Each episode included segments such as "Brak's School Daze," "Zorak's Horror Scopes," "Poets' Corner," "Brak's Monday Ratings Report," "The Top 5 Cartoon Countdown" (discontinued in 1997 after the show's Saturday-morning slot was shortened to a half-hour), "Vacation Spots Around the Universe" (pieced together from clips of Ultraseven episodes; at the time Turner owned the distribution rights to a dub created in 1985), "Messages from Outer Space" (also from Ultraseven, featuring the Hot Dog Men), "Mailbag Day", readings from "The Cartoon Planet Storybook," messages from Count Floyd (Joe Flaherty's local public-access television cable TV horror movie host from SCTV; the segments were originally shown on Hanna-Barbera's The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley), "Learning to Talk Italian," Nuggets of Joy from Zorak," "Zorak's Helpful Hints," and "Cooking with Brak."

For the first season of the show, the opening and closing theme songs were instrumental excerpts from "No One Knows My Plan" and "The End of the Tour" by They Might Be Giants.

Clips of numerous cartoons from the Turner library would often pop up spontaneously during segments of the show, especially during the music videos.

At the time, head writer/producer Pete Smith described Cartoon Planet "as a cross between The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, The Electric Company, and recess at the Richard M. Nixon School for Wayward Boys.

Forced by network muckity-mucks to air his dirty spandex in front of millions of impressionable young minds, Space Ghost dragged a reluctant Zorak and a confused Brak into the treacherous waters of sketch comedy."

Robot Jones, Sheep in the Big City, Mike, Lu & Og, Time Squad, and Squirrel Boy did not air on the block.

The following are some of the skits that appeared on the 2012 revival: The show's first run was from 1995 to 1998, premiering on TBS in 1995 and then moving to Cartoon Network later that year.

From September 24 to October 28, 2005, Cartoon Network briefly revived the show on its Adult Swim block, where it ran at 5:30 am Eastern time.

The reason for the show's disappearance from 2001 to 2004 was due to Cartoon Network temporarily losing the rights of all the music videos to Rhino Records, who produced the soundtracks.

The Cartoon Planet skits aired again on September 24, 2021, as part of Adult Swim's Pete Smith Day marathon.