ABC Kids (JHughesTV's vision)

**ABC Kids** (originally titled **Disney's One Saturday Morning** until 2002) is a Saturday morning 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 regularly airs 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.

All programs that were E/I compliant on the block from 1997-2005 featured a lightbulb (doing a certain action) and an accompanying announcer saying "Illuminating television", however since Fall 2005, the screen bug used for some programs that are E/I-compliant features the ABC logo with a graduation cap that features an E/I symbol (which was later modified in 2021 to feature the 2021 ABC logo).

## History

#### Disney's One Saturday Morning

Immediately after The Walt Disney Company purchased ABC corporate parent Capital Cities/ABC Inc. in 1996, the network's children's program block ABC Saturday Morning, aired such Disney-produced series as *The Mighty Ducks*, *Jungle Cubs* 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' 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, 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 in order to compete against Fox Kids and Kids' WB. 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.

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 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 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 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 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*). The block was discontinued in 2003.

#### ABC Kids

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. 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 - but would later be gradually relaunched in 2009 with Fox buying back the brand a year prior in 2008; Fox's children's program lineups would be handled from that point onward by 4Kids Entertainment until 2012).

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 Disney Channel and Toon Disney. *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. The new block abandoned the imagery of the *One Saturday Morning* era in favor of a sports motif, which remained throughout the ABC Kids era.

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). However, when Toon Disney and ABC Family jointly launched the action-oriented Jetix block in 2004, Jetix handled all first-run episode debuts of subsequent seasons from *Dino Thunder* to *Jungle Fury*, while ABC Kids aired these seasons in reruns. Due to the merger between Jetix and Toon Disney to form Disney XD in 2009, the *RPM* season aired exclusively on ABC Kids, after which ABC canceled production of the series. Instead of producing 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, after which the then-relaunched Fox Kids block re-acquired rights to the franchise.

In the 2004–05 season, ABC Kids dropped its two remaining original series, *Fillmore!* and *Recess* (the latter of which was airing in reruns on the block since it ended in 2001). With the expanded regulation of federally mandated educational programming guidelines defined by the Federal Communications Commission's Children's Television Act, and the debut of *Good Morning America Weekend* that fall (rival network NBC later noted that morning news shows caused a major viewership clash with cartoons, and ABC was the last of the Big Three networks to add a Saturday morning newscast), 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 in 2006, ABC later began to carry some select Playhouse Disney (later Disney Junior) programs to be added as part of the ABC Kids block "due to the shows featuring moral lessons and/or educational anecdotes", which resulted in the addition of the "Playhouse Disney Hour", an hour-long sub-block featuring two original series from Playhouse Disney also seen on the ABC Kids block, it was later renamed as the "Disney Junior Hour" on February 19, 2011 prior to Playhouse Disney being renamed as Disney Junior 5 days after and has remained that way on ABC Kids ever since.

In 2009, Disney XD programs were added to the block in coordination with the channel's launch in February beginning with its first live-action original, *Zeke and Luther*. *Liv and Maddie* and *Girl Meets World* were the last two live-action Disney Channel shows to be added to the lineup before departing from ABC in September 2017, and thus ABC Kids began to focus more on animation like it did back during the *Disney's One Saturday Morning* era of the block, until almost three years later in 2020 when the block began adding some more live-action Disney Channel shows to the lineup starting with *Gabby Duran & The Unsittables* that same year.

In 2013, ABC Kids became the one of the only three Saturday morning (and mostly traditional weekday) blocks without a strictly E/I-based lineup to air on broadcast TV. This happened in November of that year, when Tribune acquired Weigel's 50% stake in This TV, and their Cookie Jar Toons/This Is for Kids block came to an end.

Later in 2019, ABC Kids also made the American terrestrial broadcast debut of Australian preschool show *Bluey* "also featuring moral lessons and/or educational anecdotes, like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse/& The Roadster Racers/Mixed Up Adventures", and then later in 2021, to comply with the European Content Quota law, Disney brought *Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir* to ABC Kids after the *Disney+* streaming service bought the streaming rights to the series, replacing Fox Kids "The then TV Partner for Miraculous Ladybug" (though with cable airings of the series debuting on Freeform with the relaunch of the Jetix block in 2019 while being shared with FoxHub until 2021).

On September 25, 2021, ABC Kids rolled out a new logo due to ABC's new branding package that debuted on August 9, featuring elements of the network's current branding, the overhauled logo design and the block's iconic *Stadium* era branding.

## Programming

* 1 Program also ran on syndication or ABC prior to the block.
* 2 Program moved to Toon Disney/Disney XD for episode premieres.
* 3 Program also aired on Freeform under the Jetix brand.

### Current programming

#### Programming from Disney Channel

 *Raven's Home* | September 25, 2021

#### Programming from Disney Junior

 *Mickey Mouse: Funhouse* | September 25, 2021

#### Programming from Disney+

 *The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder* | April 16, 2022

**‡** - Program transitioned from Fox Kids

### Former programming

#### Disney's One Saturday Morning

##### Programming from Disney Channel

 *The Proud Family* **†** | August 31, 2002
 *Lizzie McGuire* **†** | September 15, 2001

##### Acquired programming

 *Schoolhouse Rock!*1 | September 13, 1997
 *Mary-Kate and Ashley in Action!* | October 20, 2001
 *NBA Inside Stuff* **†** | September 7, 2002

**†** - Program transitioned to ABC Kids

#### Programming from Disney Junior

 *Handy Manny* | September 22, 2007
 *Special Agent Oso* | April 4, 2009
 *Jake and the Never Land Pirates* | February 19, 2011
 *PJ Masks* | September 19, 2015
 *Mickey Mouse Mixed Up Adventures* | September 16, 2017

#### Programming from Disney+

 *Chip 'n' Dale: Park Life* | September 25, 2021
 *Muppets Now* | September 25, 2021

##### Acquired programming

**†** - Program transitioned from Disney's One Saturday Morning

**‡** - Program transitioned from final schedule of Fox Kids

### Scrapped programming

The following programs were planned to air on ABC Kids, but they were pulled.

## See also

* The Disney Afternoon – a Disney-produced syndicated children's program block that ran from 1990 to 1997.
* Disney's One Too – a programming block that aired on UPN from 1999 to 2003 as a successor to UPN Kids.