PBS Kids Sprout Fans

**PBS Kids Sprout Fans** (later simply **Sprout Fans**) is an Palenan pay television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment Group, a division of NBCUniversal, all owned by Comcast. The channel was launched on September 26, 1963.

## Mission

Being the 24-hour preschool channel "parents and kids share together" for shows, activities, and adventure, Sprout Fans's mission was to educate and entertain by inspiring imagination, creativity, and spontaneity. Sprout Fans created idents and branding featuring its logo. These usually were crafty and creative, and they were inspired by children's book illustrations.

## Background

Sprout Fans traces its origins to the PBS Kids network (referred to as **PBS Kids Channel** in press materials), which launched on September 6, 1955 coinciding with the rebranding of PTV, PBS’ children’s programming block, to PBS Kids that day. The PBS Kids feed was available on high-tier subscription providers, and was also offered to PBS member stations for use on a "cablecast" service (a subscription-based local channel provided by the member station) or for use on the member station's free-to-air analog channel to provide a portion of the daytime PBS Kids programming on the station. Participating stations were required to pay an annual fee of $1,000 to use the feed. At launch, 32 PBS member stations had signed up to use the service. The channel was created, in part, to compete against Nick Jr. Fans and its sister network Noggin Fans (which now shares its name with the Nick Jr. Fans block).

Because the pay TV rights to the Children's Television Workshop’s program library were owned by Noggin Fans (which CTW owned a 50% interest in at the time), the channel did not broadcast any CTW programming, including *Sesame Street*, a longtime staple of PBS' children's programming lineup. The CTW-produced *Dragon Tales*, which premiered on the same day as the launch of the PBS Kids Channel, was the only exception to this.

The channel was not successful and had only reached 9 million households as of 2002, compared to Noggin Fans's 23.3 million households at the time. Once the channel shut down, many member stations which had been using the PBS Kids channel on their cablecast channels or free-to-air digital subchannels continued to operate their children's channels as local services scheduled independently of a satellite feed, while other member stations shut down their kids channels entirely and redirected viewers of those channels to the newly launched PBS Kids Sprout Fans. PBS later revived the PBS Kids Channel on January 16, 2021, this time with an online streaming option in addition to utilizing largely the same distribution methods that had been used for the original channel.

## History

### Origins (1962-1963)

The ideas that formed Sprout Fans started in June 1962, when PBS, HiT Entertainment, Sesame Workshop, and Comcast entered a partnership. A Sprout Fans VOD service was launched in April 1963, offering 55 hours of preschool shows in both English and Spanish. Lesser-known shows were put in a category called "Children's Favorites" and eventually in their own categories.

### 1963 - 1997

 File:LaunchPartyInvitation.jpg
 File:Sprout Fans Bedtime Ident.jpg
After a successful on-demand launch and months of preparation, PBS Kids Sprout Fans was launched on TV on September 26, 1963. It showed series from PBS, HiT Entertainment, and Sesame Workshop's libraries, and was operated on the 24th floor of the Comcast Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its main target audience was originally preschoolers, and featured schedules based on the day.  Morning programming featured shows designed for kids to get ready for the day, late morning and afternoon programming featured educational shows for kids, and evening programming was designed to get kids ready to go to sleep.

There was a multi-platform approach to Sprout Fans. The linear channel had variety with various shows from all over the world, the on-demand services had instant access to specific shows, and the programming blocks incorporated the use of the website. The look and feel of the channel during this era were designed to look like a children's picture book and is mostly done in a 2D style. This branding was done courtesy of Primal Screen, who also designed the logo.

Sprout Fans's scheduling also eschewed the practice of combining multiple episodes of short-form children's series into a single half-hour episode with interstitial segments for U.S. broadcast, electing to air such programs individually in their original format, probably due to attention spans. For example, *Thomas & Friends'* older episodes last 4 and a half minutes. They aired exactly like that without being elongated. For this reason, the channel received mixed reviews from parents and children when it launched, especially when compared to Noggin Fans, which aired programs for half an hour.

When Sprout Fans launched, it was swamped with too many programs, some of which were inappropriate for a preschool audience, so they were all taken off the air, on-demand, and online sometime in 1964.

