The Rise & Fall of Fox Family 

I can't help but find it hilarious that part of the deal of selling Family Channel is that no matter who owns it they are obligated to keep 700 Club as part of their daily programming. I always found it odd that 700 Club came on everyday as it didn't fit well with all the other shows on the network.

Despite the financial problems they stumbled into, I really enjoyed most of what Fox Family had to offer. They even showed reruns of Digimon, Mega Man, Real Ghostbusters, and even some of the short lived cartoons like Camp Candy and All Dogs Go To Heaven (based off the film). ABC Family was good until they got rid of Jetix shifting away from children's programming altogether. Nevertheless I had fond memories watching that channel.

Fox Family was one of my favorite channels as a kid. Loved their "Made in Japan" block they had on Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings, it was mostly Saban anime dubs and stuff from the Fox Kids library like Digimon. I was also a huge fan of The New Addams Family.

You're absolutely right it left its mark. I'm 31 years old, and still think of this as channel as Fox Family even though I know that it changed to ABC Family and Freeform. I guess ages 7-10 were probably some of my most memorable years for TV.

The summer of 2000 for cable TV and just life itself for teenagers was the best

Fox Family channel brought S club 7 into my life and for that I’ll always be grateful

I enjoyed this a lot. Covering histories of defunct TV channels be a really interesting series. You should do more.

Something interesting not mentioned here is that FOX Family was the channel that introduced the Aussie children’s music icons The Wiggles to American television

I was totally a FOX KIDS fan back then. Never really into Disney Channel or Cartoon Network. I was all about FOX KIDS, PBS Kids and NICKELODEON! Man, what an innovative time for television.

Fox Family was way huge in my household in the late 90's to early 2000's, from August 15, 1998 until November 10, 2001. In its 3-year run during the Fox Family era, they aired original programs like The 3 Friends and Jerry, Walter Melon, Bad Dog, Donkey Kong Country (based on the immensly popular Super Nintendo game Donkey Kong Country by Nintendo & Rare), Show Me the Funny, Ohh Nooo! Mr. Bill Presents, Mumfie, Enigma, The New Addams Family, Great Pretenders, Big Wolf on Campus, Rotten Ralph, I Was A 6th Grade Alien, Angela Anaconda, Weird-Ohs, The Kids from Room 402, Mega Babies, S Club 7 in Miami, S Club 7 in L.A., & S Club 7 in Hollywood, So Little Time, Moolah Beach, Braceface, What's With Andy?, Totally Spies!, and acquired reruns of Pee-Wee's Playhouse, Eek! Stravanganza!, Spider-Man: The Animated Series (based on the Marvel Comics superhero), Bobby's World, Camp Candy, Creepy Crawlers (based on ToyMax's Creepy Crawlers activity toy), Dennis the Menace (based on the Hank Ketchum comic strip of the same name), The Harveytoons Show, Heathcliff, The Real Ghostbusters (a spin-off/sequel of the 1984 Columbia Pictures movie Ghostbusters), The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper (a spin-off show and a sequel of the movie Casper, which, in turn was based on the Harvey Comics cartoon character Casper the Friendly Ghost), Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? (based on a series of computer games by Broderbund), The Why Why Family, Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension (an Eerie, Indiana spin-off), Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (based on the 1978 of the same name & its 1988 sequel of Return of the Killer Tomatoes), All Dogs Go to Heaven: The Series (based on the 1989 Don Bluth/MGM movie), Mr. Bogus (based on the French/Belgain clay animation series of shorts simply titled, Bogus), Fox's Peter Pan & the Pirates, Mork & Mindy, Mr. Bean, The Bradys, The Partridge Family, Francine Pascal's Sweet Valley High, The Mouse and the Monster, DinoBabies, The Mr. Potato Head Show (based on the Hasbro toyline of the same name), Space Goofs, Toonsylvania, Tenko & the Guardians of the Magic, Oggy and the Cockroaches, The Mask: Animated Series (based on the 1994 New Line Cinema movie The Mask, itself which was based on the comic book by Dark Horse Comics), Mega Man (based on the video game series by Capcom), Who's The Boss?, Life With Louie, Digimon, Goosebumps, Monster Rancher, Early Edition, My So-Called Life, Freaks and Geeks, Coach, The Drew Carey Show, Weird Science (based on the 1985 Universal Pictures movie of the same title), Step By Step, Roswell Conspiracies: Aliens, Myths & Legends, Garfield and Friends (based on the comic strip Garfield by Jim Davis), Inspector Gadget, Growing Pains, and The Wonder Years.

I grew up with Fox Family back in 1998-2000 when News Corporation bought out The Family Channel. It has some shows I really like (weather it's original programming or off-network shows) aired on the channel. Fox Family was one of my favorite basic cable channels I watched as a kid.

I Really miss FOX Family Channel!😭❤️📺🎶👍🏻

I really appreciate all of the work that had to have gone into this. Finding all of that footage, writing the narration, recording it, editing, etc. Thank you for making this unique content.

".. values between husbands and wives and children, where they can have loving, caring relationships in which children aren't smart alecks and the parents aren't buffoons" Hee hee, is funny because currently the 700 Club is followed every night by 2 hours of The Simpsons.

Fox Family channel brings back memories to me!

I really miss the Fox Family Channel. Thanks for this!

