In regard to children's television programming, CBS has aired mostly animated series, such as the original versions of Scooby-Doo, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, Jim Henson's Muppet Babies, Garfield and Friends and the 1987 incarnation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This article outlines the history of children's television programming on CBS including the various blocks and notable programs that have aired throughout the television network's history.

History

Early years with Captain Kangaroo From 1955 to 1984, live-action series Captain Kangaroo served as CBS' flagship children's program. For its first three months, the program aired only on weekday mornings; a Saturday morning edition was added in December 1955. During the 1964-65 season, the Saturday broadcast was temporarily replaced by Mr. Mayor, a children's program that served as a vehicle for Captain Kangaroo star Bob Keeshan; after returning in the fall of 1965, the Saturday edition of Captain Kangaroo was discontinued again in 1968, relegating it to weekdays only. Except for pre-emptions due to breaking news coverage, notably the network's three-day-long continuous coverage of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, and a few episodes that ran for 45 minutes, the program aired as an hour-long broadcast on weekday mornings until 1981. On September 9, 1968, the program began broadcasting in color.

Its audience of predominately children could never help the program compete in the ratings with entertainment/news shows such as NBC's Today, although Captain Kangaroo would become a three-time Emmy Award winner for "Outstanding Children's Entertainment Series" in 1979, 1983 and 1984. In the fall of 1981, as part of an expansion of the CBS Morning News, Captain Kangaroo was moved to the earlier time slot of 7:00 a.m. and reduced to half-hour – at which time, the program was retitled Wake Up with the Captain.

In the fall of 1982, Captain was relegated to a Saturday morning 7:00 a.m. (Eastern) time slot. The network offered a package of reruns to CBS-affiliated stations to air on Sunday mornings in place of the previous block of animated series reruns. Most CBS affiliates only cleared the Saturday morning broadcast of program afterward. Still a third of CBS' affiliated stations had stopped airing Captain Kangaroo entirely after 1982. The program was finally canceled altogether in late 1984, citing a lack of affiliate clearances. Alongside Captain Kangaroo, CBS aired various animated series aimed at children during the 1960s and 1970s, such as the original version of Scooby-Doo and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.

The In the News era (1971–1986) From 1971 to 1986, CBS News produced a series of one-minute segments titled In the News, which aired between other Saturday morning programs. The "micro-series" (as it would be labelled today) had its genesis in a series of animated interstitials produced by CBS and Hanna-Barbera Productions called In the Know, featuring the title characters from Josie and the Pussycats narrating educational news segments tailored for children. This eventually evolved into a more live-action-oriented micro-series.

The network premiered its first in-house animated series since their original Terrytoons, CBS Storybreak, in 1985; originally hosted by Bob Keeshan, the half-hour series – which featured animated adaptations of popular children's books – was nominated for an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Animated Program" in 1986. Storybreak continued to air on the network in reruns until 1991, before returning in September 1993 with new hosted segments conducted by Malcolm-Jamal Warner.

1986–1990 One of the network's most popular children's programs around this time was Muppet Babies, an animated series which debuted in 1984 and ran for eight seasons. At the height of its popularity, CBS aired the program in two- or three-episode blocks. The program was briefly renamed Muppets, Babies and Monsters during the show's second season, with the second half-hour of the block filled by Little Muppet Monsters, a new series which featured live-action puppets and cartoons starring the adult Muppet characters. The program lasted three weeks before its cancellation (leaving 15 already produced episodes unaired), replaced by an additional half-hour of Muppet Babies. Pee-wee's Playhouse, which debuted in 1986, also became a major hit for the network's Saturday morning lineup; known for its bizarre humor, reruns of the series were abruptly dropped by CBS in 1991 – less than a year after the series ended its five-year run – following star Paul Reubens' arrest after allegedly exposing himself in a Sarasota, Florida adult movie theatre.

Another popular series was Garfield and Friends, based on the Garfield newspaper comics, which debuted on the network in 1988; the episodes featured a mix of longer-length animated segments and short segments known as "Quickies", featuring characters from the Garfield and U.S. Acres strips. Although the series had still been doing well in the ratings, Garfield and Friends ended in 1994 after seven seasons through a mutual agreement to cease production, after the show's production company nixed a proposal by CBS to reduce its production budget.

One series that never made it to the Saturday morning lineup was Garbage Pail Kids, a series based on the trading card series of the same name by Topps Company. CBS heavily promoted the series in the run-up to the 1987-88 season, having ordered an entire season of episodes; however it was abruptly pulled a few days before its premiere (replaced with a third half-hour of Muppet Babies), following protests from Action for Children's Television, the National Coalition on Television Violence and the Christian Leaders for Responsible Television due to claims that the series ridiculed the handicapped, glorified violence, and served mainly as a program-length commercial for the cards. Some advertisers (such as Nabisco, McDonald's and Crayola) also pulled out of sponsoring the program, either due to pressure from special interest groups, or because a preview tape of the show was not available in time for review. A few CBS stations (such as WIBW-TV in Topeka, Kansas; KOTV in Tulsa, Oklahoma and KREM-TV in Spokane, Washington) opted not to carry the program, notifying the network of their decision to pre-empt the program weeks in advance of the debut.

