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Wednesday, September 07, 2022

The Lookback: Fox Kids Fall 2001

The Flashback 




    The 2001-2002 season of TV was an interesting one for FOX Kids since it was to be the last season of FOX Kids.  In July 2001, Fox announced they were selling  Fox Family Worldwide to The Walt Disney company, FOX Kids was moved to the oversight of Fox TV. This was going to be the last season of Fox Kids with two big endings happening.  
   
      In January of 2002, FOX has washed their hands of the entire thing and let a company called 4 Kids buy their Saturday block hours.  FOX  Kids had been a successful block, causing the WB to make their own, let NBC give up on kids shows in 1992, and made Disney nervous. But it's reign near the end started to change completely.  

     Disney's One Saturday Morning seemed to issue the first blow, though I could add that cable and Nickelodeon in direct answering wouldn't be making things better for FOX Kids. Warner Brothers had left the network, but that was more a road bump than a real blow. Kids WB was a force though, a diversion for kids' attention. More choice isn't really the concept of a good thing, it just makes us feel better. All the kids programming blocks and networks were in competition  for the choice. FOX Kids  in 1998 had to compete against ABC, CBS(uhhh) , UPN (uhh) , Kids WB, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, the newly non premium Disney Channel, the final ashes of syndication, other forms of entertaiment for children,  new government rules,  Pokemon (which was in syndication then later Kids WB),  Sleeping, their own stations, and themselves (Fox Family).  That's a different landscape than they had when they entered the market.  
   
            They were seeing the writing on the wall with making Fox Family, they kind of wanted to have a children's /family network to compete against Nick, when that failed, they were ready to give up.   

   Back to January 2002, Fox Kids had it's death row date ready and this is our look at FOX Kids' final season.
 
     Weekdays!  Uhh 
 
     This is where is FOX was more at odds with it's own stations, FOX local stations felt that the weekday hours should not be kids' programming anymore.  Before 1998, FOX and the FOX stations co-owned Fox Kids, they also cut the weekday block to two hours.  Two reasons: 1. The new E/I rules and 2. their local stations wanted to expand in the morning with more profitable to them, local news.   FOX local stations, in general, felt  they didn't want kids programming in the afternoon. (there's more to this but that's a longer more annoying thing to bring up so, nah)  The other big stations affiliated with CBS, ABC, and NBC didn't do that and why should they? They aren't a small network, FOX is the big 4, so time go. More on that though as I go through the weekday block.
     
  The weekday block on some stations were moved to other stations, in New York and LA they moved the block to their new UPN sister stations (FOX bought stations of the former UPN co-owner, long story not for this post)  so that's a sign.  
        
       The  weekday block was two hours and to help their stations comply with E/I rules, help meaning eh here you go one show. They ended up with "The Magic School Bus" in 1998. It was a PBS series and PBS was done with it , so why not air that?    The Magic School Bus later would move to TLC. 

   If you don't know what "The Magic School Bus" is (insert joke here) it was 1994 TV series that ran on PBS based off books of the name, about a magic school bus. (duh?)  The series about a class, a small class, and their quirky teacher, being quirky deciding the best way for her students to learn science stuff was to take them on a magical living bus, and take them into the human body, space, anywhere to learn about science. That's why FOX aired it as a E/I show. The show had 52 episodes, they were airing them 5 days a week, so every 11 ish weeks they'd reset. 

        More after the jump

       Stations could air the show in the morning , around 7am (the earliest time you could air E/I programming at the time)  if they didn't have local news, or they could air in the afternoon, probably a time when no kids could watch.  At least the government didn't mind.  
                 
          
                
            [ We have to go back!]

   I think by this point, they kind of just stopped caring anyway, so  the next show was reruns of "Life with Louie" the FOX Kids show based off the childhood of comedian Louie Anderson.  The show ran from 1994 to 1998.  For  our  2001 look, they decided to run reruns of this show on Monday afternoons.  The show had 39 episodes. It replaced an extra Monday episode of  "The Magic School Bus" 

    The show has Louie Anderson voicing 8-year-old Louie Anderson in a fictional town in Wisconsin (he grew up in a fictional town?).  The show takes place in the 1960's, I'm more confused as to why it's a kids show, when it feels like it should have been on next to "The Simpsons" but FOX was different.    

   In the same slot on Tuesday-Thursday, they aired "The New Woody Woodpecker Show". This season they were rerunning episodes from seasons 1 and 2; Season 3 never aired on the weekday block, it did air on the Saturday Morning block.

   "The New Woody Woodpecker Show" is about the character in new adventures. It was produced by Universal , who owns the rights to the character (they didn't get the luck of the draw). The show is about 3 segments to fill the 24 minutes.
 

