ABC Kids (TV programming block)

Disney's One Saturday Morning logo used from 1997–2000

In the years immediately before The Walt Disney Company purchased ABC corporate parent Capital Cities/ABC Inc. in 1995, the network's children's program block at the time, ABC Saturday Morning, aired such Disney-produced series as The Mighty Ducks, DuckTales and Gargoyles; it was one of two networks at the time that prominently carried Disney programming on Saturday mornings, as CBS also carried Disney cartoons (CBS's were mostly television spin-offs of Disney Renaissance films, whereas ABC's were mostly other Disney properties). After Disney formally took over ABC's operations in 1996, Disney head Michael Eisner sought to create a Saturday morning block that was different from those carried by its competitors at the time.

In February 1997, Peter Hastings left Warner Bros. Animation and joined Disney, where was tasked with overhauling ABC's Saturday morning lineup. He pitched an idea around the concept that Saturday is different from every other day of the week, and the representation of weekdays as buildings. Hastings also proposed the use of virtual set technology; although he knew a bit about it at the time and the technology used was just starting to be developed, Disney and ABC liked the idea. He hired Prudence Fenton as consultant manager and co-executive producer. Together, they sampled virtual set technology at the 1997 NAB Show and chose technology developed by 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.[4]

On September 13, 1997, Disney's One Saturday Morning premiered as a two-hour sub-block within the ABC Saturday Morning lineup.[5] 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 up 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, now an attorney) 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 Fox Kids during its first season to be the most-watched Saturday morning block on broadcast television.[6] It remained competitive in its second season, beating all of Fox Kids' shows except Power Rangers.[7] The shorts and hosted segments were discontinued in 2000 in a reformatting of the ABC block; by this time, the interstitials within the block were relegated to bumpers and program promotions. In the fall of 2001, live-action series were added to the One Saturday Morning lineup with the addition of the "Zoog Hour," an hour-long sub-block featuring the 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).[8]

On July 23, 2001, the Walt Disney Company purchased Fox Family Worldwide, primarily for its Fox Family Channel, which was included in the sale as well as Saban Entertainment, a company in which Fox purchased a 50% interest in 1994.[9][10] 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).[11]

The rechristened block originally contained a mix of first-run programs exclusive to the block, as well as reruns of several original series from Disney Channel. NBA Inside Stuff also began airing on the block as a result of ABC's acquisition of the broadcast television rights to the NBA from NBC (where the series originally premiered in 1992), beginning with the 2002–03 season's Christmas Day game; Inside Stuff continued to air on ABC Kids until 2004.

Through Disney's acquisition of Saban Entertainment, ABC also moved the Power Rangers series from Fox Kids to the ABC Kids block. All first-run episodes from the franchise premiered on ABC Kids beginning with the second half of the show's Wild Force season (starting with the episode "Unfinished Business"), with the entirety of the Wild Force and Ninja Storm seasons subsequently airing in reruns on ABC Family (the former season aired in part both before the introduction of and during the ABC Family Action Block). Subsequent seasons from Dino Thunder to Jungle Fury had their first-run episodes debut on Jetix first and re-air on ABC Kids. The RPM season aired exclusively on ABC Kids, after which ABC canceled production of the series. Instead of a new season, ABC aired 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.

In the fall of 2004, ABC Kids almost exclusively carried live-action and animated series from Disney Channel as a result of the short-lived Fillmore! (which had been airing in reruns since the summer of 2004) and Recess (which was airing in reruns on the block since it ended in 2001) being dropped from the lineup. With the expanded regulation of federally mandated educational programming guidelines defined by the Federal Communications Commission's Children's Television Act, ABC chose to fulfill the three-hour quota by carrying select episodes of Disney Channel live-action comedies and animated series (anywhere between 9 and 13 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. Beginning with the 2006–07 season, ABC Kids consisted mainly of repeat episodes of Disney Channel sitcoms and animated series.[12] The Emperor's New School, The Replacements and Hannah Montana, were the last Disney Channel series to be added to the block in 2006.

In March 2010, ABC decided to stop 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.

In April 2010, ABC's affiliate board announced that it had reached a deal with Litton Entertainment, a production company which produces 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.[13]

ABC Kids aired for the final time on August 27, 2011. Litton's Weekend Adventure effectively replaced ABC Kids the following week on September 3, 2011.[1][2][3] 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.

Surpassing every Saturday morning cartoon block, ABC Kids outlived any cartoon block aired on NBC, CBS, the CW, or Fox Broadcasting Company.