History
Coinciding with Disney Channel's 15th anniversary, Toon Disney launched on Saturday, April 18, 1998 at 2PM as a spinoff of Disney Channel. The very first program that Toon Disney ever broadcast was the famous Mickey Mouse segment from Fantasia titled "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." Originally, the channel's programming consisted of older Disney animated series, including those from The Disney Afternoon. It has also shown some other cartoons, most of them produced by DiC Entertainment, which was Disney owned at the time the network was launched. For the channel's first year on air, a block of programs seen on Toon Disney would air on Monday-Saturday evenings on Disney Channel as a "sneak preview" of the channel for interested subscribers. In its history, Toon Disney had 4 logos. The 1st one was used from April 18, 1998 to November 4, 2001. The 2nd one was used from November 5, 2001 to October 10, 2004. The 3rd one was used from October 11, 2004 to September 5, 2005. The last one (which was a slightly altered version of the 3rd logo) was used from September 6, 2005 to February 13, 2009.
On September 1, 2002, Toon Disney gained a variety of new programming (such as The Weekenders and Lloyd in Space expanding the vast collection of Disney animation. Many programs from One Saturday Morning/ABC Kids joined, mostly without the expense of other programs. When that day came, Toon Disney stopped airing their old bumpers and station IDs which used the first logo. In 2004 with the addition of Jetix, and the more animated programs from Disney Channel, many of the older programs on Toon Disney vanished, as it happens with other TV networks over the years.
A new action-themed block named JETIX would be aired in the night starting February 14, 2004. Nearly a year later, Toon Disney was given negative reception from Toon Disney fans, due to the expansion of JETIX, which would become a 13-17 hour block later on and the fact that it took over more than half of Toon Disney's original time schedule; in 2008, JETIX had run 85% of the TV schedule. This led to JETIX dropping its origin block from ABC Family on August 31, 2006.
Like most other Disney-owned cable channels, starting in 2008, Toon Disney began airing in High-Definition (the only ones which didn't were ESPN Classic & SOAPnet). Toon Disney, at launch, was commercial-free until late-2000. This was when the network reached "critical mass" in subscribers of over 15 million. Originally Toon Disney had programming from The Disney Afternoon and One Saturday Morning/ABC Kids.
On August 6, 2008, Disney-ABC Television Group announced they would replace Toon Disney with Disney XD in early 2009, which is aimed at kids from ages 7 to 14.
Two months and five days shy of its eleventh year on air, Toon Disney (and Jetix) ceased broadcast on February 13, 2009 and was replaced with Disney XD. The final program on the channel was The Incredible Hulk, as part of Jetix. The first program on Disney XD was Phineas and Ferb. Most of the programs now air on Disney XD.
After the US version had ceased, many international versions of Toon Disney continued to broadcast until 2011.
Read more about this topic: Toon Disney
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