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The Rise and Fall of Fox Kids Network

Jubenhimer

Member
In the 80s, Saturday Mornings were the flagship time period for Kids TV and Animation. CBS, ABC and NBC all competed for the under-12 eyeballs by ordering series after series of action-adventures and crudely drawn cuddly mascot shows designed to sell kids toys as they gorge upon Sugary Breakfast Cereals in front of the TV. But in 1985, a newcomer to the Broadcast space was launched by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, the FOX Broadcasting Company. Named after Murdoch's Movie Studio, Twentieth Century Fox, known for the Alien and Star Wars franchises, Fox Broadcasting quickly made a name for itself with edgy, subversive programing like Married... With Children, and The Simpsons that flipped every perceived notion about broadcast television on its head. Fox eventually branched out to air Sports programing, and by the end of the 80s, it was already giving the big three a run for their money.

iu


But up to this point, there was one thing missing from Fox's TV offerings... Children's programing. While the network was popular with adults and families, Kids' shows weren't something Fox had offered compared to the big 3. In 1990, Fox decided to fix that. After a failed time-lease agreement with The Walt Disney Company, which led to the creation of The Disney Afternoon for syndication, Fox decided to produce a lineup of kids shows themselves. The broadcaster wanted to take a different approach altogether though. They'd noticed that most of their stations were originally independents that were already airing popular children's shows during Weekday Mornings and Afternoons, rather than just Saturdays, and their competition, have only ever aired Children's shows on Saturday Mornings exclusively, with Adult fare such as Game Shows and Soaps running on weekdays. Fox didn't just want to make a block of Kids shows for Saturday mornings, they wanted to make essentially, an entire Kids Network for its stations. A semi-autonomous entity that would broadcast not just on Saturdays, but also in Weekdays in the Mornings and Afternoons, which were growing to be key timeslots for kids. After discussing the idea with their affiliates, Fox Children's Network, Inc. was formed.

iu


FCN would broadcast Weekday Mornings, Weekday Afternoons, and Saturdays, for a total of 19 hours each week, and would function as a separate entity from the main Fox Network programing. The person in charge from inception, was Margret Loesch, who came to Fox from Marvel Productions. Fed up with the low quality and commercialism of broadcast animation at that point, Loesch wanted to avoid the strategy used by the Big 3, and put more of a focus on quality rather than just quantity. Fox Children's Network also setup its own production studio, Fox Children's Productions to develop shows for the start-up network. Fox launched its first slate of kids programing on September 9th, 1990. The launch consisted of shows such as Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, Bobby's World (which would go on to be one of its longest running shows), and Peter Pan & the Pirates. It was simple, but it was a start.

800px-FOX_Kids_logo.svg.png


Fox Children's Network changed its name to Fox Kids Network in 1991, and from that point on began to become a forced to be reckoned with in Kids TV. Fox at this time also started its relationship with Warner Bros. Animation, which led to hit shows like Batman: The Animated series, and Animaniacs. Another company that would become a key player in Fox Kids' growth, is Saban Entertainment, Inc. A company founded by Israel business tycoon, Hiam Saban, known for his work in music. Saban's first show for the network was an adaptation of Marvel's X-Men, which became a smash hit for the network, and helped established Fox Kids as THE network for comic book adaptations. Fox's standards for children's programing at the time were much less restrictive than on the Big 3, allowing shows to have a bit more violence, and crude humor than what was found in typical broadcast animation. Like its primetime counter part, Fox Kids proved to be a subversive and edgier alternative to most of its contemporaries.





In 1993, Fox Kids greenlit a series from Saban that would become its flagship, and the network's longest running show, even all the way up to its death. The Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Hiam Saban had been pitching an adaptation of Super Sentai Rangers to networks for years, but most executives saw it as either too violent, or too strange. But Margret Loesch, who was willing to take risks, saw potential in Hiam's idea, and took on a full season, knowing that Kids would love it, and she was right. Power Rangers became a smash hit for Fox Kids, and an overnight phenomenon spawning tons of merchandise and stage shows.



Fox Kids would continue to develop new and innovative programing to keep momentum up such as Eek The Cat, Tiny Toons, Carmen Sandiago, and Life with Louie. The network also continued to make well received comic book shows such as Spider-Man TAS and The Tick. Another hit series for the network, was Goosebumps. A horror anthology series for Kids based on the series of books by R.L. Stein, showing that Fox was willing to take on shows the big three wouldn't touch on Saturdays.





