In regard to children's programming, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) has aired mostly programming from Walt Disney Television or other producers (most notably, Hanna-Barbera Productions, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Nelvana and DIC Entertainment). This article outlines the history of children's television programming on ABC including the various blocks and notable programs that have aired throughout the television network's history.
History
The Schoolhouse Rock! era (1973–1996) The crown jewel of the network's children's programming lineup was the award-winning Schoolhouse Rock! series of educational shorts, which mixed original songs and animation with lessons on basic school subjects such as mathematics, science, and history. The series aired from 1973 to 1985, before going on what turned out to be a temporary hiatus prior to its return to ABC's Saturday morning schedule in 1992. New episodes concerning money were released from 1994 to 1996. Schoolhouse Rock! was one of several animated interstitials that aired during this era, others included Time for Timer and The Bod Squad, both of which were discontinued in the 1980s.
At the start of the 1991–92 season, around the same time that ABC launched I Love Saturday Night – a block that was inspired by the success of ABC's Friday night TGIF sitcom block (the former of which ultimately ended after several weeks due to low ratings), executive producer Jim Janicek also brought the hosted programming block concept to Saturday mornings, under the brand More Cool TV. Stars from live-action series aired as part of the Saturday morning lineup, most notably including the cast of ABC's Land of the Lost revival, hosted interstitials every half-hour during the block. The MCTV segments at times were several seconds shorter than those shot for TGIF and I Love Saturday Night. While an opening sequence and custom last-segment show bumpers were included, the theme music used was the instrumental version of ABC's 1991 America's Watching campaign. The MCTV concept was soon abandoned, although not as quickly as I Love Saturday Night.
From 1992 to 1995 (during the latter half of the show's run, and for at most until a year after it was canceled), short 30-second segments from America's Funniest People (a spin-off of the long-running America's Funniest Home Videos), which were branded as America's Funniest Kids, ran within commercial breaks during the ABC Saturday morning lineup. These would usually consist of excerpts from longer segments, usually featuring young children telling jokes or engaging in stunts.
Disney programming era (1996–2011)
The merger of Capital Cities Communications (which purchased ABC in 1986) into The Walt Disney Company in 1996 marked a shift in the network's Saturday morning cartoon output. The merger resulted in Disney increasing the amount of programming content it produced for the network, including in regards to children's programming (prior to this, most of Disney's animated programming originated on either CBS, with which the studio had a working relationship prior to its purchase of ABC, or The Disney Afternoon). After Disney formally took over ABC's operations, the company's president and CEO Michael Eisner sought to create a Saturday morning block that was different from those carried by its competitors at the time, recruiting Peter Hastings (who had left Warner Bros. Animation in a dispute over the creative direction of Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain, which he had both written for) to help overhaul ABC's Saturday morning lineup. The concept that was developed revolved around the idea that Saturday is different from every other day of the week; Hastings also came up with the idea of utilizing virtual set technology for the hosted interstitial segments.
The concept debuted as Disney's One Saturday Morning on September 13, 1997, formatted as a two-hour sub-block (before expanding to become the sole brand for the Saturday morning lineup in 1998) that originally featured some programs that had already aired on the co-existing ABC Saturday Morning lineup and incorporated live-action and animated interstitials. It was originally scheduled to premiere on September 6, but was delayed by one week due to ABC News' coverage of the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales (a news event which resulted in CBS and NBC pre-empting their children's programming blocks that day). Disney would later create a spin-off block, Disney's One Too, which debuted on UPN on September 6, 1999, which featured many of the programs shown on Disney’s One Saturday Morning. The hosted and animated segments were dropped from Disney’s One Saturday Morning in 2000 in a reformatting of ABC due to low ratings.