Obscure , We Wrote : Shorty McShorts' Shorts

The Flashback 

         So as we round up our obscure and short themed month  , we look at some shorts instead.


  Personal story time:  So it's 2006 and I am watching Disney Channel and they have this promo for a new thing called Shorty McShorts' Shorts and it will be airing Friday at 7:55/6:55c  or 8:55/755c one of those two.   I kind of remember it  but mostly the title,  more than the shorts.
                 

             I  could call this Disney's attempt at an "Oh Yeah Cartoons" a place to showcase cartoons that could maybe become their own series for  Disney Channel and  so the best time to profile them would be between two popular series or as filler that the channel does tend to need to fill time with.  Shorty McShorts' Shorts (yeah thanks for that title)  started in July of 2006 and ran for about 2 seasons with 13 shorts being shown.    Now, this post is going to be less formal  and way off our normal format because why not?

         First short is called "Dudley and Nestor do Nothing" That title sounds like Phineas and Ferb but in reverse.  The animation in this short reminds of a certain style , the creators of this one were Stephen Holman and Josephine T. Huang , the duo who worked on "Phantom Investigators".  With Holman also from shows like "Life with Loopy" and MTV's "Liquid Television" so this short is that animation style without the varied mixes and puppetry.

      Our main characters are at a space center for a school trip and  Dudley and Nestor have to find a bathroom and a meteor is coming toward Earth. (I hate when that happens) As Dudley and Nestor look for a bathroom they end up in a space ship that is in lift off and they end up in space.  So of course the space center finds out that they were in the rocket and really should have checked before they launched.  They also inadvertently stop that meteor and are back on Earth.

Astro- Nots 

       It would have been interesting to be a series it may have needed a little bit more than 4 minutes, but I see it. It probably would have been one of those  series where  our main characters  go to different things and up fixing or changing something without even trying.  (You can watch it here)

  2.  "My Mom Married  a Yeti" (What?)
       So apparently a scientist married a yeti because eh why not.  They have two children  one seems to be more Yeti the other more human. (Though the Yeti's seem to be human-y)  So the parents are Chaperones at the school dance and the kids don't want them to be embarrassing.  So they spend most of the dance trying to be embarrassed.  Long story short: Yeti Dad freaks out because yeti flashbacks and then embarrasses them. 

This shows is relate-able 

   This was made by Dennis Messner who worked on shows like "Regular Show", and "Kablam".  The animation is kind of flat, but  I do give some lee-way because it's a short pilot for a  maybe series , but only a little.  I guess I can guess how this could have been a series ,if that was the intention where the kids try not be embarrassed by their parents, or something revolving around Yeti Dad doing something, or their family's misadventures;.  (You can watch it here)

3. "Bozzlebags' Zip" ( What this sounds like I sneezed)
       So this family is watching something called Bozzlebag's Zip which the 12 year old boy named Collin doesn't seem excited by this. (I know how he feels)  So the father got a new promotion and they are moving to Bozzlebag's Zip which is apparently a real place.  (That'll be like if you got a new job working in that world Dora the Explorer is in and that place is real.)  Also the last name of the family is Mailman. (Better than the last name, Dogcatcher)  So, they move the same day because why not?  Bozzelbags  is there to welcome to the town.   I don't think Collin likes this town or zip code, or fever dream, or whatever.  Then it tries to end with a heartwarming moment.

  This was some of the viewers reactions to the name alone.

           I don't know; it was too much in a short, then they rushed the ending. Colin of course would be annoyed about moving and moving that quickly. There was no consideration of what he thought before they made a choice. Again, maybe that's because it's only 5 minutes so we didn't have time or something.   The animation was nice though , it might have made an interesting series, maybe the short time worked against the short for me.   (You can watch it here)

       4.  "The Phabulizers" (You are just making up words now)
        I have a fun fact for this one, but I am saving that for later.  This is going to make fun of those makeover  shows  either for homes and people.  The theme song is catchy as well.  Also one of the Phabulizers is a beaver, so there you go.  They are going to help this kid named Phil Kennedy.   There's not much more I can say about it sense it's so gag driven.