But the mid-1990s saw some trouble. While Fox Kids was dominating Kids attention on broadcast, Nickelodeon was quickly becoming a powerhouse in Cable, thanks to the channel's unique style, and innovative live-action and animated programing with Ren & Stimpy, Rugrats, Clarissa, and Double Dare. Adding insult to injury, Warner Bros., one of Fox Kids' most prominent suppliers began taking back many of their popular animated series, such as Animaniacs and Batman, moving them over to their broadcast startup, Kids' WB!

It was also around this time, that the US government started getting weary of the content in kids programing, and was forced to take drastic measures. In 1996, the FCC, was given control of The Children's Television Act, which was passed into law in 1991, and the organization quickly instituted a more hands-on approach to regulating kids programing. The FCC now mandated that Broadcast TV stations must air a minimum of three hours of Educational or Informational programing every week aimed at kids or teens, and that the shows must be approved by the FCC on a yearly basis to ensure there's no getting around it. This was a big blow to the major networks, as that now meant that future seasons of programing needed to be designed with this restriction in mind. Fox, who was against this mandate from the beginning, managed to find a loophole. The FCC mandated broadcast stations carry 3 hours of E/I programing a week, but they said nothing about broadcast networks, which were separate. Seeing an opportunity, Fox passed E/I quota duties on to their affiliate stations, requiring them to supply most of the E/I programing themselves if they want to be affiliated with the network, a practice later adopted by The WB. With Fox weaseling their way out of the FCC's clutches, Fox Kids Network continued business as usual for 1997, it was also around this time that the network went through some major restructuring. Earlier in 1996, Fox Children's Network, Inc. merged with Saban Entertainment, Inc. Forming a new subsidiary of Fox Entertainment Group, Fox Kids Worldwide, Inc. The new entity, half owned by News Corporation, and Hiam Saban, would serve as the parent company of Fox Kids Network and Saban Entertainment, with Fox Kids' production studio, being folded into Saban. The merger also allowed for international expansion, with Fox launching Fox Kids networks on cable in place like Europe and Latin America.

Even though Fox Kids was still doing well, ratings were slipping, with Nickelodeon and other networks like Cartoon Network and Disney Channel eating into broadcast's lunch. Fox and Margret Loesch knew they needed a cable outlet for the already large Fox Kids library of shows, and fast. The company purchased International Family Entertainment, Inc. Owners of The Family Channel from Pat Robertson in 1997, and in 1998 relaunched the network as the Fox Family Channel. This is where things started to fall apart for Fox Kids. Now Fox needed to split its children's resources between broadcast and cable, and the company had a hard time establishing new hits for both. In 1999, rival network Kids' WB! began airing the Pokemon anime series from 4Kids Entertainment. It became a massive phenomenon, and did for Kids' WB!, what Power Rangers did for Fox Kids. In presumably a moment of panic, Fox Kids quickly ordered production on a direct answer to Pokemon, Digimon: Digital Monsters, licensed and dubbed by Saban Entertainment and based on the line of virtual pets from Bandai.



While Digimon wouldn't reach the hights and popularity of Pokemon, it proved to be a solid alternative to WB's offering, becoming Fox Kids' highest rated show for most of the early 2000s. But aside from Digimon, and Power Rangers, which was waning in popularity, Fox Kids had no other real hits, as the network developed a nasty habit of cancelling anything that wasn't either of those two.

