The Disney Afternoon

Background

The Disney Afternoon goes back to Michael Eisner becoming Disney's CEO in 1984 and his push into steady animated television production, which would be based on new characters to bring in new young fans, with a newly launched TV animation department. He set up a Sunday meeting at his house consisting of creatives. They included Tad Stones from feature animation and Jymn Magon and Gary Kriesel from the music division. Mickey and the Space Pirates was pitched by Stones, but was turned down because Mickey Mouse is the company symbol. Stones also pitched a Rescuers TV series – the sequel was already under development at the time. Eisner suggested the Gummy bear as a series, given his kids liked the candy. Disney Television Animation's first two shows, The Wuzzles and Adventures of the Gummi Bears, were sold to two networks, CBS and NBC, respectively, for their Saturday morning cartoon blocks.

History

The Disney Afternoon

DuckTales, the series which would serve as the launching pad for what would become The Disney Afternoon, premiered in first-run syndication in the fall of 1987. Two years later in the fall of 1989, DuckTales was joined by Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, and both series were being offered in syndication as an hour-long program block. The Disney Afternoon kept these shows, added Gummi Bears and TaleSpin, and premiered on September 10, 1990, via Disney's syndication arm Buena Vista Television.

DuckTales had been airing on many affiliates of the then-young Fox network and its group of owned-and-operated stations, including KTTV in Los Angeles; this may have been due to the fact that the Walt Disney Company's chief operating officer at the time, Michael Eisner, and his then-Fox counterpart, Barry Diller, had worked together previously at ABC and at Paramount Pictures. However, as Chip 'n Dale was being launched, Disney was in the process of purchasing Los Angeles independent station KHJ-TV from RKO General. Through Buena Vista Television, Disney opted to reclaim the Los Angeles broadcast rights for DuckTales and moved it from KTTV to be paired with Chip 'n Dale on its newly purchased station, which was renamed KCAL-TV in December 1989. Furious at the breach of contract, Diller pulled DuckTales from all of Fox's other owned-and-operated stations in the fall of 1989. Diller also encouraged the network's affiliates to do the same, though most did not initially. This caused the retaliatory formation of Fox Kids. (Ironically, most of the assets of Fox Kids would be bought by Disney in 2001 via their acquisition of Fox Family Worldwide.)

As the years went on, new shows would be added at the end of the block, with the oldest shows being dropped from the lineup. The 1991–92 season, for instance, saw Gummi Bears' removal, and Darkwing Duck being added to the end. After DuckTales, Chip 'n Dale, and TaleSpin were removed from The Disney Afternoon, they continued to rerun in syndication separately from the block until 1995.

By the fifth season in 1994, the block had removed its original four shows and undergone a makeover, with the primary branding being the block's initials, TDA. At this point, the original idea of shows being added and removed yearly was dropped, as both new and old shows were now stripped all week, or only aired on certain days. The lineup at this point included Aladdin, Goof Troop and Darkwing Duck stripped, while one daily slot was split between The Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show and Gargoyles, book-ending three days a week of Bonkers.

Disney Channel developed a similar programming block called "Block Party", which premiered on October 2, 1995 (airing concurrently with TDA's sixth season) and was similarly scheduled and stripped with the early Disney Afternoon series of Darkwing Duck, TaleSpin, DuckTales, and Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers.

Disney-Kellogg's Alliance

By August 1996, owing to decreasing business in the syndicated children's television market due to new competitors such as the cable networks Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, and the new networks The WB and UPN with having children's blocks of their own, Buena Vista agreed with the Leo Burnett agency to market and distribute a revamped version of the block for the 1997–98 and 1998–99 television seasons. Buena Vista established a partnership with Leo Burnett and Kellogg's—who had been a major sponsor of The Disney Afternoon—to purchase an amount of dedicated advertising inventory. The new block did not carry any blanket branding, but was referred to internally as the "Disney-Kellogg Alliance."

