2006: Viacom and CBS had given up on their marriage and divorced on January 1st, the old Viacom became CBS corp.and the new Viacom was formed. Nickelodeon on CBS was there lingering and waiting for its fate.
January 19th 2006: Nick (Jr) on CBS was condemned to death and was waiting for it's final date in September. CBS had found someone else, like a recently divorced person rebounding to a new lover. (this is getting weird) DiC (pronounced Deek) was brought on to work with CBS in running the 3 hour Saturday Morning block. DiC was around doing children's programming for sometime. I even remember the syndicated block they had because it aired on 3 different local stations around me. The new block was going to be called "CBS’s Secret Saturday Morning Slumber Party,” (the heck?) . (SOURCE)
2006 was an interesting turning year for network TV. A few days after January 19th, Time Warner , the owner of the WB network, and CBS corporation, the owners of UPN decided that their networks were bad ideas and decided to mate and have a new network called the CW. Going with our target for this post: The Kids WB block had changed already in 2006, on December 31st 2005, the last broadcast of the daytime weekday Kids WB block was aired. Stations wanted something more "adult"in their afternoon line up. Kids WB was the last non-PBS weekday children's block on broadcast TV. (Minus any station airing the Dic Syndication block on weekdays at the time) The Saturday morning block was expanded to run from 7am to Noon, all time zones the same. That was going to continue on the CW since UPN didn't have a children's block. (UPN , yoUr Parent's Network)
Over on NBC, Discovery Kids and NBC decided to not work together anymore even they probably were going to have less viewers watching than they had on NBC (Discovery Kids Network kind of died after the block ended and withered until the Hub was launched) NBC was going with Ion Televison , then known as "I" formally PAX TV (Feel the Spirit) where Telemundo, NBC, and I (get it?) were going to have a new block. Fridays on I , Saturdays on NBC, and Saturdays but in Spanish on Telemundo. Over on ABC, that would be the last year of ABC Kids, I mean , the last year they did anything with ABC kids. (Can we go back to CBS, Now?)
Now enter AOL, (for the love of...) Aol had (hold on) yep, had a kids site called KOL ,( Kids Online) and they wanted to be part of this CBS and Dic action for some reason. So instead of calling the block the CBS' Secret Saturday Morning Slumber Party (rolls of the tongue like butter) it was to be called the KOL Secret Slumber Party. The name is still long but not as long. The name also may have been for stations that might air part of the block on Sunday, didn't want people to mass panic thinking it was still Saturday. (what?) That or they maybe saw the idea of a long name as bad thing.
more after the jump
CBS and DiC were thinking they should go after a direct target audience: Girls ages 6-12. The programs were going to be E/I because laws. The fun thing is they did put more effort in this block than the entire 6 years of Nick (Jr) on CBS. This was 2006, so this was the time of "We want children to eat healthy" something. (remember that?) They were going to have PSA's for kids to eat healthy. (Eat your food, it's people but it's good people) The block was called "Secret Slumber Party" so they tied in with a group of girls having a slumber party as links between programs.
Within this programming, KOL (AOL's online destination for kids), which is co-producing the Secret Slumber Party with DIC, will create interstitials on healthy eating that will air during the block and online utilizing the Slumber Party Girls, an ensemble of five fresh, talented and ethnically diverse teen girls who sing, dance and act. As five best friends who chat about boys and homework, they also serve as role models by making positive onscreen choices such as drinking plenty of water and eating a variety of fruits and vegetables. In addition, PSAs featuring KOL's popular original animated character, "Princess Natasha," will also reinforce these messages with topics regarding diet, exercise and lifestyle choices.(source)
If you are a girl who doesn't like acting, singing, dancing, boys and homework then this block isn't for you, I think? I'm confused. Also drinking water and eating fruits and veggies because that's what the kids are eating at slumber parties right? ( I don't know, I'm just a 50-year-old television executive male, I'm not even sure children exist)
The original 2006 line up had reruns of Madeline , the 2002 Emmy award winning, animated series. Reruns of Sabrina the Animated series (which Dic also had on their syndicated block and used to air on ABC and Disney Channel, the one time Disney bought DiC then gave it up, Disney should that last part more). Reruns of a series at aired on Syndication , just the year before, called "Trollz" (the Z makes it hip) A new series (whoa, I'm scared!) called Horseland. (As a 52 year old male television executive, I know girls like Horses by law) which is not about Horses ruling a country with iron hooves. "Cake" a new series (calm down, we have two new series) about a girl with a cable access show (take that I-carly, Cake had you beat) and not about cake. (I wanted a show about cake.) ( I thought this block was trying to promote healthy eating, we named a show Cake) (Silence!) And finally, a new series called Dance Revolution , which was reality Dance show and not a show about people starting a revolution with Dance and taking out a king. (43 year old female executive: What? girls like dancing, my daughter likes dancing, and there's this game called Dance Dance Revolution)
The block began on September 16th 2006.
Someone somewhere, went all Disney Channel on us and made the Slumber Party Girls be like stars. It was a music and dance group as well, they created for the block and also host "Dance Revolution" they even had an album. They were also supposed to have a tv show with CBS and a movie. None of this happened. (source)
I would like to talk about some of the shows in depth, but this is already long and I already see some of you are sleeping right now.
In summer of 2007 (ah the love summer), KOL walked away from this. I guess it wasn't helping people go to kol.aol.com to whatever. So they took this as a chance to re-brand. Also, the American Greetings company came in to sponsor because kids like cards, right? The new name was also shorter. KEWLopolis (that's worse than adding a Z to something) Kewl (pronounced cool) was also a name of a magazine that came out also in 2007, from DiC for teens. Of course, KEWL is so big they are now writing stupid things on.... oh wait no it's gone , it's long gone. Well, so is this block so..
