ABC Kids (TV programming block)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the Australian children's television channel, see ABC Kids (Australia).
ABC Kids
NetworkABC
LaunchedSeptember 13, 1997; 26 years ago (1997-09-13)
ClosedAugust 27, 2011; 12 years ago (2011-08-27)
Country of originUnited States
OwnerThe Walt Disney Company
Formerly known asDisney's One Saturday Morning (1997–2002)
Sister networkDisney's One Too
FormatDefunct Saturday morning children's program block
Running time
  • 5 hours (1997–2004)
  • 4 hours (2004–2010)
  • 3 hours (2010–2011)
Original language(s)English

ABC Kids (originally titled Disney's One Saturday Morning until 2002) was an American

live-action series from Walt Disney Television Animation and Disney Channel, aimed at children between the ages of 6 and 14.[1]
This was the only time Disney Channel content aired on over-the-air television in the United States.

The block regularly aired on Saturday mornings, though certain programs within the lineup aired on Sundays in some parts of the country due to station preferences for non-educational programming or scheduling issues with regional or network sports broadcasts.

After five years of mainly repeats of programs introduced onto the block prior to the 2007–08 season, ABC decided it would cease to provide children's programming during the Saturday morning timeslot, and entered into an agreement with

Litton's Weekend Adventure, which is structured as a syndication package distributed with virtual exclusivity to ABC's owned-and-operated stations and affiliates – replaced ABC Kids on September 3, 2011.[4]

History

Main article: Children's programming on the American Broadcasting Company

Disney's One Saturday Morning

Disney's One Saturday Morning logo used from 1997 to 2002

Immediately after

Saturday morning
block that was different from those carried by its competitors at the time.

In February 1997, Peter Hastings left

Accom and ELSET. Rutherford Bench Productions, which had previously worked with Disney on other projects, hired Pacific Ocean Post (now POP Sound) to produce the virtual set. The building was initially a drawing of Grand Central Terminal with a roller coaster added but evolved into a towering mechanical structure. Even the interior has similarities such as a central high raised room, with two wings on the left and right sides and another on the south side.[5]

On September 13, 1997, Disney's One Saturday Morning premiered as a two-hour sub-block within the ABC Saturday Morning lineup.[6] It was originally scheduled to debut the Saturday prior on September 6, but coverage by all U.S. networks of the funeral of Princess Diana pushed back the premiere by one week to September 13. Disney’s One Saturday Morning featured two parts: three hours of regularly scheduled cartoons and a two-hour flagship show that included feature segments, comedy skits, and the virtual world which Hastings had proposed, along with newer episodes of three animated series: Doug (which had been acquired from Nickelodeon in 1996), Recess and Pepper Ann.

Doug, Recess and Pepper Ann were each nominally given 40-minute time slots. The extended 10 minutes during each show's slot were for One Saturday Morning's interstitial segments and educational features. The live-action wraparound segments were originally hosted by Charlie (portrayed by Jessica Prunell) for the block's first season in 1997, and later by MeMe (Valarie Rae Miller) beginning in September 1998; the segments also featured an elephant named Jelly Roll (voiced by stand up comedian and actor Brad Garrett), who served as a sidekick to the human host. Schoolhouse Rock!, a longtime essential of ABC's Saturday morning block since 1973, also aired as an interstitial segment during The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show, the only non-Disney cartoon to carry into the block and one that would air until 2000, when the carriage contract with Warner Bros. was exhausted.

Disney’s One Saturday Morning was initially a massive success, beating

Kids WB, with The Weekenders being a bright spot for the block; the new series dethroned Pokémon to become broadcast television's most-watched Saturday morning cartoon, though all of the broadcast networks had fallen behind Nickelodeon.[9]

The block received a new brand identity in the fall of 2000; this was followed by the shorts and hosted segments being discontinued on December 16 in a reformatting of the ABC block. By this time, the interstitials within the block were relegated to bumpers and

Disney Channel original series Lizzie McGuire and Even Stevens
(the sub-block, advertised in promos for Disney’s One Saturday Morning promoting the two programs as "powered by Zoog," was named after Disney Channel's weekend programming block at the time, Zoog Disney).

