After school special

An after school special is a type of American television program intended to be viewed by adolescents when they returned home from school, usually at about 4:00 pm.

The ABC Network coined the term with a series of programs known as ABC After School Specials. CBS distributed its own productions as the CBS Schoolbreak Special. CBS had a program called Famous Classic Tales, which aired Australian cartoons that were adapted from literature books (similar to Family Classic Tales). NBC also had afterschool programs under the umbrella title Special Treat.

ABC's name has since come to define the entire genre of programming designed for adolescents to view in the late afternoon. All three networks tended to use the young stars of their primetime programs in the specials. Other similar programs included the ABC Weekend Special.

History

ABC began airing the specials in November 1972, the first of which was the Emmy Award-winning cartoon Last of the Curlews. CBS began its series of Schoolbreak Specials in 1981.^{[citation needed]} The networks continued production of these series through the 1990s, finally ending their run in 1996. NBC discontinued Special Treat by the mid-80s, and as a result these programs are not remembered as well as the CBS and ABC programs.

Despite their long runs, the revival of interest in these shows is often seen as a part of the 1970s and '80s nostalgia.

Format

Typically, networks aired four to six after school specials sporadically throughout each year. Many of these were re-aired during subsequent seasons. Most specials were self-contained single episodes, but some were two-part stories. Summer Stories: The Mall (ABC-1992) was the only three-part miniseries.

Much like a "very special episode" of a prime-time television sitcom, after school specials presented cultural issues of the day and moral lessons in a format meant to be accessible to teenagers and pre-teens. Some after school specials were well regarded by educators; during the 1980s and 1990s they were often videotaped and shown in the classroom. Indeed, some after school specials were documentaries or well-paced dramas with a humorous edge. However, the genre as a whole eventually gained a reputation for heavy-handed moralizing, not unlike the "scare" films of the 1950s in the U.S. This was in part due to the melodramatic handling of some topics as well as their penchant for overly literal and prosaic titles:

• My Dad Lives in a Downtown Hotel (1973)
• The Boy Who Drank Too Much (1980)
• Please Don't Hit Me, Mom (1981)
• I Think I'm Having A Baby (1981)
• The Day My Kid Went Punk (1987)
• What If I'm Gay? (1987)
• My Dad Can't Be Crazy (Can He?) (1989)
• The Girl With The Crazy Brother (1990)
• I Hate The Way I Look (1994)

By the 1990s, the popularity of syndicated talk shows (especially The Oprah Winfrey Show) airing in the same time slots made after school specials unprofitable. In addition, viewers complained about stations preempting the popular (and highly-rated) talk shows for a program not meant for a broad general audience. A more realistic treatment of teen issues in movies and prime time television of the 1990s also caused after school specials to fall out of favor.

Nostalgia and some of the shows' lingering popularity have prompted the release of some episodes on DVD. Some of the issues appear to be dubs from lower-quality video recordings of the shows, rather than the master copies. A number have been re-titled.

See also

• Famous classic tales
• Last of the Curlews - The very first ABC After School Special (1972), and one of very few animated ones.
• Degrassi
• Schoolhouse Rock
• Very special episode
• Strangers with Candy
• Public information film - In the UK, extended versions of these were shown in schools. These were often about safety.
• Wonderworks - Produced several Afterschool-type specials for PBS

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