Happy 30th Anniversary to Kids WB!

[LinusFan303]

2002 in a technical sense Kids WB had won the weekday children's' broadcast race against FOX kids and then ended up technically beating FOX Kids. It also kind of beat Disney's one Too and UPN as this was the last year of that. ( I watched and I watched Digimon) The rest of the networks were kind of receding thanks to their cable co-ownership and whatever NBC was thinking, so KIDS WB kind of had a win, but at the time when cable networks were heating up in a race.

2006 is another pivot year for everyone as again, the WB network died and ironically in some areas old UPN stations had a children's block again, but on Saturday instead of Sunday, like my station where I ended up with 2 CW stations. Early that year the sad end of the weekday block happened, the affiliates (probably Tribune) wanted more adult programming to take the 2 hour slots and I kind of think that was the ghost end of KIDS WB as well.

I didn't really watch What's New Scooby Doo on Kids WB, I had mostly watched it on Cartoon Network, it was airing on Friday nights and I watched the Friday night block and that's the network I mostly associated Scooby with in the first place since that's where I was introduced to it. I liked that show it felt like Scooby Doo but in the current era at the time. Theme song was great.

Doing that guy standing up thing, I liked Johnny Test.

It really is interesting that there's not really a big show introduced in this period you can't say that about the past two parts of this, but here it is noticeable. Part of it probably was they had some successful things still going for a bit, and a sense of comfort set in. In the Broadcast space there was no real competition anymore, except FOX Box (4KIDS), ABC Kids and CBS were reheated reruns of stuff from then corporate sister units, NBC had a block (That I watched) that probably didn't have a bunch kids going yeah Kenny the Shark and Trading Spaces! The cable side was bigger, the former FOX Kids was on ABC Family and was carrying some stuff, you had Nickelodeon which was leading the way too and corporate sibling but run separate and WB TV animation didn't have easy access too Cartoon Network, and then Disney Channel which was carving away a niche that others weren't. It does feel they were trying to find more of the same that worked for them like anime that would fit with Pokémon then finding types of shows you'd find on Nick or CN.

In terms or branding, one thing I really liked but kind of a small thing was the way some stations like mine had local branding for KIDS WB it made it feel nice seeing a KIDS WB 2 logo in some bumpers and promos. It made it feel a little more special compared to major network blocks.

 

[dumbfoolkid5]

Happy Birthiversary

Sent from my SM-A266U1 using Tapatalk

 

[wonderfly]

"Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monsters" was actually on 4KidsTV.

Thank you, I've updated the article.

2002 in a technical sense Kids WB had won the weekday children's' broadcast race against FOX kids and then ended up technically beating FOX Kids. It also kind of beat Disney's one Too and UPN as this was the last year of that. ( I watched and I watched Digimon) The rest of the networks were kind of receding thanks to their cable co-ownership and whatever NBC was thinking, so KIDS WB kind of had a win, but at the time when cable networks were heating up in a race.

Never thought about it that way. Kids WB won because the other networks were looking to put their emphasis on cable? Yeah, that makes sense.

And NBC had given up long ago (back in the early 90's).

It really is interesting that there's not really a big show introduced in this period you can't say that about the past two parts of this, but here it is noticeable. Part of it probably was they had some successful things still going for a bit, and a sense of comfort set in.

I maintain the "big" Western Animation shows of the era were "The Batman" and "Xiaolin Showdown".

....which signals a problem, as they weren't that big.

 

[PicardMan]

Well, 4kids did get the last laugh when they replaced Kids' WB, but their block was already running on fumes with Yu-Gi-Oh and Dinosaur King keeping the block afloat. Dinosaur King on CW4kids ending in 2010 seems like the unofficial "death date" of Saturday mornings as after that, CW4kids changed their name to Toonzai and became almost entirely a rerun block. Vortexx came to replace CW4kids and included the same Sonic X and Cubix reruns, this time with reruns of cable cartoons like Transformers Prime and Justice League Unlimited (the latter receiving heavy censorship). Even Yu-Gi-Oh's premieres eventually moved to Nicktoons. 2010-2014 was pretty much the rerun "zombie" era of Saturday mornings.