     This is the first one  these to make me laugh and smile at it. Oh that fun fact, the creator of this short was Van Partible , the creator of "Johnny Bravo"  that makes this even better, it's fun. I kind of wish this was a series.  (You can watch it here)

5-7.  Boyz on Da Run
      So the next 3 are a 3 part series, so we combined it into one section here.


     Part 1:   The theme song is very catchy.  This series is a parody of boy bands, and the boy band here is called DaBoys From Yo Cul-de-sac.  (DBFYC)   Also the band is a lip sync band.  So I wonder what could wrong.  Yes the tape goes wrong and everyone finds out that they are fakes and funny that the song was "I'll never lie to you".  So the fans decide to chase them and they run away.

Ha the tape recorders 

    Part 2: So they get kicked off the train and find a diner have some food. The end up getting hired by the diner because the  owner thinks they were the people she hired. They don't know how to put food together since that was something  they never did before.  The songs in these shorts are very catchy.  The President wants everyone to  capture the boy band and he appears on TV as everyone in the diner sees the message they start to chase the boys. (That is indeed  a strange universe) So, back on the run they are.

    Part 3:  They boys run into Canada which stops  the people from chasing them because Canada has powers. to stop Americans from chasing them.   The border patrol stops them and welcomes them with gift bags.  (Because Canada)They have dodgy disguises that work some how. Because one of them decides to spin some maple leaves on his nipples (Well now there is line where we have written that a character on Disney Channel spun maple leaves on his nipples)  they thrown in jail. (Because Canada?)   They break out and run out of Canada.

Don't do this in Canada, I guess 

            That's sadly it, because there was  a to be continued line that apparently never happened so what a  disappointment.  It was kind of fun to watch , I kind of wish there was  a part 4 to finish it off. Though I don't feel it should it have been a full 30 minute series, or those 11 minute halves because it works as shorts really well or as a short special or something. (You can  watch all 3 parts here)


   Now we head to season 2 after the jump

The Lookback : Ramona

The Flashback

      One of my favorite book series as a child , still has a special place in my heart , are the "Ramona" book series, written by Beverly Cleary. Interestingly enough, this  children's littature series hasn't been really made into much media like you see with others. It did have a movie in 2010.  There is something else , there is one television series.

      "Ramona" , the TV series,  comes to us from Canada and aired on their CBC Network and aired in the United States on PBS starting  1988 (I love our timing) and ran for 10 episodes.  The series content comes from "Ramona Quimby, Age 8" , which i talk more about later.   This series ,unlike, the books has kind of fallen in obscurity  and I am not sure how well it did. 

           A  couple things before  I dip into the series  (yeah he's taking forever) 1) I will not be doing on comparrisons to the book, for each episode instead i will talk about the episode a little.  After  those I will then make any marks and allusions to the series.  2) I  will be looking at all 10 episodes, but to keep it short some will be just  talking about a few episodes.

Episode 1
    I do have to say this show does look to capture the books well and especially the book this series is based off the most  (Ramona Quimby , Age 8.) This episode is based off the hard--boiled egg chapter.  In this episode Ramona asks her mother for a hard boiled egg ,even though she doesn't like them, because it is a new fad all the kids in her class are doing. (Interesting)  Also Ramona is wearing red shoes that squeak. So anyway, at lunch the other fad with the hard-boiled eggs is to whack them on your head and Ramona finds out that hers wasn't very cooked. She of course feels embarrsed and awful. (it's her yoke to bear) She thinks her teacher thinks she's annoying after mis-over hearing her. But they talk it out out and all resolved out.
   

Embrace your inner frying pan. 

       The book cover seems just mildly annoyed 

more after the jump 

The CW Returns to Sundays

The CW  TV News 

    When CBS and Warner decided to create a network together using the structure of the WB and UPN, the schedule structure was the WB Network structure, including Sundays 5pm/4c to 10/9c but due to some low ratings and ratings troubles they ended the  Sunday night block in 2009.   Starting in the 2018-19 television season, the CW will return to the night with 2 hours of programming , so adding 2 hours to their weekly amount of programming.

       The CW says that their affiliates are on board including owners of stations, Tribune, Sinclair, and Nexstar.

     According to Deadline , The CW had been thinking of expanding to Sundays for sometime and made the decision to do so in December. 