Things weren't going well for Fox Family either, as Fox and Saban consistently argued over what exactly that network was trying to be. Fox Kids' Weekday block also came under fire from Fox affiliates at this time. With waning ratings, lack of hit programing, and affiliate's desire to air more adult programing in the weekday timeslots. It became harder for stations to justify carrying the network's weekday programing at this time. Fox had become a larger network by this point, joining the ranks of the Big 3 and making it a 4 man race, and affiliates felt Fox needed to move on from children's programing. With all these factors and tons of money lost on the Fox Family Channel and Fox Kids Network, Fox decided... maybe they were right. In July 2001, Fox reached an agreement to sell Fox Family Worldwide, Inc. to The Walt Disney Company, a deal that was completed later in October. Disney would acquire Fox Family Channel, Fox Kids' International feeds, and Saban Entertainment, along with all of the Fox Family Worldwide programing. Fox Kids Network in the US however, would stay at Fox for the time being, with the network's operations merged into the flagship FOX Broadcasting Company, leading to numerous layoffs. Fox Kids premiered its Fall 2001 schedule as usual, but with all of Fox's family entertainment now owned by a rival conglomerate, the company was already looking into outsourcing. Fox Kids officially ceased weekday airings in December, with Fox handing the time back to their affiliates, leaving only a 4 hour block of leftover programing on Saturday Mornings. Fox put that time period up for bidding. The winner? None other than 4Kids Entertainment, who was hot of the heels of its second big hit for Kids' WB!, Yu-Gi-Oh! Fox continued to air ABC Family Worldwide Programing licensed from Disney under the Fox Kids name on Saturdays for most of 2002, until September, when 4Kids launched its "FoxBox" which mostly consisted of cheesy English dubs of Japanese anime, which is what Fox Kids devolved to in its last year anyway, so it wasn't a much of a departure.

Fox Kids Network is an icon for most 90s and early 2000s kids. It was the network that launched a new age of Saturday Morning cartoons, showing that they can be more than just sugar-coated toy commercials with no substance. They can be smart, they can be edgy, they can even entertain adults. Things may have gotten rocky in the later years, but it's kind of tragic that Fox no longer had any kind of family division on television afterwards to compete with the others, Not like it matters now, as nearly 20 years later, Disney now owns ALL of Fox's Entertainment operations.
 
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JordanN

Banned
I had a routine back in the late 90s/early 00s.

Wake up early Saturday morning, go get a BIG bowl of cereal, microwave some frozen dinner and tune into the Fox kids channel from 7:00am to 11:30am (or before NASCAR would take over the rest of the channel lol).

In retrospect, it was unhealthy as fuck, but man, I was that excited every Saturday morning that I treated it as a ritual.
 

Jubenhimer

Member
I had a routine back in the late 90s/early 00s.

Wake up early Saturday morning, go get a BIG bowl of cereal, microwave some frozen dinner and tune into the Fox kids channel from 7:00am to 11:30am (or before NASCAR would take over the rest of the channel lol).

In retrospect, it was unhealthy as fuck, but man, I was that excited every Saturday morning that I treated it as a ritual.
I think that was a ritual for most Kids of that era, LOL.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Does anyone remember a mech show on Fox Kids... probably in the mid to late 90? It was definitely geared towards "older kids" and the mechs may have been wooden and/or supernatural? It was on for one or two years at most.
 

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
In the 80s, Saturday Mornings were the flagship time period for Kids TV and Animation. CBS, ABC and NBC all competed for the under-12 eyeballs by ordering series after series of action-adventures and crudely drawn cuddly mascot shows designed to sell kids toys as they gorge upon Sugary Breakfast Cereals in front of the TV. But in 1985, a newcomer to the Broadcast space was launched by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, the FOX Broadcasting Company. Named after Murdoch's Movie Studio, Twentieth Century Fox, known for the Alien and Star Wars franchises, Fox Broadcasting quickly made a name for itself with edgy, subversive programing like Married... With Children, and The Simpsons that flipped every perceived notion about broadcast television on its head. Fox eventually branched out to air Sports programing, and by the end of the 80s, it was already giving the big three a run for their money.

iu


But up to this point, there was one thing missing from Fox's TV offerings... Children's programing. While the network was popular with adults and families, Kids' shows weren't something Fox had offered compared to the big 3. In 1990, Fox decided to fix that. After a failed time-lease agreement with The Walt Disney Company, which led to the creation of The Disney Afternoon for syndication, Fox decided to produce a lineup of kids shows themselves. The broadcaster wanted to take a different approach altogether though. They'd noticed that most of their stations were originally independents that were already airing popular children's shows during Weekday Mornings and Afternoons, rather than just Saturdays, and their competition, have only ever aired Children's shows on Saturday Mornings exclusively, with Adult fare such as Game Shows and Soaps running on weekdays. Fox didn't just want to make a block of Kids shows for Saturday mornings, they wanted to make essentially, an entire Kids Network for its stations. A semi-autonomous entity that would broadcast not just on Saturdays, but also in Weekdays in the Mornings and Afternoons, which were growing to be key timeslots for kids. After discussing the idea with their affiliates, Fox Children's Network, Inc. was formed.

