The Disney Afternoon

The Disney Afternoon was a created-for-syndication two-hour television programming block which aired from September 10, 1990 until August 29, 1997. In 2012, Disney announced that The Disney Afternoon would return this time as a four-hour syndicated block instead of two hours.

History
Some of the early cartoon series on The Disney Afternoon came from already in-circulation cartoons, such as Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears which aired on NBC from 1985 to 1988 and then moved to ABC in 1989. DuckTales premiered in 1987 as Disney was focused on incorporating animated series into its portfolio in the era of cartoons; it was Disney's only syndicated cartoon series until accompanied in 1989 by Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers. These two shows had been packaged together as a one-hour-long cartoon block from 1989 to 1990, until both shows were incorporated into The Disney Afternoon in September 1990.

Both DuckTales and Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers were syndicated and packaged at first through their original television affiliates, most of which evolved from independents to Fox affiliates with successful children's lineups. However, due to disputes between Disney and Fox later on, both shows were pulled from many Fox affiliates by Disney and landed on other stations in the same markets that were still independents by the time The Disney Afternoon came to play. Other Fox affiliates simply passed it down to their independent competitors by choice due to shorter time frames for local programming, mainly with the debut of The Disney Afternoon's main competitor Fox Kids and more stations premiering local morning news programs. However, some Fox affiliates aired The Disney Afternoon during the first two years of their existence before they either passed it down to their independent competitors or packaged the shows individually. This is mainly due to Fox Kids expanding their afternoon lineup to two hours.

Some of The Disney Afternoon's later additions were inspired by shorter cartoon segments in the short-lived series Raw Toonage, which appeared on the CBS network in the fall of 1992. For example, the show's "Marsupilami" segment was spun off into the series Marsupilami which in turn spawned The Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show which aired on the block. Likewise, the Raw Toonage segment "He's Bonkers!" was spun off into the series Bonkers which aired on the block.

Beginning with the 1994 season, Marvel Comics (which would eventually be acquired by Disney) began publishing a comic book series based on the programs featured on the block, as part of their line of comics based on modern Disney properties (the classic properties were licensed to Gladstone Publishing). The series mainly consisted of stories based on Darkwing Duck, with occasional stories featuring Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers and TaleSpin. It ended at 10 issues, but stories based on the block's shows continued in Marvel's Disney Comic Hits! and in the children's magazine Disney Adventures.

In October 1995, owing to decreasing business in the syndicated children's television market due to new competitors such as the cable networks Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, and the children's blocks of the new UPN and The WB networks, Buena Vista entered into an agreement with the Leo Burnett agency to market and distribute a revamped version of the block for the 1997-98 and 1998-99 television seasons. Leo Burnett established a partnership with Kellogg's—who had been a major sponsor of The Disney Afternoon, to purchase an amount of dedicated advertising inventory. The revamped block, downsized to 90 minutes, debuted on September 1, 1997 to replace The Disney Afternoon. The new block did not carry any blanket branding, but was referred to internally as the "Disney-Kellogg Alliance". In 1998, Disney reached a deal to program a new children's block for UPN, Disney's One Too, as a replacement for that network's internal UPN Kids block. The syndicated block ran until the debut of One Too on September 6, 1999.

The shows that aired from 1997 to 1998 were DuckTales, Quack Pack, Mighty Ducks and 101 Dalmatians: The Series, and from 1998 to 1999 it was formed by DuckTales, Disney's Doug and Hercules.

The Return of The Disney Afternoon
Following the relaunches of Toonami and Miguzi by Time Warner along with Snick by Viacom, Disney announced that they're bringing The Disney Afternoon back, this time as a four-hour block for syndication. Instead of the original block's shows (except for Goof Troop, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers and Timon & Pumbaa), it added One Saturday Morning shows. Also, the revival of The Disney Afternoon is aired on weekdays at 3:00 pm until 7:00 pm.