason this seems to have been cut is because gameplay is too fast for it. (ngl, I want this REALLY BAD)
  
• One scrapped ability had him fire a cluster bomb that created a minefield which feared enemies. "Unfair" doesn't begin to describe it.
  

VI: One early stab at her "Piltover Enforcer" idea was that she was a steampunk capoeira fighter with dreads and robot legs. It apparently sounds cooler than it actually looked.
WARWICK: One idea for his 2017 VGU was to be able to turn other allies into werewolves, allowing them to roam around the map as a wolf pack. Not exactly "Warwick", but very cool.
YORICK: One ability was tried out for his 2016 VGU where could resurrect allies, with one version of them exploding like Kog'Maw. It was cut because 1) there wasn't a way to make it fun, and 2) this meant Yorick's power relied on his team dying.
YUUMI:

• Her passive was "very close" to being named "Protecc/Attacc"/
• Few different cool abilities were tested,, including one ultimate that involved diving onto an enemy and pushing them an unlimited distance away from the fight (which sounds like Stukov's shoving ult from HOTS).

CANCELLED CHAMPIONS:

• OMEN was a very early champ that looked like a spiky quadruped demon thing. He had a kit, but it was super confused and unfocused, and nobody was sure if he was meant to be melee or not.
  
• KOMACHI was once supposed to be a female, Grim Reaper-style, scythe-wielding tank who was being designed, but they canned her when they realized they couldn't make her not cliche. (which makes Kayn's existence as a deliberate edgelord even funnier, lol)
  
• WELL was envisioned as a water elemental early in the game's life. He was called off when someone asked Riot if they actually had the graphics technology to make him look good, and they didn't. When they soon did, they gave the concept another shot in the form of Seth, a sand mage which became Azir (listed above)
  
• PRISCILLA was a "Spider Queen" champion who was canned despite her model and voice lines being found in the game. Fan petition for her inclusion led to the creation of Elise.
  
• KADARIN was a "space marine-styled gladiator" who had a pretty neat history: TotalBiscuit (RIP) won a prize in the now-defunct Refer-A-Friend system where he could help cocreate a champion, but when his idea got rejected, he gave the prize to the Make a Wish Foundation. Kadarin is a concept proposed by a kid named Samuel, but while an experimental prototype was tested, "it's unlikely you'll ever see Kadarin as a full package."
  
• HUSK was a champion idea designed by IronStylus before he left Riot, whose design elements inspired Kai'Sa and Camille. Her story was that she was Caitlyn's former partner, but she was betrayed and paralyzed, so she defected to Zaun and formed a mercenary group called H.I.V.E.
  

I'm not sure about you, but I like this show. I'm not sure why people aren't that comfortable with it, there are a few issues, but nothing that should really make people want to not watch it.
Long History of Previous Batman Cartoons
I am a huge fan of Batman. I love the character, although I've recently been reading and discussing the impracticality of the psychology of his origin and his creation of his own villains, but I still love the notion of a masked vigilante, fighting crime, and arguably more important, solving crime.
Since I do enjoy Batman's story and idea, I have watched almost all the animated Batman shows that have aired. (I haven't read a whole lot of the comics unfortunately, but I'd like to consider myself a fairly intelligent fan regardless) BTAS was also one of the greatest Batman shows ever. I don't know if I've meet a single person who can argue that BTAS or TNBA were not some of the most badass cartoons of their time.
Of course after BTAS ended(rather unsatisfactorily, I might add) there was Batman Beyond, still with the amazingly talented Kevin Conroy to voice Bruce Wayne, but with a new Batman entirely. And this too, was another great Batman show that so greatly encapsulated everything we love about the hero. Then there was Justice League, which continued to carry on the escapades of the Caped Crusader.
Then came a Batman show which some of the more hardcore Batman fans/fans of the previous programs I mentoned did not quite agree with: The Batman. First of all, someone else was the voice of Batman, which to some may not seem like a very big deal, but to us, the people who grew up with Kevin Conroy as Batman(literally Batman, Kevin Conroy was not the voice of Batman, he was Batman!) this was a weird shift.
Secondly, the style of the show was different, it didn't seem quite as dark as other shows had. The villains were different from those of the previous cartoons, but a lot of that can be attributed to the different drawing style for The Batman. Despite there being a few flaws in the show, it wasn't really that bad. Batman still kicked ass, there were still dangerous criminals and there was still Gotham City. (And the movie Batman vs. Dracula, although being a bit silly, helped to make up for the lack of darkness in the show)
And now we come to the only animated Batman show I haven't watched: Batman: The Brave and the Bold. When this show aired I had kind of lost touch with animated cartoons at the time, I wasn't super interested in this show or any show for that matter. Of course when I finally got around to looking it up, it looked super cheesy. Absolutely incredible the amount of cheese this show looked like it had, an Adam West Batman except animated.
So, simply because the show didn't look or feel like the dark Batman I had grown accustomed to, I never watched it. Although I have heard that a lot of people like the show because of the obscure villains that have been used, Bat-Mite's breaking of the fourth wall, the portrayal of certain comic book story lines not portrayed in other shows (i.e. Emperor Joker) and so on.
Beware the Batman Discussion
When I first heard of Beware the Batman, I was a little wary of a few things that I'd heard about it

