Disney Television Animation

Disney Television Animation (DTVA), formerly known as Walt Disney Pictures Television Animation Group and Walt Disney Television Animation, is the television animation production arm of Disney Branded Television, a sub-division of the Disney General Entertainment Content division of The Walt Disney Company established on December 5, 1984 by Gary Krisel during the reorganization and subsequent re-incorporation of The Walt Disney Company following the arrival of then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner.

The division is responsible for creating, developing and producing animation-oriented television series, films, specials and short films for broadcast predominantly on the 3 main Disney-branded networks; Disney Channel, Disney XD and Disney Junior, as well as Disney+.

History

Background

The Walt Disney Company first ventured into the television industry as early as 1950, beginning with the one-hour Christmas special, ''One Hour in Wonderland''.
This was followed by the 1951 Christmas special, ''The Walt Disney Christmas Show'', the long-running (1954–2008) anthology series, ''The Wonderful World of Disney'' (which was Disney's first regular series as a whole), the children's variety show ''The Mickey Mouse Club'', and the adventure series, ''Zorro'' (1957–1959).

However, one element was missing from Disney's expansion into television: An original animated television series. Until the early '80s, the studio had never produced its own original animated shows in-house, because Walt Disney felt it was economically impossible. Nearly all pre-1985 TV animation was wrap-around segments made to bridge the gaps on existing theatrical material on ''The Wonderful World of Disney''. Osamu Tezuka met Walt at the 1964 World's Fair, at which time Disney said he hoped to "make something just like" Tezuka's ''Astro Boy'' someday, but unfortunately, nothing came of it.

1984–1990: Early Beginnings

The hiring of a new CEO for Walt Disney Productions in 1984, Michael Eisner, lead him to push to expand Disney into new areas thus the establishment of a television animation division that year, whose output would be shopped to all markets: networks, Disney Channel and syndication. Eisner held a meeting at his home in which he brought up the concept of doing a series on the Gummi bear as his kids like the candy. Originally, the staff was told that they could not use the principal Disney cartoon characters in the new shows.

The Walt Disney Television Animation department was started in November 1984 with Gary Krisel as president and Michael Webster as senior vice president.

This was considered a risky move because animated TV series was generally considered low-budget investments for most of the history of TV cartoons up through the 1980s.
Many critics say that Disney's own animation studio had lost most of its luster during the period from Walt Disney's passing in the 1960s through the 1980s. However, the studio took several risks that paid off handsomely. The studio successfully gambled on the idea that a substantially larger investment into quality animation could be made back through both network television and over-the-air in syndication, as well as cable. The final result is a string of higher budgeted animated television productions which proved to be profitable ventures and raised the standard for the TV medium.

The first productions to make it to air from the studio arrived in 1985, with Eisner's concept fleshed out into '' Adventures of the Gummi Bears'', joined by an original concept ''The Wuzzles'', both which are based upon talking animal-based conceptions. The third series in a similar vein, '' Fluppy Dogs'', was produced as a single hour-long TV movie pilot that aired on ABC on Thanksgiving 1986 and was loosely based a series of children's books and line of toys about a race of anthropomorphic pastel-colored dimension-hopping alien called "fluppy dogs." Dismal viewership ensured the project never made it to series.

In 1987, Disney finally unveiled the newest series yet in its cycle, and the first in their successful long-time line of syndicated animated shows, ''DuckTales''. Though forbidden from using the star characters, minor characters such as Scrooge McDuck and Huey, Dewey and Louie were allowed, and Disney did concede to allow for a brief appearance by Donald Duck to establish the series, allowing them to adapt the Duck universe adventure serials by Carl Barks into animation. The show was successful enough to spawn a feature film, '' DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp'', and two spin-off series: ''Darkwing Duck'' and '' Quack Pack''. 1990 release ''Treasure of the Lost Lamp'' was the first movie from TV Animation Disney MovieToon unit. Disney Television Animation hired a director of specials, Sharon Morrill, in 1993.

