The Disney Afternoon
Some of the early cartoon series on The Disney Afternoon came from already in-circulation cartoons, such as "Adventures of the Gummi Bears", which aired on NBC from 1985 to 1988 and then moved to ABC in 1989. "DuckTales" premiered in 1987 as Disney was focused on incorporating animated series into its portfolio in the era of cartoons; it was Disney's only syndicated cartoon series until accompanied in 1989 by "." These two shows had been packaged together as an hour-long cartoon block from 1989 to 1990, until both shows were incorporated into The Disney Afternoon in September 1990.
Dragon Tales
"Dragon Tales" is based on characters created in 1978 by Laguna Beach, California artist and retired educator Ron Rodecker, Rodecker was recovering from a coronary artery bypass graft when he began sketching dragons as a means of symbolizing forces in life that were too big to control. In 1997, Jim Coane, then a producer at Columbia TriStar Television, founded the artwork and developed it into a television series with several writers. The project was considered something of a risky venture, because it was not based on a well-known franchise like many children's television programs, such as "Arthur" or "Paddington Bear". The series was originally shipped to PBS member stations in 1995 at the suggestion of PBS, but all passed at the time. In October 1995, Jim Coane met Marjorie Kalins, senior VP of programming and production at Children's Television Workshop, and showed her the idea for the series. Kalins, loving the idea, brought the series to Children's Television Workshop, who agreed to a partnership with the Columbia TriStar Television Group. Kalins helped him and Columbia TriStar Television obtain a grant from the Department of Education and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The grant proposal was written by Wesley Eure. As Columbia TriStar was the TV division of two major Hollywood film studios, which in turn are owned by the Sony division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, "Dragon Tales" became one of the few PBS Kids and Sprout programs to be co-produced by a Big Six major American studio's TV subsidiary. The other PBS shows made by a major Hollywood studio were "Bill Nye the Science Guy" (made by Walt Disney Television) and "Curious George" (produced by Universal Television) In 2002, C-T was renamed to Sony Pictures Television, a company that would co-produce the third season of the program.