DuckTales
The cartoon premiered worldwide between 18–20 September 1987 (the time and date varying between markets), with a television movie special entitled ""The Treasure of the Golden Suns"", which was later split up into a five-part serial in future reruns. The first season, aired between 1987–88, consisted of 65 episodes, the "magic number" requirement needed for a show to have a weekday syndication (five days a week for thirteen weeks). Disney then commissioned three more seasons – the second season (aired between 1988–89) consisted of two television specials entitled "Time Is Money" and "Super DuckTales", with future reruns splitting them into two five-part serials; the third season (aired between 1989–90) consisted of 18 episodes, with it forming an hour-long syndicated block alongside ""; and the fourth season (aired during late 1990) consisted of seven episodes (including three unaired episode meant for the previous season), which was used to form a two-hour long syndicated block called "The Disney Afternoon", consisting of "DuckTales" and three other half-hour cartoons.
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.