iu


FCN would broadcast Weekday Mornings, Weekday Afternoons, and Saturdays, for a total of 19 hours each week, and would function as a separate entity from the main Fox Network programing. The person in charge from inception, was Margret Loesch, who came to Fox from Marvel Productions. Fed up with the low quality and commercialism of broadcast animation at that point, Loesch wanted to avoid the strategy used by the Big 3, and put more of a focus on quality rather than just quantity. Fox Children's Network also setup its own production studio, Fox Children's Productions to develop shows for the start-up network. Fox launched its first slate of kids programing on September 9th, 1990. The launch consisted of shows such as Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, Bobby's World (which would go on to be one of its longest running shows), and Peter Pan & the Pirates. It was simple, but it was a start.

800px-FOX_Kids_logo.svg.png


Fox Children's Network changed its name to Fox Kids Network in 1991, and from that point on began to become a forced to be reckoned with in Kids TV. Fox at this time also started its relationship with Warner Bros. Animation, which led to hit shows like Batman: The Animated series, and Animaniacs. Another company that would become a key player in Fox Kids' growth, is Saban Entertainment, Inc. A company founded by Israel business tycoon, Hiam Saban, known for his work in music. Saban's first show for the network was an adaptation of Marvel's X-Men, which became a smash hit for the network, and helped established Fox Kids as THE network for comic book adaptations. Fox's standards for children's programing at the time were much less restrictive than on the Big 3, allowing shows to have a bit more violence, and crude humor than what was found in typical broadcast animation. Like its primetime counter part, Fox Kids proved to be a subversive and edgier alternative to most of its contemporaries.





In 1993, Fox Kids greenlit a series from Saban that would become its flagship, and the network's longest running show, even all the way up to its death. The Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Hiam Saban had been pitching an adaptation of Super Sentai Rangers to networks for years, but most executives saw it as either too violent, or too strange. But Margret Loesch, who was willing to take risks, saw potential in Hiam's idea, and took on a full season, knowing that Kids would love it, and she was right. Power Rangers became a smash hit for Fox Kids, and an overnight phenomenon spawning tons of merchandise and stage shows.



Fox Kids would continue to develop new and innovative programing to keep momentum up such as Eek The Cat, Tiny Toons, Carmen Sandiago, and Life with Louie. The network also continued to make well received comic book shows such as Spider-Man TAS and The Tick. Another hit series for the network, was Goosebumps. A horror anthology series for Kids based on the series of books by R.L. Stein, showing that Fox was willing to take on shows the big three wouldn't touch on Saturdays.





But the mid-1990s saw some trouble. While Fox Kids was dominating Kids attention on broadcast, Nickelodeon was quickly becoming a powerhouse in Cable, thanks to the channel's unique style, and innovative live-action and animated programing with Ren & Stimpy, Rugrats, Clarissa, and Double Dare. Adding insult to injury, Warner Bros., one of Fox Kids' most prominent suppliers began taking back many of their popular animated series, such as Animaniacs and Batman, moving them over to their broadcast startup, Kids' WB!

It was also around this time, that the US government started getting weary of the content in kids programing, and was forced to take drastic measures. In 1996, the FCC, was given control of The Children's Television Act, which was passed into law in 1991, and the organization quickly instituted a more hands-on approach to regulating kids programing. The FCC now mandated that Broadcast TV stations must air a minimum of three hours of Educational or Informational programing every week aimed at kids or teens, and that the shows must be approved by the FCC on a yearly basis to ensure there's no getting around it. This was a big blow to the major networks, as that now meant that future seasons of programing needed to be designed with this restriction in mind. Fox, who was against this mandate from the beginning, managed to find a loophole. The FCC mandated broadcast stations carry 3 hours of E/I programing a week, but they said nothing about broadcast networks, which were separate. Seeing an opportunity, Fox passed E/I quota duties on to their affiliate stations, requiring them to supply most of the E/I programing themselves if they want to be affiliated with the network, a practice later adopted by The WB. With Fox weaseling their way out of the FCC's clutches, Fox Kids Network continued business as usual for 1997, it was also around this time that the network went through some major restructuring. Earlier in 1996, Fox Children's Network, Inc. merged with Saban Entertainment, Inc. Forming a new subsidiary of Fox Entertainment Group, Fox Kids Worldwide, Inc. The new entity, half owned by News Corporation, and Hiam Saban, would serve as the parent company of Fox Kids Network and Saban Entertainment, with Fox Kids' production studio, being folded into Saban. The merger also allowed for international expansion, with Fox launching Fox Kids networks on cable in place like Europe and Latin America.