      It's Woody Woodpecker, what do I have to explain?  Anyway, show had some strong voice casting, Billy West, Mark Hamill,  Elizabeth Daily,  B. J Ward, and Jim Cummings.  Some guest voices would come in as well like Pamela Adlon, Tom Kenny, Debi Derryberry, and more!! 

         
      Fridays they aired reruns of a series that just ended, "Action Man" from Saban Entertaiment.  This is is Canadian series based off the  toy. (Ah we were doing this in the year 2000)   Alex Mann (get it?) is member of  Team Xtreme  (We were doing this in 2000) is also extreme sports athlete.  Extreme sports the show.  With a twist,  Alex has been modified by his high school coach (what?) in experiments (what?) to be able to calculate all future possibilities.  The show is also CGI, and it's 2000 CGI , so it looks great! (uhhhh)  Eek.
                

       There's a villain, because of course, who wants to rebuild the Earth with humans with the same powers of Alex, because sure alright. Buy the  toys! 


    It lasted one season, the Friday airings in Fall 2001 were reruns and that also means Fox Kids weekday wouldn't rerun the entire show.

     From the FOX Kids tries to find an anime that they hoped could attract kids who wanted anime but didn't want Kids WB's more popular stuff. And Nostalgia plays for a better match up we have, "Transformers: Robots in Disguise" (more toys!)   Based on "Transformers", the series is produced by from Japan and ran in  Japan first. Fox Kids localized it and ran starting September 8, 2001, Saturday. 

   This show was also a good purpose of the week day block since the episodes aired weekdays along with Saturdays.  
  
    Now, I, a person with never having interest in "Transformers" can only give a brief description the show from what I've read.   It apparently doesn't have anything of continuity to any past series so that's helpful for new viewers.  There's robots that are evil who want the Earth's energy (that's why I'm tried)  and the Autobots are there to stop them an team up with boy who's father was taken by the bad guys. (rude)  Stuff happens for 39 episodes. Again, to fans, yeah I'm not fan so I'm not going to add to much here, but just mentioning it aired on FOX Kids in 2001.        

It was also on against , "Pokemon", if the FOX station was following the national times.  Well something had to be but, oh no...


  Also on against, "Pokemon" (KIDS WB needed to calm the freak down)  was FOX's long mainstay, Power Rangers. The season the were airing was called "Power Rangers: Time Force" it came out on Saturday Mornings starting February 3, 2001. The season ended on November 17,2001. That means the weekday block was airing episodes in reruns , in case you missed them. 
  
     The series takes place in the 3000 (we just passed 2000, but they were being optimistic). It's a Power Rangers series, so it's about Power Rangers.  (You sound like someone who doesn't watch the show) 

      And finally , Digimon!  Digimon, was an Anime series that some would think that FOX picked up just by the name sounding like Pokemon. (Where the heck was Doraemon then?)  The series first aired with "Digimon Adventure" on FOX on August 14, 1999.  They mixed in airing it weekly and daily. 
 

  Now it's fall 2001, and that means the third season/series was airing. "Digimon Tamers". Tamers has a different cast than the first two seasons of Adventure. 10-year olds  who are fans of the Digimon card game (buy the toys!) end up brining Digimon into our (their) world  and they have to make sure the meaner ones don't end up destroying the city. (Tame them if you will)  This one I've watched since apparently I'm getting personal here.
 
      


     I think Digimon did do well for FOX, they even aired it on FOX Family,  and it had marathons on both. They even had a Superbowl 2002 Marathon. (You have to see Terry Bradshaw introducing the show, we'll never have this again ) It kind of was their "Pokemon" in how popular it became. You just can't prop up a block on one show (uhh)  This would be the last Digimon series to air on FOX. The next season would air on UPN and the newly renamed ABC Family. 

   Like  I said, the weekday block ended before the Saturday.  In November of 2001, FOX announced they were giving up on FOX Kids weekdays.  They decided to give the 2 hour block back to local stations.  To run episodes of court shows and talk shows about hitting each other with chairs or something, stuff that'd be better to run before local news and stuff.  (I will say not all FOX stations aired the block in the first place, but I'm trying to keep it a simple post)  The network had signed a 10 year deal to control the 2 hours, they were in year 3.  Fox had moved FOX Kids up to 2-4, back in January 2001, if stations wanted to run it then and not 3-5pm. (source)    FOX said they were going to look at ideas for the block in the future, and that never happened. (Yes, unlike the WB, they kind of just gave up and the stations probably got used to just airing what they wanted to air anyway) 


 In January 2002, the Saturday Block was the only thing left, 4 hours from 7am to 11am . It's death coming up next. 

      So Saturday has some redundancies , so I'm not re-mentioning: "Transformers", "Power Rangers : Time Force", "The New Woody Woodpecker",  and "Digimon".