   “By expanding to six nights, The CW is now able to give our fans even more of the series they’re so passionate about. Broadcasting remains the foundation of our multi-platform approach to bringing our programming to viewers. Over the past seven years, The CW has added more than 80 hours of original scripted programming to its schedule – now that number can continue to climb, as we grow our broadcast line-up, and continue to add content on every platform,” said Pedowitz. “I’d like to thank Chris and Ann for being instrumental in making this happen, and to thank all of our station groups for being such terrific partners as we add Sundays to our primetime schedule this fall on all our affiliates across the country.”            

     

press release after the jump

This Existed: That Other Rugrats Spinoff

Nickelodeon The Flashback 

       We  continue our look at obscure and or short tv with something that might have had a reason to be obscure and short.     

      Rugrats is one of my favorite Nicktoons, they are in no no way obscure and short the series was Nickelodeon's top series, the only Nick series with a star in Hollywood, their special "All Growed Up" holds the record as the highest rated Nick program. In that same year with the success  and success of the series a whole, made Nick think of more ideas and this meant spin offs. "All Grown Up" started in 2003 and did well itself. Then there's this series. "Rugrats Pre School Daze" (Or Angelica and Susie's Preschool Daze)   It kind of fell on the  wayside with the All Grown up doing well , and the main Rugrats series fizzling out in 2003.  But 4 episodes were made.  Nickelodeon chose to run the series in the early hours of the morning during November 2008., which I recorded, but I can see maybe  why  they decided to just dump it before it was made a full series and just ended up airing on early hours.  

       Actually, there's a little more this series also has a backdoor pilot in the "Rugrats" an episode called "Preschool Daze".  That episode and this series seem to have some weird dissonance.  For this we are going to focus on the series not the back door pilot. 

     I  don't /do know why they would call the series "Rugrats Preschool Daze"  It's trying to connect us to the main series, which "All Grown Up" didn't do strangely. But with the exception of Angelia and Susie this series doesn't have the Rugrats gang in Preschool. (guess they didn't want two time skip spin offs?)  

     The episode I will be looking at is called  "Finders Keepers".   They kept voice  actors from the main series so Angelica's Cheryl Chase, and Susie's Cree Summer.  The animation is kind of strange , think it looks like 3D trying to be 2D or 2D trying to be 3D it's a deviation from  Rugrats or All Grown up.

see a little off. /Copyright Viacom 

      Seems that Angelia found some bugs and gets the class bug finder of the day thing or something, then of course being her foil, Susie finds something better. Harold is also in this series , he was kind of added when Angelia went to Preschool in the original series and he was also on "All Grown Up".  Savannah also shows up too, she was also see in All Grown up.    There's also a guy named Mr.Creeper which sounds encouraging.   Savannah wants to show up that she got a key from her mother because she's responsible.  Angelica wants  of course , to show off and she says she has a key too.  When the preschoolers have to go inside due to rain, she notices that the teacher has a key.  She finds the time to steal the key from the drawer.  (woah shameful)  When she runs  back to her spot to do the dancing with the class the key falls out and a kid steps on it and it's on his shoe.  During nap time when Angelica tries to show her friends  she can't find the key.

I wonder where the key went? Copyright Viacom 

        Apparently , the teacher uses nap time to go in to the closet and listen to new age music with a candle. The other kids wake up and they from the quickest whoo party to oh no , I've ever seen. Savannah  gets Angelica to try and talk about her key, thinking that she was lying.  Angelica thinks quick and makes up a scary story instead.  Where she says Mr. Creeper ate their teacher.  The teacher is locked up in the closet by accident and guess what ? She  needs the key that Angelica took and lost.

     I can hear the ocean behind this door . /Copyright Viacom

     Angelica , Susie, and Harold go to get the other key. Susie  already knows Angelica took and lost the other key.  (How does she know? In the worlds of Chuckie Finster, "Nobody Knows)  Apparently  the only other keys are with guess who?  Mr. Creeper. (what kind of name is that ) Miss Weemer , the teacher slowly looses her grip.  Angelica admits to Susie and Harold that she lied and did take the key but did lose it. 

