The Lookback: UPN Kids ( and a little more too)

UPN  The Flashback

        UPN, the United Paramount Network, was  launched in 1995 in January of 1995, but in that fall they also jumped into the ground other networks also did (minus NBC because it's 1995)  and did children's programming. This time we are talking about UPN's kids programming.  We kind of did that on this blog before, but we felt that post (which was combined with TNBC) was lacking and maybe UPN needed it's own story page. (Plus, it's good to try and improve things) 

        On Sunday, September 10, 1995, UPN Kids launched. You may notice I said Sunday and not like Saturday, a lot of these blocks start on Saturday or have Saturday programming, UPN did not. They were a Sunday Morning block. There are reasons for this that to be at thing.

 

    Most UPN stations were former independent stations, a lucky few were former Fox stations that needed   a network when Fox left them for better VHF stations or something (not sure how lucky they felt, oh that FOX thing is important for our story), others maybe just launched. Also in 1995, another network launched , The WB, and maybe a few stations were both UPN and the WB and that's a whole other mess. The good reasons for a Sunday block versus Saturday is that some of the new FOX stations that decided they were too good for children's shows even on Saturday (minus the ones the government said to air for the education reasons) a UPN station could air FOX Kids on Saturday (and weekdays).  In Milwaukee, for example, WITI was a CBS station that ended up with FOX, but decided that FOX Kids wasn't for them so the former FOX station,  WCGV-TV, aired FOX Kids, but WCGV was a UPN station.  Another reason, could be syndicated programming, there was still syndicated children's programming (though that market was dying by 1995) and stations had commitments (who knows how long UPN could last?) , and the finale good reason is Sunday is just less crowded than Saturday. 

        UPN Kids started as a Sunday only block and not just Sunday but a 1 hour Sunday block. (You can't say they over did themselves)  the planned time slot of the 10am hour. That makes it easy for us.  

The first program was "Space Strikers".  "Space Strikers" was a French cartoon brought to the US from  Haim Saban's company which also was an invested owner in FOX Kids.  "Space Strikers" is based on the novel  "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" but in Space. (yay!)  This show was was told as one story, meaning viewers had to turn each week to see where the story went next, which wasn't a long story, because it was 13 episode series.   The show also used early computer animation for the action scenes and also promoted the fun of 3D viewing. (alright then) 

more after the jump

 Taking up the 10:30am slot was "Tekkaman Blade"  this was anime that was at the time licensed for UPN airings by Saban. (There's that name again) They had  a special dub for UPN Kids with a theme song done by Ron Wasserman (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers theme, X-Men). Fun fact this dub is owned by Disney now. Being an anime in the 1990's on a children's block they changed the names of the characters  and was edited to fit broadcast standards.  

       The series takes place in the future  (where we apparently changed the calendar again)  and Earth is under attack from aliens. (Always aliens attacking) one of the races is called  Radam and they have warriors called Tekkamen (uh roll credits).  The Earth space force called  Space Knights are fighting against them. 

     

      These posts aren't really about the entire series on  a block because that would make this really really long. Anyway, that was the 1995 line up. 

     In 1996, none of the 1995 series returned to the line up, but UPN Kids did continue. Now Sunday was 2 hours of programming. (!) Starting at 9am, in most time zones. 

oopin' ?  what?

  Remember the hit movie?  Jumanji (someone whispers in my ear something) well, they made an animated series!   So this animated series was the starting program of the new UPN Kids line up. Taking it's cues from the movie and original book, it has two kids Judy and Peter who find the board game and meet Alan who was trapped in the game for years.  

 . 

     This series takes the concepts and stretches it out through multiple episodes and stories. This series didn't have the anybody from the original movie doing the voices but they get some good ones like  Bill Fagerbakke whom you might know as the voice of Patrick from "Spongebob Squarepants"  and  Debby Derryberry whom you might know as the voice of Jimmy Neutron.  This series ran on  UPN kids for 2 seasons , a third season did air but it was moved to syndication.  It amassed 40 episodes. 

          

Up next, "The Mouse and the Monster" was a series from Saban.  It's about a mouse named Chesbro (let's play Chess, bro!) and  beatnik monster named Mo. (Apparently kids are into beatniks). This feels like another show that didn't make the FOX Kids cut. 