A spin-off of Disney's One Saturday Morning, Disney's One Too, debuted on UPN on September 6, 1999; produced through a time-lease agreement between Disney and UPN, the block aired each weekday (either in the morning or afternoon, depending on the station's preference) and on Sunday mornings, and featured many of the programs shown on One Saturday Morning (including Recess, Pepper Ann and Sabrina: The Animated Series).[11]

ABC Kids

On July 23, 2001, the Walt Disney Company purchased

Saban Entertainment, a company in which Fox purchased a 50% interest in 1994.[12][13] On September 14, 2002, ABC rebranded its Saturday morning block, as a subtle nod to the Fox Kids brand acquired by Disney through its purchase of Fox Family Worldwide, to ABC Kids (as a result of the sale, Fox Kids ceased to exist; Fox's children's program lineups would be handled from that point onward by 4Kids Entertainment until 2008).[14]

The rechristened block originally contained a mix of first-run programs exclusive to the block, as well as reruns of several original series from both

Christmas Day game; Inside Stuff continued to air on ABC Kids until 2004. The series premiere of Disney Channel's Lilo & Stitch: The Series
was also held on ABC Kids on September 20, 2003, with a delayed premiere on Disney Channel on October 12, 2003. The new block abandoned the imagery of the One Saturday Morning era in favor of a sports stadium motif, which, in 2006, was changed to a rock concert design that remained throughout the last five years of ABC Kids.

Through Disney's acquisition of Saban Entertainment, the

Jungle Fury, while ABC Kids aired these seasons in reruns. Due to the low ratings of the Jungle Fury season, as well as the merger between Jetix and Toon Disney to form Disney XD in 2009, the RPM season aired exclusively on ABC Kids. After production on RPM had concluded, instead of producing a new season, Disney produced a re-version of the first 32 episodes of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, which included a new logo, an updated title sequence, comic book-referenced graphics, and extra alternative visual effects. The re-version aired from January 2 to August 28, 2010 (the 17th anniversary of Power Rangers), after which Haim Saban bought the franchise back and Nickelodeon
acquired broadcast rights to the series.

In the 2004–05 season, ABC Kids dropped its two remaining original series,

Disney Channels Worldwide, ABC fulfilled the FCC's three-hour quota by carrying select episodes of Disney Channel live-action comedies and animated series (anywhere between nine and thirteen episodes from a given season) featuring moral lessons and/or educational anecdotes. The episodes were selected by both the Standards and Practices Division of the network and any educational consultants who were attached to the shows. The Replacements and Hannah Montana were the last two Disney Channel series to be added to the block in the fall of 2006. Beginning with the 2007–08 season, ABC Kids programming (with the exception of Power Rangers) became fully automated, putting the same handful of episodes of each show (The Emperor's New School, The Replacements, That's So Raven, Hannah Montana and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody
) on a permanent rotation for the block's remaining four years.

Closure

In March 2010, ABC made the decision to cease providing a three-hour block of

E/I-compliant
, repurposed Disney Channel programming sent to its own stations and ABC affiliates. The network chose to lease out the three-hour time slot and seek other programmers for an agreement to produce a syndicated block, not for the network, but for each ABC station as the network was turning the E/I responsibility back to local ABC stations.

A month later, ABC's affiliate board announced that it had reached a deal with

Litton Entertainment, a production company which produced syndicated programming (including educational programs aimed at children and teenagers), to produce six, all-new, original half-hour E/I series exclusively for ABC stations for the 2011–12 season.[15]

The block aired for the final time on August 27, 2011 without any announcement of its closure, and was quietly replaced by

Litton's Weekend Adventure the following week on September 3.[2][3][4] As a result, ABC discontinued airing animated programming, making it the first network not to air animated series within its children's program lineup since August 1992, when NBC discontinued its animation block on Saturday mornings to launch the live-action block TNBC
.

Programming

Former programming

Disney's One Saturday Morning

Original programming
Title Premiere date End date Source(s)
101 Dalmatians: The Series1 September 13, 1997 September 4, 1999
Disney's Doug1 September 8, 2001
Recess † September 7, 2002
Pepper Ann January 27, 2001
Jungle Cubs1 September 5, 1998
The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh1 September 7, 2002
Hercules: The Animated Series1 September 12, 1998 April 24, 1999
Mickey Mouse Works May 1, 1999 January 6, 2001
The Weekenders2 February 26, 2000 January 12, 2002
Teacher's Pet2 September 9, 2000 September 7, 2002
Buzz Lightyear of Star Command October 14, 2000 September 8, 2001
House of Mouse2 January 13, 2001 August 31, 2002
Lloyd in Space2 February 3, 2001 September 7, 2002
Teamo Supremo2 † January 19, 2002
Programming from Disney Channel
Title Premiere date End date Source(s)
Animated
The Proud Family † August 31, 2002 September 7, 2002
Live-action
Lizzie McGuire † September 15, 2001 September 7, 2002
Even Stevens †
Acquired programming
Title Premiere date End date Source(s)
Animated
Schoolhouse Rock!1 September 13, 1997 September 2, 2000
The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show1
Science Court / Squigglevision
Sabrina: The Animated Series September 11, 1999 October 13, 2001
Mary-Kate and Ashley in Action! October 20, 2001 August 3, 2002
Live-action
NBA Inside Stuff † September 7, 2002