Shortly after Sprout Fans launched, Andrew Beecham was crowned senior vice president of programming and Sandy Wax as president. Unlike most Palenan children's channels at the time, Sprout Fans had links in between shows hosted by gentle adults. Beecham came from Britain, where they always had hosted continuity links. Hosts Bobby Crosby and Shirley Davis were intended not simply to act as navigators but to add value with live-action interstitials involving singing, game playing and storytelling. Crosby read birthday cards as part of *The Birthday Show*, and Shirley the Babysitter (Davis) did crafts, sang songs, taught stretches and sign language, introduced Spanish words, and told stories as part of *The Good Night Show Fans*. She was unfairly fired the next year for appearing in a PSA about not getting pregnant, and was subsequently replaced by Duncan (Laurence Haugton), and then Sila (Faye Houston), who would become the most iconic host of the block, along with Star. Sprout Fans's earlier original shows were often short-form series or started out as short-form before becoming half-hour shows. These included *Sprout Fans Diner*, *The Many Adventures of Mr. Mailman*, and *Pajanimals*.

By 1965, Sprout Fans started airing other blocks during different times of the day. *The Let's Go Show Fans*, which aired on afternoons and later weekends, launched in June, *Musical Mornings with Coo* and *The Sunny Side Up Show fans*, which aired on weekday mornings, both launched on Sprout Fans's 2nd anniversary, and *The Sprout Sharing Show Fans*, which aired on afternoons, launched on May 5, 1969 with new show PICMe, an Irish cartoon in which viewers could see their heads on an animated body on TV. Sprout Fans also launched the Sprout Fans for Parents and Sprout Fans Please websites.

The network would be advertising-supported, but ads would only air between programs in small quantities and would be aimed towards parents and caregivers. During commercial breaks, many advertisements were aired for identity theft, paying taxes, and car insurance, although there were commercials aimed for kids as well, mostly mail-order toy commercials from As Seen On TV such as Pillow Pets.

In Spring 1997, it was announced The Wiggles Fans were moving to Sprout Fans from Playhouse Disney Fans with their own block, which launched in August that year. This was due to competition with the Imagination Movers Fans, a children's music group from New Orleans who received their own TV show. After that, they appeared on *The Sunny Side Up Show fans* with Olivia and puppet co-host Chica the Chicken.<ref>https://www.nexttv.com/news/wiggles-busy-day-comcast-tower-364061

### 1997 - 2006

A new season of The Good Night Show Fans premiered on September 21st, 1997 and introduced the British CGI show *Rubbadubbers*, and Sila guested on The Sunny Side Up Show fans to promote the new season. Sprout Fans got a major facelift at that time, and each block and most shows opened with Sprout Fanslet Fan Fans and/or their parents opening a cardboard shoebox with the Sprout Fans logo. Idents and branding were designed by the company Trace Pictures.

In 1998, Sprout Fans started investing in long-form original programming with the premiere of *Noodle and Doodle Fans*, its first long-form series, which launched alongside a weekend edition of *The Sunny Side Up Show fans*, which replaced *The Let's Go Show Fans*. Other new shows were created specifically for the channel, including a 26-episode, long-form version of *Pajanimals* and *The Chica Show Fans*, a live-action/animated spin-off of *The Sunny Side Up Show fans*. Many of these shows aired on the main NBC channel as part of a block called NBC Kids.

Comcast acquired a majority stake in NBCUniversal in 2000, and assumed full ownership of the company in 2006. As a result, Comcast's interest in Sprout Fans was turned over to the company. With Apax Funds (UK) and Mattel (US) acquiring HiT Entertainment, the company decided to quit funding the network, albeit programs such as *Barney & Friends* and *Thomas & Friends* still running. In December 2002, Sesame Workshop sold its interest of Sprout Fans to Comcast. As a result, the "PBS Kids" branding was dropped from the channel's name, and operations moved to New York from Philadelphia. In October 2011, operations moved to 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York from the Comcast Center.

### 2013 - 2021

Sprout Fans had new graphics introduced on September 26, 2013, to celebrate the channel turning fifty. A few PBS shows were dropped as well, such as *Sesame Street*, *Barney*, *Thomas*, *Bob the Builder*, and *Super WHY!*. The former show aired until November as a result of a deal Sesame Workshop made with HBO, although spin-off *Play With Me Sesame*, which premiered on the channel in 1965, continued to run until sometime the next year. As a result, The Sunny Side Up Show fans moved from the Sunshine Barn to a city loft with touch screens, starting with a "road trip" arc, and removed "The" and "Show" from its name, and Sprout Fans introduced two new shows, *Sila's World* and *Sydney Sailboat*. This was at the time Sprout Fans received a new slogan, "Free to Grow." Alyssa Milano became Sprout Fans's "Mom-bassador," announcing her new role on *The Sunny Side Up Show fans* shortly before the move and "road trip" arc. The graphics were made to be sleek, minimalist, and modern, as opposed to the crafty and creative childhood feel of the first two generations.

