WonderWorks

Last updated
WonderWorks
GenreAnthology series
Original release
Network PBS
Release1984 (1984) 
1992 (1992)

WonderWorks is a U.S. children's anthology television series which ran from 1984 to 1992 for eight years. Produced by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) along with Walt Disney Home Video purchased the home video rights to the series in 1987 and was responsible for making the series available to the public on VHS and later DVD in addition to airing some of the programs on the Disney Channel. [1]

Contents

Films

The series consisted of short, made-for-television films out of acclaimed children's books. They included adaptations of Lucy Maud's Anne of Green Gables , Bridge to Terabithia , All Summer in a Day , Jacob Have I Loved , The Box of Delights , C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia series, Miracle at Moreaux , The Hoboken Chicken Emergency , Odile & Yvette at the Edge of the World, How to Be a Perfect Person in Just Three Days! (by Stephen Manes), Gryphon, A Little Princess , A Girl of the Limberlost, Sweet 15 , A Waltz Through the Hills , The Canterville Ghost , Frog,The Haunting of Barney Palmer, Lone Star Kid, Caddie Woodlawn , The House of Dies Drear , and The Boy Who Loved Trolls . It also co-produced the Australian Clowning Around series.

WonderWorks also carried Traitor in My House (1990), a 50-minute film that tells the story of Elizabeth Van Lew, a Union sympathizer who lived in Richmond, Virginia during the Civil War. [2] The story is told through the eyes of Van Lew's niece, Louise Van Lew (age 12). [2] Traitor in My House stars Mary Kay Place, Charles S. Dutton, Harris Yulin, and Angela Goethals. [3] The film is directed by Nell Cox and was produced by the Educational Film Center. [3] [4] [5] Cate Adair provided costume design. [6]

Production

During the airing of new productions, the series was retitled as The WonderWorks' Family Movie up until the series' ending in 1992.

The program was co-produced by numerous PBS stations, including WQED (Pittsburgh, PA), KCET (Los Angeles, CA), KTCA (St. Paul-Minneapolis, MN), WHRO (Hampton-Norfolk, VI), South Carolina Educational Television (SC), WETA (Washington, D.C.), and KERA (Dallas-Fort Worth, TX).

Broadcast and home media

WonderWorks aired mainly on PBS in the 1980s, in addition to airing some of the programs on the Disney Channel until the mid-1990s. In 1987, the series' home video rights were picked up by Walt Disney Home Video to release all episodes on videocassette. [7]

In 1999, VHS rights to 55 WonderWorks specials were passed over to Canadian company CINAR Corporation (now in WildBrain), [8] who have since sold the rights to Questar Entertainment sometime in the 2000s.

Related Research Articles

<i>Arthur</i> (TV series) Animated television series (1996–2022)

Arthur is an animated television series for children ages 4 to 8, developed by Kathy Waugh for PBS and produced by WGBH. The show is set in the fictional U.S. city of Elwood City and revolves around the lives of Arthur Read, an anthropomorphic aardvark, his friends and family, and their daily interactions with each other.

<i>Schoolhouse Rock!</i> American animated musical television series

Schoolhouse Rock! is an American interstitial programming series of animated musical educational short films which aired during the Saturday morning children's programming block on the U.S. television network ABC. The themes covered included grammar, science, economics, history, mathematics, and civics. The series' original run lasted from 1973 to 1985; it was later revived from 1993 to 1996. Additional episodes were produced in 2009 for direct-to-video release.

The history of anime in the United States began in 1961, when Magic Boy and The White Snake Enchantress, both produced by Toei Animation, became the first and second anime films to receive documented releases in the country. Anime has since found success with a growing audience in the region, with Astro Boy often being noted as the first anime to receive widespread syndication, especially in the United States. Additionally, anime's growth in popularity in the US during the 1990s, commonly referred to as the "anime boom," is credited with much of anime's enduring relevance to popular culture outside Japan.

<i>Bill Nye the Science Guy</i> American science education television program

Bill Nye the Science Guy is an American science education television program created by Bill Nye, James McKenna, and Erren Gottlieb, with Nye starring as a fictionalized version of himself. It was produced by Seattle public television station KCTS and McKenna/Gottlieb Producers, and distributed by Buena Vista Television with substantial financing from the National Science Foundation.

<i>Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel</i> 1987 film

Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel is a 1987 Canadian television miniseries film. A sequel to the 1985 miniseries Anne of Green Gables, it is based on Lucy Maud Montgomery's novels Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, and Anne of Windy Poplars. The story follows Anne Shirley as she leaves Green Gables in Avonlea, Prince Edward Island, to teach at a prestigious ladies' college in New Brunswick. The main cast from the original film reprised their roles, including Megan Follows, Jonathan Crombie, Colleen Dewhurst, Patricia Hamilton, and Schuyler Grant.

Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement is an American television series and 14-part documentary about the 20th-century civil rights movement in the United States. The documentary originally aired on the PBS network, and it also aired in the United Kingdom on BBC2. Created and executive produced by Henry Hampton at his film production company Blackside, and narrated by Julian Bond, the series uses archival footage, stills, and interviews by participants and opponents of the movement. The title of the series is derived from the title of the folk song "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize", which is used as the opening theme music in each episode.