Even though Fox Kids was still doing well, ratings were slipping, with Nickelodeon and other networks like Cartoon Network and Disney Channel eating into broadcast's lunch. Fox and Margret Loesch knew they needed a cable outlet for the already large Fox Kids library of shows, and fast. The company purchased International Family Entertainment, Inc. Owners of The Family Channel from Pat Robertson in 1997, and in 1998 relaunched the network as the Fox Family Channel. This is where things started to fall apart for Fox Kids. Now Fox needed to split its children's resources between broadcast and cable, and the company had a hard time establishing new hits for both. In 1999, rival network Kids' WB! began airing the Pokemon anime series from 4Kids Entertainment. It became a massive phenomenon, and did for Kids' WB!, what Power Rangers did for Fox Kids. In presumably a moment of panic, Fox Kids quickly ordered production on a direct answer to Pokemon, Digimon: Digital Monsters, licensed and dubbed by Saban Entertainment and based on the line of virtual pets from Bandai.



While Digimon wouldn't reach the hights and popularity of Pokemon, it proved to be a solid alternative to WB's offering, becoming Fox Kids' highest rated show for most of the early 2000s. But aside from Digimon, and Power Rangers, which was waning in popularity, Fox Kids had no other real hits, as the network developed a nasty habit of cancelling anything that wasn't either of those two.

Things weren't going well for Fox Family either, as Fox and Saban consistently argued over what exactly that network was trying to be. Fox Kids' Weekday block also came under fire from Fox affiliates at this time. With waning ratings, lack of hit programing, and affiliate's desire to air more adult programing in the weekday timeslots. It became harder for stations to justify carrying the network's weekday programing at this time. Fox had become a larger network by this point, joining the ranks of the Big 3 and making it a 4 man race, and affiliates felt Fox needed to move on from children's programing. With all these factors and tons of money lost on the Fox Family Channel and Fox Kids Network, Fox decided... maybe they were right. In July 2001, Fox reached an agreement to sell Fox Family Worldwide, Inc. to The Walt Disney Company, a deal that was completed later in October. Disney would acquire Fox Family Channel, Fox Kids' International feeds, and Saban Entertainment, along with all of the Fox Family Worldwide programing. Fox Kids Network in the US however, would stay at Fox for the time being, with the network's operations merged into the flagship FOX Broadcasting Company, leading to numerous layoffs. Fox Kids premiered its Fall 2001 schedule as usual, but with all of Fox's family entertainment now owned by a rival conglomerate, the company was already looking into outsourcing. Fox Kids officially ceased weekday airings in December, with Fox handing the time back to their affiliates, leaving only a 4 hour block of leftover programing on Saturday Mornings. Fox put that time period up for bidding. The winner? None other than 4Kids Entertainment, who was hot of the heels of its second big hit for Kids' WB!, Yu-Gi-Oh! Fox continued to air ABC Family Worldwide Programing licensed from Disney under the Fox Kids name on Saturdays for most of 2002, until September, when 4Kids launched its "FoxBox" which mostly consisted of cheesy English dubs of Japanese anime, which is what Fox Kids devolved to in its last year anyway, so it wasn't a much of a departure.

Fox Kids Network is an icon for most 90s and early 2000s kids. It was the network that launched a new age of Saturday Morning cartoons, showing that they can be more than just sugar-coated toy commercials with no substance. They can be smart, they can be edgy, they can even entertain adults. Things may have gotten rocky in the later years, but it's kind of tragic that Fox no longer had any kind of family division on television afterwards to compete with the others, Not like it matters now, as nearly 20 years later, Disney now owns ALL of Fox's Entertainment operations.

