ABC Kids (US) - History

History

Although Disney's One Saturday Morning started in 1997, it was formerly ABC Saturday Morning, airing ReBoot, Schoolhouse Rock!, The Mighty Ducks, DuckTales, Disney's Doug and Gargoyles. Sometime around 1997, Peter Hastings, the creator and excutive producer of "One Saturday Morning", who wrote for Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain left both shows in order to produce cartoons for Disney and ABC. ABC was told by Michael Eisner to create a Saturday morning block that was different from the rest at the time. In February 1997, Peter Hastings pitched the idea that Saturday is different from every other day and to represent weekdays as buildings. He also proposed the use of virtual set technology; although he knew little about it at the time and the technology used was just starting development, Disney and ABC liked the idea. He hired Prudence Fenton as Consultant Manger and Co-Executive Producer. Together they sampled virtual set technology at NAB 1997 and chose technology developed by Accom and ELSET. Rutherford Bench Productions which had previously worked with Disney hired Pacific Ocean Post, POP Sound today, to produce the virtual set. The building was initially a drawing of Grand Central Terminal with a roller coaster but evolved into a towering mechanical 1. Even the interior has similarities such as a central high raised room with two wings on left and right sides and another on the south side.