   Mo has a back story he was created to be a not Frankenstein's monster  to hold the brain of a pianist but Mo didn't want someone else's brain in his body so he and Ches become friends and they have to get away from the mad doctor who wants to put the brain in the monster. (There's a lot going on there)  Most of the episodes are these two getting into different thing with some comedy and adventure.  It ran for 13 episodes with 25 segments. 

     Guess what?  Another Saban show, this time "The Incredible Hulk" this is an animated series that came out in 1996 not another series of the same name.   Lou Ferrgino does voice Hulk in this series so that's a nice touch.   It's animated series about the Hulk, there's not much else to explain.  I also will add they changed things up in season 2 where they made the series  less "dark" and added She-Hulk for the girl viewers.   This series ran 2 seasons both on UPN and it had 21 episodes. (Wow that's a lot!) 

   Finally for the 1996-97 season they added a show called "Bureau of Alien Detectors" which is also from Saban.  This series gets UPN's space series quota up.  Also Aliens!   Anyway, this series ran one season of 13 episodes. 

      

    In 1997, UPN joined FOX and the WB (and PBS) in giving kids a networked weekday block. Well ACTUALLY, not really kids in this case.  The weekday block was one hour, probably to let local stations accommodate syndication and FOX Kids or KIDS WB if they were stations that had obligations to carry those.  

      UPN added two new series this season running on the weekday block and just for good measure they also took the 10am hour of the Sunday block, replacing the two shows that didn't make it past season 1. They also wanted shows that skewed older with teenagers. The TNBC world, plus it would cheaper to make some live-action shows. 

     First up was Breaker High, a comedy-drama series about  a high school that's on a cruise ship. (Fancy)  The series had eight high school kids one of which was played by future famous actor Ryan Gosling.   This was a light series think more like "Saved by the Bell" and not "Degrassi : the Next Generation" so mostly stuff about dating, friends, (dating friends?), no teen drama with pregnancies and stuff. (Unplanned Pregnancy Network, would have worked )   I didn't mention Saban, uh Saban distributed this series. 

 Also, there was "Sweet Valley High" also distributed from Saban. Based off a book series of the same name, but don't use this series to write a book report, is about Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield, twins who live in Sweet Valley, California. (Which isn't real)  They are twins with different personalities because of course.  They did get real twins to play twins so that's good. 

     This series ACTUALLY started in syndication in 1994, UPN Kids picked up the 4th and final season.  (Though that means it could have ran on a UPN station before it was on UPN kids) 

       These two shows also ran on Sunday the 10am slot after Jumanji and The Incredible Hulk for their last seasons (or last season on UPN for Jumanji).  

      Behind the scenes it seemed the men in suits in the back weren't happy with this block as early as late 1997. In early 1998, they were having conversations with Disney to have them produce a block for them.   I mentioned before that the syndicated kids programming was suffering loses and Disney's big block "The Disney Afternoon" already had to work with Kellogg's  to support the block. This is due to the fact that stations that could the air block were drying up due to Fox Kids and Kids WB taking up space in the weekday market, and also cable networks.  (Hold on that cable network thing for a second) (source) 

    

    That was January 1998, but it seemed Disney talks were already floundering and they went to talk to another company.  UPN was the United Paramount Network they both had Viacom ownership in some way. The United part was Chris Craft.  Viacom owned something of worth that could help hmm.... who? 

     

      I mentioned this in a previous blog post , but now we get a UPN look. Disney and UPN  seemed to be in a tough spot, they were worried about how the block would be brnaded and if the  FCC conditions would be met.  Viacom owns a little children's network called Nickelodeon, which in the 1990's was a competitor to the network blocks and seemingly eating their lunches.  If you can't beat them join them. 

      

    Both ways UPN also had intentions of expanding their afternoon block to 2 hours like WB and FOX had.  They were looking for someone to replace the Saban deal that was set to end in fall 1999. The Disney Afternoon contract was also up in 1999 meaning things were opening up.  (Source) 

    The Disney and UPN talks continued later on, maybe the floating of Nick scared them and decided to start talking.  In April of 1998, a deal was made , UPN and Buena Vista TV made a four year deal to provide 6 days and 2 hours of Disney programming for UPN starting in 1999.  Dean Valentine, the CEO of UPN at the time, felt that Disney was able to provide programming at the time they wanted it compared to Nick. 

