Disney's One Too

Disney's One Too

Premiered	September 6, 1999
Discontinued	August 31, 2003
Network	UPN
Country of origin	United States
Format	Children's programming block
Running time	2 hours

Disney's One Too is an American children's programming block that aired on UPN from September 6, 1999 to August 31, 2003. A spinoff of the Disney's One Saturday Morning block on ABC (owned by The Walt Disney Company), it featured animated series from Walt Disney Television Animation aimed at children between the ages of 7 and 14. The block aired on Sunday mornings and weekdays (either in the mornings or afternoons).

In Canada, the Disney's One Too block aired on Family Channel, a specialty channel that has long been associated with The Walt Disney Company due to its carriage of Disney-produced feature films and television series (and formerly served as the Canadian broadcaster of Disney Channel's original programming, replaced by a Canadian version of Disney Channel).

History

In January 1998, UPN began discussions with The Walt Disney Company (owner of rival network ABC) to have the company program a daily two-hour children's block for the network.^[1] However, attempts to reach a time-lease agreement deal with Disney were called off one week after negotiations started due to a dispute between Disney and UPN over how the block would be branded and the amount of E/I programming that Disney would provide for the block; UPN then entered into discussions with then-corporate sister Nickelodeon (both networks were owned by Viacom) to produce the new block.^[2] That February, UPN entered into an agreement with Saban Entertainment (which at the time was part-owner of Fox Family Worldwide, the parent subsidiary of Fox corporate parent News Corporation that produced competing block Fox Kids) – which distributed two series already seen on the UPN Kids block around that time, Sweet Valley High and Breaker High – to program the Sunday through Friday morning block.^[2][3][4]

In March 1998, UPN resumed discussions with Disney^[5] and the following month, The Walt Disney Company and UPN came to an agreement to provide Disney-produced programs on the network every Sunday morning (from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m.) and on Monday through Fridays (from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m.)^[6] The block was originally announced under the working title "Whomptastic", though the name was changed prior to the debut of the block for greater brand identity (incidentally, "whomp" was used as a pejorative term in the Disney-produced animated series Recess, one of the series that would end up part of the new block, as a substitute for "sucks").^[7]

The new lineup was later renamed Disney's One Too in July 1999, formatted to serve as a companion block to ABC's existing children's block Disney's One Saturday Morning.^[8] The block debuted on September 5, 1999, replacing UPN Kids, which ended its run the day before (on September 4) after four years.^[7] Compared to the format of One Saturday Morning, One Too differed in that, instead of incorporating hosted segments, short gag segments from the shows featured in the block (such as Sabrina: The Animated Series, Doug and Recess, all of which – along with a few other series – were originally aired on One Saturday Morning) were usually shown, often preceding the start of each program, and after commercial breaks. The block also featured a different opening sequence, using more futuristic buildings and a theme similar to that used on One Saturday Morning. Many shows formerly featured on Disney's One Too continued in reruns on Toon Disney and Disney Channel.

In September 2002, the One Too branding was dropped as a result of the rebranding of the ABC block from One Saturday Morning to ABC Kids; although the UPN block was unbranded, the Disney.com website referred to it under the brand Disney's Animation Weekdays. The block ended on August 29, 2003, with the time periods being turned over to UPN's affiliates; this left UPN as the only "big six" broadcast television network without children's programming, and one of only two major commercial broadcast networks that did not air a children's programming block (the other being Pax TV, which discontinued its Pax Kids lineup in 2000, before reviving children's programming as Ion Television through the 2007 launch of Qubo).^[9][10]

UPN was not the first "big six" network to drop children's programming: NBC became the first to drop kids shows entirely in August 1992, when the network launched a live-action block for teenagers called TNBC (however, children's programming returned to NBC in 2002, through a time-lease agreement with Discovery Kids). To date, ABC (which dropped the ABC Kids block in 2011, and replaced it with the syndicated live-action family-oriented E/I block Litton's Weekend Adventure), CBS (which replaced the Cookie Jar TV block with a similar live-action E/I block, CBS Dream Team, in 2013), Fox (which dropped its 4Kids TV block on December 27, 2008), The CW (which replaced the Vortexx block with another similar E/I block, One Magnificent Morning), and MyNetworkTV (which has never run children's programming since it launched in 2006) are the only television networks that do not air children's programming or whose E/I program content is not strictly aimed at that demographic.

Programming

In most markets, UPN affiliates carried the block Monday through Fridays from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sundays from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. (in all time zones). However, some stations (such as WWOR-TV in New York City, KCOP-TV in Los Angeles and KTVD in Denver) aired the weekday block in the morning from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m.

• Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (2000–2003)
• Digimon Frontier (2002–2003)
• Doug (1999–2003)
• Hercules (1999–2000)
• The Legend of Tarzan (2001–2003)
• Pepper Ann (2000–2001)
• Recess (1999–2003)
• Sabrina, the Animated Series (1999–2002)
• The Weekenders (2001–2002)

See also

• The Disney Afternoon – a syndicated children's program block that ran from 1990 to 1998, and aired on many eventual UPN affiliates.

References

1. Jenny Hontz (January 21, 1998). "Disney kids to play UPN". Variety. Retrieved August 21, 2009.
2. Jenny Hontz (January 27, 1998). "UPN kids pick Nick, not Mouse". Variety. Retrieved August 21, 2009.
3. Richard Katz (January 29, 1998). "Marvel, Saban set kids shows for UPN". Variety. Retrieved August 21, 2009.
4. Richard Katz (February 24, 1998). "UPN serves up superheroes". Variety. Retrieved August 21, 2009.
5. Jenny Hontz (March 26, 1998). "UPN, BV discuss kids block". Variety. Retrieved August 21, 2009.
6. Jenny Hontz; Cynthia Littleton (April 17, 1998). "UPN, Disney in kidvid block deal". Variety. Retrieved August 21, 2009.
7. Issue 3.2. "UPN To Air Disney Block". Animation World Magazine. May 1998. Retrieved March 1, 2014.
8. Chris Pursell (July 19, 1999). "Mouse brands UPN kidvid". Variety. Retrieved August 17, 2009.
9. "Disney Drops UPN Programming Deal". Los Angeles Times (Tribune Publishing). Associated Press. February 14, 2003. Retrieved September 2, 2015.
10. "UPN to ax Disney kids shows in fall". Chicago Sun-Times (Hollinger International). February 15, 2003. Retrieved September 2, 2015 – via HighBeam Research.