 

[LinusFan303]

I maintain the "big" Western Animation shows of the era were "The Batman" and "Xiaolin Showdown".

Especially the latter, when it's not as remembered as say something like Avatar the Last Airbender which is kind of a comparable show. You can see they were trying to find their "SpongeBob" type show too. They weren't attempting to trend set but follow a trend instead.

Never thought about it that way. Kids WB won because the other networks were looking to put their emphasis on cable? Yeah, that makes sense.

And NBC had given up long ago (back in the early 90's).

I only mentioned NBC because in 2003 they picked up Discovery Kids which had some cartoons in their line up. Discovery Kids on NBC wasn't going to be real competition.

 

[gokaiblue]

Gosh, I remember when I first heard about Kids WB. The latest it could have been was 2004, because I was still in my old house. I saw a promo for it on Cartoon Network featuring Xiaolin Showdown. I searched on TV for it, but alas, it wasn't there. We didn't have a WB affiliate at the time. Every time we would go on vacation, my first thought was "Does this place have The WB?"

I know it was probably silly to worry about Saturday morning/weekday afternoon cartoons in a post-Cartoon Network world, but at the time, it had shows you couldn't find anywhere else! New episodes of Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh that weren't in the rotation on Cartoon Network yet. MegaMan NT Warrior! The Batman! I was obsessed with something that I didn't have.

Then, when The CW arrived, I finally got Kids WB. When, I was young, I thought CW stood for "Comcast WB." I was so sad when the block went away, especially when I just got it!

Ironically, we had a WB affiliate...from 1995-1997. Furthermore, that WB affiliate became a UPN affiliate. WB programs were on our local NBC affiliate, and select Kids WB programs were on our FOX station, though it wasn't in my lifetime (or maybe it was I never checked really).

 

[wonderfly]

From the front page of AnimeSuperhero.com:

"Kids WB: A 30th Anniversary Retrospective, Part 4: Saturday Mornings on Life Support (2007-2008)"​

"This is Part 4 of our month long celebration of the 30th Anniversary of Kids WB (the final part). If you need to read Part 3, read it here. With September 2006, “The WB” had become “The CW”. The Kids WB programming block was adrift without the heavy hitters of Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, and was looking to see if it could establish a new direction for the block. And while there was still some unique new additions to the line-up (more on that in a moment), the one thing that did not feel as “new” was the bumpers and promos. Under new management, The CW didn’t care about investing in new animated segments to help fill in commercial breaks (and they certainly weren’t looking to have CW actors be in the bumpers). That mean the promos and bumpers from 2006 to 2008 were largely just re-using the same water tower character from the Fall 2005/Spring 2006 season. They did create some new “comic book panel” aesthetics to put the water tower in, so that was different (though a bit cheap looking):



Still, the bumpers and promos weren’t the reason kids were watching…."

Read the full article here.

 

[the_joker]

I'm a little late, so I'll talk about both Part 3 and 4.

It looks like (late) 2005 was the year Kids WB started dying. The golden age was during the time Pokemon started airing from 1999-2002 (when Ash, Misty, and Brock were traveling together), though I don't know what the proper term would be for the years before that. Kids no doubt started losing interest in the property at some point, so the silver age would be around 2002-2005. I know Yu-Gi-Oh! was also popular (having a shared English voice cast helped), but not as much as Pokemon. Both shows aired their final episodes in 2006 (and before the Pokemon anime moved to CN), so I guess whatever viewers were watching the block for those 2 shows eventually lost any reason to tune in even though the block was bringing in other kinds of anime I actually forgot about such as Viewtiful Joe.

The programming block stopped airing during the weekdays by the end of 2005 for reasons I'm not entirely sure about. I would like to say it was because there were other channels dedicated to airing cartoons such as CN, but I read that The Disney Afternoon eventually died for that reason, but it died much earlier before the year 2000. Part 4 suggested that The CW didn't care to air shows for kids, so that would be another reason for the decline of Kids WB.

