Bringing Back the Old School FoxKids

[Cullen]

I always liked the early days of FOX Kids when they had...

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
Zazoo U
Beetlejuice
Taz-Mania
Eek the Cat
Animaniacs

FOX seemed to have kind of different Saturday morning programing from ABC, NBC, and CBS.

 

[Golgo13]

I will say the Fox Kids was a lot more involved. During the early 90's, they use to have a monthly Fox Kids magazine (the name escapes me).

A lot of the shows Fox Kids had offer were very memorable and weren't all sugar coated. Some shows I remember and still enjoy:
-Bobby's World
-Life with Louie
-The Tick
-Batman TAS

 

[Golgo13]

Not only did Saban tend to cut quality with the shows he acquires, he went overboard in 2000 during the infamous "X-Speed" season of Fox Kids. Case in point: Vision of Escaflowne. Vision of Escaflowne had a big following with the anime scene and when the edited version aired on the block, fans were absolutely furious with the watered down version and lashed out at Fox Kids. Coupled with the network's realization of the show's target demographic and the show was cancelled after merely 10 episodes. Cybersix also aired in that block but it was pulled quickly (though the exact details are sketchy. Some say that the distributor pulled the rights too quickly while others say that the ratings were a flop) and with the way it was watered down, it was for the best anyway. With show ratings dropping like flies in addition to them being pulled, the "X-Speed" season was met with a quick demise and went back to just being Fox Kids. Although Fox Kids lasted for another season after that, the damage done to Escaflowne may had been a contributing factor to the demise of the block. Hell, Vision of Escaflowne itself may never fully recover from the scars of what happened to it on Fox. It was that big of a deal.

In terms of how an anime could've been broadcasted on network television for kids, Escaflowne got off light, VERY light.

Granted, I could understand people getting pissed at the exclusion of the first episode which was more of a prologue, but some of edits seemed minor. For one, the music to the best of my knowledge was untouched. The certain scenes involving nudity or suggestive elements were censored, no surprise. The violent scenes had added white flashes to cover up blows or blood. This same technique is used on just about every action cartoon. And that's really all the edits I noticed from the episodes I watched.

I think the timeslot might have had an affect on the show's cancellation as well. It was broadcasted at 11am on Saturdays and then at 5:30pm on Fridays.

But what I found most interesting about Escaflowne being on Fox was that Bandai was already pushing the edited VHS copies of the show while the show was on air and pulled them a few months after cancellation.

 

[spidey4545]

Threads like this aren't made to completely and literally bring old line-up blocks back to life in all detail. They're for guys like this Spidey4545, who lists some points and examples every Executive should copy down into a TV Creation Bible.

Thanks for kind comments. I hope someday some executives would take this advice in order to change the current situation in children's television...

I will say the Fox Kids was a lot more involved. During the early 90's, they use to have a monthly Fox Kids magazine (the name escapes me).

Like I said in my previous post, Fox Kids used to create the quarterly Totally Kids Magazine...not to be confused with the 'Totally for Kids' PSA campaign on Fox Kids from 1993-1996.

I concur with what most people are saying: the same Fox Kids you remember from years ago will never return. There are many reasons for this:
- Saban sold all of his properties to Disney, including everything that was produced by Fox Kids Productions. Though it's possible the license for these shows will run out someday, it's currently unknown how long Disney controls each show. It's highly likely that some shows like Fox's Peter Pan and the Pirates will never see the light of day again if Disney's stronghold of it is never let go.
- Showing a complete Saturday morning block of old shows on a non-cable network would never survive in the ratings. Though I guess it could exist on a retro-type digital cable/satellite channel.
-All of the executives and former Fox Kids employees (from all departments such as promotions, programming, development, etc.) have moved on. I don't think there has been an on-air promotions department as great as the Fox Kids one in the 90's....KidsWB really came close in early 2000's (many of the commercials were too corny and not as creative).
- Time has passed and things have changed. Today's kids expect different things than what we did years ago. What was successful for us could very well be a failure for them.

On the other hand, it's very possible that Fox could reclaim the Saturday morning programming block now operated by 4Kids. Thus, Fox could create another Fox Kids block, but like I've said, it would be completely different. Unfortunately, the Fox Kids we knew is dead and will never return. However, its memory is alive in those who experienced it and the only way for its legacy to carry on is to remember its history.

This is exactly what I have been doing over the past year and a half. Using a variety of methods, I've developed a personal archive of as much information as possible. One major undertaking I've begun is to chronicle Fox Kids' entire broadcast scheduling history from September 8, 1990 to September 7, 2002. Yes, it seems like an impossible task...some officials in the entertainment industry have even told me I was insane. Nevertheless, I've been able to determine a rough outline of what shows aired on each day for the entire run, including specials. Of the approximately 20,000 individual 30 minute timeslots of programming aired between these years, I've been able to confirm what episodes aired of each show for nearly half of the slots (around 10,000). As you can imagine, this is an incredibly difficult task, especially for the more obscure shows, but I've gathered the help of many people, with some people being in the entertainment industry. Though my goal may never be accomplished, I will try my hardest to make it become a reality. Additionally, I plan on making such information available on the internet soon enough...it's just that I've been too busy with school and work to actually develop anything for the internet.

 

[CobraSpectre]

I can remember watching the premier of the first power rangers. The show was pretty bad as the exact same things happened each episode, but I was too young to care. I think I only watched that and the second version of power rangers, it just went really bad after that.

I really loved the Marvel based cartoons, they didn't have to work the story too much from the comics.

Escaflowne was probably the first anime I saw. I really like it too.

What ever happend to afternoon weekday cartoons?

A lot of 4kids cartoons are violence/fighting based. It's all fantasy violence and the 'weapons' aren't even used to hurt anyone.

The only shows I'll watch on saturday are Yu-gi-oh, Chaotic, and Sigma 6.

Spidey4545, great site, please keep the work.

Okay, that's my incoherrant rant.

 

[veemonjosh]

Like I said in my previous post, Fox Kids used to create the quarterly Totally Kids Magazine...not to be confused with the 'Totally for Kids' PSA campaign on Fox Kids from 1993-1996.

I remember the magazine. I probably have nearly every issue (some more damaged than others) around here somewhere.

Those were the days....

 

[Sage Shinigami]

You fail automatically.

What he said. And you look even worse 'cause you have a Pokemon-related name and avatar.