In regard to children's television programming,CBS has aired mostly animated series, such as the original versions ofScooby-Doo,Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids,Jim Henson's Muppet Babies,Garfield and Friends and the1987 incarnation ofTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.[1] This article outlines the history of children's television programming on CBS including the various blocks and notable programs that have aired throughout the television network's history.
From 1955 to 1984, live-action seriesCaptain Kangaroo served as CBS' flagship children's program. For its first three months, the program aired only on weekday mornings; a Saturday morning edition was added in December 1955. During the 1964-65 season, the Saturday broadcast was temporarily replaced byMr. Mayor, a children's program that served as a vehicle forCaptain Kangaroo starBob Keeshan; after returning in the fall of 1965, the Saturday edition ofCaptain Kangaroo was discontinued again in 1968, relegating it to weekdays only. Except for pre-emptions due tobreaking news coverage, notably the network's three-day-long continuous coverage of theassassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, and a few episodes that ran for 45 minutes, the program aired as an hour-long broadcast on weekday mornings until 1981. On September 9, 1968, the program began broadcasting incolor.
Its audience of predominately children could never help the program compete in the ratings with entertainment/news shows such asNBC'sToday, althoughCaptain Kangaroo would become a three-timeEmmy Award winner for "Outstanding Children's Entertainment Series" in 1979, 1983 and 1984. In the fall of 1981, as part of an expansion of theCBS Morning News,Captain Kangaroo was moved to the earlier time slot of 7:00 a.m. and reduced to half-hour – at which time, the program was retitledWake Up with the Captain.
In the fall of 1982,Captain was relegated to a Saturday morning 7:00 a.m. (Eastern) time slot. The network offered a package of reruns to CBS-affiliated stations to air on Sunday mornings in place of the previous block of animated series reruns. Most CBS affiliates only cleared the Saturday morning broadcast of program afterward. Still a third of CBS' affiliated stations had stopped airingCaptain Kangaroo entirely after 1982. The program was finally canceled altogether in late 1984, citing a lack of affiliate clearances. AlongsideCaptain Kangaroo, CBS aired various animated series aimed at children during the 1960s and 1970s, such as the original version ofScooby-Doo andFat Albert and the Cosby Kids.[2]
From 1971 to 1986,CBS News produced a series of one-minute segments titledIn the News, which aired between other Saturday morning programs. The "micro-series" (as it would be labelled today) had its genesis in a series of animated interstitials produced by CBS andHanna-Barbera Productions calledIn the Know, featuring the title characters fromJosie and the Pussycats narrating educational news segments tailored for children. This eventually evolved into a more live-action-oriented micro-series.
The network premiered its first in-house animated series since their originalTerrytoons,CBS Storybreak, in 1985; originally hosted by Bob Keeshan, the half-hour series – which featured animated adaptations of popular children's books – was nominated for an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Animated Program" in 1986.Storybreak continued to air on the network in reruns until 1991, before returning in September 1993 with new hosted segments conducted byMalcolm-Jamal Warner.
One of the network's most popular children's programs around this time wasMuppet Babies, an animated series which debuted in 1984 and ran for eight seasons. At the height of its popularity, CBS aired the program in two- or three-episode blocks. The program was briefly renamedMuppets, Babies and Monsters during the show's second season, with the second half-hour of the block filled byLittle Muppet Monsters, a new series which featured live-action puppets and cartoons starring the adult Muppet characters. The program lasted three weeks before its cancellation (leaving 15 already produced episodes unaired), replaced by an additional half-hour ofMuppet Babies.Pee-wee's Playhouse, which debuted in 1986, also became a major hit for the network's Saturday morning lineup; known for its bizarre humor, reruns of the series were abruptly dropped by CBS in 1991 – less than a year after the series ended its five-year run – following starPaul Reubens' arrest after allegedlyexposing himself in aSarasota, Florida adult movie theatre.[3]
Another popular series wasGarfield and Friends, based on theGarfield newspaper comics, which debuted on the network in 1988; the episodes featured a mix of longer-length animated segments and short segments known as "Quickies", featuring characters from theGarfield andU.S. Acres strips. Although the series had still been doing well in the ratings,Garfield and Friends ended in 1994 after seven seasons through a mutual agreement to cease production, after the show's production company nixed a proposal by CBS to reduce its production budget.