I still think there were a number of other noteworthy shows that aired during those periods. In the case of the silver age, there was a new Batman show in The Batman. I remember reading online that people weren't too fond of it because it had the tall order of following up on Batman: TAS as well as some weird "Bat-embargo" preventing JLU from using more Batman-related characters (apparently, Scarecrow and Two-Face didn't appear in The Batman because they were being used in the Nolan movies), but I personally liked the show in spite of it all.

I remember watching and liking Xiaolin Showdown when it first aired, but later seasons got really weird with a villain literally being a bean who didn't come off as threatening as the previous 2 seasonal villains. It's been too long since I've watched the show, and I actually didn't learn that it got a sequel show some time later until a few years ago (which would be a decade prior to me learning about the sequel). Maybe someday I could rewatch it if I could find the chance.

Loonatics Unleashed was too weird to me when I first heard about it: futuristic Looney Tunes-esque characters being something along the lines of superheroes fighting villains. Yeah, that's what I think of when I think of slapstick comedy and wackiness in Looney Tunes. There was a short featuring Daffy Duck as "Stupor Duck" (which was before WB owned DC), but even that had plenty of slapstick. That was also why I didn't like Baby Looney Tunes. The Looney Tunes Show probably did work better, but I need to rewatch it. I'm getting off-track.

As for its final years, I eventually also stopped tuning in regularly, though I don't remember the exact reason for this or when I actually stopped tuning in. I would like to say it was because there wasn't much reason for me to do so, but that would be me trying to recall a vague memory from about 20 years ago. I didn't watch The Spectacular Spider-Man until about a decade after it ended, and I do like that show a lot. I would like to watch Legion of Super Heroes, but it's currently not on HBO Max for some damn reason. I did give Tom and Jerry Tales a few shots, but I the vocal effects of the duo always felt out of place to me. I suppose that's also why I also didn't watch much of their DTV movies.

The block aired its final episode in 2008, so it actually lasted less than 15 years. I actually thought it went on after 2010 because I remember reading that there were still shows airing on that same channel during Saturday mornings, but it was actually The CW4Kids or Toonzai I was thinking of. I was still watching cartoons even during that era because I was watching plenty of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Chowder, and Ben 10 (and maybe some other shows I'm forgetting about). So I guess I just moved to other channels, or maybe just CN. I would like to say I was watching plenty of Nickelodeon during those years, but I don't remember what was airing on that channel during that time outside of Spongebob and The Fairly Oddparents. Oh, I guess I was still watching (and losing interest) in those 2 shows.

I'll admit I do I miss watching cartoons during Saturday mornings to an extent, but I can't help preferring to stream nowadays since I can watch whenever I want. That's not to say streaming is perfect, but that's a different topic. I do miss the bumpers from the cartoon programming blocks (particularly CN and CCF) during the late 90's/early 2000's. There was a sense of passion in airing these cartoons whenever those bumpers came up and promoted the shows as well as other shows, and that's one thing streaming can't replicate since they’re all about picking something to watch and/or binge.

 

[Peter Paltridge]

I had no idea some form of Saturday Morning lasted on The CW clear until 2014. That's crazy.

And I'm gonna pour one out for dear forgotten World Of Quest, the Canadian import we only got the first season of during Kids WB's final months. Animation is cheap as can be but the strong characters made up for it, and it still has one of the catchiest, earwormiest theme songs I'VE EVER HEARD.

 

[LinusFan303]

Ah the last part. I'm going to mention that as a Scooby fan, I didn't get into Scooby and Shaggy get a clue which is funny since I'm a big Shaggy fan. Maybe I'll check it out. I'm going to give a 2006 shout out to Monster Allergy, Kids WB introduced me to the show, and later the books too, though took a long time for me to eventually finish the series. I think the only things I really had interest in with Kids WB that season was that and Johnny Test.

2006 was another one of those pivot years in network children's TV. CBS was freed from Viacom rule and Nick blocks were gone they tried a block that was worked on by AOL, DIC and a few others, ABC Kids would have it's final active year where it stayed on 2006 until it died minus Power Ranger series. NBC had switched to QUBO. Kids WB interestingly feels the most afterthought-ish here, then October 2007, they announced the block was going to close down in 2008, then moved up from doing it in fall 2008 to May 2008. The financial slow down of the time must have been a factor, along with the CW over all not doing well.