Could you explain the late 2000's pre-teen culture to me in one picture?
Yes?
oooh
The slumber party gimmick and girls were removed, that also meant Dance Revolution, like most revolutions, failed.
They did introduce some new series. That American Greetings partnership lended thema new Care Bears series, "Care Bears: Adventures in Care-a-lot". (Because greeting card companies do weird things) DiC did have new shows that weren't made for their syndication block like "Sushi Pack" which was a show co-created by Tom Ruegger, the creator of Animaniacs and the guy who on the one of the best "Scooby" series? what? Another new series was Dino Squad. (Sadly not about Dino Cheerleaders) And Reruns/ new episodes of the 2003 "Strawberry Shortcake" series. Two shows with cake in the title, that's not healthy.
They kept the "Sabrina" reruns and "Cake" but with Cake they ended it after season 1 with 13 episodes and it just re ran. Due to advertising rules and etc. they also filled some time with little shorts called "Tinpo" which had characters fixing problems. This replaced the slumber party segments. (source)
Behind the scenes things were changing at DiC. Cookie Jar Group (strange name) had purchased DiC and Dic's library. If you watched early episodes of "Arthur" and you'd see a logo that said Cinar, that's them. Cinar's story is a long thing that has nothing to do with this. In 2004, it was purchased by group lead by the founder of Nelvana (everything comes back to Nevlana) and was re-branded as Cookie Jar. You'll see some episodes of Arthur with that logo too. In 2008,they purchased DiC.
What does this mean for the block? Well first, nothing. The 3 year lease of space was up and CBS let Cookie Jar renew it for 3 more years. In September of 2009, the block was renamed again, to Cookie Jar TV. ( I think health mission was over now) Cookie Jar used this to clean up the room and removed all the shows from the block.
First off, some shows that were aired in Canada, Cookie Jar's home country, made it as "new"to CBS and US. "Busytown Mysteries". I will note they were skewing the block to a younger audience than what Secret Kewl was doing. This was more a preschool show, slightly returning CBS back to preschool Saturday morning shows. "Noonbory and the Super Seven" a Korean and Canadian series was the next new series, and again skewing younger. "Sabrina the Animated Series" returned. That's it. (That can't be it, you just mentioned 3 shows, this is a 3 hour block, what?)
The 2009-2010 initial line up was 3 shows. With Busytown airing 3 times on the top of each hour, and Noonbory aired 2 times at the bottom of the hour, and Sabrina aired once , randomly taking a bottom of the hour. Well,not much in that cookie jar.
The theme song of the block was catchy, but that's it.
Tangent time: (not another one, I can't believe it!) 2008 network TV Saturday morning blocks kind of just existed. FOX had given up after 4 Kids decided to go the CW and they didn't like the idea of 4 Kids having a second network so FOX walked away from children's programming and the affiliates had to figure it out themselves. Kids WB had died and was replace by CW4kids, and the last block being produced by a network itself had died. ABC Kids was dead and running on zombie mode, and Qubo on NBC was chugging along? The glory age was long gone, it was gone before 2006, but the writing on the wall was showing up more. In 2009, you had most of the blocks doing it for the obligation, only the CW had something of large worth.
In Spring of 2010, they changed their line up slightly, adding a new series , "Doodlebops Rockin' Road Show". That was it.
It does get boring from here a little bit. In 2010, they added Sarbrina's Secret Life to run with Sabrina the Animated Series. "Noonbory" was removed. By Spring of 2011, they removed everything but Busytown and Doodlebops, and brought back reruns of Horseland and Trollz.
In fall of 2011, Disney decided to pack in it on ABC, I mean they figured out they had something dead in the corner and finally got out if the house. They sold the Saturday morning spot to a company named Litton. Litton launched a block called "Litton's Weekend Adventure". The interesting thing about this block, besides the fact it has out lived ABC Kids, is that the block was targeting more 13-16 year olds mostly to have different ad rules. Also the block is syndicated and works through ABC, but not all ABC stations have to air. What does this have to do with CBS? We're getting there.
This block continued in 2011, They added one show , called "Danger Rangers" it was reruns from an old show that might have aired on PBS. In speaking of PBS, the Cookie Jar, former DiC, series "Liberty's kids" that did air on PBS appeared on the block in 2012.
Around the same time in 2012, due to Comcast owning a pre-school channel and already now owning NBC, they decided to pop together and replace Qubo on NBC and Telmundo with NBC Kids/Mi Telemundo. The block was targeted towards preschoolers. Over on the CW, 4kids gone and replaced by Vortexx from Saban Brands. I mentioned that in 2009, CBS leased out the time to Cookie Jar for 3 years. Two things happened.
In 2012, DHX (also Canada) acquired Cookie Jar and assumed everything as DHX. The block on CBS wouldn't be renamed because the writing was already on the wall for the block. CBS announced in 2013 they had sold the time to Litton entertainment. On September 21st Cookie Jar TV finished airing and the end of CBS doing children's programming had happened. Litton's block, like the other, is targeted to 13-16 years, not they are watching, for ad purposes because ad rules are from 12 and younger.
Somewhat whimper as an ending. The block at start seemed ambitious and was for a while something. They quickly figured out that the market wasn't going that way anymore. A Saturday Morning network children's block wasn't going to cut it anymore. FOX realized this in 2008, NBC figured this out in 1992. I won't say these series of blocks weren't nostalgic for anybody, but they were part of the time where something that had been a tradition was slipping away. You could see by 2010, they didn't really care anymore and just eventually moved on.
It's an interesting look at a moment in time in television a changing of the guard had already happened but they were at least scraping to try something until the change happened.
That's our lookback, tune in next time, when we relaunch Kewl magazine.
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