    

       UPN Kids was given a date of death but that was for the fall of 1999, what about the fall of 1998?   Every series from the 1997 line up was gone.   (oh)  They had 4 "new" series and new in the sense that UPN is new. (what?) 

    

   First off they had "Big Bad Bettleborgs" which is  unique in that this series moved to UPN after it ended it's run on FOX Kids and these were reruns.  Since the show was going to be running 6 days a a week they could run through all the 88 episodes before UPN Kids died. It also was probably Saban washing their hands of the block as UPN was just waiting for this tenant to move out of their network.  (Saban had FOX Kids and the new Fox Family to worry about anyway) 

  

     The rest of the line up was reruns of the Hulk series that ran on UPN already another  FOX Kids show , "X-Men" and a syndicated "Spider-Man" series from  1981.  (Yes that 1981)  They also called the block UPN Kids action  zone. 

Ironic since there was no action going on it was a dead block.

    While that was happening, Disney and UPN were putting together some things. Like what will there new block be called? They didn't want to continue the UPN Kids name. There's a slightly good reason for that, UPN never had as many stations as NBC, ABC, and CBS. The WB had kind of this same problem, which is why the CW happened and the advent of digital over the air TV helped that network. But UPN didn't even have WGN helping them out like The WB . (My hometown didn't have a UPN station until 1999, and never had a WB station, it had to be brought from a near by city through cable for the WB)  Disney knew this so , Disney's block was also going to be in syndication for areas that didn't have a UPN station.  

        The new block needed a name, they originally considered  Whomptastic  based off the word the "Recess" characters used to fill in for cussing.   Since the block was going to be airing some of the same shows from ABC's Disney's One Saturday Morning they changed course and went with  Disney's One Too. A play on the meaning of too being also. (Source) 

      Now that's out of the way, UPN Kids let out  it's final breath on September 5, 1999. It's sad that UPN Kids never really had the chance to be anything major or remembered, it just kind of happened then stopped happening in a quick breath.  I still think it was worth talking about.   That's not the end of this post because it's time. 

          Disney's One Too : You can't Keep Saturday on One Day. 

                   

     Disney had launched a block on ABC called "Disney's One Saturday Morning" in 1997. It had become a successful block. Since this was the 90's there was no way they could put a weekday block on ABC, and their then current weekday syndicated block , The Disney Afternoon, which was once a success was floundering.  UPN and Disney talking seemed to come at the right time.  

     Sunday, September 5, 1999, UPN Kids aired their final broadcast, the very next day, Disney's One Too had launched. Disney's One Too took up the line up UPN Kids, 2 hours six days a week, Sundays-Fridays. 

    

     They did add flexibility  a station could air the block in the morning, which FOX and The WB also had blocks during or in the afternoon like UPN Kids. The Sunday block aired in the mornings. 

      Unlike, One Saturday Morning, this block didn't have interstitial or hosted segments (ABC was going to be dropping those anyway)  but the graphics did kind of follow the theme of OSM. 

              

      Disney's One Too wasn't really a block in the business of introducing originals it more just showed stuff from One Saturday Morning.  Let's talk about the 1999-2000 line up. (Though I went into more detail with the programs in the OSM/ ABC kids post)   

        Starting the block was a series a that already finished its run. (That's a good sign)  "Hercules" based off  the 1997 Disney movie had a series that ran in syndication first then moved to ABC for its 2nd season and ended with the syndication favorite number of 65 episodes.  Then it was Disney's  Doug , which ran on ABC and just finished it's run a couple months before this block started. It feels like this was Disney's One Castoffs block.  Though, it did off a free space for OSM to add new series and give those who liked the other series a chance to watch them again, if they didn't have Disney Channel or the new Toon Disney. 

        Due to weird time where Dic was owned by Disney, a new series from DIC did premiere on UPN not ABC that was "Sabrina: The Animated Series" a brand new series that started on September 6, 1999 on this new block.  The show is based off the Archie comic character named Sabrina Spellman.  Around this time the live-action series was airing and brought new interest into the character. 