One series that never made it to the Saturday morning lineup wasGarbage Pail Kids, a series based on thetrading card series of the same name byTopps Company. CBS heavily promoted the series in the run-up to the 1987-88 season, having ordered an entire season of episodes; however it was abruptly pulled a few days before its premiere (replaced with a third half-hour ofMuppet Babies), following protests fromAction for Children's Television, the National Coalition on Television Violence and theChristian Leaders for Responsible Television due to claims that the series ridiculed the handicapped, glorified violence, and served mainly as aprogram-length commercial for the cards. Some advertisers (such asNabisco,McDonald's andCrayola) also pulled out of sponsoring the program, either due to pressure from special interest groups, or because a preview tape of the show was not available in time for review. A few CBS stations (such asWIBW-TV inTopeka, Kansas;KOTV inTulsa, Oklahoma andKREM-TV inSpokane, Washington) opted not to carry the program, notifying the network of their decision to pre-empt the program weeks in advance of the debut.[4][5]
Another series which also never made it to the CBS Saturday morning lineup wasThe Noids, which was based on theNoid mascot featured inDomino's Pizza commercials and would have aired during the 1988-89 season. The show was scrapped for unknown reasons.
In 1990, the network began branding its Saturday morning block asCBS Kid TV, and incorporated additional programs over the next few years such asTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures,Back to the Future andMother Goose and Grimm.CBS Kid TV's break bumpers featured the characterFido Dido.
In September 1993, the block was rebranded asCBS Saturday. The block was later rebranded asCBS Toontastic TV in 1994,CBS Saturday Morning in 1995, andCBS Kidz in 1996. Additional live-action and animated programs that aired on the block around this time includedBeakman's World,Beethoven,The Mask: Animated Series,The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat, andAce Ventura: Pet Detective.
During the early and mid-1990s, through a partnership between CBS andThe Walt Disney Company,Walt Disney Television Animation provided much of CBS's animated programming (in addition, Disney partnered with CBS for some of its holiday specials such asHappy New Year, America andThe All-American Thanksgiving Day Parade). The partnership led to, among other shows, several adaptations of recent Disney films (such asThe Little Mermaid: The Series,Timon & Pumbaa andAladdin: The Series) appearing on CBS's Saturday morning lineup. These series also aired concurrently on the syndicated animation blockThe Disney Afternoon.
In an effort to compete with other action series at the time,Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was revamped into a more action-oriented series with less comedy, and along with new showsWildC.A.T.s andSkeleton Warriors was grouped into a new sub-block, "Action Zone", which premiered in September 1994. The sub-block featured a fly-through robotic style pre-opening that eventually segued into the show's opening title sequence.WildC.A.T.s. andSkeleton Warriors went off the air at the conclusion of the 1994-1995 season, at which time the sub-block was discontinued althoughTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles individually retained the Action Zone brand and bumpers until that series ended its run on the network in 1997.
In 1997, taking advantage of the tightenedChildren's Television Act regulations mandated by theFederal Communications Commission that required broadcasters to carry three hours of educational programming each week, CBS launched an all-"educational/informational" Saturday morning lineup for the 1997-98 season, known asThink CBS Kids (which served as both the block's branding and tagline), replacing CBS Kidz.
The block consisted entirely of live-action series, marking the first time that CBS did not feature animated series within its children's program lineup. Programs included the youth-oriented game showWheel 2000 (which aired simultaneously on theGame Show Network), a magazine series based onSports Illustrated for Kids, a revival of the popular PBS television seriesThe New Ghostwriter Mysteries, the long-runningBeakman's World carried over from CBS Kidz, the second season ofFudge, and"Weird Al" Yankovic's first regular television series,The Weird Al Show.In the News was also briefly revived as part of theThink CBS Kids block, hosted by CBS Radio News Washington correspondent Dan Raviv (in place of original narratorsChristopher Glenn and Gary Shepard).
At this time, CBS reduced its Saturday morning children's program lineup to three hours, with the launch of the two hour-longCBS News Saturday Morning (which eventually evolved into the Saturday edition ofThe Early Show). Since 1997, like other networks, the scheduling of CBS's children's programming has varied depending on the CBS station (for example, then-affiliateKTVT inFort Worth, Texas—nowowned-and-operated by CBS—aired the experimentalThink CBS Kids block from 9:00 to 11:00 A.M. on Saturdays and 7:00 to 8:00 A.M. on Sundays from 1997 to 1998).
Think CBS Kids as a whole suffered from low ratings, resulting in the network canceling all of the shows after four months and even replacingFudge immediately with reruns ofCBS Storybreak for the remaining of the season.