I stuck with them for a long time. Started watching when it was just Fox Kids in about 1994 and until they started breaking up in 2000. However, they became the FoxBox in 2001 and stayed like that until about 2003. When it became 4Kids (I think), that's when I finally stopped watching it. I have every episode of Life with Louie ripped to a hard drive. Loved how many experimental originals they got and how they stayed funny in the late 90's when a lot of the bigger network cartoon blocks seemed to be getting stale (mostly Nickelodeon...Cartoon Network was great until Adventure Time ended).
 
Animaniacs, Batman: The Animated Series, Bobby's World, Eek! The Cat / The Terrible Thunderlizards, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Taz-Mania, Tiny Toon Adventures, X-Men:The Animated Series, Spider-Man, The Tick, Life with Louie, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, The Adventures of Batman & Robin, Fox's Peter Pan & the Pirates, The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police, Ned's Newt, Silver Surfer, Beast Machines: Transformers, Beast Wars: Transformers, Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, Cybersix, Digimon, Flint the Time Detective, Medabots Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century, The Avengers: United They Stand, Spider-Man Unlimited, Escaflowne, Monster Rancher

Man Fox Kids was home to some many cartoons I watched. Weekends and after school weekdays were all about cartoons for me. Wish some of them lasted longer. Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot was one that ended too soon. I never knew it was based on a comic Frank Miller and Geof Darrow worked on.

After Saturday morning cartoons left NBC, Fox, CBS, and other network channels they became pretty useless to kids on weekends.
 
It's hard to find some of the old cartoons that aired during the days of Fox Kids (like Eek the Cat) but quite a few are available on free and paid streaming services. Bought a few on DVD over the years too.

Damn I love that x-men cartoon. I thought I heard something about a revival on disney plus but that may have been a dream.

I read about that too. If they could make X-Men as good as the original I'd be down to watch it.
 

MaestroMike

Gold Member
I had a routine back in the late 90s/early 00s.

Wake up early Saturday morning, go get a BIG bowl of cereal, microwave some frozen dinner and tune into the Fox kids channel from 7:00am to 11:30am (or before NASCAR would take over the rest of the channel lol).

In retrospect, it was unhealthy as fuck, but man, I was that excited every Saturday morning that I treated it as a ritual.

same except for the tv dinner that was later in the day where I just watched whatever movies was on tv haha. usually always had either lucky charms, frosted flakes or cocoa puffs for cereal I think.
 

TheInfamousKira

Reseterror Resettler
Oh man. Bouncing back and forth between stations to watch Poke'mon, Digimon and Power Rangers rocked. If I had a particularly early start, WB would air Sailor Moon and DBZ at 6 AM for a time. Such fond memories.
 

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
Seems like I might be missing something here. Did Disney buy-out all of Fox's media? I know they swallowed up Fox Kids, Fox Family Channel (years before), and 20th Century Fox? Is anything of Fox's still independent of Disney or did they just buy out everything?
 

Ememee

Member
Wow, that’s basically like an overview of my childhood. Power Rangers came out at the perfect time for me. And of course loved Batman/Spider-Man/X-men.

I particularly loved amblin‘s animation. Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, Hysteria..great shit.
 

Jubenhimer

Member
Seems like I might be missing something here. Did Disney buy-out all of Fox's media? I know they swallowed up Fox Kids, Fox Family Channel (years before), and 20th Century Fox? Is anything of Fox's still independent of Disney or did they just buy out everything?
Disney acquired everything except Fox's news, sports, and broadcasting assets. Fox Broadcasting, Fox News, and Fox Sports are all owned by the Fox Corporation.

Jackie Chan adventures was the real deal.
Technically that was a Kids' WB! show, it might have aired on Fox Kids outside the US though.
 
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Happosai

Hold onto your panties
Disney acquired everything except Fox's news, sports, and broadcasting assets. Fox Broadcasting, Fox News, and Fox Sports are all owned by the Fox Corporation.


In other words, Disney bought everything good from Fox and left them with...well...the left-overs. Good thing I bought all my 20th Century movies and Fox Kids T.V. shows on VHS, Digital, DVD, or blu-ray before this all went down.
 
Still looking for DVD quality of Fox's Peter Pan and the Pirates. Can't find anywhere....only VHS rips.


There are a lot of shows not on DVD. Fox's Peter Pan and the Pirates is one I want too. I watched some crappy quality episodes on youtube. Been a while since I watched the show. I actually found Fox's Peter Pan and the Pirates to be more interesting than Disney's take on Peter Pan.
 