1990–2003: Broadcast Networks & Syndication era

The Disney Afternoon

The success of ''DuckTales'' also paved the way for a new wave of high-quality animated TV series, including Disney's own '' The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh'' in 1988. Later, early that spring, '' Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers'' debuted on March 4, 1989, and was paired with ''DuckTales'' in an hour-long syndicated show through the 1989-1990 television season. In the 1990–1991 season, Disney expanded the idea even further, to create '' The Disney Afternoon'', a two-hour-long syndicated block of half-hour cartoons, which premiered much later on September 10, 1990. ''DuckTales'' was one of the early flagship cartoons in the block.

On August 24, 1994 with Jeffrey Katzenberg's resignation, Richard Frank became head of newly formed Walt Disney Television and Telecommunications (WDTT), which included WDTA, from units of The Walt Disney Studios. Morrill was in charge of the first ''Aladdin'' DTV sequel launching Disney Video Premiere/Direct to Video unit.

Three overseas Disney studios were set up to produce the company's animated television series. Disney Animation Australia was started in 1988. In 1989, the Brizzi brothers sold Brizzi Films to Disney Television Animation and was renamed Walt Disney Animation France. Also that year, Disney Animation Japan was started. Walt Disney Animation Canada was opened in January 1996 to tap Canada's animator pool and produce direct-to-video. As direct-to-video increased in importance, the overseas studios moved to making feature films.

WDTT chair Frank left Disney in March 1995. With Krisel expecting to be promoted to head up WDTT but passed over, Krisel left WDTA at the end of his contract in January 1996. At the time the Walt Disney Company merged with Capital Cities/ ABC, TV Animation was a unit of Walt Disney Television within the Walt Disney Television and Telecommunications group (WDTT). With the retirement of WDTT group president Dennis Hightower in April 1996 and ongoing post-merger reorganization, the unit (along with its Disney TV parent) was transferred to the Walt Disney Studios.

One Saturday Morning/ABC Kids & One Too

When the September 1, 1997 season started, the block dropped ''The Disney Afternoon'' (temporally rebranded as the ''"Disney-Kellogg Alliance"''), moving shows to Disney Channel. On September 13, 1997, Disney's ABC unit launched '' Disney's One Saturday Morning''. The programming block included several new shows, such as ''101 Dalmatians'', '' Recess'', '' Pepper Ann'', ''Disney's Doug,'' and ''Mickey Mouse Works.''

In January 1998, Disney also reached a deal to program a new children's block for UPN, ''Disney's One Too'', to replace that network's internal UPN Kids block. The syndicated block ran until the debut of ''One Too'' on September 6, 1999; which aired mainly the same shows as ''One Saturday Morning''.

By April 1998, Disney MovieToons was folded in with Walt Disney Video Premieres films and network TV specials of Disney TV Animation as Morrill moved to executive vice president over her pre-existing units. At the same time, Barry Blumberg was elevated to the executive vice president for network and syndicated animated TV series. Both reported to Disney Television president Charles Hirschhorn.

In the second quarter of 2000, due to weak financial performance, Disney Animation Canada was closed. David Stainton took charge of the company as executive vice president in January 2000 then as president in February 2002 under Thomas Schumacher.

Due to the reconstruction, Disney & ABC also rebranded its ''One Saturday Morning'' block to ''ABC Kids'' (a subtle tribute to the Fox Kids brand after being acquired by Disney through its purchase of Fox Family Worldwide in 2001) on September 14, 2002. On August 31, 2003, Disney discontinued the ''One Too'' block, thus ending their deal with UPN.

After the relaunch as ABC Kids, many of the shows' premieres moved to sister network Toon Disney due to schedule constraints. The remaining shows included: '' The Weekenders'', ''Teacher's Pet'', ''House of Mouse'', ''Lloyd in Space'', and ''Fillmore!

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