     They decide to go to Mr. Creeper's shed to get the other spare key and they took Angelica's story literally so of course they think they could get eaten. (Even Angelica took her own story as fact) All 3 of them go the shed and find the key where Angelica charges to get it.  Gertrude the  secretary  finds the kids and they go back to the class. The teacher is saved and still a little off. 

The Lookback: Power Pack

The Flashback 

         This is probably the first time we've written about something related to comic books, that means this must be an accomplished day.   This  day (if you are reading this in 2018)  TV series and movies based of comic superheroes have littered our media for sometime now  (if you are reading this after the collapse of this , than well thanks for reading)  , but there was a point that superhero TV and movies kind of were spaced out a little bit.  The 1990's did bring us a great animated super hero TV but live-action was  different story.

   Now First a little history related to our topic.  

          Power Pack  is a team of super heroes by Marvel.  In  1984 the comic book series started. It's about  children super heroes created by Louise Simonson and June Brigman (who did the drawing) . They are a group of 4 children super heroes  with Alex at age 12 , the oldest,  Julie at age 10 , Jack at 8, and Katie at age 5.   

random shot from a comic cover, guess which characters are which. 

          The interesting things about this series are 1) the aren't orphans their parents are alive and well (and we don't mean Superman style adopted parents)  2) the parents don't know.  So the origin story (spoilers)  we are going to keep it short here,  the kids' father is a scientist named Professor Power, who is making a machine that an alien horse like thing named Whitemane warns him that he shouldn't do it.  Chopping some stuff out, he eventually is dying and hands his powers over to kids to save their parents and the day and they do!  So now they have powers. (We really zoomed through that)   The original comic book series lasted from 1984 to 1991  and again I am stopping there because the whole comic's life is not the point of our lookback.  

       In 1991 even though the comic book series ended,  Marvel deiced to maybe see if they could try it in a different medium. The idea was to have a Saturday Morning (because that's how things end up on this blog) live-action children's TV series.  What they made was a TV for NBC but it didn't make it as a TV series. 

  

   so join us after the jump as we look at this movie. 

The Lookback : Phantom Investigators

The Flashback  Cartoons Kids WB

    We don't write enough about the 2000's.  Back into our safety zone with cartoons, but hey why not?   But continuing with a theme of short lived series , this one is an interesting case.  The series we look at today is from  Kids WB called Phantom Investigators. (get it ? P I ) The series ran for 13 episodes in 2002 then it wasn't renewed. (More on that later)

      If you have seen the  Nickelodeon series "Kablam" you may have seen a featured cartoon segment called "Life with Loopy".  The cartoon used  a mixture of mediums , so it used cardboard and puppetry with stop motion and hand drawing. .

     It was one of the main long lasting Kablam shorts that pretty much lasted the show's entire run.  It never reached it's own  series though.      Life with Loopy was created by Stephen Holman who also created a segment for Liquid Television  called Joe Normal. 

  You can see he had a style.  Copyright MTV (We guess) 

      If we are going in order of appearance ,  Joe started then it was Loopy.   Anyway we aren't really talking about either of  these, but they give us a glimpse of what we are talking about today.   In  May of 2002, Kids WB added a new series to their Saturday Morning line up , it also probably aired on weekdays , but who knows? 

       The show is about 4 middle schoolers, 3 of them have powers and 1 doesn't. (Guess which one is the leader of the group?)  Named Daemona, Jericho, Casey, and Kira.    As stated before, 3 of the characters have a power.  Jericho has the power of telekinetic powers , Casey can morph into things , and Kira has telepathic powers. (mind powers, mind powers).  

They spend their days investigating things that happen in their town.  (those meddling kids.)  One episode has them investigating a ghost haunting at house.   Meanwhile, episodes will have a sub plot of a character or more having a problem they need to solve.    

      Making  a point of that it has the same creator as Life with Loopy you see the same style  used here.  There's that use of cardboard and puppetry gives the show a 3D feel while in a 2D world. 

copyright Sony 

   Wouldn't be surprised if they actually burned the paper./

     Of course the show features phantoms and other spookies and they use their style to their maximum with them. 

Well, I am scared

Since he is dead he can take off his head. 

          

 For  fun we are going to take a look at an episode directly. In this case episode 8 , "Were-Dog"

after the jump. 