I'm actually surprised they never became fully the Cartoon Network repeat block, guessing the way Time Warner was structured made sure it would be hard, but it's kind of surprising they never jumped in like Disney, Viacom and slightly how Discovery did.

I was never interested the 4 kids block that much so I kind of stopped watching did come back for Vortexx when they had Digimon because Digimon.

The programming block stopped airing during the weekdays by the end of 2005 for reasons I'm not entirely sure about. I would like to say it was because there were other channels dedicated to airing cartoons such as CN,

The stations wanted to air more "adult" programming to lead into their early evening line ups of non children's programming. More surprised they let the WB/ CW have the slots for over a decade instead of turning it over to local station. This Nearly the same reason why FOX affiliates wanted the FOX Kids weekday block gone, but without early evening news being factors in some areas.

 

[RandomMe]

The CW-era Kids WB is a little cursed, a little lopsided. Not just due to the branding but because of the shows. By outliving the network, it doesn't surprise me that they changed the name to Kids CW and dropped the watertower.

When 4Kids took over its control, things changed. The WBA shows disappeared from OTA TV, leaving it limited to just a mostly-action line-up. Finally, 2011 came and it became the last breed of the Saturday Morning era.

When Vortexx closed in 2014 (I visited their site and they seemed to aggregate games from other sites instead of having licensed games), I mourned it because there were entire areas who still lacked access to cable cartoons, and more recently, streaming. If those networks continued to do so, they were pandering only to like 1% of the national population whose internet doesn't work so well and has posed problems for existing streaming services.

 

[wonderfly]

I could've arguably done a "Part 5" and gone longer into a discussion of CW4Kids/Toonzai/Vortexx, but really, it feels like May 2008 (when it stopped being Kids WB) was a good place to bring it to an end.

Just sharing some goodies I found on Youtube:

Here's a promo from May 2008 advertising the change from Kids WB to The CW4Kids:




And yeah, there wasn't too much of a change to the line-up at first, but it was under new management at that point, so yeah, that's the dividing line.

And here's the bumpers/commercials from the final broadcast of Vortexx from September 2014:



The McDonalds commercial at 3:51 shows clearly it was the Dark Ages. EDIT: After the McDonalds commercial, they advertise "One Magnificient Morning" (educational kids block), which replaced Vortexx starting the following week. "One Magnificient Morning" is still on the CW to this day.

---

EDIT: And I like this quick video, which breaks down the various Kids WB eras (which I tried to cover in the 4 articles):




The only one I don't think I touched is the "Bendies" era (from 2004-2005)....largely because I wasn't watching during that period, and I just don't remember it. But this is what those bumpers looked like:

 

[Pooky]

Huh, TV from 2014 captured on worn VHS is a new aesthetic to me. And apparently Judy Greer hosted a Saturday morning show about healthy living?

I've pretty much only seen Skunk-Fu referred to as a kind of punchline in recent years, but it got some fairly prominent slots on BBC over here, and I recall it quite fondly, if dimly.

I didn't know Tom & Jerry Tales started on KidsWB. That's an example of a show that did everything right but, somehow, just wasn't particularly good. Some things were done perfectly first time round and don't really need to be revived, even faithfully. Still, that's my view as someone who was leaving their teens then, I think kids at the time felt differently, and it no doubt played a part in keeping the characters extremely popular in the 21st century while a lot of characters from their era have struggled to maintain a public presence.

I've said this before, but whatever we think of it we're lucky Loonatics Unleashed released in 2005 rather than in the last 10 years. The "discussions" there would have been in the Twitter age don't bear thinking about.

 

[RandomMe]

I could've arguably done a "Part 5" and gone longer into a discussion of CW4Kids/Toonzai/Vortexx, but really, it feels like May 2008 (when it stopped being Kids WB) was a good place to bring it to an end.