<i>The Puzzle Place</i> Childrens television series

The Puzzle Place is an American children's television series produced by KCET in Los Angeles and Lancit Media in New York City. Although production was dated and premiered on two Los Angeles PBS stations, KCET and KLCS, on September 15, 1994, it did not officially premiere on all PBS stations nationwide until January 16, 1995, with its final episode airing on December 4, 1998, and reruns airing until March 31, 2000. It became one of PBS Kids' most popular series on the line-up since Sesame Street.

<i>The Book of Pooh</i> US childrens TV series

The Book of Pooh is an American children's television series that aired on the Playhouse Disney block on Disney Channel. It is the third television series to feature the characters from the Disney franchise based on A. A. Milne's works; the other two were the live action Welcome to Pooh Corner and the animated The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh which ran from 1988 to 1991. It premiered on January 22, 2001 and completed its run on July 8, 2003. The show is produced by Shadow Projects. Walt Disney Pictures released the first of two films, a direct-to-video spin-off film based on the puppetry television series titled The Book of Pooh: Stories from the Heart in 2001.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cookie Jar Group</span> Canadian media company

DHX Cookie Jar Inc. was a Canadian media, production, animation studio, and distribution company owned by DHX Media. The company was first established in 1976 as CINAR Films Inc., a Montreal-based studio that was heavily involved in children's entertainment. The company's business model, which included the licensing of its properties into educational markets, had a significant impact on its success; by 1999, CINAR held CDN$1.5 billion of the overall children's television market.

<i>Zoboomafoo</i> 1999 television series

Zoboomafoo is a live-action/animated children's television series that originally aired on PBS from January 25, 1999, to November 21, 2001. It was formerly shown in public television and was regularly shown on PBS Kids Sprout until 2012. A total of 65 episodes were aired. A creation of the Kratt Brothers, it features a four-(later five)-year-old talking lemur named Zoboomafoo, performed by Canadian puppeteer Gord Robertson, and mainly portrayed by a lemur named Jovian, along with a collection of returned animal guests.

Sony Pictures Kids Zone is the kids and family entertainment label of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and the former record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment.

Film distribution, also called film exhibition or film distribution and exhibition, is the process of making a movie available for viewing to an audience. This is normally the task of a professional film distributor, who would determine the marketing and release strategy for the film, the media by which a film is to be exhibited or made available for viewing and other matters. The film may be exhibited directly to the public either through a movie theater or television, or personal home viewing. For commercial projects, film distribution is usually accompanied by film promotion.

D-TV is an old series of music videos created by The Walt Disney Company and produced by Charles Braverman and edited by Ted Herrmann. The series premiered on May 5, 1984, by taking hit songs of the past and putting them together with various footage of vintage Disney animation, created out of the trend of music videos on cable channel MTV, which inspired the name of this series.

<i>Daniel and the Towers</i> 1987 film

Daniel and The Towers is a television film featuring the folk art masterpiece, the Watts Towers, in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. The film was directed by Paul Schneider, and broadcast on PBS's WonderWorks children's anthology television series. It was released on VHS in 1992.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hi-Tops Video</span>

Hi-Tops Video was a children's home video sublabel of Media Home Entertainment, active from 1986 until 1991. Some of its releases include some Charlie Brown specials, Madeline and primarily some of the original Baby Songs video releases beginning in 1987.

Madeline is an animated preschool television series produced by DIC Entertainment, L.P., part of the Madeline media franchise. It began as a series of six television specials from 1988 to 1991, and then continued as Madeline and The New Adventures of Madeline from 1993 to 2001. The show is narrated by Christopher Plummer.

FilmFair was a British production company and animation studio that produced children's television series, animated cartoons, educational films, and television advertisements. The company made numerous stop motion films using puppets, clay animation, and cutout animation.

The 8th Youth in Film Awards ceremony, presented by the Youth in Film Association, honored outstanding youth performers under the age of 21 in the fields of film, television and music for the 1985–1986 season, and took place on November 22, 1986, at the Ambassador Hotel's historical Coconut Grove night club in Los Angeles, California.

The 10th Youth in Film Awards ceremony, presented by the Youth in Film Association, honored outstanding youth performers under the age of 21 in the fields of film, television, theater and music for the 1987-1988 season, and took place on May 6, 1989, at the Registry Hotel in Universal City, California.

References

  1. "Home Video: Disney HV Gets Video Rights To 'Wonderworks'". Variety . 328 (4): 44. August 19, 1987.
  2. 1 2 Traitor in My House, Turner Classic Movies, Retrieved April 3, 2015, http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/475532/Traitor-in-My-House/
  3. 1 2 Traitor in My House, IMDb, Retrieved April 3, 2015, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0294975/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
  4. The Educational Film Center, University of Wisconsin System, Retrieved April 3, 2015, http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/2424-edu-film-center.htm
  5. EFC, Educational Film Center, Retrieved April 3, 2015, http://www.efcvideo.com/Pages/EfcVideoFrameset.html
  6. Traitor in My House, Cate Adair Costume Design, Catherine Adair, Retrieved April 3, 2015, http://catherineadair.com/television/traitor-in-my-house/
  7. "Disney HV Gets Rights To 'Wonderworks'". Variety . 1987-08-19. p. 44.
  8. Kelly, Brendan (1999-12-02). "Cinar nabs Wonderworks' family pix". Variety. Retrieved 2022-07-04.