With the September 1, 1997, season started, the block dropped The Disney Afternoon name, a half-hour from the stripped block and the Gargoyles series. Moving to the Disney Channel were Disney's Aladdin and The Lion King's Timon & Pumbaa. 101 Dalmatians, which was shared with ABC's Disney's One Saturday Morning (which broadcast their own set of episodes), premiered on the block. Mighty Ducks and Quack Pack reruns shared the second slot in a Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesdays through Fridays, split respectively. DuckTales repeats filled the third half-hour slot, with flexibility for the local station to air it at other times.

In 1998, Disney reached a deal to program a new children's block for UPN, Disney's One Too, as a replacement for that network's internal UPN Kids block. The syndicated block ran until the debut of One Too on September 6, 1999.

International broadcasts

In Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, the city's then-independent TV station ITV (now Global Edmonton) produced its own version of The Disney Afternoon over roughly the same period as the American block, but only once per week in a two-hour block on Saturday afternoons, though using the same cartoon lineup as the American weekday block. Apart from the animated introduction, the block did not use any Disney-produced wrapper segments, but instead used locally produced live-action segments between programs with host Mike Sobel.

In Denmark, DR1 started its version of the block ("Disney Sjov") on October 25, 1991. It aired every Friday night and would consist of two half-hour shows along with two classic cartoons, all within one commercial-free hour. The block ended on December 30, 2022, in favor of locally produced Nordic children's programming.

Programming

Over the years, the block featured the following shows: Here is also a scheduled for The Disney Afternoon https://sites.google.com/view/krudvid/disneyafternoon

Adaptations

Comic books

The block was adapted into comic books, films and launched the Disney Adventures magazine.

Disney parks

Characters from the shows first appeared in Disney parks with the debut of Mickey's Birthdayland in the Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World. In 1990, the characters got a daily show, "Mickey's Magical TV World", which lasted until 1996.

The popularity of The Disney Afternoon led to a temporary attraction at Disneyland in Fantasyland called "Disney Afternoon Avenue." Disney Afternoon Avenue was a feature of Disneyland from March 15 to November 10, 1991. Two attractions were also made over to match series from the block.

Video games

Many of The Disney Afternoon shows were adapted into video games.

Notes

References

References

1. "Block Party: Four Disney Animated Series." ''The Disney Channel Magazine'', Vol. 13, no. 5, October/November 1995: p. 36.
2. ""It's been in the planning stages for a while"".
3. Kit, Borys. (2023-10-16). "Gary Dauberman, James Wan's Atomic Monster Tackling Live-Action 'Gargoyles' For Disney+ (Exclusive)".
4. Otterson, Joe. (2023-10-16). "'Gargoyles' Live-Action Series Reboot in the Works at Disney+ From Gary Dauberman, James Wan's Atomic Monster".
5. (November 1, 2018). "Life is like a hurricane: An oral history of the Disney Afternoon". SYFY WIRE.
6. (November 19, 2014). "Disney TV Animation Is 30 Years Old, and It's Going Strong". Valley News.
7. (July 28, 1985). "Team Disney--Flying High in Burbank". Los Angeles Times.
8. (April 8, 2019). "How well do you remember 'The Disney Afternoon'?". WKMG.
9. James B. Stewart. (2005). "Disney War". [[Simon & Schuster]].
10. Michael Cieply. (February 22, 1990). "Disney, Fox Clash Over Children's TV Programming". Los Angeles Times.
11. (24 April 2016). "Life is Like a Hurricane: A Brief History of the Disney Afternoon". Disney.
12. (June 6, 2011). "Disney Takes Kellogg Clout To Stations".
13. (September 1997). "Tooning in the Fall Season". Animation World Magazine.
14. Hontz, Jenny. (1998-01-21). "Disney kids to play UPN".
15. (January 20, 1998). "Disney kids to play UPN". Variety.
16. (September 1999). "It's Show Time! The Fall TV Preview". Animation World Magazine.
17. Chris Pursell. (July 19, 1999). "Mouse brands UPN kidvid". [[Variety (magazine).
18. (May 26, 2011). "Personalities: Mike Sobel". [[Shaw Media]].
19. (2022-11-30). "Disney Sjov lukker efter 31 år".
20. (October 4, 2017). "7 'The Disney Afternoon' cartoons today's kids are missing". ABC13 Houston.
21. (2008). "The Disneyland Encyclopedia".