ABC Kids (SC01real's version)

**ABC Kids** (originally titled **Disney's One Saturday Morning** until 2002) is an American children's programming block that has aired on ABC since September 13, 1997. It features a mixture of animated and live-action series from Walt Disney Television Animation, Disney Channel, Disney XD, and Disney Junior, aimed at children between the ages of 3 and 17.

The block originally aired exclusively on Saturday mornings, but later expanded to weekday mornings and afternoons in 2003.

## History

### Disney's One Saturday Morning

Immediately after The Walt Disney Company purchased ABC's 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 such 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 cartoons were mostly television spin-offs of Disney Renaissance films, whereas ABC's cartoons 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 he was tasked with overhauling ABC's Saturday morning lineup. He pitched an idea around the concept that Saturday would be different from every other day of the week, and the representation of weekdays would be buildings. Hastings also proposed the use of virtual set technology. Although, he knew little about it at the time and the technology being 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 the Grand Central Terminal with a roller coaster added, but evolved into a towering mechanical structure. Even the interior has similarities to it such as a central high raised room, with two wings on the left and right sides and another on the south side.

On September 13, 1997, Disney's One Saturday Morning premiered as a two-hour sub-block within the ABC Saturday Morning lineup. 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 new 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. It remained competitive in its second season, beating all of Fox Kids' shows except *Power Rangers*. 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, ran on UPN from September 6, 1999 to August 30, 2003. Produced through a time-lease agreement between Disney and UPN, the block aired both on weekdays (either in the morning or afternoon, depending on the station's preference) and Sunday mornings, featuring many of the programs shown on Disney's One Saturday Morning (including *Recess*, *Pepper Ann* and *Sabrina: The Animated Series*).

### ABC Kids

On September 14, 2002, ABC rebranded its Saturday morning block to ABC Kids. 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.

In the fall of 2003, ABC Kids expanded it's programming to weekday mornings and afternoons, carrying select Playhouse Disney (later Disney Junior) programs as a result. The decision was quietly made after Disney's One Too on UPN got cancelled in August 2003. Starting 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.

In 2009, Disney XD programs were added to the block (in coordination with the channel's launch in February), beginning with it's first live-action original, *Zeke and Luther*. In September 2017, ABC Kids retooled itself as it began to focus more on a diversification between animation and live-action.

On August 14, 2021, ABC Kids rolled out a new logo due to ABC's branding package that debuted on August 9, featuring elements of the network's current branding, and the overhauled logo design.