Families.com

Madeline Fretz - Was just surfing the internet, when I came across this neat little review of the Sprout website which has to be from either 2005 or 2006 - the Sproutletsgrow.com era. This review, which from a website known as Families.com, supplies readers with information about the Sprout website at the time such as, if you didn't get Sprout, you could learn more about its programming through its website.

The review opens with what you were greeted with when you entered Sproutletsgrow.com in 2005: “Hello, Sproutlets! Welcome to PBS Kids Sprout. We’re so glad you could join us. Use your mouse and find what you can play and do!” This is the greeting that you and your child will receive when you visit Sprout online.

The review also says "Sprout is PBS Kids for pre-schoolers." Two things: 1. While Sprout replaced the 24-hour PBS Kids channel (which returned in 2017) when it launched, I assume select PBS stations still aired preschool programs at the time, most of which also aired on the Sprout channel. A year earlier, PBS Kids GO!, a block of PBS shows for older kids, launched. 2. Some people get Sprout confused with regular PBS Kids, and wrote about it in a post about notable Sprout misnomers.

Also mentioned in this review are games that used to be on the website: "Jay Jay the Jet Plane has a fun flying game that you and your child can play. Bob the Builder has puzzles and mazes for you and your child. Thomas the Tank Engine has a match game, a racing game, and even a game where you can build your own engine!"

One thing Sprout is known for is that, unlike most American children's channels, it had original hosted programming blocks that aired in between shows, and that the blocks' hosts (both human and puppet) would show the likes of artwork, pictures and videos, messages, and birthday wishes, all sent in by viewers. When Sprout launched, the only thing you could send in to be featured on TV was birthday cards. The review mentions that you could send in birthday cards and wishes via the website, and you might see your wishes daily on The Birthday Show.

The review is written by Jaime Egan.

I'm always looking for old articles on Sprout to write about here, something I've been doing since I founded this blog, and this is one from Sprout's early days that deserves to be revisited.

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The TV Media Fan and Expert

Madeline Fretz - In 2019, the TV Media Fan and Expert (formerly King NOGGIN) was founded. The channel uploads "rare" clips from channels like NOGGIN and Sprout, and, for some reason, won't stop making videos. While this channel has uploaded many Sprout videos in the past, today, it uploaded a video of rare pictures I think are fake, like most of the stuff he uploads.

This has to be my favorite of his videos, but I don't know if it's real.

Some actually rare images are low quality, so TV Media Fan has recreated them. Example above.

...and makes instrumentals of certain songs and production music.

The video, which is set to an instrumental of the theme from The Sprout Sharing Show, consists of fake, yet "rare" pictures, something the TV Media Fan and Expert is known for. 

The first picture is of a promo for the show Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks, which premiered on Sprout in 2006. This picture takes place around the second generation; Jakers! stopped airing a few months before the rebrand on March 31st, 2009, and I don't think Jakers! aired on The Sharing Show. Fakers!

The second picture is of Frances on The Sprout Sharing Show. Frances probably never aired on The Sharing Show - it aired for a while during Summer Fun Fridays, was available on Sprout on Demand, and an episode aired for Hooray for Mother's Day in 2010.

The third picture involves the split-screen credits of Jay Jay the Jet Plane airing during The Let's Go Show. Jay Jay aired during Musical Mornings and The Sprout Sharing Show, but I don't think it aired on The Let's Go Show. PBS Kids Sprout TV Wiki doesn't say it did.

The fourth images shows an introduction for Ruff-Ruff, Tweet, and Dave on The Good Night Show. This has to be anywhere from Seasons 3 to 5, as, during those seasons, Lucy introduced shows via stars, whereas in the last three seasons, she introduced shows via a full moon. Two things: 1. Ruff-Ruff, Tweet, and Dave premiered on February 14th, 2015. 2. The You and Me Tree was introduced in 2011, and the Goodnight Garden seasons stopped airing a year later in 2012, so this picture has to be fake. Sorry, TV Media Fan!

The fifth and final image is of an airing of Super WHY! on Sprout. This could be real, and, if so, may be the only image that is real.

Thanks for taking a look at the TV Media Fan and Expert's latest video with me. I hope he(?) uploads more real content soon!

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Limited Ads Help Sprout to Grow

(PBS was one of the four companies that launched Sprout in 2005. Sprout, which aired some of PBS' children's programming, replaced the unsuccessful 24-hour PBS Kids channel on September 26th)

Madeline Fretz - One thing I like to do on this blog is write about old news articles about Sprout. One interesting little article is one published on April 6th, 2008, coming from TVWeek, the same website that brought us the "Saluting Sprout's Launch" article from 2005.

"Limited Ads Help Sprout to Grow," as I said, is quite interesting. One thing noticeable about the article is that the writer says "Not to be confused with PBS." People get Sprout confused with PBS or PBS Kids, so I'm glad she(he?) both wrote it and gave a brief overview of Sprout in general, to introduce newcomers to the Sprout brand. Now, for those of you who get Sprout confused with PBS, just remember that the channel was a joint venture between PBS, HiT Entertainment, Sesame Workshop, and Comcast (most of those companies no longer own the brand), and aired PBS shows until it turned ten in 2015.

The article also introduces readers to Sprout's blocks - The Sunny Side Up Show, The Good Night Show, and The Let's Go Show, and mentioned that SeaWorld was to sponsor a sea animal-themed block. I wrote about the potential block alongside other unfinished Sprout material on a previous post, and suggested that the block would become The Sprout Sharing Show. We're not sure, but hey, those are suggestions.

The article also mentions that some of Sprout's sponsors included the likes of Kimberly Clark (Huggies sponsored Sprout since the very beginning), Geico, Sony Home Video and Honda (which collaborated with Sprout to make holiday bumpers during the first generation). Also in the article, Sprout's then-president Sandy Wax said she refused for Sprout to air commercials for sugary cereal and other junk. After all, ads and sponsors are what this article is all about.

