Nick Jr. or Nick, Jr., sometimes disambiguated as Nick Jr. on Nickelodeon or Nick Jr. on Nick, is a morning preschool programming block that airs on Nickelodeon every weekday. Launched on January 4, 1988, Nick Jr. features programming aimed at children aged 2 to 8. On September 28, 2009, Nickelodeon launched a separate channel named after the Nick Jr. block as a replacement for the Noggin cable channel, which was known occasionally on air as the "Nick Jr. Channel" until 2023 for differentiation purposes.
History
Early years (1988–93)
Since its launch on April 1, 1979 and throughout the 1980s, Nickelodeon aired programs for preschoolers (most prominently Pinwheel and Today's Special) on weekdays 8:00 am – 2:00 pm and weekend mornings. After Nickelodeon's preschool block premiered a slew of new shows in 1987, it began using the Nick Junior branding on January 4, 1988 (1988-01-04), coinciding with the premiere of the Spanish program The World of David the Gnome. A new rebrand for the block that abbreviated its name to Nick Jr. was gradually rolled out from September 5, 1988 to the summer of 1989. Nick Jr.'s new logo was orange for 'Nick' and blue for 'Jr.', and it varied in the shape or species (e.g.: two gears, trains, robots, planets, insects, comets, or elephants). Like with Nickelodeon, Nick Jr.'s network IDs featured the block's logo in different shapes and styles. At launch, the block aired from 8:30 am – 2:30 pm. On weekends, preschool programs aired at earlier hours of the day, and in the case of Eureeka's Castle went unbranded. Until June 29, 1990, Pinwheel was featured, originally for three hours (two in the morning and one at noon), then for one hour starting in spring 1989. When Nick Jr.'s original series Eureeka's Castle premiered in September, Pinwheel was split into two separate half hours in the morning and afternoon, where it remained until June 29, 1990, after which the block was truncated to run from 9:30 am to 2:30 pm on July 2, 1990, another solidified timing from 9:30 am to 2:00 pm on June 15, 1992, and lastly from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm on October 5. Much of Nick Jr.'s other programs at the time were of Japanese or otherwise foreign origin (including Fred Penner's Place, Sharon, Lois & Bram's Elephant Show, Adventures of the Little Koala, Noozles, Maya the Bee and The Littl' Bits).
Grow, Learn, and Play (1993–94) On April 5, 1993 (1993-04-05), Nick Jr. premiered a new series, Cappelli & Company, and received a new rebrand which prominently featured a new logo consisting of an orange parent and a blue child, and the slogan Grow, Learn, and Play. Several Nick Jr. bumpers featured kids playing near a Nick Jr. logo and a theme song with the slogan sung to the melody of London Bridge, and interstitials were created featuring Cappelli & Company host Frank Cappelli on the set. Nick Jr. also started using a female announcer (who was replaced by a different one) in its promos and bumpers. Nick Jr. began to invest more into producing original interstitial series (including Muppet Time, forty two-minute shorts from The Jim Henson Company) in order to stay within a self-imposed limit of five minutes of commercials per hour. A year later on April 4, the "Jim Henson's Muppet Hour" sub-block was created by pairing Muppet Babies reruns with the new acquisition The Muppet Show. Due to Nick Jr.'s declining ratings as well as competition from PBS' children's programs and TLC's Ready Set Learn block, Nickelodeon spent $30 million revamping Nick Jr. over the next three years. On June 13, older-skewing Nickelodeon series Rugrats, The Alvin Show, Dennis the Menace, and Lassie joined Nick Jr.'s lineup, as the block's branding was temporarily de-emphasized in favor of Nickelodeon programming. On October 21, 1994, the Grow, Learn, and Play interstitials ended their 1-year run.
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