Pinwheel (TV Series)

Pinwheel is an American children's television show and the first to air on Nickelodeon, as well as the first to appear on Nickelodeon's Nick Jr. block. The show was aimed at preschoolers aged 3–5. It was created by Vivian Horner an educator who spent her earlier career at the Children's Television Workshop, the company behind Sesame Street. The show was geared to the "short attention span of preschoolers," with each episode divided into short, self-contained segments including songs, skits, and animations.

## The Cast of Pinwheel (TV Series)

### The Cast of Human Characters

* Franci Anderson as herself as Franci (Season 1 only)
* Caroline Cox Loveheart as Coco (from 1977 to 1979)
* Lindanell Rivera as Coco (from 1979 to 1984)
* George James as Jake
* Dale Engel as Smitty
* Betty Rozek as Sal
* Arline Miyazaki as Kim

### The Cast of the Puppets

* Brad Williams as Aurelia, Ebenezer T. Squint, Luigi O'Brien, Plus
* Jim Jinkins as Minus
* Olga Felchmacher as Molly Mole, Lulu
* Craig Marin as Admiral Bird, Silas the Snail, Herbert

## History

Pinwheel was created by Vivian Horner and produced by Sandy Kavanaugh, two educators who had previously worked at the Children's Television Workshop. The show was created for QUBE, a local cable system tested in Columbus, Ohio. QUBE's developers wanted to offer a series for preschoolers, so they hired Horner and Kavanaugh based on their previous experience in preschool television. Beginning on December 1, 1977, Pinwheel was shown on Channel C-3, one of the experimental channels offered to QUBE subscribers. The channel was cited as "the world's first TV channel geared strictly to preschoolers."

In 1979, Pinwheel Channel was expanded into a national network called Nickelodeon. Pinwheel was reformatted as a series of hour-long episodes shown in three- to five-hour blocks, a format which eventually became the model for Nickelodeon's Nick Jr. block. There were a total of 260 Pinwheel episodes recorded from 1977 to 1984. For international distribution, Nickelodeon edited Pinwheel into a package of half-hour episodes. It aired in Canada on Superchannel (from 1983 to 1988) and TVOntario (from 1990 to 1993). The series was also broadcast in the United Kingdom whereas it aired on the defunct children's cable and satellite television network The Children's Channel during the 1980s and was even shown in a few Eurasian countries, including Channel 5 in Singapore, TV1 and TV2 in Malaysia and ATV World in Hong Kong as part of an afternoon programming block for children called Tube Time (which also plays several Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. shows such as Eureeka's Castle, Doug, Allegra's Window, Space Cases, Blue's Clues, Rugrats, and Hey Arnold!).

On January 4, 1988, Nickelodeon introduced the Nick Jr. block, a weekday morning block for preschoolers, to its schedule. Pinwheel was the first series that aired as part of the block. To promote Pinwheel on the block, Nickelodeon ran a series of commercials where the Nick Jr. logo took the shape of two pinwheels. Pinwheel continued to air as a staple of Nick Jr. until July 6, 1990, when the show aired its final rerun. Another puppet series for preschoolers, Eureeka's Castle, was made to replace it. In an article titled "Nickelodeon's New Lineup for Preschoolers," the Los Angeles Times called Eureeka's Castle the successor to Pinwheel.

## Production

Pinwheel was filmed in Columbus, Ohio on 1977.

## Trivia

* The Pinwheel ended in July 31, 1984 due to Nickelodeon was operating at significant loss and finishing dead last among all US cable channels (Also it caused QUBE to defunct because of it) but despite that there was no merchandises of the Nickelodeon Pinwheel series.