Big Bag (television channel)

Big Bag is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Entertainment, a division of AT&T's WarnerMedia. The channel was launched on June 2, 2014, and primarily broadcasts preschool animated series during daytime and live-action shows, movies and news during evening.

This channel is mostly targeted for preschoolers (3-5 demographic) during daytime programming and for pre-teens, teenager or young adults (12-34 demographic) during evening programming.

Development
Big Bag was a relatively short-lived preschool TV series that aired on Cartoon Network from 1996 to 1998, co-produced by Turner and the Children's Television Workshop, and created by Nina Elias-Bamberger. Notable for being Cartoon Network's first live-action series, the series combined live-action stories featuring humans and Muppet characters with various animated cartoons (very similar to CTW's flagship series Sesame Street.) Also unique for Cartoon Network, it originally was aired as an hour-long program without commercial breaks during its' first season. For the second season, it was reduced to a half-hour program (but still without commercials.) The show was taped at the Disney-MGM Studios park in Orlando, Florida.

The premise of the show featured human cast member Molly, and her Muppet friends Chelli (a patchwork dog performed by Joey Mazzarino) and Bag (a sentient cloth tote bag whose gender is inconsistent, performed by Rickey Boyd) whom own and live in a general store. Working with them are two anthropomorphic socks, Lyle (also performed by Mazzarino) and Argyle (also performed by Boyd), whom usually work in the store's stockroom and hang out in the sock bin, with Lyle often telling Argyle knock-knock jokes (substituting "knock-knock" with "sock-sock.") In the first season, local residents that often appeared included Chelli's human kid friends Kim and Joey, and a group of adult villagers including the shy Martha, mail carrier Josie, exercise instructor Trudy, wacky inventor Waldo, crossing guard Bernard, and veterinarian Dr. Furrball. All of these supporting characters were dropped after the first season, and the show's second season introduced a new humanoid Muppet girl, Sofie. Various cartoon short series (referred to as "shorties") were presented on the program, often coming from different parts of the world, including some co-produced with CTW for the series. Animated segments included Troubles the Cat, Koki, Willam's Wish Wellingtons, Slim Pig, Tobias Totz and His Lion, Samuel and Nina (the latter four only appearing in the first season) and Ace and Avery (this one exclusive to the second season.) Also in the first season, a "Big Bag Beat" music video would play halfway through the episode, which would encourage kids to get up and dance or play along.

The show was also noted for its' intended interactivity to viewing children. Kids watching the series were encouraged to watch it with a bag containing a pair of socks, two spoons, a hat and a cardboard tube. The characters in the live-action portions and Troubles the Cat would cue the viewing audience to take one of the items from the bag and use it (such as using the cardboard tube as a "Troublescope" in the Troubles cartoons.) It would also teach important life lessons such as cooperation, honesty, sharing, respect, persistence, use of imagination, and friendship. The show also won the Parent's Choice Silver Medal after its' first season.

One famous episode was in the second season when Elmo of Sesame Street came to visit Chelli, revealing they were pen-pals.

The show originally aired on Cartoon Network on Sunday mornings beginning in June 1996. In early 1998, the second season began, when the show was cut down to a half-hour and airing on weekday mornings (reruns of first season episodes were also edited down to a half-hour), before finally being canceled in September 1998, and ended up in reruns on very early Sunday mornings (usually at 5:30 or 6:00 AM Eastern) until late 2000, and has never been rerun since. Only five episodes (three from the first season, and two from the second season) were officially released on VHS during the show's run, along with an additional video, "Sing With Us," which compiled all of the "Big Bag Beat" musical segments. These videos have since gone out of print.

Tickle U was a weekday morning preschool programming block on Cartoon Network and Boomerang. The block premiered on August 22, 2005. The block was cancelled in January 5, 2007 (a week before the television premiere of Ellen's Acres). Tickle U was the first and only preschool programming block featured on Cartoon Network. Tickle U aired Monday through Friday from 9AM-11AM, and at one point, was expanded to 9AM-1PM. The block was hosted by the block's mascots Pipoca (voiced by Ariel Winter) and Henderson (voiced by Tom Kenny, who's done a plethora of other animated characters' voices such as SpongeBob, The Mayor of Townsville, Ice King and Quantum Ray).

The block also notably featured an innovative "Mommy Bar" with helpful information about programming and child care.

CN Real is a former Cartoon Network programing block featuring live-action reality shows usually on Wednesdays and Saturdays that premiered on June 17, 2009, promoted by rock musician Andrew W.K.. It featured live-action shows such as The Othersiders, Bobb'e Says, Survive This, Dude, What Would Happen, BrainRush, and Destroy Build Destroy.

Network executives and critics expressed concern about alienating Cartoon Network's core audience with this block, which heavily promoted live-action programming over cartoons. The concerns were well-founded, as none of the shows ended up building any ratings momentum, not even breaking the top ten programs aired on the network. The Othersiders and Survive This premiered on Wednesdays, while BrainRush and W.K.'s own Destroy Build Destroy premiered on Saturdays. On July 10, 2009 the network announced that CN Real would be consolidated into one Wednesday night block from July 15th onwards. Due to an overwhelmingly poor reception many shows in the block were prematurely cancelled, except for Dude, What Would Happen? and Destroy Build Destroy.

The block ended in early 2010. Although new live-action shows were produced, the CN Real block, deemed a critical failure, was ultimately dropped.

2014-2016
Big Bag officially launched on June 2, 2014 (with 18 anniversary from the series), at 8:00pm, with the original debut airing of the Destroy Build Destroy.

2016-present
TBA

Programming
Main article: List of programs broadcast by Big Bag

International channels
Main article: List of international Big Bag channels