Production and Airing
In 1994, The Magic School Bus concept was made into an animated series of the same name by Scholastic Studios, and premiered on September 10, 1994. Forte says that adapting the books into an animated series was an opportunity to help kids “learn about science in a fun way”. Around that time, Forte had been hearing concern from parents and teachers about how to improve science education for girls and minorities. Each episode of the series ran for 30 minutes. In the United States, the series originally aired on PBS as a part of its children's block, PBS Kids, through South Carolina's SCETV network; it was the first fully animated series to be aired on PBS. The last episode aired on December 6, 1997, when the series stopped production. The Fox network aired repeats from September 1998 to September 2002. Starting September 27, 2010, the Magic School Bus started a daily run on Qubo in the US, and on Saturday mornings on NBC. The Fox Kids and Qubo airings both use a shortened version of the opening. Based on information from their website, Qubo no longer carries The Magic School Bus in their programming lineup.
The Magic School Bus was also seen on TLC from February 24, 2003 until 2008, and Discovery Kids for a significant amount of time in the US, Pop and Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, with no plans to make more episodes, on November 9, 2002. The series was widely known in Canada for showing reruns on CBC as part of its children's block, now known as Kids' CBC, from 1999 to 2004. In 2005, Nelvana sold the series to Cartoon Network. The series continued on these six stations until February 4, 2006.
When The Magic School Bus is syndicated on commercial networks, the Producer Says segment at the end of each episode is cut out to make space for commercials. The Producer Says segments are only seen when the series is shown on non-commercial networks, international networks, VHS, and DVD releases. Within the episodes, there also are timepoints where the episode fades out and then fades back in after a series of commercials are shown. On non-commercial networks, VHS, and DVD releases the scene immediately fades back in right after it fades out as no commercials are shown.
The show's theme song called "Ride on the Magic School Bus" was written by Peter Lurye and performed by rock 'n' roll legend Little Richard.
The show was produced in an animation and audio style reminiscent of Hanna-Barbera cartoons of the 1970s and 1980s.
The show's voice director is Susan Blu.
Two of the writers for the show were Brian Muehl, and one of the Fraggle Rock creators Jocelyn Stevenson.
Read more about this topic: The Magic School Bus (TV Series)
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