† - Program transitioned to ABC Kids

ABC Kids

Original programming
Title Premiere date End date Source(s)
Teamo Supremo2 † September 14, 2002 September 13, 2003
Recess † August 28, 2004
Fillmore!2 February 19, 2005
Power Rangers ‡ August 28, 2010
Programming from Disney Channel
Title Premiere date End date Source(s)
Animated
The Proud Family † September 14, 2002 September 2, 2006
Kim Possible January 8, 2005
April 2, 2005 September 2, 2006
Lilo & Stitch: The Series September 20, 2003
The Buzz on Maggie September 17, 2005 January 21, 2006
The Emperor's New School January 28, 2006 August 27, 2011
The Replacements September 9, 2006 [16]
Live-action
Lizzie McGuire † September 14, 2002 September 10, 2005
That's So Raven September 20, 2003 August 27, 2011
Phil of the Future September 25, 2004 September 2, 2006
Even Stevens † February 26, 2005 September 10, 2005
The Suite Life of Zack & Cody September 17, 2005 August 27, 2011
Hannah Montana September 9, 2006 [16]
Programming from Jetix
Title Premiere date End date Source(s)
W.I.T.C.H. January 15, 2005 March 26, 2005
Acquired programming
Title Premiere date End date Source(s)
NBA Inside Stuff † September 14, 2002 August 28, 2004

† - Program transitioned from Disney's One Saturday Morning
‡ - Program transitioned from final schedule of Fox Kids

See also

References

  1. ^ "The Walt Disney Company 2003 Annual Report" (PDF). thewaltdisneycompany.com. The Walt Disney Company. Retrieved 8 July 2023.
  2. ^ a b "ABC Orders Saturday Kids Block From Litton". TVNewsCheck. NewsCheck Media. May 24, 2011. Archived from the original on December 4, 2013. Retrieved May 24, 2011.
  3. ^
    BusinessWire
    . May 24, 2011. Retrieved May 24, 2011.
  4. ^ a b Paige Albiniak (May 24, 2011). "ABC to Premiere Litton's Weekend Adventure on Sept. 3". Broadcasting & Cable. Retrieved May 24, 2011.
  5. Reed Business Information
    . Retrieved August 13, 2009.
  6. ^ Christopher Grove (August 29, 1997). "Webs roll out season geared to kids". Variety. Reed Business Information. Retrieved August 13, 2009.
  7. ^ Katz, Richard (May 8, 1998). "ABC kids block tops Fox on Saturday". Variety. Retrieved July 14, 2018.
  8. ^ Claudia Eller (March 9, 1999). "The One That Got Away : With 'Doug,' Nickelodeon's Loss May Be Disney's Gain". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 23, 2014.
  9. ^ Schneider, Michael (2000-05-05). "'The Weekenders' defeats 'Pokemon'". Variety.
  10. ^ "Fox Kids wins Broadcast Ratings". Anime News Network. 2001-02-19. Retrieved 2018-11-02.
  11. ^ Chris Pursell (July 19, 1999). "Mouse brands UPN kidvid". Variety. Reed Business Information. Retrieved August 13, 2009.
  12. Saban Entertainment. July 23, 2001. Archived from the original
    on February 2, 2009. Retrieved February 19, 2009.
  13. ^ Carl DiOrio (October 24, 2001). "Fox Family costs Mouse less cheese in final deal". Variety. Reed Business Information. Retrieved August 13, 2009.
  14. ^ Paula Bernstein (September 29, 2002). "Kid skeds tread on joint strategy". Variety. Reed Business Information. Retrieved August 13, 2009.
  15. ^ "Litton Entertainment to Produce and Distribute Original Programming for ABC Stations for Fall 2011". Litton Entertainment. The Futon Critic. April 19, 2010. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
  16. ^ a b "Disney ABC Kids Networks Unveils 2006-07 Programming Slate". Retrieved 9 May 2020.

External links

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