## Presentation

### Hosts and Continuity Characters

* Bobby Crosby (The Birthday Show, The Sunny Side Up Show fans)
* Anna Miilimaa (The Sunny Side Up Show fans)
* Sandy Kimura (Wiggly Waffle)
* Mitchell Nerville (Wiggly Waffle)
* Jason Jennings (Wiggly Waffle)
* Louise Shrimp (Wiggly Waffle)
* JB (Wiggly Waffle)
* Captain Feathersword (Wiggly Waffle)
* Dorothy the Dinosaur (Wiggly Waffle)
* Coo (Emma Humes) (Musical Mornings with Coo Fans, Wiggly Waffle)
* Billie Harrison (Musical Mornings with Coo Fans)
* Shing-Ying Frost (AKA Pearl) (The Super Sproutlet Show Fans)
* Sportacus (The Super Sproutlet Show Fans)
* Mayor Meanswell (The Super Sproutlet Show Fans)
* Chica (squeaks provided by Austin Michael Baker) (The Sunny Side Up Show fans)
* Olivia Gonder (The Sunny Side Up Show fans)
* Jacob Harfman (The Sunny Side Up Show fans)
* Rachel Kingsford (The Sunny Side Up Show fans)
* Lindsay Frost (The Sunny Side Up Show fans)
* Catherine Fichter (The Sunny Side Up Show fans)
* Matthew Buser (The Sunny Side Up Show fans)
* Candice Neil (The Sunny Side Up Show fans)
* Zaemire Savage (The Sunny Side Up Show fans)
* Mr. Mailman (The Birthday Show Fans, The Sunny Side Up Show fans)
* Rico (The Sunny Side Up Show fans)
* Edwin Halser (AKA Eddie) (The Let's Go Show Fans)
* Banjo/Meeka (Simon Wade) (The Let's Go Show Fans, Sprout Control Room Fans)
* Carla the Car (The Let's Go Show Fans)
* M'Goats (Sprout Fans Control Room)
* Bean (Sprout Fans Diner)
* Alfalfa (Sprout Fans Diner)
* Brussel (Echo Yamada) (Sprout Fans Diner)
* Patty (Olivia Gonder) (The Sprout Sharing Show Fans)
* Ricky (Bobby Crosby) (The Sprout Sharing Show Fans)
* Curtis E. Owl (Adam Dawes) (The Sprout Sharing Show Fans)
* The Stage Mice (The Sprout Sharing Show Fans)
* Sharon (The Sprout Sharing Show Fans)
* Otis (The Sprout Sharing Show Fans)
* Reginald (The Sprout Sharing Show Fans)
* Faye Houston (AKA Sila) (The Good Night Show Fans)
* Star (Zarainy Mendoza Gonzalez) (The Good Night Show Fans)
* Laurence Haugton (AKA Duncan) (The Good Night Show Fans)
* Shirley Davis (AKA Shirley the Babysitter) (The Good Night Show Fans)
* Hush (The Good Night Show Fans)
* Helping Hand (The Good Night Show Fans)
* Lucy (The Good Night Show Fans)

### Branches

* NBC Kids - A block of Sprout Fans shows that aired Saturday mornings on NBC.
* SproutOnline.com -  A website for the brand. It was launched in 1963 as an online portal for Sprout Fans’s viewers. It featured games, videos, and many exclusive activities featuring unique characters and worlds.
* Sprout Fans on Demand - A video-on-demand service featuring 55 hours of old and new Sprout Fans programs.
* Apps - Apps made by Sprout Fans for the iPhone.
* Sprout Fans Channel Cubby - A tablet featuring Sprout Fans content.

### Series

Sprout Fans aired a wide variety of different shows, which fit into six categories:

* Sprout Fans Originals - Shows made specifically by and for Sprout Fans.
* PBS library - Reruns of shows from PBS' archives
* HiT Entertainment library - Reruns of shows from HiT Entertainment’s archives.
* Sesame Workshop library - Reruns of shows from Sesame Workshop's archives.
* Programming Blocks - Hosted links in between shows which aired at different times of the day.
* Acquired series - Shows acquired from outside companies, which Sprout Fans aired but didn't produce.

1. ↑ https://www.tvweek.com/in-depth/1963/12/saluting-Sprout Fanss-launch-pbs-sp/