In 1998, CBS began contracting other companies to provide programming material for the network's Saturday morning schedule. The first of these blocks was theCBS Kidshow (using the tagline, "The CBS Kidshow: Get in the Act."), which debuted in October of that year and featured programming from the Canada-based animation studioNelvana[6] (such asAnatole,Mythic Warriors,Birdz,Rescue Heroes andFlying Rhino Junior High), replacing Think CBS Kids.[7] In January 1999,Franklin andRupert switched networks, with the former moving from the CBS lineup toNickelodeon's preschool blockNick Jr., while the latter moved from Nick Jr. to CBS.[8]
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After CBS's programming agreement with Nelvana ended in 2000, the network subsequently entered into a deal withNickelodeon (which became a sister property to CBS, as a result of one-time CBS subsidiary-turned-media conglomerateViacom's merger with the network) to air programming from theNick Jr. block under the bannerNick Jr. on CBS.[6] The block debuted on September 16, 2000, hosted by Face, the animated host/mascot originated on the flagship Nick Jr. block. The lineup was rebranded as simplyNick on CBS on September 14, 2002, as the block incorporated live-action and animated Nickelodeon series aimed at older children in addition to the Nick Jr. series. The older-skewing Nickelodeon series were removed from the block on September 11, 2004, refocusing the block back exclusively toward preschooler-oriented series; the block also began incorporating interstitial hosted segments featuring Piper O'Possum.
All of the programs that aired as part of the block met the FCC's educational programming requirements, despite some tenuousness to some of the claims of educational content in some programs. It was for this reason that the block did not add some of Nickelodeon's most popular programs (most notablySpongeBob SquarePants), even during the more open-formatted Nick on CBS era.
On December 31, 2005, Viacom was split into two separate companies, with CBS becoming part of the standalone companyCBS Corporation, and Nickelodeon becoming part of a restructuredViacom.Nick Jr. on CBS/Nick on CBS ended on September 9, 2006.
On January 19, 2006, less than a month after the Viacom-CBS split was finalized, CBS announced that it would enter into a three-year programming partnership withDIC Entertainment (which included the distribution of selecttape delayedFormula One auto races) to produce a new children's program block featuring new and recent series from its program library.[9][10][11][12]
After the announcement of the CBS/DIC partnership, the latter originally announced the block was to be branded theSecret Saturday Morning Slumber Party (orSaturday Morning Secret Slumber Party); the block was later renamed as theKOL Secret Slumber Party after DIC Entertainment, which produced all of the children's programming for the block, partnered withAOL to co-produce the block's first-run programs through its KOL subsidiary. AOL managed the programming block's website, and producedpublic service announcements which aired both on television and online.[13] This alliance, along with the fact that some CBS stations chose to tape delay some of the programs to air on Sunday mornings, led to the block's name change.
TheKOL Secret Slumber Party premiered on September 16, 2006, with three first-run programs (Cake,Dance Revolution, andHorseland) and three pre-2006 shows (Madeline,Trollz andSabrina: The Animated Series) in the block's inaugural lineup. The block's female hosts (and in turn, from whom theSecret Slumber Party name was partly derived from) were theSlumber Party Girls, ateen pop group signed withGeffen Records (consisted ofCassie Scerbo, Mallory Low,Karla Deras, Carolina Carattini and Caroline Scott), who appeared during commercial break bumpers and interstitial segments seen before the start and the end segment of each program as well as serving as the musical performers for one of the series featured in the block,Dance Revolution.
In the summer of 2007, KOL withdrew its sponsorship from the network's Saturday morning block. CBS and DIC subsequently announced a new partnership withAmerican Greetings Corporation to relaunch the block on September 21 of that year asKEWLopolis, which would be targeted at younger girls and serve as a tie-in with the monthlyteen magazineKEWL (which was established in part by DiC in May 2007, and is no longer in publication).[14] Complimenting CBS's 2007 lineup – which includedKOL Secret Slumber Party holdoversCake andHorseland – were newly added seriesCare Bears: Adventures in Care-a-lot,Strawberry Shortcake,DinoSquad andSushi Pack. The block came under the purview ofCookie Jar Group, after DIC was acquired by the Canada-based company on July 23, 2008.[15][16] On February 24, 2009, it was announced that CBS renewed its contract with Cookie Jar for three additional seasons, running through 2012.[17][18]
On September 19, 2009, the block was rebranded again, this time toCookie Jar TV.[19] With the exception ofSabrina: The Animated Series, most of the programs recently featured on the predecessorKEWLopolis andKOL Secret Slumber Party were dropped upon the block's relaunch on September 19, 2009.[19][20] The Cookie Jar TV brand remained in place for the block even after that company's acquisition byDHX Media (now WildBrain) in October 2012.