1. Alfred running around with guns, playing sidekick
   
2. Katana actually being the new sidekick(I've always liked Robin, and I especially like Dick Grayson because I love Nightwing and I was hoping that the new Batman show would see some more play from him, but unfortunately that's not the case)
   
3. How this new CGI animation would look
   

Well, I have not been watching the show as it airs, or used to air, on Saturdays, but I have been keeping up online, through various streaming sites. And I have to say, I love this show. It has successfully achieved the darkness that I wanted, definitely more so than BTAS. Katana doesn't seem like that bad of a choice for a sidekick and Alfred(thus far) hasn't being shooting anyone with guns.
In addition to those pros, the voice actor for Bruce Wayne is surprisingly good. He's no Kevin Conroy, but he pulls off a very nice Bruce Wayne and Batman. This show also delivers on its original promise of using villains that no one has ever heard of. To me, that's a truly great mark of show, still being able to implement original ideas despite the overall concept being somewhat recycled. I haven't seen a single villain in this show that I have in any other show and I think that's fucking awesome.
Another absolutely stunning facet of BTB is that Batman is actually a detective. Bruce Wayne in this show can actually make observations, deduce things, and form reasonable conclusions based on the evidence presented to him. To be completely honest, no other Batman did this, well perhaps the Batman from Brave and the Bold did, but I have no way of knowing.
Batman is always described as being the world's greatest detective, but no show/movie has made a real effort to show that he deserves such a reputation, besides BTB. Bruce Wayne has a sense of almost hyper-observance in this show, and it's demonstrated in quite a few episodes, and personally I think it's stupendous. At several points, while watching this show, when Batman/Bruce makes an observation or proves a claim, I've thought My god, he's fucking Sherlock Holmes! and that's what you want Batman to be.
YJ
If you haven't watched the show Young Justice, do it now. Seriously, do it now, this post will be back for you when you're done(also if you've actually read this post for this long then I commend your patience) Young Justice is, in my humble opinion, the greatest culmination of visual, auditory, spiritual, and thought-provoking content ever produced in the twenty first century, or possibly in all of mankind's history.
To use a different description other than that does not do the show justice(pun, ehh, kind of) I'm not going to rant anymore about it, because I could, for days, but I do want to tell you that it was cancelled. I can assure you I'm not crazy, and many people feel the same way about this show that I just expressed to you, and yet, this critically acclaimed, Emmy-award winning show was cancelled.
YJ was cancelled along with Green Lantern: The Animated Series on DC nation, both shows technically finished, as in, their conflicts were resolved, but it was evident that there could've and would've been more episodes if the writers had had a chance to make more. I cannot vouch for the popularity or content of GTAS because I have never watched it, but I can tell you that YJ should not have ever been considered for cancellation, it was too good a show.
There's been numerous attempts to get the show back, but to no avail. One might ask "Well, since YJ got cancelled it obviously didn't have very good ratings and must not be as popular as you claim, right?" Wrong. Young Justice received excellent ratings, the writing for the show warranted these excellent ratings. However, these DC shows are not about ratings, they're about toy sales.
When the community asked writers Greg Weisman and Brandon Vietti why YJ was cancelled if the ratings weren't that bad, and more importantly how could we as the community get the show back, they replied by saying that these shows are rarely about the ratings. They said that to get the show back we should buy the Young Justice toys, because that's where the real money is made.
The Actual Point
Beware the Batman appears to be close to cancellation. The voice actor for the show Anthony Ruivivar has tweeted that the show will return in January after the break that it's on now. This is the exact same thing that happened to YJ and GTAS before they were cancelled.
I cannot watch Cartoon Network throw away another perfectly good series. But I don't know how it prevent it.
I would say "Quick, buy some BTB toys!" except for the fact that you probably don't want to, I know I won't. And this isn't my attempt to use some sort of reverse psychology bullshit to make you feel pity on this show or me and get you to buy toys, in case you were thinking about that, I know I was, as I was typing that sentence I thought Wow, I sound kinda like a whiny bitch here
Anyway, ratings for these shows DO matter, but not as much as toy sales. Unfortunately this show has worse ratings than Batman: The Brave and the Bold did, that coupled with the fact that toy sales are probably not doing great and the show will repeat the pattern of two other cancelled shows means that it itself will probably be cancelled.
At this point, I don't know how to stop this, I just wanted to voice my(incredibly long) opinion and let those of you who didn't already know that toy sales really matter to these shows.
Your Opinions/Spread the word
So, in finality, I want your opinion on this. I know that there's only 17 people subscribed to this subreddit, and probably less than that number actually check it regularly, but I want your opinion on both my rant, and, if you don't like Beware the Batman, let me know why.
It's quite possible there are some big flaws in this show that I just can't see because I'm being blocked by my Batman fandom. So feel free to leave a comment of disagreement with what I've said.
And also, spread the word. Let people know about these great shows, and about the toy sales thing. Tell your friends about these shows, form/join groups online to discuss the shows, do something, anything. E-mail the writers, e-mail DC, e-mail Cartoon Network, start a Kickstarter, pitch in somehow.
This may seem like a lot for just wanting to watch some cartoons, but what else can I say, I'm passionate.
TL;DR Help find ways to stop our shows from being cancelled. Besides toy sales that is.
Edit: I just re-read this post and realized that I didn't really articulate my thoughts with as much clarity as I originally thought I did, so my apologies for that. I've been making a few grammatical/practical edits in an attempt to increase readability.