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Thursday, April 16, 2015

The LookBack : DIC entertainment Children's programs

The Flashback 

               This time , we take look back at some children's programs (back to this again, huh?)  by a company we've talked about before , DIC.
                         
                           That's our name , wear it out!  
       DIC entertainment was (because things we cover are gone, except for Disney, they are never gone) , launched by a french guy named  Jean Chalopin  in 1971 (the party year) , the original name of the company was   Diffusion, Information et Communication. (uhhhh)   They , as decided to come on over to America  in the 1980's  (the party decade) with the help of a man named  Andy Heyward,   they also  had an animation office in Japan so they could export the animation jobs to themselves.   Remember when we talked about a couple DIC series being on Disney's One Saturday Morning?  There was a reason for that  (I'd hope so)  Capital Cities/ABC  ,which was ABC's company name  from their purchase by Captial Cities (all 50 of them?)  they bought up DIC in 1993. When Disney bought CapCities /ABC they also got guess what? ( ESPN?)  DIC was now owned by Disney. (DICsney).  In 2000  Bain Captial (the famous one)  bought DIC  in 2000  and  they eventually got it sold to Andy Heyward.  Where they became the last bastion of syndicated children's programming.   Eventually , in 2008 (when everything was going just fine , no not really) , it got sold to  Cookie Jar Entertainment (who also is now a dead company, eh circle of life or death).
     
     So , let's get to the shows now.  (Finally,  I was just about to go to CNN.com)
     1.  Dennis The Menace (the animated one from the 80's)
 
         
        Video is kind of loud  ... like the 80's ... so it's not loud in the 80's  
   
    Dennis the Menace is one of those "Cartoons on TV based off Comic strips" things  , about our overall-ed  hero  and his gaggle of friends  and his very big dog.  Even though Dennis is a Menace it's all because he is trying hard to  help. (Like most people )   It ran on Syndication first  in 1986 with 65 episodes (the average of  shows  like this) ,  then CBS saw a star in their eye ( ha! get it? , no ? me neither)  and picked up the series for a season 2 of  a big 13 episodes.  Each episode was  3 shorts inside (again more like average series of the time).  It ran a long time on syndication repeats and on popular cable channels  , like USA for their Cartoon express.

2.  Inspector Gadget   (also a surprise at the end or mistake )
     This was the first , animated series by DIC , came on in 1983 on our favorite channel , syndication  (well ,it's not really a channel , but what do you want from me?).  it was also the first  animated produced in  stereo. (Yeah 80's!)  It was created by  Andy HeywardJean Chalopin and Bruno Bianchi.( We mention Andy alot ) 
                               
                                 Go Gadget go !  /  copyright  DHX media (guess who owns DIC now?)
   The series is about  a detective who is half machine  who has tons of gadgets (which ever is convenient for that episode)  he was a bumbling detective who solved crimes and stopped EVIL.  He also had a niece named Penny and a very smart dog named  Brian. (Who then moved to Quahog , wait oh --- never mind) and they solved the crimes or stopped the evil together. The main villains are working for a group called M.A.D  and their leader Dr. Claw. (they just give  medical degrees to everyone don't they?)    
       Gadget works for Chef Quimby , he's the chef of police in Metro City ( hmm   they have  bad crime rate)
   Each episode , since it was the 80's   ended with a PSA .

Wait... we have more (have your credit cards ready)
     Inspector Gadget's field trip  , this show was  a  kind of spin-off with our cartoon hero , created by Dic in 1996 it aired on the History Channel . (Before it became the scary channel with lack of history)  it had 26 episodes , Don Adams returned as the voice . This series was an educational travel show for kids (or people who really like inspector gadget or traveling). It  only featured Gadget , none of the other original animated series characters were there. It ran on  DIC's syndication block in the 2000's.
 


  As you can see it's E/I

more after the jump

  3. Liberty's Kids
      Our first PBS kids show in this whole series of lookbacks, (that's to readers like you) . It ran on PBS in 2003 , made by DIC  in the new world of E/I rules to help kids learn , this time about the American Revolution from the eyes of 3 kids  (who barely age) .   Liberty's Kids  started many famous voices , we had Walter Cronkite as  Ben Franklin ,  Dustin Hoffman as Benedict Arnold, Billy Crystal as John Adams, Whoopi Goldberg , Arnold Schwarzenegger  , Ben Stiller , Annette Benning  , and more. (DIC hired a large cast of people )  The series takes the viewer through the 16 year period between 1773 (Boston Tea Party ) to 1789 (Contusion )  through 3 kids a British girl ,  a colonial boy , and a French boy.  Who work for Ben Franklin's newspaper  , and they go around the battles and meetings to tell the story of the revolution.


                         
                         ehhhhh / DIC

     4.   Sabrina's Secret Life
        We told you in our  Disney's  One Saturday Morning article about "Sabrina : The Animated Series"   now there was  another cartoon that came after it (literally in-show as well) , where Sabrina is now 2 years older  (14)  she is now in high school with new friends and that crush on  Harvey.
   In this  series we have Sabrina's aunts who are still taking care of her (they aren't teenagers anymore , read our DOSM article if you haven't if that doesn't make sense)   Sabrina now can use her hands for spells instead of a cookie jar.  She also has a class in witchery in the other realm.  Each episode  was of  E/I safe and ran on DIC's syndicated block for years. (Though it began in 2003 and ran new until 2004)
   
                          
                     Who's making magic ?   / copyright  DHX

    That's our lookback at some DIC shows (not all of them) , we hope you enjoyed stay tuned next time when we look back at the Show about a bionic witch who wears overalls

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