   Let's start with fall. It's weird to mention fall 2001, without 9/11, but there's not much 9/11 affected in the block's airings ,though I'm sure they got worried about any episodes that could be sensitive for the time.  
    
      The first 90 minutes were : Transformers, Power Rangers, and Digimon.  Let's go to the next show, "Medabots"  Another toy-based anime that  FOX was hoping to grab some Pokemon eyes with.  The anime first aired in Japan in 1999, but came to the US on September 1, 2001.  It aired as Saturday exclusive.   
 
   The series is about robots who  serve humans in the future!  There's a ten-year-old boy named Ikki who wants to be a champion of the world Robattle tournament.  Though he can't afford a Medabot, but since we need the plot to pot, he makes enough money, but to make sure he has a challenge, he gets an outdated model. His bot, Metabee, is a rare model.  The show has a mixture of comedy and action. 
   
   FOX only aired season 1, season 2 in the Disney ended up the rights to stuff aired on the newly renamed ABC Family. 
   


Now for something really different.   So apparently, FOX Kids wanted to get in to the "Survivor" game but with teens before Discovery even did tit.  "Moolah Beach" was a reality show with teens competing to win $25,000. (Not their dignity though)  On FOX Kids it aired as a 30 minute show, FOX Family aired it as 60 minutes.   The show only had seven episodes. Meaning FOX picked it up when they had different plans and knew those plans were changing and killed it off. Going back to Discovery J,D Roth did up getting this show done again as Discovery Kids'  "Endurance" which also aired on NBC. 



 

    From the creator of "Ren and Stimpy"  it's "The Ripping Friends".  Originally, it aired after a 2nd airing of Digimon, but later it replaced  "Moolah Beach".  Before they gave up. It first aired on September 22, 2001, it also aired in Canada on Teletoon.  

          "Ripping Friends" was a super hero comedy series about super hero brothers who want to fight crime from their base called RIP COT. They are named Crag, Rip,Slab, and Chunk Nuggett.  It also includes  Jimmy the Idiot Boy and a foster mother He-Mom.  They have a cast of villains who are a wad of gum, and more.  

         Wow, anyway, it was actually supposed to start on Fox Family in 2000, with another Spumco show called "The Heart Aches" which never happened  The show cost $400,000 an episode so FOX said screw this and only had 13 episodes and walked away.   The show did later rerun on Adult Swim. 

Well, what's next? More anime.  "Mon Colle Knights"  FOX really was just buying rights to shows that had the word Mon weren't they?  This show first aired in Japan in 2000, and it was dubbed by Saban (of course) and ran on FOX.  It had 46 episodes in English versus 51 in Japanese. 

        Another series about monsters, collecting, and trading cards.  Mondo Ooya and Rockna Hiiragi are able to go the Mon World where magical creatures live. They  have to find six monster items when combined can create a gate world to bridge with Earth.  They also can merge with monsters and fight.

 
   


   Hey look at show from DIC .  "Alienators: Evolution Continues" . This is animated continuation of the 2001 movie "Evolution" , I'm sure many remember that. It first aired on Fox Kids on September 15, 2001.

     The show is about a team of scientists , called the Alienators ( I would hate to be their friends) must stop alien creatures that came from a meteor that crashed into the Arizona desert. 


   


 The final new series is from someone who is also part of the history of the last years of the also dying this same season block: TNBC. That's Thomas W. Lynch, the creator of "The Secret World of Alex Mack" and mire.  This series was funded by Lego, called "Galidor: Defenders of the Outer Dimension"   This is the final new series ever for FOX Kids, it premiered on February 9, 2002.

   
         It's a live-action series about 15-year-old Nick Bluetooth, (ah yes , the Bluetooth Family, they connect well. Mr and Mrs. Bluetooth make a great pairing) and his best friend Allegra Zane are in outer space and they are trying to protect the dimension. (And sell Lego) 





     It was a strong Lynch series, but an unlucky year for him as two blocks with his shows ended, that Nickelodeon  ending "Caitlin's Way". 

          They eventually moved "The New Woody Woodpecker Show" into the Saturday morning slot later on.   And  a new "Power Rangers" series that started on Fox, and would finish on ABC.  The last season of FOX Kids was a mixture of what FOX Kids was in the last few seasons with more  anime, and some new shows that this time really didn't have a chance. 

   This as a pivotal season across 3 networks. ABC was in their last year of  "One Saturday Morning" , TNBC was in it's last year.  FOX Kids  didn't feel too dead for their last season , so that's better  than many other blocks I've written about their endings.    

       The final FOX Kids airing was Saturday, September 7, 2002, it rode off into the sunset and 4 Kids took over the next weekend for about 7 years.  That's it for now tune in next time when we wish  Terry Bradshaw could introduce more animated shows.  

    

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