1994–95: Planning stages In July 1994, ahead of the launch of The WB, plans for Kids' WB were already being made, with a September 1995 launch. The network planned new episodes of
Animaniacs, as well as reruns for the weekday blocks, and two all-new series:
The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries and
Freakazoid!.
Animaniacs would continue on Fox for the entirety of the 1994–95 season. Long-term plans included the expansion of the Saturday block to four hours in 1996, while the weekday block would expand to two hours by 1996 or 1997. In February 1995, a further title from Warner Bros. Animation, the
Animaniacs spin-off
Pinky and the Brain, was announced for the block. The block had plans to surpass
Fox Kids within a ten-year window. The first announced series coming from a studio other than Warner Bros. Animation was Universal Cartoon Studios'
Earthworm Jim, based on the video game series of
the same name. During August 1995, it struck a deal with Kraft Foods for "watch-and-win" sweepstakes. On August 18, 1995, 30-second previews of
The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries were released for
AOL subscribers as a test run. A full website was expected for September.
1995–99: Early years Kids' WB premiered on September 9, 1995, airing Saturday mornings from 8:00 to 11:00 a.m. and weekdays from 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. The block was structured to air in all
time zones, airing on a
tape delay outside of the
Eastern Time Zone to adjust the recommended airtime of the block to each zone. However, during its first five years, an exact timeslot was not announced on-air, leaving viewers to check their local WB station listings; since the programs had different airtimes depending on the local WB affiliate schedule in the market. On September 7, 1996, the Saturday block was extended by one hour, airing from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Simultaneously with the launch of the block, it also launched an online service which was initially available exclusively for AOL subscribers. Ratings for its first Saturday (its first day on air) had a share of 1.5%, ending in fourth place among the Saturday morning blocks, but the final figures were delayed due to some stations clearing Fox Kids on Saturdays, moving the Kids' WB block to Sundays. Although Kids' WB aired on almost all of The WB's affiliated stations (including those later affiliated with
The WB 100+ Station Group), the network's
Chicago affiliate
WGN-TV – owned by The WB's co-parent, the
Tribune Company – declined to carry the weekday and Saturday blocks. Instead, it opted to air its
weekday and Saturday morning newscasts (the first incarnation of the latter was canceled in 1998), and other locally-produced programming (such as
The Bozo Super Sunday Show) in the morning hours, and syndicated programming in the afternoons. Kids' WB programming instead aired on
Weigel Broadcasting-owned
WCIU-TV. However, WGN's
superstation feed carried the block from 1995 to 1999, making the network available to markets without a local affiliate. WGN-TV began clearing Kids' WB on its Chicago broadcast signal in 2004, taking over the local rights from WCIU-TV. At launch, 30% of the network's 78 affiliates cleared the block for Sundays. The total sum of the stations carrying the block, as affiliates of the network, accounted for 83% of the population. Plans for a weekday morning block started in early 1996, mirroring a similar move from UPN Kids; the block was set to start in 1997. For its second season in 1996, the first batch of new shows joined: two series from Warner Bros.,
Superman: The Animated Series and
Road Rovers, as well as WB-Nelvana copro
Waynehead created by
Damon Wayans.
Road Rovers was produced without the help of Steven Spielberg. During the summer months of 1996, a promotional campaign with
Best Western was held to promote the upcoming
Superman series, which included a limited promotional poster of the character in the months of August and September, when television promotion for the series was set to begin. On September 1, 1997, a weekday morning block was added from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. and the weekday afternoon block was extended by one hour, running from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. However, selected WB affiliates and WGN's superstation feed would not begin airing the morning block until the following day, due to local preemptions caused by preexisting commitments to air
The Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon. Some areas (such as
KTLA in
Los Angeles) aired the weekday morning and afternoon lineups together as an expanded three-hour block, running from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. On the same date, the block received an on-air rebranding – which included a revised logo and graphics package centered upon the
Warner Bros. Studios lot theme that was also used in promotions for The WB's primetime programming during the network's first eight years on the air – which was developed by Riverstreet Productions, and lasted until 2005.
