Noggin (but PBS launched it instead)

***Noggin*** is an children's television channel owned by PBS aimed mainly at children 2–7 years old, The channel was launched on February 2, 1999.

## Programming

The channel is known for airing reruns of former and current PBS Kids programming from 1999 to 2004. They had programming from Nick Jr. until 2004, Where Turner announced the acquisition of Noggin, HBO Kids programming became apart of Noggin.

From 2006 to 2012, Noggin entered 6 seasons of rounds called "The Zimmer Twins", Whenever someone wins, there will be a "NogginPick".

In 2005 to 2008, An block titled "The Henson Golden Age" included an ibrary of shows from Henson's past.

## Noggin on PBS Kids

Noggin on PBS Kids is a defunct American Saturday morning children's programming block that ran on PBS from November 18, 2006 to March 29, 2008. The block featured programming from Noggin.

## History

### 1995-1999 - Early years

The ideas that formed Noggin started in 1995. In this year, both PBS Kids and Sesame Workshop planned to create their own educational channels. PBS' idea was called *The PBS Playhouse*, and Sesame's idea was called *New Kid City*. Neither channel's development was ever finalized.

In 1996, Primal Screen made bumpers for *The PBS Playhouse* before it was scrapped.

In 1997, PBS Kids decided to retool *The PBS Playhouse* into a four-hour syndication package instead of an entire channel. It was renamed "Noggin" after a slang term for the head, reflecting its educational purpose. PBS Kids filmed an original pilot episode to demonstrate the concept of Noggin, but the syndication package never finalized or aired on TV, either.

In 1998, PBS Kids and Sesame Workshop entered a partnership. They decided to merge their ideas into one channel, Noggin. Instead of a syndication package, the finalized Noggin channel was a 24-hour cable network, like the plans for *The PBS Playhouse* and *New Kid City* originally were.

### The beginning era (1999-2004)

#### The controversy (1999)

On February 2, 1999, at 6:00am, Noggin was born. There were multiple days where it just showed a black screen and not airing anything in February. The population of then-10 people complained about the network not showing anything, so in the same day, they got the rights to air the Jim Henson library, many PBS Kids shows, and the Nick Jr. library (1999-2004), all debuted on February 5, 1999.

#### The REAL beginnings (1999-2004)

There were 2 blocks, One being a daytime block, The other being an "adult retro" nighttime block that aired reruns of classic educational series called "classics@night", which was replaced by *OverTheBrain**.*

From June 1999 to April 2002, Noggin's host was a green animated character named Phred. He hosted two variety shows: *Phred on Your Head Show* and *The URL with Phred Show*. Noggin's earlier original shows were often short-form series or started out as short-form before becoming half-hour shows. These included *A Walk in Your Shoes*, *The Whooton Observer*, *Oobi*, *Me in a Box*, and *Citizen Phoebe*.

By 2000, Noggin branched into long-form programming. It made a game show called *Sponk!*, a sports documentary called *On the Team*, and a British-American co-production called *Big Kids*.

In December 2001, a block titled 25 Days of Noggin was launched and showed 25 days of Christmas-related Noggin episodes.

In April 2002, Noggin closed the "classics@night" block, and it extended its preschool and teen blocks to last 12 hours each. The preschool daytime block carried original shows and reruns of existing preschool shows. The teen block, now renamed "*OverTheBrain*" aired most of the older-skewing shows from Noggin's original audience of tweens and teens.

From April 2002 to April 2003, the preschool block was hosted by a blue icon named Feetface. During Feetface's run, only two original shows aired during the day: *Play with Me Sesame* and *Oobi* (all other shows were reruns). In April 2003, the block was given an updated visual style and introduced two new hosts: Moose and Zee. Two new shows were created specifically for the block, *Jack's Big Music Show* and *The Upside Down Show*.

#### Post-Viacom era (2004-present)

Turner announced the acquisition of Noggin in January 2004. On April 23. 2004, The channel was acquired by Turner and all Nick Jr. shows were replaced by HBO Kids' library.

OverTheBrain introduced a lineup of new shows, these include a library of TBS series and Adult Swim original programming.

*More coming soon!*