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.

Universal Kids' Anniversary

 

Four years ago today, NBCUniversal launched a new children's channel called Universal Kids. The channel airs programming for kids aged 2 to 11. At first, preschool programming was shown from 3AM to 6PM under the Sprout name - lasting even longer than the regular Universal Kids programming, but Sprout was dropped in early 2018 and as of now, this is no longer the case. Footage from the channel's launch day is shown above.

Once the Sprout branding was removed from the channel, Sproutonline.com became the Preschool section of the Universal Kids website and the Sprout YouTube channel was renamed Universal Kids Preschool. Today, the channel is known as Peacock Jr. Sprout House, the final program to premiere on Sprout when it was a 24-hour channel, became Snug's House, leaving only two traces of Sprout left - the sprout-shaped window on the Snug's House set and a promo poster for Sarah & Duck having the show's two main characters in front of a Sunny Side Up Show backdrop. The promo poster for S&D was changed shortly before said show quit the Universal Kids network, and Snug's House quit the channel as well, leaving no sign of Sprout on Universal Kids nowadays. When Universal Kids launched, it aired many shows from the Sprout channel on its branded preschool block, but most of them left the channel as time went by. However, the channel did start to air shows from Sprout's first two generations (The Wiggles, Barney & Friends, Bob the Builder: Ready Steady Build, and The Chica Show) for some time before they started to air "best of" blocks.

Happy fourth anniversary Universal Kids! (I don't like posting my opinions on this blog, but "unhappy" by me. I don't like it because of you-know-what).

The Sunny Side Up Show YouTube videos from Peacock Jr. made private

 

Attention everyone. I have news. The Peacock jr. account has made most Sunny Side Up Show videos on their YouTube channel private, meaning they’re now unavailable. Now, before you get all grouchy, take a deep breath, maybe count to ten, they may become unlisted or even public again someday. In the meantime, you can check out SSU videos from my channel, Let's Grow, jackiempayton, and some other accounts. Those channels may get terminated someday. And while we’re at it, we're waiting for more classic Sunny Side Up Show segments, cause there's a big market for them. Who knows, maybe someone like me will find them someday?