Flik-e is correct. The purchase of Fox Family by Disney was part of the deal to obtain the very lucrative Saban library which included the re-purposed Super Sentai programs like the aforementioned Power Rangers and the then-popular phenomenon known as the Digimon franchise.
They could never escape the clause put in by the original “Family Channel” to get out of having to air the 400 Club every night.
Being old enough to have lived through all three eras of the Family Channel I can say with much confidence that the Fox Family/early ABC Family era was definitely the best. There was a healthy mix of new properties and old favorites to enjoy. Though nothing original made much of an impression compared to the stuff put out by contemporary Disney Channel, Nick and Cartoon Network, which is why you never hear of them nowadays.
But I’m certain somewhere someone is feeling incredibly nostalgic for The Three Friends and Jerry Show and Bad Dog much in the same way many of us are nostalgic for the days of Even Stevens.
They don’t have internet though. They decided to get a jump on the whole 2012 thing and hid in caves to avoid the apocalypse. They’re still thinking about how it doesn’t get any better than being reminded of how bad dog Berkley was once per episode. He was a very bad dog.
My sister ahs been watching the ABC Family channel the most this summer. She’s got like 3 shows she watches on there: Pretty Little Liars, Secret life of an American Teenager, and I think she got into the new Chloe King series.
They have some pretty good shows that they still show reruns of like Full House and Family Matters, but I hated their 25 Days of Xmas specials. I mean some of my favorite Xmas movies like Elf, Christmas Vacation, and Eight Crazy Nights aren’t really shown on there. I can understand they wouldn’t show Eight Crazy Nights since is a bit inappropriate, but Elf and Christmas Vacation are classics.
My mom and I used to watch ABC Family each afternoon for Gilmore Girls reruns at 5.
Then, several weeks ago, they replaced reruns of that with Secret Life of the American Teenager. Every single day.
I’m kind of annoyed because I was looking forward to watching it at college sometimes, and now I won’t have access to it unless I find it online somewhere (Netflix doesn’t stream it). But I’ll still watch for movies, HP, Christmas, and a new show they have called Switched at Birth, which is actually pretty good.
I hate PLLs. I mean, I hate all their shows. But that one…that one’s really bad.