     

     Sabrina in this series was 12 (so we forgot what teenage witch meant, huh?)   The voice of Sabrina was provided by Melissa Joan Hart's sister Emily.   Most of the plots were Sabrina getting the hang of magic and learning life lessons, you know for the E/I rating.   This show ran new episodes 7 days a week. Meaning,  Monday-Friday on UPN then Saturday on ABC, then Sunday on UPN for the first month,  Then  one episode would premiere on Saturday on ABC then another on Sunday on UPN.  Then back to 7 days in  November 1999.  Then just Saturdays in January on ABC and Sundays in February on UPN to finish off the series.  Kind of amazing to see want to run through 65 episodes in about 5 months. Unthinkable that Disney would do that now.

    

     If you are worried about missing an episode, the series ran for some time on UPN an ABC, later on it ran in syndication under DIC's block and on Toon Disney and ran on CBS later on, then in other places like Starz and still runs somewhere now.   (depending on when you are reading this) 

       

     Finally, a series that was running on ABC but not dead, and that would be  Disney's "Recess" which had confusion.  So season 3 premiered on ABC on Saturday, September 11,1999 on ABC but season 4 also ran at the same time on UPN  it premiered on Sunday, September 12, 1999. So yes two different seasons running on two different channels. That was an idea that someone had.  Season 3 was shorter than seasons 1 and 2 and 4 was longer than the past 3.  This experiment lasted that one season and everything moved back to  for the next season to ABC. 

       Recess was a successful Disney animated series about the exploits of 6 4th graders mostly taking place at Recess time. (Again I wrote more about these shows in the OSM post) 

      

    In fall 2000, they swapped out "Hercules" and "Doug" but kept  Sabrina and Recess. 

First off, while it was airing it's final season on ABC," Pepper Ann" joined UPN's line up.  The running on UPN allowed Disney to swap out the show in the winter of 2001 on ABC to allow a new series on ABC to  fill in after Pepper Ann ended in November of 2000.  

     Spin-off to the "Toy Story" movies "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command"   had a TV movie (the first 3 episodes smushed together) on UPN in August 2000, then on October 2nd, the show premiered on UPN.  It  aired it's first couple weeks  daily on UPN, then ABC joined in making the show have 7 day a week premieres  before letting the final episodes air on ABC.  Again this is a good way to make sure your audience watches all of ONE.  

          2001: Let's Talk about Fox's Odyssey 

      

     By 2001, Fox Kids had become an annoyance to the FOX stations that were airing it, meaning the ones that weren't UPN stations or someone else airing it.  Saban and FOX decided to wash their hands of the entire thing including FOX Family Channel and Fox Kids Worldwide and sold it to Disney.   (source)  I guess, I should talk about UPN but with a FOX twist as well.  The United meaning of UPN was Chris-Craft Industries. CCI had been the nucleus to UPN providing major market stations to UPN in New York, and LA, (the top 2 Markets and few other areas) Viacom's largest market was  Philadelphia and WPSG-TV. 

       Around the same time Disney's One Too launched, Viacom was poking around the idea of buying a bigger network, CBS.   Viacom had put down a gauntlet telling CC that they had to buy complete control of UPN or sell everything to Viacom.  Craft picked a third option: go to court.   They went to New York's Supreme Court to block the CBS purchase. (Power move!) They said that they had a pact with Viacom until 2001 that prevented either one of them having any interest in competing network . The Judge said no. (Source) Chris Craft gave up  and culdn't find someone to help them buy UPN so they let Viacom buy them out.  CC had a their own card up their sleeve though, since they didn't sell their local stations to Viacom.  Later in 2000. Craft sold their stations to FOX, thanks to rules being changed  FOX could own with their own stations as duopolies, meaning another network owned their top market stations (Power move) and Fox bought the Chicago UPN station just for fun from Newsweb. 

