When you need to rant...

[mr3urious]

Why does ABC Family have to be rebranded?

Disney planned on rebranding it many years ago, but there was said to be a clause in the contract that stated the word "Family" had to remain in the name when Pat Robertson (the previous owner of the network, then called The Family Channel) sold it off. Apparently, that rule never existed, but they unfortunately have to keep airing The 700 Club.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/abc-family-changes-name-freeform-829689

 

[D'Snowth]

Well, ABC Family doesn't even play family-friendly shows anymore, so it makes sense to rebrand it.

 

[Drtooth]

Personally, the Family Channel was dead to me when they got rid of Walter Melon.

But then again, Disney did come up with Penn Zero which is a far better usage of the replacement hero idea, so it balanced out eventually.

Seriously. I was super into Walter Melon back in '00.

Apparently, that rule never existed, but they unfortunately have to keep airing The 700 Club.

UGH! Disney can successfully sue a daycare center, but they're apparently all thumbs legally when it comes to that. And not being able to use Louie from Jungle Book.

 

[mr3urious]

Well, ABC Family doesn't even play family-friendly shows anymore, so it makes sense to rebrand it.

You'd think Pat Robertson would complain about the programming shift, but I guess he was too busy 9/11 on the gays and Hurricane Katrina on abortions.

 

[D'Snowth]

You'd think Pat Robertson would complain about the programming shift

That would be a useless complaint in this day and age, considering there's hardly any cable channel out there that plays what they used to play anymore.

 

[Drtooth]

Well, ABC Family doesn't even play family-friendly shows anymore, so it makes sense to rebrand it.

It does up to a certain point. I know they still have Boy Meets World on there. Gilmore Girls too, which is kinda baffling because it essentially bashes the heck out of small town sentiment (the characters are always complaining about it and trying to leave). But it does indeed show family movies from Disney with Harry Potter thrown in. So it's not totally changed in that aspect. Anyway, the shift was clearly marketed towards the 14-20 year old demo, the teenagers who graduated from Disney Channel tweencoms.

That said, I *&^%ing hate this channel for obvious reasons. I mean, even Fox would have killed their kid's line up eventually, but that was one heck of a line up. Donkey Kong Country, Walter Melon...they even reran Eek! The Cat, Heathcliff and Real Ghostbusters. Plus the sale of Fox Family to Disney let Disney in control of various Saban based projects. And sure, eventually Hiam bought back the rights to live action shows and Samurai Pizza Cats found its way back to DVD by the graces of a third party. But those great and sometimes unloved Fox Kid's shows from the 90's are just sitting in a vault. To be fair, Disney did have Eek the Cat streaming on ABC Family's site for a very brief period years back. But other than that and a half[butt]ed The Tick release, they clearly didn't want or care for these programs (outside of Marvel ones, and even then... barely until they made their own).

So frankly, even if they did have nothing but G rated kiddy programming, I never liked ABC Family. Not at all.

 

[D'Snowth]

Dang. Even when playing a character Amy Schumer's still a s1ut.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

This isn't completely a rant, but. . . .

http://www.chubbypuppies.com/

I cannot believe this is being marketed to kids in this day and age. What about the childhood obesity epidemic? Y'know, that thing that caused them to redesign Pikachu and Billy (from Billy & Mandy) to be slimmer because they somehow promoted childhood obesity?

Well to be fair they're dogs,not human or humanoid for that matter.

 

[D'Snowth]

Yeah, but I mean, again, they redesigned Pikachu to be slimmer than he used to be because he somehow promoted childhood obesity.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Yeah, but I mean, again, they redesigned Pikachu to be slimmer than he used to be because he somehow promoted childhood obesity.

Oh I see,but how does a very non-human cartoon character promote obesity? might as well get rid of pigs and hippos from all children's media if that's the case. And if people are so concerned over this how in the heck did Steven Universe and Clarence get on the air?