90th Oscars Nomination list

The Oscars 

     The nominations for the 90th Academy Awards have been announced, the awards show airs March 4th at 8pmET on ABC.

Here are the nominations.


Best Picture:

“Call Me by Your Name”
“Darkest Hour”
“Dunkirk”
“Get Out”
“Lady Bird”
“Phantom Thread”
“The Post”
“The Shape of Water”
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”

Lead Actor:

Timothée Chalamet, “Call Me by Your Name”
Daniel Day-Lewis, “Phantom Thread”
Daniel Kaluuya, “Get Out”
Gary Oldman, “Darkest Hour”
Denzel Washington, “Roman J. Israel, Esq.”

Lead Actress:

Sally Hawkins, “The Shape of Water”
Frances McDormand, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
Margot Robbie, “I, Tonya”
Saoirse Ronan, “Lady Bird”
Meryl Streep, “The Post”


Supporting Actor:

Willem Dafoe, “The Florida Project”
Woody Harrelson, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
Richard Jenkins, “The Shape of Water”
Christopher Plummer, “All the Money in the World”
Sam Rockwell, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”

Supporting Actress:

Mary J. Blige, “Mudbound”
Allison Janney, “I, Tonya”
Lesley Manville, “Phantom Thread”
Laurie Metcalf, “Lady Bird”
Octavia Spencer, “The Shape of Water”

Director:

“Dunkirk,” Christopher Nolan
“Get Out,” Jordan Peele
“Lady Bird,” Greta Gerwig
“Phantom Thread,” Paul Thomas Anderson
“The Shape of Water,” Guillermo del Toro

Animated Feature:

“The Boss Baby,” Tom McGrath, Ramsey Ann Naito
“The Breadwinner,” Nora Twomey, Anthony Leo
“Coco,” Lee Unkrich, Darla K. Anderson
“Ferdinand,” Carlos Saldanha
“Loving Vincent,” Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman, Sean Bobbitt, Ivan Mactaggart, Hugh Welchman

Animated Short:

“Dear Basketball,” Glen Keane, Kobe Bryant
“Garden Party,” Victor Caire, Gabriel Grapperon
“Lou,” Dave Mullins, Dana Murray
“Negative Space,” Max Porter, Ru Kuwahata
“Revolting Rhymes,” Jakob Schuh, Jan Lachauer

Adapted Screenplay:

“Call Me by Your Name,” James Ivory
“The Disaster Artist,” Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber
“Logan,” Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green
“Molly’s Game,” Aaron Sorkin
“Mudbound,” Virgil Williams and Dee Rees

Original Screenplay:

“The Big Sick,” Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani
“Get Out,” Jordan Peele
“Lady Bird,” Greta Gerwig
“The Shape of Water,” Guillermo del Toro, Vanessa Taylor
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” Martin McDonagh

Cinematography:

“Blade Runner 2049,” Roger Deakins
“Darkest Hour,” Bruno Delbonnel
“Dunkirk,” Hoyte van Hoytema
“Mudbound,” Rachel Morrison
“The Shape of Water,” Dan Laustsen

Best Documentary Feature:

“Abacus: Small Enough to Jail,” Steve James, Mark Mitten, Julie Goldman
“Faces Places,” JR, Agnès Varda, Rosalie Varda
“Icarus,” Bryan Fogel, Dan Cogan
“Last Men in Aleppo,” Feras Fayyad, Kareem Abeed, Soren Steen Jepersen
“Strong Island,” Yance Ford, Joslyn Barnes

Best Documentary Short Subject:

Edith+Eddie,” Laura Checkoway, Thomas Lee Wright
“Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405,” Frank Stiefel
“Heroin(e),” Elaine McMillion Sheldon, Kerrin Sheldon
“Knife Skills,” Thomas Lennon
“Traffic Stop,” Kate Davis, David Heilbroner

Best Live Action Short Film:

“DeKalb Elementary,” Reed Van Dyk
“The Eleven O’Clock,” Derin Seale, Josh Lawson
“My Nephew Emmett,” Kevin Wilson, Jr.
“The Silent Child,” Chris Overton, Rachel Shenton
“Watu Wote/All of Us,” Katja Benrath, Tobias Rosen

Best Foreign Language Film:

“A Fantastic Woman” (Chile)
“The Insult” (Lebanon)
“Loveless” (Russia)
“On Body and Soul (Hungary)
“The Square” (Sweden)


Film Editing:

“Baby Driver,” Jonathan Amos, Paul Machliss
“Dunkirk,” Lee Smith
“I, Tonya,” Tatiana S. Riegel
“The Shape of Water,” Sidney Wolinsky
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” Jon Gregory



Sound Editing:

“Baby Driver,” Julian Slater
“Blade Runner 2049,” Mark Mangini, Theo Green
“Dunkirk,” Alex Gibson, Richard King
“The Shape of Water,” Nathan Robitaille, Nelson Ferreira
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” Ren Klyce, Matthew Wood


Sound Mixing:

“Baby Driver,” Mary H. Ellis, Julian Slater, Tim Cavagin
“Blade Runner 2049,” Mac Ruth, Ron Bartlett, Doug Hephill
“Dunkirk,” Mark Weingarten, Gregg Landaker, Gary A. Rizzo
“The Shape of Water,” Glen Gauthier, Christian Cooke, Brad Zoern
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” Stuart Wilson, Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick


Production Design:

“Beauty and the Beast,” Sarah Greenwood; Katie Spencer
“Blade Runner 2049,” Dennis Gassner, Alessandra Querzola
“Darkest Hour,” Sarah Greenwood, Katie Spencer
“Dunkirk,” Nathan Crowley, Gary Fettis
“The Shape of Water,” Paul D. Austerberry, Jeffrey A. Melvin, Shane Vieau


Original Score:

“Dunkirk,” Hans Zimmer
“Phantom Thread,” Jonny Greenwood
“The Shape of Water,” Alexandre Desplat
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” John Williams
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” Carter Burwell


Original Song:

“Mighty River” from “Mudbound,” Mary J. Blige
“Mystery of Love” from “Call Me by Your Name,” Sufjan Stevens
“Remember Me” from “Coco,” Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez
“Stand Up for Something” from “Marshall,” Diane Warren, Common
“This Is Me” from “The Greatest Showman,” Benj Pasek, Justin Paul



Makeup and Hair:

“Darkest Hour,” Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski, Lucy Sibbick
“Victoria and Abdul,” Daniel Phillips and Lou Sheppard
“Wonder,” Arjen Tuiten



Costume Design:

“Beauty and the Beast,” Jacqueline Durran
“Darkest Hour,” Jacqueline Durran
“Phantom Thread,” Mark Bridges
“The Shape of Water,” Luis Sequeira
“Victoria and Abdul,” Consolata Boyle



Visual Effects:

“Blade Runner 2049,” John Nelson, Paul Lambert, Richard R. Hoover, Gerd Nefzer
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Jonathan Fawkner, Dan Sudick
“Kong: Skull Island,” Stephen Rosenbaum, Jeff White, Scott Benza, Mike Meinardus
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” Ben Morris, Mike Mulholland, Chris Corbould, Neal Scanlon
“War for the Planet of the Apes,” Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Daniel Barrett, Joel Whist

A Look at What Killed Weekday Cartoons

Joshuaonline's Essays

              There has been much said on what "killed" off the Saturday Morning network children's television programming block,  so much you can find them on Youtube and other places easily, but we are going to a different side of this, what caused the end of Weekday children's programming (that is not PBS) on over the air television?

The Animaniacs  were a weekday cartoon during their run. 

       The Early Days 

       Weekdays, after school, was the prime time for children and teens because they had just gotten out of school and television stations hope that maybe they would spend a little tile watching their channel instead of doing other things.  Kind of like, how networks felt that daytime television was a way to target housewives.    Weekday mornings , before school, was also a prime time location for children targeted programming.    

     NBC used to offer children-targeted programming on weekdays from the start of their television broadcasting to 1956, yes they gave up really early on Weekday cartoons.   Alot of the NBC, ABC, CBS affiliates did their own local children's shows around this time as well. "Captain Kangaroo" ran CBS weekday mornings from 1955 until the 80's it was the only consistent thing about CBS' morning programming in their history. 