On July 24, 2013, CBS announced that it had entered into a programming agreement withLitton Entertainment (which already programs aSaturday morning block syndicated to ABC owned-and-operated stations and affiliates and has subsequently begun producing asimilarly formatted block for CBS' co-owned sister networkThe CW as of October 4, 2014) to launch a new Saturday morning block featuring live-action E/I lifestyle, wildlife and documentary programming aimed at teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18. The new Litton-produced block, theCBS Dream Team, debuted on September 28, 2013,[21] marking the return to an exclusively live-action Saturday morning programming block to the network since the discontinuance of the experimentalThink CBS Kids block in September 1998 (once again ending the entirety of conventional children's programming—animated or otherwise—airing on CBS). The block's lineup consisted mainly of newer series (including one scriptedpolice procedural,The Inspectors, a format Litton has not used on programs airing on its other blocks), with the cooking seriesRecipe Rehab migrating to theDream Team from the ABC-syndicatedLitton's Weekend Adventure block.[22]
On March 20, 2018, CBS and Litton announced that the block was renewed for five more seasons, through 2023.[23]
On September 21, 2023, CBS announced that it would rebrand toCBS WKND starting October 7, 2023.[24]
Following the announcement of thesecond merger between Viacom and CBS Corporation, former CBS Corporation CEOJoseph Ianniello was receptive to the possibility of the return of Nickelodeon children's programming to CBS.[25] As CBS is currently under contract with Litton Entertainment (now present-dayHearst Media Production Group) to carry theCBS Weekend E/I programming block until the end of the 2025-26 television season, any Nickelodeon programming that CBS would decide to add would have to comply with theFCC's E/I requirements (as the network's affiliates use the block for most of their E/I compliance); as with cable television, advertising restrictions would still be enforced for any programming targeted at children under 13.[23]
CBS was the original broadcast network home of the animated primetime holiday specials based on thePeanuts comic strip, beginning withA Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965. Over 30 holiday Peanuts specials (each for a specific holiday such asHalloween) were broadcast on CBS from that time until 2000, when the broadcast rights were acquired by ABC. CBS also aired several prime time animated specials based on the works ofDr. Seuss, beginning withHow the Grinch Stole Christmas in 1966, as well as several specials based on theGarfield comic strip during the 1980s (which led to Garfield getting his own Saturday morning cartoon on the network, Garfield and Friends, in 1988). Two animated specials by theRankin/Bass studio, thestop motion classicRudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and the traditionally animatedFrosty the Snowman have been annual holiday staples on CBS respectively since 1972 (Rudolph) (eight years after the special originally debuted on NBC) and 1969 (Frosty) (when it debuted on CBS). As of 2023[update],Rudolph andFrosty are the only two pre-1990 animated specials that continue to air on CBS on an annual basis (since 2019, they have also aired onFreeform); the broadcast rights to thePeanuts specials are now held byApple TV+ whileHow The Grinch Stole Christmas is broadcast by NBC, its streaming sisterPeacock andWarner Bros. Discovery outlets; theGarfield specials aren't currently shown. In the 21st century,Rudolph andFrosty have been joined by a series of newer specials that air on a semi-regular basis, including such entries asFrosty Returns, theRobbie the Reindeer shorts,The Flight Before Christmas andThe Story of Santa Claus.
All of these animated specials, from 1973 to 1992, began with a fondly remembered seven-second animated opening sequence, in which the words "A CBS Special Presentation" were displayed in a colorfulITC Avant Garde typeface. The word "SPECIAL", in all caps and repeated multiple times in multiple colors, slowly zoomed out from the frame in a spinning counterclockwise motion against a black background, and rapidly zoomed back into frame as a single word, in white, at the end; the sequence was accompanied by a jazzy though majestic up-tempo fanfare with dramatic horns and percussion (believed to be edited incidental music from the CBS crime dramaHawaii Five-O, titled "Call to Danger" on theCapitol Records soundtrack LP). This opening sequence – presumably designed by, or under the supervision of, longtime CBS creative directorLou Dorfsman (who oversaw print and on-air graphics for CBS for nearly 30 years, replacingWilliam Golden following his death in 1959) – also appeared immediately before other CBS specials of the period (such as the annual presentations of theMiss USA pageant and theKennedy Center Honors).