NBC Kids

 

Image from YouTube

As you found out in this post, in 2011, Comcast acquired NBCUniversal, and the two companies made a deal for the latter to acquire all of the former's products, including Sprout. NBCUniversal acquired full ownership of Sprout in 2013, leading to the PBS Kids branding being dropped from the channel's logo.

A year prior, a Saturday morning block of Sprout shows called NBC Kids launched on the NBC channel on July 7th, the day Roary the Racing Car stopped airing on the main Sprout channel. NBC Kids replaced Qubo, NBC's previous Saturday morning kids' block which launched in 2006. Qubo shut down on February 28th, 2021, after EW Scripps acquired ION Media, the channel's "new" owner.

Some of the Sprout shows aired on NBC Kids included Pajanimals, Noodle and Doodle, Justin Time, Make Way for Noddy, LazyTown, The Wiggles, The Chica Show, Zou, Astroblast!, Ruff-Ruff, Tweet, and Dave, Clangers, Nina's World, and Floogals. In addition, Sprout also programmed Telemundo, a block of its shows dubbed in Spanish, which included PBS shows like Barney & Friends and Jay Jay the Jet Plane (Jay Jay stopped airing on Sprout in 2009). Noddy was the only PBS show to air on the main NBC Kids block.

Several Sprout idents, promos, and commercials also aired on NBC Kids during commercial breaks, even ones for shows that didn't air on the lineup.

NBC Kids ended its broadcast in September 2016, and was replaced by The More You Know block.

Click here to watch Saturday morning children's shows on the Parents and Kids Share Together forum!

The Chica Show

 

Madeline Fretz - Have you ever seen The Chica Show? Think of it as Elliot Moose meets Mr. Benn meets Sesame Street meets The Sunny Side Up Show! The show features Chica the chicken from The Sunny Side Up Show herself, as well as Kelly (played by Sunny Side Up Show host Kelly Vrooman, who also played Patty the Pig on The Sprout Sharing Show) and her mom, Mrs. C (played by Jennifer Barnhart, who played Cleo on PBS' Between the Lions). They are joined by new characters Mr. C (Chica's dad) (played by John Kennedy of Sesame Street and The Muppets (source)), Stitches the mannequin doll (voiced by Saved by the Bell's Mario Lopez) and Bunji the Rabbit (voiced by John Taylor, who also voiced Sal the Octopus from Astroblast!). The series premiered on Sprout on November 24, 2012 and quickly became the channel's highest rated original series. It also aired on NBC Kids on Saturday mornings.

To promote the show's launch, Sprout interrupted its shows at points by having the characters imitating Chica. The same thing also happened with people in a promo, in which Chica herself makes a cameo. A sneak peek of the series was shown on Halloween 2012, which makes sense because the show took place in a costume shop, and you wear costumes on Halloween.

In addition, an online "Squeakstakes" was held in which viewers would select costumes for Chica to wear on the day of her show's premiere.

The show, along with Noodle and Doodle, left Sprout on July 2017, a month before its inspiration dissolved and two months before Sprout became Universal Kids. However, the show returned to Universal Kids on May 20, 2019 in order to revive ratings and appeal to nostalgia. This was the same day Mofy and Moon and Me started airing on the channel. As of 2020, the show has left Universal Kids due to the channel airing "best of" blocks daily.

My Week with 2011: Get Lazy!

 

One of the only TV shows made in Iceland, LazyTown is a show based on a play and a few books about exercise and nutrition. The show has garnered a large adult fanbase and spawned many memes. The show came to the US in 2004 on Nick Jr., but Nickelodeon lost the rights to the show in 2010. Where did it move to a year later?

Sprout! It moved to Sprout on September 5th, 2011, and aired during their afternoon Daytime block (the block before The Sprout Sharing Show) and on Sprout's Wiggly Waffle.

The next Valentine's Day, Sprout would give LazyTown what it gave The Wiggles three years ago - a programming block. The Super Sproutlet Show launched on February 14th, 2012 and aired from 2PM to 4PM ET (it moved to 6AM the next year). Sportacus and Mayor Meanswell would appear in the new block alongside a new character called Bean (Catherine Missal).

Sportacus also appeared in "Let's Move" PSAs with Chica and former FLOTUS Michelle Obama, in the "Family Challenge" app, and on The Sunny Side Up Show on July 27, 2012. Stephanie also appeared the same year.

The characters also appeared on Sprout and Produce for Kids signs in grocery stores and made public appearances in grocery stores to promote the two's partnership. 

Unlike Nickelodeon, Sprout showed all of Seasons 1 and 2. The show proved popular that Seasons 3 and 4 premiered on Sprout in 2013. The show also aired during NBC's Saturday morning Sprout block, NBC Kids.

The show left Sprout on September 26th, 2016 during the "Back to New" campaign, along with Poppy Cat, Tree Fu Tom, Earth to Luna, and Boj.

My Week with 2011: The Purr-Fect Show

 

The year is 2011. The Good Night Show is preparing for its sixth season - there's the You and Me Tree, Nina's new pajamas, Sandy Stories, Star Talks to Kids, and the "Clean Up Song." Sprout also adds two new shows for the season - the half-hour Pajanimals series and Poppy Cat, which is the show we're talking about.

Based on a series of children's books by Lara Jones, Poppy premiered on Sprout on November 7th, 2011, the day of the new Good Night Show season. The show also aired on The Sunny Side Up Show and on NBC Kids, NBC's Saturday Morning block of Sprout shows.

The show left Sprout on September 26, 2016 during the "Back to New" campaign, along with LazyTown, Boj, Earth to Luna, and Tree Fu Tom.

My Week with 2010: Let's Cook and Craft!

 

Madeline Fretz - Hi, my name is Maddie, and welcome to a week where we're covering 2010, a great year! This was not an ordinary year for Sprout, as the channel let go of The Let's Go Show to have LIVE weekend broadcasts of The Sunny Side Up Show. What did it do to promote?

When Sprout launched, its original series were all interstitials - The Many Adventures of Mr. Mailman, Sprout Diner, and Jim Henson's Pajanimals (the latter would get its own half-hour series in 2011). Sprout executives decided to try something different, something they have never done before… a full-length, half-hour series!

What was the half-hour series called? Noodle and Doodle. The series taught viewers how to make crafts and recipes that also got their own pages on Sproutonline.com - in fact, the show also got its own website on Sproutonline.com. The new show aired on weekends on The Sunny Side Up Show.

The series was hosted by actor Sean Roach, who joined The Sunny Side Up Show in early 2008. Roach was joined by a new female puppet character named Noodle McNoodle, played by an unknown actor. The duo was joined by real kids who would help out with the lessons.

The show also had its own animated segment called Doggity's Diner, which was basically Sprout Diner with dogs. That also got a page on Sproutonline.com.

The show proved very popular and continued to air daily on Sprout until Summer 2017.