    With daytime television for the affiliates being mostly done by the networks (though local stations could preempt for what they wanted to do)  Non affiliated, also known as - independent stations, saw an market they could go for, Children's TV.  WGN-TV had the famous Bozo's Circus. So programs that were targeted to the children's market were strong on weekdays as much as Saturdays. 

  

     I would still say that focus for makers of programs for Children were weekends, more than weekdays, meaning they'd the more "quality" or newer programming on Saturdays and weekdays was for repeats and lower budget programming.   Independent stations  would sometimes compete against other one or two doing the same kinds of programming. (In many television markets in the 50's to 80's they had more than 3 commercial stations and could just as many indies. )   

  The 80's

        The peak for syndication market , would have to be the 1980's probably the best time  there ever will be for syndicated television in the United States.  This in general , but the children's television market also got a boost in the 1980's.  One thing that happened in the late 70's and 80's was that there were more independent stations popping up , in mid-sized and smaller markets.  That means there was more market for syndication to try to get some audience it needed.   

   Afternoon cartoons were those traditional things like "Tom and Jerry" , "Looney Tunes", and more but there was something coming to add to this.  In 1983 the first cartoon series made just for syndication started.  "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" was made by Filmation in conjuction with Mattel (more on that in a second). Another series, by DIC also started this same year, "Inspector Gadget" 

     These shows were made with weekday in mind, instead of the network model where they seemed to let a show run for 13 episodes (13 Weeks) then give up and repeat them until the new season and maybe that series would return or they just finished up and went on to something, these series were made with 65 episode target.  65 episodes means you could do 5 new episodes a week for 13 weeks, then repeat them.    "He-Man" proved popular enough to have two seasons and 130 episodes. "Gadget" had two seasons reaching 83 episodes. 

     When I mention Mattel ,this is important, the 80's also started a trend that wasn't allowed before,  Cartoon series based off toys.  Mattel made the He Man toys and a great way to promote them is a TV series,  She-Ra too.  In the 1950's alot of children's programming , like alot of television at the time in general was run by the sponsor companies. Later there were regulations placed to not allow this.  But the 1980's meant alot of deregulation and one of  the things deregulated was children focused television. I  may talk about that in some more detail at some later point.  

     So the idea of a program that could be based off a toy line was able to be added to television in the 1980's.  The main 3 networks were kind of iffy on allowing these kind of shows on their Saturday Morning line up, but an independent station who is more in need for content, and reruns of "My Mother the Car" doesn't do it, this became a match made.   Hasbro made TV series based off their toys like "My Little Pony". These programs became successful and this may have seed something that I will to later. 

    A new broadcast network was launched in 1986 , called FOX, most of it's early stations were these independents but since Fox has limited scheduling (as a nice work around the rule against having a broadcast network and a production company being co-owned) the former indie stations still had alot of time to program themselves including the afternoon, and they could continue with their children's programming. 

1987 Changes Everything 

       I personally think the success of shows based off toys showed Disney the syndication market can be a viable way of making getting into television making. Disney had made their first animated TV Series, "Gummi Bears" in 1985, but that was for NBC, this was something different.  In 1987 they launched "Ducktales".  "Ducktales was different than other series in this market, it wasn't there to sale Ducktales toys, or based of a toy line (though there may have been toys after because of the popularity).   Disney putting their hat in the weekday animation game was the beginning of a big change.  Ducktales proved popular where Disney made a whole new syndicated block - The Disney Afternoon. (Which I've written about before) 

  Like a FOX 

      FOX decided to jump into the weekday and Saturday game in 1990 ,with FOX Kids (I've written about before)  FOX affiliates didn't really have to dip into the syndication market as much , Disney Afternoon could have stayed on their stations but in many markets it moved to the remaining indies. and any remaining syndicated programming could have moved off these stations as well.  Fox provided by 1993 , 3 hours a weekday of programming  there were some who also had morning blocks.   Thanks the removal of the regulation that FOX worked around in the 80's  a production company could now own a network, so Warner Brothers and Paramount saw and opening, this is also how Disney could buy ABC.  In 1995 Warner Brothers launched the WB network and Paramount/ Viacom launched UPN.  Most of these affiliates were former indies and they incorporated their children's blocks time slots for their own uses of launching Kids WB and UPN Kids. This included weekday afternoons and mornings.  

  Now the what killed part , after the jump