         With FOX kids on it's final season in 2001, FOX also announced the weekday block was going away in January of 2002. Meaning that the UPN stations that were airing that part and maybe not airing UPN's offering could do so now, or move UPN from mornings to afternoons.  Also UPN was safe in that Disney wasn't going to be running a Fox Kids block. (Mostly because it would be a strange move to do Saturday blocks)    

           Now back to UPN 

       One Last Too..

        The 2001-2002 line up wasn't changed too much, they removed "Pepper Ann" and added "The Legend of Tarzan"  this was a UPN premiere exclusive meaning it didn't cross with ABC, ABC aired in summer of 2002 long after the series ended.  

           This series picked off from where Disney's 1999 movie left off and how Tarzan is adjusting to his new role and life as a married man.  

       Also, in a twist, they changed their Sunday line up, which was normally just the weekday line up with a slightly different order with adding Disney's "Weekenders" as a launching the Sunday block show. The show had been moved to UPN for it's 3rd season to air  there instead of ABC  (Fun fact: This series didn't finish it's run on either ABC or UPN, but on Toon Disney)  The show aired new episodes on just Sundays going weekly for the season. 

          This was the last season for "Disney's One Too" I mean in the literal sense. But not  a complete end for Disney on UPN, yet. 

          A Big Change on ABC

     The 2001 season on ABC was a canary in the mine moment for Disney's one Saturday Morning. Two Disney Channel shows had made it to reruns on the block that being "Lizzie McGuire and "Even Stevens".  While on Disney Channel they premiered their first animated series that wasn't made for syndication or ABC. This a slight sign that things were up and Disney was beginning to wash their hands of network kid show investment, and now only finding things that would fit an E/I commitment.   

       In 2002, they announced that OSM was going to be rebranded as ABC Kids, and that meant the One Too was also going to be rebranded, sadly, not to UPN kids but more the great name of no name, it was unbranded!   (Powerful stuff) 

    

         As a result of Disney buying Fox Kids Worldwide they ended up with  Saban's stuff like Power Rangers which moved from FOX to ABC and the new ABC Family with a unbranded block. (Dinsey was 0-2 with this) Meanwhile, someone at Disney didn't feel that "Digimon" should be on ABC so it made it  to UPN. 

     

     "Digimon: Frontier"  aired on UPN (and ABC Family later on) as the only new show on UPN kids' time slots.  Tarzan's short season 2 aired and wrapped up in 2003.   In February 2003, Disney announced they weren't going to renew their deal with UPN.  UPN took this as chance to wash their hands of the whole thing of airing Kids'  shows network wide.  Stations were able to get their weekdays back, though some stations did end up picking up syndicated shows like from DIC. (Some stations aired Fox's offering on Saturdays still, a visage of the thing mentioned before)  Disney's not One Too aired the final time on August 31, 2003.   

  

   

        UPN was the first network (kind of major network) to give up on the networked market completely. I can't say their blocks didn't really have the impact. UPN Kids came out at a bad time. This was during peak FOX Kids, and Kids WB was the stronger small network  block thanks to Warner Bros. animation. UPN might have been helped more if they had gone with a Nick on UPN model since Nickelodeon was also a force in kids TV at this point.  Cable had reached a point where networks weren't able to be dominate, new rules were in place and the space was growing more, Cartoon Network was coming in soon with a more powerful focus on originals. Saban's programming seemed phoned in since they had syndication and co-ownership of Fox Kids.  Disney's block was more an extension and Disney trying one last gasp before just going to Disney Channel and Toon Disney as their focus.   

   

        I'm not sure what would have helped, maybe Paramount jumping in the network world before FOX?    Other factors didn't help either, the weekday blocks for UPN must have been hampered in some areas by the FOX Kids stuff, and UPN either having no stations or having to share in some areas didn't help UPN in the long run.  Maybe it was just too much choice. 

  

    UPN being a network without kids' networked shows didn't last too long as UPN shut down in 2006. UPN stations that joined the CW ended up getting Kids WB for it's final few years. UPN stations that aired 4Kids TV and either joined My Network TV or something still had something until 2008. 

         I think it's important to note UPN's blocks anyway, not sure what meaning this story has but it's something. 

 That's it for now , tune in next time , when we launch our block on UPN some how. Hmm  Or we buy the former Chris Craft stations and have  a reunion party for some reason. It's been oopin!