1999–2006: Introduction of anime On February 13, 1999, Kids' WB made a breakthrough when the English dub of the
anime series
Pokémon by
4Kids Entertainment moved to the network from
broadcast syndication. It became a major hit for the programming block, helping it beat Fox Kids with its animated lineup backed by
Warner Bros. Other anime shows aired on Kids' WB in later years, such as
Cardcaptors,
Yu-Gi-Oh!,
Astro Boy,
MegaMan NT Warrior, and
Viewtiful Joe. In July 2001, Kids' WB's weekday afternoon lineup was rebranded as ''Toonami on Kids' WB'', extending
Cartoon Network's action-oriented
Toonami block to broadcast television, and bringing shows such as
Sailor Moon,
Dragon Ball Z, and
The Powerpuff Girls to broadcast network television. However, the sub-block was critically panned by industry observers, who noticed that the action branding of the block—which had added shows such as
Generation O!,
Scooby-Doo, and
The Nightmare Room, a live-action series created by
Goosebumps author
R. L. Stine—did not translate content-wise. And while the cross promotion between Cartoon Network and Kids' WB did allow for series to be shared between the networks, most of these only lasted a short period of time. This included
Dragon Ball Z and
Sailor Moon appearing on ''Toonami on Kids' WB
for only two weeks, and Cardcaptors'' appearing on the main Toonami block on Cartoon Network for only two weeks. In spring 2002, Kids' WB announced that they would drop the Toonami name from their weekday lineup, once again making the Toonami brand exclusive to Cartoon Network. On September 3, 2001, the Kids' WB weekday morning block was retired, with The WB giving that slot back to its local affiliates to carry locally-produced shows, syndicated programming and/or
infomercials. On May 31, 2005, The WB announced that the weekday afternoon Kids' WB block would be retired "at the request of the local affiliates," as it became financially unattractive due to the fact broadcast stations perceived that children's programming viewership on afternoon timeslots had gravitated more towards cable networks – these stations began to target more adult audiences with
talk shows and sitcom reruns in the daytime. Kids' WB's weekday programming continued, but with redundant programming and theme weeks until December 30, 2005 (the block began to increasingly promote Cartoon Network, their afternoon
Miguzi block,
Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, and the Kids' WB Saturday morning lineup during the transition). The weekday afternoon Kids' WB block aired for the last time on December 30, 2005, and was replaced on January 2, 2006, by "
Daytime WB", a more adult-targeted general entertainment block featuring repeats of sitcoms and drama series formerly seen on the major networks. As a result, the Saturday morning Kids' WB lineup that remained was extended by one hour on January 7, 2006, running from 7:00 a.m. to noon, no longer affected by
time zone variances.
2006–08: Move to The CW and closure On January 24, 2006,
Warner Bros. Television (producer of ''Kids' WB'' and owner of the block's original broadcaster from 1995 to 2006, The WB) and
CBS Corporation (owner of
UPN and subsidiary of
National Amusements, who also owns film studio
Paramount Pictures' parent company
Viacom) announced that they would merge both The WB and UPN into
The CW, which would primarily air programs aired by its two soon-to-be predecessor networks as part of its initial lineup. The combined network utilized The WB's scheduling practices (inheriting the 30-hour weekly programming schedule that the network utilized at the time of the announcement) and brought the Kids' WB block, still run by Warner Bros. Television and maintaining the same name, to the new lineup (The CW's decision to use The WB's scheduling model was mainly due to the fact that it included children's and daytime programming blocks that were not offered by UPN, which had not aired any children's programming since the
Disney's One Too block was cancelled in August 2003). Notably, during this time
AOL—then a sister company to Warner Bros.—was the main sponsor of CBS' own Saturday morning block
KOL Secret Slumber Party, but at no point did neither Kids' WB nor SSP advertise each other's programs—most likely because SSP was produced and operated by
DIC Entertainment and was aimed at girls, as opposed to the boy-centric Kids' WB. On October 2, 2007, The CW announced that it would cancel the Kids' WB programming block through a joint decision between corporate parents Time Warner and CBS Corporation, due to the effects of children's advertising limits and cable competition; the network also announced that it would sell the five-hour Saturday programming slot to
4Kids Entertainment. The Kids' WB block aired for the final time on May 17, 2008 (for some stations that aired the block on a day-behind basis, the block's last airdate was on May 18, 2008). On May 24, 2008, 4Kids launched
The CW4Kids in place of Kids' WB. The lineup for the block consisted of 4Kids-produced shows, such as
Chaotic, as well as new seasons of
Yu-Gi-Oh! and
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The official site, TheCW4Kids.com, officially launched on April 20, 2008. The block was renamed
Toonzai on August 14, 2010, it was replaced by
Vortexx (programmed by
Saban Brands) on August 25, 2012, and it continued to air until it ended on September 27, 2014; the block that currently airs on The CW is
One Magnificent Morning, which debuted on October 4, 2014.
2008–present: Online networks On April 28, 2008, Warner Bros. Entertainment announced that The WB and Kids' WB would be relaunched as online networks, with the Kids' WB network consisting of five subchannels: ''Kids' WB!
(for WB shows for kids and families), Kids' WB! Jr.
(for shows for younger children), Scooby-Doo, Looney Tunes
, and two different websites of DC Kids
: DC HeroZone.com
and DC Beyond.com'' (for action-oriented animated shows for DC fans). After the dissolution of
In2TV, the Kids' WB online portal absorbed most of that service's children's programming. The service was significantly scaled back in 2013, with most of the archival content being removed. The archival content can be easily accessed through the
Internet Archive's
Wayback Machine. The site was split into 3 websites on May 17, 2015:
DCKids.com,
LooneyTunes.com, and
ScoobyDoo.com. All three are grouped into
WB Kids Sites. The decision to split the site into three ended, after almost twenty years, the use of the "Kids' WB!" brand name. Also, the WB Kids Sites got new
YouTube channels: WB Kids for main Warner Bros. properties, and DC Kids for DC Comics properties. In July 2016, 2 of the 3 websites re-merged into "WBKids GO!". DCKids.com remained active until 2023. On December 14, 2023, the WBKids GO! and DC Kids websites appear to have been shut down; the links to their websites now redirect to the respective YouTube channels. ==Programming==