Just sharing some goodies I found on Youtube:

Here's a promo from May 2008 advertising the change from Kids WB to The CW4Kids:




And yeah, there wasn't too much of a change to the line-up at first, but it was under new management at that point, so yeah, that's the dividing line.

And here's the bumpers/commercials from the final broadcast of Vortexx from September 2014:



The McDonalds commercial at 3:51 shows clearly it was the Dark Ages. EDIT: After the McDonalds commercial, they advertise "One Magnificient Morning" (educational kids block), which replaced Vortexx starting the following week. "One Magnificient Morning" is still on the CW to this day.

---

EDIT: And I like this quick video, which breaks down the various Kids WB eras (which I tried to cover in the 4 articles):




The only one I don't think I touched is the "Bendies" era (from 2004-2005)....largely because I wasn't watching during that period, and I just don't remember it. But this is what those bumpers looked like:

As you can see from the first video, they inherited the non-WB shows from Kids WB.

Its involvement with the block in the CW days was decreasing to the point that jt became unsustainable to produce new titles. New T&J titles only on CN/Boomerang. Had KWB continued, Mystery Incorporated would be there too (maybe if the block ended in 2012, maybe 2014)

Huh, TV from 2014 captured on worn VHS is a new aesthetic to me. And apparently Judy Greer hosted a Saturday morning show about healthy living?

I've pretty much only seen Skunk-Fu referred to as a kind of punchline in recent years, but it got some fairly prominent slots on BBC over here, and I recall it quite fondly, if dimly.

I didn't know Tom & Jerry Tales started on KidsWB. That's an example of a show that did everything right but, somehow, just wasn't particularly good. Some things were done perfectly first time round and don't really need to be revived, even faithfully. Still, that's my view as someone who was leaving their teens then, I think kids at the time felt differently, and it no doubt played a part in keeping the characters extremely popular in the 21st century while a lot of characters from their era have struggled to maintain a public presence.

I've said this before, but whatever we think of it we're lucky Loonatics Unleashed released in 2005 rather than in the last 10 years. The "discussions" there would have been in the Twitter age don't bear thinking about.

Regarding most of the later WBA Kids WB shows, I feel like shows like Loonatics Unleased, Coconut Fred, Xiaolin Showdown and Legion of Super Heroes seem to bring a weird aura to me. I get it that the first show was controversial but these shows screamed "Look at us, look at us, look what we can do. Look at us, look at us, LOOK AT US". They wanted to try attracting a specific demographic but the people who still watched KWB and CW4Kids were in for the anime. That, coupled with the block serving as a retreat when the excess of Naruto practically ended Toonami on CN.

 

[PicardMan]

I could've arguably done a "Part 5" and gone longer into a discussion of CW4Kids/Toonzai/Vortexx, but really, it feels like May 2008 (when it stopped being Kids WB) was a good place to bring it to an end.

I do think the 4kids Saturday morning block that kept changing names and networks does merit its own retrospective, but by the time it replaced Kids' WB, it was already a shell of its former self. Spectacular Spider-Man (continuing from Kids' WB), Dinosaur King (continuing from the Fox 4kids block), and Yu-Gi-Oh were the only notable premieres. The rest were reruns or flops. I think Tai Chi Chasers (2011-2012) holds the honor of last new franchise to debut on Saturday morning. The dub got cancelled after season 2 and season 3 didn't show up in the US. Probably the only reason I was reminded of its existence is the fiasco of an AI fandub of season 3 briefly showing up on Tubi. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure it was a flop as I have no idea what Tai Chi Chasers is even about, just its status as the last anime 4kids dubbed before going under and the last Saturday morning anime dub.


Now, back to Kids' WB. Looks like obscurities World of Quest (Tubi) and Monster Allergy (the official Monster Allergy Youtube channel) are on streaming. So many of the obscurities are streaming, but it feels like half the hits are MIA. I think Warner is trying to go back to the 2000s model of "pay by show by season" and making money off of digital purchases. Mucha Lucha is a particularly expensive cartoon to buy as Amazon features no discounts for paying for a whole season. It will set you back $104 to get all 52 episodes in standard definition ($156 for high definition). Xiaolin Showdown costs a more affordable $40 for all the standard definition episodes, Legion of Superheroes $30, Static Shock $58, Ozzy and Drix $30. I guess those with early 00s nostalgia have to fork over tons of money because it seems like those shows I mentioned seem like they aren't coming to streaming anytime soon.

