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The
American Broadcasting Company The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network. It is the flagship property of the ABC Entertainment Group division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, Calif ...
coined the term Afterschool Special in 1972 with a series of
television film A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...
s, usually dealing with controversial or socially relevant issues, that were generally broadcast in the late afternoon and meant to be viewed by school-age children, particularly teenagers. The specials were generally broadcast four to six times during the school year, pre-empting local programming that would usually follow the network schedule in the late afternoon hours. ABC's series ran from 1972 to 1997.


Competitors

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
distributed its own productions as the ''CBS Afternoon Playhouse'' (later known as ''
CBS Schoolbreak Special ''CBS Schoolbreak Special'' is an American anthology series for teenagers that aired on CBS from December 1978 to January 1996. The series began under the title ''CBS Afternoon Playhouse'', and was changed during the 1984–85 season. The concept ...
''). It also had a program called ''
Famous Classic Tales ''Famous Classic Tales'' is an animated anthology television series featuring animated adaptations of classic children's stories which aired on CBS from 1970 to 1984. The series was produced by the Australian division of Hanna-Barbera and Air Prog ...
'', which aired Australian cartoons that were adapted from literature books (similar to '' Family Classic Tales'').
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
had afterschool programs under the umbrella title ''
Special Treat ''Special Treat'' (also known as ''NBC Special Treat'') is an American anthology series of television specials on NBC that were geared toward teenagers, similar to ''ABC Afterschool Special''. It debuted in 1975 and ran through the 1985–86 seas ...
''. ABC had the ''
ABC Afterschool Special ''ABC Afterschool Special'' is an American television anthology series that aired on ABC from October 4, 1972, to January 23, 1997, usually in the late afternoon on weekdays. Most episodes were dramatically presented situations, often controve ...
''; similar programs included ''
The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie ''The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie'' — retitled ''The New Saturday Superstar Movie'' for its second season — is a series of one-hour animated made-for-television films (some of which also contained live action sequences), broadcast on the ABC ...
'' and the ''
ABC Weekend Special ''ABC Weekend Special'' is a weekly 30-minute American television anthology series for children that aired Saturday mornings on ABC from 1977 to 1997, which featured a wide variety of stories that were both live-action and animated. Similar to b ...
''.


Legacy

The cult TV show ''
Strangers with Candy ''Strangers with Candy'' is an American comedy television series produced by Comedy Central. It first aired on April 7, 1999, and concluded its third and final season on October 2, 2000. Its timeslot was Sundays at 10:00 p.m. ( ET). A pr ...
'' and its 2005 feature film adaptation, featuring
Amy Sedaris Amy Louise Sedaris (; born March 29, 1961) is an American actress, comedian, and writer. Most recently, she has appeared in both ''The Mandalorian'' (2019–2020) and '' The Book of Boba Fett'' (2022) as Peli Motto. She played Jerri Blank in the ...
as an ex-con, prostitute, and junkie, spoofs afterschool special conventions.Strangers With Candy, AV Club
/ref>


See also

* ''Degrassi'' (franchise) * ''
Last of the Curlews ''Last of the Curlews'' is a novel, a fictionalized account of the life of the last Eskimo curlew. It was written by Fred Bodsworth, a Canadian newspaper reporter and naturalist, and published in 1954. Plot introduction The story follows the bird ...
'' – The very first ''
ABC Afterschool Special ''ABC Afterschool Special'' is an American television anthology series that aired on ABC from October 4, 1972, to January 23, 1997, usually in the late afternoon on weekdays. Most episodes were dramatically presented situations, often controve ...
'' (1972), and one of a very few
animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...
ones. * ''
Schoolhouse Rock! ''Schoolhouse Rock!'' is an American interstitial programming series of animated musical educational short films (and later, videos) that aired during the Saturday morning children's programming block on the U.S. television network ABC. The t ...
'' *
Public information film Public information films (PIFs) are a series of government-commissioned short films, shown during television advertising breaks in the United Kingdom. The name is sometimes also applied, ''faute de mieux'', to similar films from other countries, ...
– In the UK, extended versions of these were shown in schools. These were often about safety. *
Very special episode "Very special episode" is an advertising term originally used in American television promos to refer to an episode of a sitcom or drama series which deals with a difficult or controversial social issue. The usage of the term peaked in the 1980s ...
*
WonderWorks ''WonderWorks'' is an anthology series which ran from 1984 to 1992. Produced by the Public Broadcasting Service, the Walt Disney Company purchased the home video rights to the series in 1987 and was responsible for making the series available t ...
– Produced several afterschool-type specials for PBS


References


External links


Complete list of ''ABC After School Specials''
at the
Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

Complete list of ''CBS Schoolbreak Specials''
at the
Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

Partial list of ''NBC Special Treat'' episodes
at the
Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

Reviews of a DVD collection of ''ABC After School Specials''

"The Strange Afterlife of the After School Special"
by Joanna Weiss, ''
The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'', January 1, 2006 *
My Dad Lives in a Downtown Hotel: The Subtle Brilliance of the After School Special
by Marisa Meltzer, ''
Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
'', July 20, 2006 {{DEFAULTSORT:After School Special 1970s American television specials 1970s in television 1970s neologisms 1980s in television 1990s in television Television specials Television terminology