Here’s Why They Cancelled ‘ABC Afterschool Specials’ After 25 Seasons
On the afternoon of Oct. 4, 1972, ABC aired the first-ever ABC Afterschool Special and launched a children’s programming revolution. Called “The Last of the Curlews,” the animated special was based on a Fred Bodsworth novel, crafted by the legendary animation studio Hanna-Barbera and served as a sort of nature documentary for kids as it followed the tragic plight of a now-extinct bird species.
The episode won the 1973 Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Children’s Programming and introduced the Afterschool Special series to an eager audience of kids and their parents, who would continue to tune in for a whopping 25 years. ABC Afterschool Specials won 51 Daytime Emmy Awards and countless other accolades for its productions and educational achievements, presenting serious issues that truly mattered to kids from their own viewpoint.
So why did the ABC Afterschool Specials come to an end in 1997? Blame it on a changing advertiser market, “trash TV” and techy competition for kids’ afterschool time.
How did ABC Afterschool Specials begin?
ABC / Courtesy: Everett Collection
Brandon Stoddard, who was ABC’s director of daytime programming in the early ’70s teamed up with Michael Eisner, who was then a programmer and developer created the series in response to growing criticism about children’s programming.
“Partially because of that criticism and partially because of some advertising reasons, we developed the ABC Afterschool Specials, which a lot of people at the network had zero interest in putting on the air, the financial people and the legal people,” Stoddard told EMMYTVLEGENDS.org. “But Michael Eisner and I worked it out and we kind of jammed it through and they were instant hits.”
Stoddard credited the specials’ success to their 4 p.m. time slot, which allowed kids and their parents to watch them together.
“They were viewed by kids and their mother, instead of just the kid alone,” Stoddard explained. “So the kid could talk with their mother about the issue … and understand it and work it out with their own mother, with that parental guidance.”
What were ABC Afterschool Specials about?
Stoddard and Eisner chose their subject matter carefully and spared no expense in making sure each special addressed its issue in a meaningful way. Topics ran the gamut from divorce and other parental quandaries to bullying, addiction and teen pregnancy.
ABC Afterschool Specials also featured some of the era’s hottest young stars, or stars in the making, which added to their appeal.
Rob Lowe, Dana Plato, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jessica Alba played teenage parents (“Schoolboy Father” and “Too Soon for Jeff”). Val Kilmer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mare Winningham, Lance Guest and Scott Baio suffer the fallout of teen drinking in “One Too Many” (directed by thirtysomething hearthrob Peter Horton), and “The Boy Who Drank Too Much.” Jodie Foster tried to join Little League in “Rookie of the Year,” and Viggo Mortensen learned that drugs were bad in “High School Narc.”
©CBS/courtesy Everett Collection
Ben Affleck played a boy trying to help his divorced mom find love in “Wanted: The Perfect Guy,” and Kristy McNichol played a foster kid in “The Pinballs.” Eve Plumb, Christopher Knight and Moosie Drier played kids navigating their feelings about differently abled peers in “Sara’s Summer of the Swans” and “Hewitt’s Just Different.” And Lance Kerwin, arguably the king of the Afterschool Special, dealt with divorce (“The Bridge of Adam Rush,” “Me and Dad’s New Wife,” which also starred McNichol and Leif Garrett), self-image “The Amazing Cosmic Awareness of Duffy Moon,” “P.J. and the President’s Son”) and bullying (“Pssst! Hammerman’s After You!”).
“It was a great show about bullying: Should this kid stand up to the bully? Should he fight back? Is it right for him to hit somebody or not? Should he turn the bully in? It ends up with this great fight sequence,” Stoddard said of the latter, calling it one of his favorite episodes.
ABC Afterschool Specials aired its final episode, “Miracle at Trapper Creek” on January 23, 1997. The episode was filmed as a documentary and spotlighted underserved teens who join Montana’s Trapper Creek Jobs Corps to learn the skills and work ethic they’ll need for a better future.
Why did ABC stop making ABC Afterschool Specials?
Stoddard admitted to EMMYTVLEGENDS.org that Afterschool Specials, like his and Eisner’s other long-running educational juggernaut Schoolhouse Rock, were very expensive to make, which rattled both ABC execs and potential advertisers. The pair sold both on their timeless subject matter and high production values, which virtually ensured the episodes could be rerun, possibly for generations.
That argument, combined with the series’ numerous awards, worked for quite some time. But by the mid ’80s, daytime talk shows such as Phil Donahue and The Oprah Winfrey Show captured the attention of moms and dads who’d watched the ABC Afterschool Special with their kids. When the “trash TV” tabloid talk show craze — think Jerry Springer, Sally Jessy Raphael and Geraldo — took hold in the 1990s, the special’s kid-centered subjects and family-friendly nature were doomed.
Kids who were bumped off the living room TV turned to video game consoles, VCRs and other forms of afterschool entertainment. And because the ABC Afterschool special was specifically branded to the network, offering the show in syndication was virtually impossible.
“Syndication became more and more important … and I also think that the advertising market shifted back almost to the older mode of ‘I want my own show, to design my own show for my superhero character and make the story about the superhero character and make the commercial about the superhero character and they’re all the same thing,'” Stoddard offered. “I’ve never had a clearer understanding of why it fell apart.”
Can I watch ABC Afterschool Specials today?
Your best bet to watch ABC Afterschool Specials now is via YouTube. DVD sets can also be found on Amazon or other resale sites like eBay.
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