 

[wonderfly]

Things we didn't cover in the articles (but we could have):

Late 90's oddities (shows that were briefly added but taken away): Brats of the Lost Nebula, Calamity Jane, Invasion America
Captain Planet: Did you know Kids WB aired reruns of this early 90's cartoon for a year in the late 90's? This was right before I got Kids WB in 1998, so I didn't know that. It just feels like a placeholder right before the action cartoon takeover. Kinda like "We've got action cartoons coming, bear with us!"
Early 2000's oddities: Phantom Investigators, Da Boom Crew

"Pre-School" type shows:
Baby Looney Tunes: The horror from 2002.
Krypto the Superdog: We didn't touch upon this cartoon in the "Part 4" section, but it was more "pre-school"-ish, from what I hear.

The "Bendies" bumpers from 2004: Nightmare fuel that I didn't touch upon in the article (mentioned in my last post above).

The Year Toonami took over Kids WB (Fall 2001/Spring 2002): It just didn't work, but hey, DBZ and Sailor Moon briefly joined Kids WB.

Guest Stars in the bumpers (most of these were in the 1998 to 2002 era): NSYNC, Boys II Men, Back Street Boys, Lou Bega, R.L. Stine, The Crypt Keeper. These are the ones I remember. Anyone know of any others?

 

[Nexonius]

These are some amazing finds! NEVER heard of Adventure Man before (too bad the AdAge article is paywalled; maybe there's a picture or something). Their plans for Freakazoid seem to have been shifted to Pinky and the Brain (it did what Variety said F! would do; expand to weekdays in 1997 with a bunch more episodes). Also I believe Sylvester and Tweety DID get to 65 episodes. Slowly, but it got there.

52 for S&T.

 

[TheGreatToon]

I could've arguably done a "Part 5" and gone longer into a discussion of CW4Kids/Toonzai/Vortexx, but really, it feels like May 2008 (when it stopped being Kids WB) was a good place to bring it to an end.

Just sharing some goodies I found on Youtube:

Here's a promo from May 2008 advertising the change from Kids WB to The CW4Kids:

The lineup was exactly the same between May 24-June 14, June 21st saw Chaotic, TMNT Fast Forward and Yu-Gi-Oh GX join. The Kids' WB bumpers were just doctored to have the CW4Kids logo instead of the Kids' WB one (these lasted till Sep 6), Promos for Kids' WB shows still had Kids' WB announcers, but promos for 4Kids shows had 4Kids announcers. The split screen credits style was also exactly the same as Kids' WB during that time. I'm not sure if Warner still programmed the block during that time or if 4Kids had already taken over, but the switch was gradual

 

[Pooky]

Captain Planet on KidsWB in the late 90s is kind of wild to me. Feels like it would have already been a relic by that point.

I caught bit and pieces of the Krypto cartoon here and there. It was pleasant enough to keep the remote at bay. Not quite a pre school show I don't think but definitely skewed young. I remember one of the reviewers at the dreaded Ain't it Cool News gave it a thumbs up noting that "just because aren't just for kids anymore doesn't mean they can't also still be for kids". Maybe not the best messenger but a salient point at the time.

 

[LinusFan303]

The lineup was exactly the same between May 24-June 14, June 21st saw Chaotic, TMNT Fast Forward and Yu-Gi-Oh GX join. The Kids' WB bumpers were just doctored to have the CW4Kids logo instead of the Kids' WB one (these lasted till Sep 6), Promos for Kids' WB shows still had Kids' WB announcers, but promos for 4Kids shows had 4Kids announcers. The split screen credits style was also exactly the same as Kids' WB during that time. I'm not sure if Warner still programmed the block during that time or if 4Kids had already taken over, but the switch was gradual

CW 4 Kids was supposed to start in the fall of 2008, it was moved up to hand over in May 2008, so it had a weird mesh going on during that summer.