Background In 1996,
Cartoon Network created a Sunday morning block of preschool programs, consisting of
Big Bag, a live-action/puppet television program by the
Children's Television Workshop, and
Small World, an anthology of foreign children's shows.
Big Bag and
Small World moved to the 11:00 a.m.
ET hour on weekday mornings in 1998 before moving back to Sunday mornings later that year. After
Big Bag and
Small World left Cartoon Network's lineup in 2001 and 2002 respectively, an unbranded preschool block on weekday mornings consisting of
Baby Looney Tunes,
Pecola,
Sitting Ducks, and
Hamtaro was created during the 2002-03 television season. On August 22, 2005, Cartoon Network debuted
Tickle-U, the network's first official attempt at weekday-morning preschool
programming block. The block aired from 9 to 11 a.m. and featured a mix of domestic and foreign-imported series, with interstitial segments hosted by two
CGI characters: a red
butterfly-like creature named Pipoca (voiced by
Ariel Winter) and a yellow
rabbit-like creature named Henderson (voiced by
Tom Kenny). Programs on Tickle-U included
Warner Bros. Animation's
Firehouse Tales (its sole original series), Canadian co-productions
Gerald McBoing-Boing and
Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs (with
Teletoon and
Treehouse TV), and British series
Gordon the Garden Gnome,
Little Robots,
Peppa Pig and
Yoko! Jakamoko! Toto!, some of which were re-dubbed for American audiences. The block was criticized by the
CCFC, for its marketing strategies. Tickle-U ended on January 13, 2006; some of its programs still aired on Cartoon Network until a year later and in the United Kingdom on
the native Cartoonito channel.
Launch On June 14, 2021, Cartoonito's
YouTube channel uploaded videos featuring new
idents of the block's programs (which included
Esme & Roy,
Mush-Mush & the Mushables,
Care Bears: Unlock the Magic, and
Love Monster), and a newsletter was announced, with a new banner and avatar on the Cartoonito YouTube Channel in July. A trailer for the block was released on July 29, 2021.
Scheduling The block, originally eight hours in length between 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
ET/
PT weekdays and two hours (6:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. ET/PT) on weekends, premiered on September 13, 2021 with an episode of
Baby Looney Tunes. From there, the block would lose time due to viewer and ratings feedback, with the 1:00 p.m. hour returning to Cartoon Network on November 16 of the same year, then the noon hour on December 20. The weekend schedule was entirely retired on January 29, 2022, followed by the 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon block two days later. Through the summer of 2022, the block ended at 11:00 a.m. until the resumption of the academic year on September 5. A month later on October 3, the 6:00 a.m. hour was abandoned for Cartoon Network content, leaving it as a four-hour block going into 2023. It underwent two additional cuts, with 2½ hours removed on March 13 with a new 9:00 a.m. endtime, then another 30 minutes cut on February 19, 2024, resulting in the block airing for only 60 minutes between 7:30 a.m.–8:30 a.m. until its closure on May 23, 2025. ==Programming==