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Jubenhimer

Member
In other words, Disney bought everything good from Fox and left them with...well...the left-overs. Good thing I bought all my 20th Century movies and Fox Kids T.V. shows on VHS, Digital, DVD, or blu-ray before this all went down.
Fox kind of wanted to get out of the Entertainment business, refocusing on News and Sports. The only reason the Fox Broadcast Network is still owned by them is because of legal reasons as Disney already owns ABC.
 

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
Fox kind of wanted to get out of the Entertainment business, refocusing on News and Sports. The only reason the Fox Broadcast Network is still owned by them is because of legal reasons as Disney already owns ABC.
I think the 2000's was something they weren't ready for. I mean, I think they had 24 and That 70's Show and Everybody Loves Raymond airing in the 2000's. Frasier had gotten pretty stale by that time. I can't remember anything memorable they had on primetime after 2010. Seems like Netflix started eating up and producing out all the but shows in the 2010's and maybe ratings for cable syndicates will never recover from what streaming services has done. Fox was doomed by the end of the 90's. They lost too much too fast. It sucks that it had to be Disney buying them. If a distributor bought them (Warner Communications)...maybe it would have worked out better.
 
I think the 2000's was something they weren't ready for. I mean, I think they had 24 and That 70's Show and Everybody Loves Raymond airing in the 2000's. Frasier had gotten pretty stale by that time. I can't remember anything memorable they had on primetime after 2010. Seems like Netflix started eating up and producing out all the but shows in the 2010's and maybe ratings for cable syndicates will never recover from what streaming services has done. Fox was doomed by the end of the 90's. They lost too much too fast. It sucks that it had to be Disney buying them. If a distributor bought them (Warner Communications)...maybe it would have worked out better.
mLk0BQ6.gif
 

Audiophile

Member
Tbh, all kids TV has gone down the toilet.

The worst are the ones that have been remade with no edge and have been robbed of their art style. Saw a Dennis The Menace thing on a little while back and it was absolutely dire, zero personality. The Dennis & Gnasher show from the late 90s was soooo much better.
 
Tbh, all kids TV has gone down the toilet.

The worst are the ones that have been remade with no edge and have been robbed of their art style. Saw a Dennis The Menace thing on a little while back and it was absolutely dire, zero personality. The Dennis & Gnasher show from the late 90s was soooo much better.

We used to see a mix of funny/silly and serious cartoons, now we have cartoons that feel like they are made for short attention span having ADHD kids. I still watch some cartoons but I miss having a mix of serious and humorous.
 

Elcid

Banned
I think that was a ritual for most Kids of that era, LOL.
That was the fucking life. Now all cartoons are gay as fuck or just retarded. Sorry but I don't want my kids watching "She-Ra" the tranny princess. I let them watch things like Ducktales, Earth's Mightiest Heroes, and the Lion Guard.
 

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
That was the fucking life. Now all cartoons are gay as fuck or just retarded. Sorry but I don't want my kids watching "She-Ra" the tranny princess. I let them watch things like Ducktales, Earth's Mightiest Heroes, and the Lion Guard.
My wife and I haven't had children yet but we plan on showing our kids the classics. When they get older they can choose if they like what's new. There's really a tranny princess cartoon? Yeah, the Fox Kids days are over. Did anyone mention Space Goofs? That was a good one, too.
 

Elcid

Banned
My wife and I haven't had children yet but we plan on showing our kids the classics. When they get older they can choose if they like what's new. There's really a tranny princess cartoon? Yeah, the Fox Kids days are over. Did anyone mention Space Goofs? That was a good one, too.
It's supposed to be a girl I think but very obviously a dude.
https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.cnn.com%2Fcnnnext%2Fdam%2Fassets%2F181028111138-she-ra-and-the-princesses-of-power-netflix.jpg

7496445d40d456aca28b4cd2077919b1.jpg
 

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
I miss Bobbys World, is it on DVD or streaming?
You should be able to watch it on Amazon Prime Video. I noticed they have it listed there. As for DVDs or other video format releases -- the VHS releases were by Fox and are long oop and hard to find. They did release a few episodes on a couple DVDs under Starz / Anchor Bay...but not much.
 
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