Background As a TV personality in Brazil and the rest of Latin America, Xuxa was extremely successful in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She hosted her own children's programs,
Xou da Xuxa and their Latin American version
El Show de Xuxa which were broadcast in the United States by Univision, repeating the phenomenon with the Latin community. In late 1991, two American production companies,
MTM Enterprises and
DIC Entertainment, approached Rede Globo and Xuxa Produções to produce an American version of the show. Both Xuxa and Rede Globo were initially hesitant, since neither she nor her associates spoke fluent English at the time.
Development and release During 1992, Xuxa received proposals from various media around the world to present various programs, but the one that caught her most attention was the United States and Canada markets, as it was the only one in the Americas where she had never ventured. Thus, negotiations with interested parties begin. While DIC Entertainment wanted to create a whole new specific show, MTM Enterprises wanted to do a project based on the
Xou da Xuxa. Feeling more secure and satisfied, both she and her team chose the second proposal, as this aligned more closely with her own ambition for an American program. Slated to run for 65 episodes in the first season, the American program was recorded in CBS Studios in
Hollywood, with a syndicated run on
The Family Channel. As the original version, the show was made for children and pre-teenagers between 2–11 years of age. Another factor that influenced the choice was that the
MTM Productions and they were one of the most acclaimed TV producers of the 1970s and 1980s. Expenditures around weekly production were budgeted between US$150,000 to $200,000 according to
Broadcasting & Cable magazine. The set design was a high priority, with a design based on different places around the world. It had the capacity to receive 150 to 200 children per recording day. The stage had been used for six weeks of recording with cumulative cost estimates of more than $2 million. To some observers, Xuxa's entry into the dominant American market reminded her of another multitalented Brazilian celebrity; commenting on the movement, the editor of Brazil magazine in Los Angeles wrote that "since
Carmen Miranda, Brazil did not have an exportable artist." Expectations about the premiere were high, since even before it, the recordings had been completed with satisfactory results from the producers and to promote the production. She was scheduled to appear on
Good Morning America to give a little interview, but the participation ended up being canceled at the last minute. A few hours later, it was discovered that Xuxa was hospitalized due to a fainting spell that occurred minutes before she went on air. The results of subsequent exams indicated that she had suffered drug intoxication due to incorrect treatment for a herniated disc crisis, which was the result of a work overload during that period. Immediately, she and her team returned to Brazil and the resumption of production was suspended indefinitely. The following year, the contract with MTM was resumed and new inserts were recorded by Xuxa in Brazil for reworked for some specific markets in which new segments or unaired were inserted. Broadcast by a pool of 100 stations and with an average of 3 million viewers per episode, significant numbers,
Xuxa lasted only one season on The Family Channel (renamed Freeform in 2018), remaining on the air between 1993 and 1997, including reruns. ==Controversy==