This 2014 sizzle reel mentions that Sprout had over 1.6 billion VOD views.

Around the time this article was published, Sprout was available in 37 million homes via Comcast Digital Cable/Xfinity (Channel 128) and DirecTV (Channel 295), and Sprout on Demand, which launched five months ahead of the 24-hour channel in April 2005, has had about 380 million orders. Wow, impressive! Sprout was a pretty small channel back in the 2000s but was still pretty big when it came to viewers and customers.

"All preschool all the time" was featured on the SproutOnline.com homepage, along with a list of Sprout's blocks and their airtimes.

While both Disney and Nickelodeon offered their own preschool blocks, Sprout was the first network that aired preschool programming all day. That's why they referred to themselves as "All Preschool, all the time," a slogan they've had since launch in 2005. "Preschool TV around the clock" was just a one-time thing to promote the channel when it launched. In the article, Wax pointed out that Sprout got positive feedback from adult viewers (referred to as "Big Sprouts" or "Grown-up Sprouts") even after two years of business.

The article also mentioned both of Sprout's blocks that launched during the channel's second anniversary - The Sunny Side Up Show and Musical Mornings with Coo, and mentioned that Musical Mornings utilized music videos from Sprout shows and live-action segments of kids getting ready for the day, while Chica on Sunny cracked open surprise eggs that were used to link into segments. Nowadays, there are strange kiddie videos on YouTube that use surprise eggs alongside other things, such as unboxing, toys of kids' show characters, and real kids (*cough* Diana *cough* Ryan *cough* *cough*).

The article ends with a pretty neat statement: "And if and when children wake up in the middle of the night, Sprout is there for them, and their parents." And I choose to end this post with that saying too.

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Overthinking It: Where are Star's parents?

The original Star from 2006.

Madeline Fretz - There are a lot of children's shows and sing-along videos (usually from the 90s) in which a bunch of human kids sing and dance with a large costumed character (one or more) - Barney comes to mind. As you probably know by now, I was born in '07, but being a children's television historian, I know a lot about these shows and videos thanks to research and YouTube. But wait! - there's one thing about these kids - their parents are rarely shown. The same goes to other, similar shows, such as Disney's Out of the Box (in which real kids make crafts and jump into pictures with hosts Tony and Vivian) and PBS' own ZOOM (in which seven kids play games and make things sent in by viewers). I mean, we see their parents on occasions, but they aren't shown most of the time.

Star from The Good Night Show is no exception. Look - we're Sprout fans, so we know him very well, don't we? He's a kid, he's with Nina all the time, he hasn't mentioned and there's no sign of his parents - weird!

Mr. and Mrs. C, Chica's parents

Chica's mom, Mrs. C, was a frequent visitor on The Sunny Side Up Show, appearing since at least 2009. After Chica plush toys sold like hotcakes, Sprout executives knew they had something special on their hands, so they started making a series about healthy eating that would focus on Chica in a farmers' market instead of the cozy comforts of the Sunshine Barn. Eventually, the show became Chica's Costume Coop, in which Kelly and Chica would go on animated adventures in the titular shop, which would become The Chica Show. Mrs. C was carried over to the new series, which also introduced Mr. C, Chica's dad. The two, played by Jen Barnhart and John Kennedy, respectively, served as great parents to our favorite chicken. They have also made occasional appearances on Sunny.

This is where Star comes in. In 2015, when Sprout turned ten, it introduced an animated Good Night Show prequel called Nina's World, about Nina's childhood adventures. Star, as well as Hush, Lucy, and Nina's abuela (voiced by veteran actress Rita Moreno), was also present. I talked about the show in a post comparing The Good Night Show to The Sunny Side Up Show, in which Sunny was the winner. As silly as it may sound, World would've been a great opportunity to see Star's parents, as The Chica Show introduced us to Mr. and Mrs. C (or "Cluckums" as they call each other). BUT WAIT! Nina was six in this series, but Star and Lucy were probably the same age they were on The Good Night Show, which had an adult Nina, years later. Similarly, Elmo and Big Bird on Sesame Street first knew Gabi and Miles when they were babies, but the latter two grew up, and now they're older than the former two. Weird!

Okay, enough about Mr. and Mrs. C. Let's get back to Nina and Star.

Have we seen Star mentioning his parents? No. One episode from Season 5 (or 3?) was about "Parents" (YouTuber Mommymeow32 uploaded a tape of an entire Sprout broadcast day to her channel, which had footage of the episode). In the episode, Star pretended to have a son called Little Star, and told Nina about the things he did with him. This episode also would've been a great opportunity to introduce us to Star's parents, or at least have him mention them. But no, the writers just went with no.

So where are they? What happened to them?

On the Scottish CBeebies show Me Too!, the character Bobby would often leave her son Kai at Granny Murray's house while she would clean buses at night. My headcanon (sp?): Star's parents would often leave him with Nina (or Melanie, OR Leo) for the night while they would work, similar to Bobby and Kai's routine on Me Too!. Does that work?

Sharon, Patty's mom

Reginald, Ricky's dad

The Sprout Sharing Show had Sharon Pig, Patty's mom, and Reginald Rabbit, Ricky's dad, both played by Forrest Harding. If Star's parents were ever seen, make them like Sharon and Reginald, have them appear occasionally in "blockisodes" (as us fans call them) and in promos, as well as in coloring pages.

So yeah, those are ways I would have it. Hope you enjoyed! You know what, it's pretty late at night as of writing this (almost 9 o'clock), I think I should go to bed now. YAWN! Goodnight, Sproutlets!

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