Another series which also never made it to the CBS Saturday morning lineup was The Noids, which was based on the Noid mascot featured in Domino's Pizza commercials and would have aired during the 1988-89 season. The show was scrapped for unknown reasons.

CBS Kid TV (1990–1993) In 1990, the network began branding its Saturday morning block as CBS Kid TV, and incorporated additional programs over the next few years such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures, Back to the Future and Mother Goose and Grimm. CBS Kid TV'''s break bumpers featured the character Fido Dido.

CBS Saturday/CBS Toontastic TV/CBS Saturday Morning/CBS Kidz (1993–1997) In September 1993, the block was rebranded as CBS Saturday. The block was later rebranded as CBS Toontastic TV in 1994, CBS Saturday Morning in 1995, and CBS Kidz in 1996. Additional live-action and animated programs that aired on the block around this time included Beakman's World, Beethoven, The Mask: Animated Series, The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat, and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.

During the early and mid-1990s, through a partnership between CBS and The Walt Disney Company, Walt Disney Television Animation provided much of CBS's animated programming (in addition, Disney partnered with CBS for some of its holiday specials such as Happy New Year, America and The All-American Thanksgiving Day Parade). The partnership led to, among other shows, several adaptations of recent Disney films (such as The Little Mermaid: The Series, Timon & Pumbaa and Aladdin: The Series) appearing on CBS's Saturday morning lineup.

Action Zone (1994–1997) In an effort to compete with other action series at the time, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was revamped into a more action-oriented series with less comedy, and along with new shows WildC.A.T.s and Skeleton Warriors was grouped into a new sub-block, "Action Zone", which premiered in September 1994. The sub-block featured a fly-through robotic style pre-opening that eventually segued into the show's opening title sequence. WildC.A.T.s. and Skeleton Warriors went off the air at the conclusion of the 1994-1995 season, at which time the sub-block was discontinued although Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles individually retained the Action Zone brand and bumpers until that series ended its run on the network in 1997.

Think CBS Kids (1997–1998)

In 1997, taking advantage of the tightened Children's Television Act regulations mandated by the Federal Communications Commission that required broadcasters to carry three hours of educational programming each week, CBS launched an all-"educational/informational" Saturday morning lineup for the 1997-98 season, known as Think CBS Kids (which served as both the block's branding and tagline), replacing CBS Kidz.

The block consisted entirely of live-action series, marking the first time that CBS did not feature animated series within its children's program lineup. Programs included the youth-oriented game show Wheel 2000 (which aired simultaneously on the Game Show Network), a magazine series based on Sports Illustrated for Kids, a revival of the popular PBS television series The New Ghostwriter Mysteries, the long-running Beakman's World carried over from CBS Kidz, the second season of Fudge, and "Weird Al" Yankovic's first regular television series, The Weird Al Show. In the News was also briefly revived as part of the Think CBS Kids block, hosted by CBS Radio News Washington correspondent Dan Raviv (in place of original narrators Christopher Glenn and Gary Shepard).

At this time, CBS reduced its Saturday morning children's program lineup to three hours, with the launch of the two hour-long CBS News Saturday Morning (which eventually evolved into the Saturday edition of The Early Show). Since 1997, like other networks, the scheduling of CBS's children's programming has varied depending on the CBS station (for example, then-affiliate KTVT in Fort Worth, Texas—now owned-and-operated by CBS—aired the experimental Think CBS Kids block from 9:00 to 11:00 A.M. on Saturdays and 7:00 to 8:00 A.M. on Sundays from 1997 to 1998). Think CBS Kids as a whole suffered from low ratings, resulting in the network canceling all of the shows after four months and even replacing Fudge immediately with reruns of CBS Storybreak for the remaining of the season.

CBS Kidshow (1998–2000)

In 1998, CBS began contracting other companies to provide programming material for the network's Saturday morning schedule. The first of these blocks was the CBS Kidshow (using the tagline, "The CBS Kidshow: Get in the Act."), which debuted in October of that year and featured programming from the Canada-based animation studio Nelvana (such as Anatole, Mythic Warriors, Birdz, Rescue Heroes and Flying Rhino Junior High), replacing Think CBS Kids. In January 1999, Franklin and Rupert switched networks, with the former moving from the CBS lineup to Nickelodeon's preschool block Nick Jr., while the latter moved from Nick Jr. to CBS.

Nick Jr. on CBS/Nick on CBS (2000–2006)