Kids TV networks were incredible. Was like having Disney World in my house. 13 Days of Halloween and 25 Days of Christmas were EXCELLENT. #FugkFreeform

Great job on the research of this video (and introducing me to the "Golden Banana" song). Never knew they had so many problems with money and low viewership. Thank you for helping me relive some of my childhood! It seems though that most people have forgotten about the channel. I liked the channel better when it was Fox Family. I remember cool shows like Braceface, Great Pretenders, So Little Time, Big Wolf on Campus, and S Club 7. I also remember Angela Anaconda, New Addams Family, Early Edition, Higher Ground, and original movies like Au Pair. One of my favorite shows during that time was State of Grace. No one ever talks about it, and you can't find it anywhere to watch. I wish I could. Do you think you may ever go more in depth with the different periods from The Family Channel to Fox Family to ABC Family? I think each era has an interesting history and variety of shows.

Fox Family was huge in my household in the late 90s I still think about it to this day. The music video countdown show was great, Pee Wee's Playhouse, Goosebumps, Camp Candy so many great memories.

hell yes, so glad to see a new upload!!

Fantastic ride dude. would love to see a video on the Saturday morning cartoon wars of the 90s/ early 00s.

Despite the troubles it had I have a fond nostalgia for the Fox Family channel. They showed reruns of cartoons I never knew about and I loved their 13 Days Of Halloween/25 Days Of Christmas thing. I always looked forward to them every year. I also just loved the bumpers they had.

You know it's been almost 25 years since Fox Family was launched and 20 years since ABC Family was launched and some things have changed, one of the biggest changes was Disney buying Fox. If Disney bought Fox back in the 90s they would still have the rights to the Saban library!

I definitely have strong memories of Fox Family and the very early days of ABC Family mainly through the kids' and animated content. It gave me my first real exposure to Pee-wee's Playhouse, as I was too young to know of it during its original CBS run, reinforced my love of anime through the Made in Japan block that was an accompanying block to the content Fox Kids was showing and by the time the switchover happened gave me the guilty pleasure 1-2 punch of Braceface and Totally Spies.

Saban was a powerhouse for kids entertainment

I would like to see a full on review/retrospective on the channels' show "The Three Friends and Jerry", it's criminally underrated and needs more love, it was way ahead of its' time and was very creative and funny.

I’m old enough to remember when the channel was CBN; Doris Day had a show on there, in which Rock Hudson made his final public appearance just weeks before dying from AIDS (another CBN original series I remember was Celebrity Chefs). During the Family Channel era, they had a Fun Town/FamTV kids’ block similar to USA’s or TBS’, as well as “That’s My Dog!” (which they imported from the UK) and a reboot of It Takes Two with Dick Clark, now with civilian partners. As Fox Family, they had Paranoia (Peter Tomarken’s last game show) and some reality home video show called “Life Camera Action!” (with a young Ryan Seacrest as the announcer). Since becoming ABC Family and now Freeform, they’ve brought us The Secret Life of the American Teenager (introducing the world to Shailene Woodley), Melissa & Joey (starring Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence of course), and Pretty Little Liars (which probably had older males watching just for Lucy Hale). Boy…they’ve sure come a long way from when they were originally a religious channel!

I remember watching Rescue 911 on The Family Channel in the early 90s. Fox Family Channel era is my favorite era. I particularly remember watching it in 1998. ABC Family was okay. Free-form is garbage. Also, didn't the contract say it is suppose to always have the word "family" in it?

I remember Inspector Gadget aired on the original Family Channel back in the med 90s and aired again in Fox Family Channel in 2001 when Disney merged.

For clarification: The Family Channel operated as a separate entity from CBN and was likely driven by strategic and programming considerations. Both channels shared a commitment to family-friendly and wholesome content. While CBN likely focused more on religious programming, news, and talk shows with a specific appeal to Christian viewers, The Family Channel aimed to cater to a broader audience of families looking for general family-oriented entertainment, including classic TV shows, movies, and cartoons.

As a child/kid in the 90s, man I had energy to get up super early in the morning. As early as 4:30am watching reruns, to dragon ball z. Most shows started around 7:00am but hey, I wanted to unlock the dragon. Lol

I liked Saban's version of Fox Family when I was a kid. That's where I use to get part of my anime Fix watching Digimon and Monster Rancher.

The only thing I remember from The Family Channel is the game show blocks, with noteworthy titles being Masters of the Maze, Maximum Drive, reruns of The $100,000 Name That Tune, the 1986 revival of Split Second, and Wink Martindale's quadrilogy of Trivial Pursuit, Boggle, Shuffle, and Jumble.

I definitely loved the Fox Kids channel. I was a huge Power Rangers fan and I loved the WB cartoons and Marvel

@channelserfer you are one of the greatest info streamers that have been on RU-vid! The nostalgia of it all, and to the answers to questions I've always wanted has made my day! Pleeaase continue with more content(i.e UPN, WB - CW, MTV from music to TV shows & BET the same) Lovin this channel! Also would love to meet you lol

A great video! I don't think I watched the channel much, but this video jogged my memory regarding "Itsy Bitsy Time."

I remember watching the Family movies on CBN as a kid. I enjoyed The Family Channel as a kid but it wasn't my only channel I watched

This video is awesome!! I adored the fox family channel when I was younger and still miss it today. One thing that wasn't touched upon in this video was the awesome anime block they used to have on Sunday mornings.

Great stuff. Keep it up!

Great retrospective! Thank you for making these videos!

I have fond memories of watching Fox Family back in the day. I would watch quite a few of their animated series like Camp Candy, Braceface and reruns of Digimon. I also remember watching Big Wolf on Campus, The New Adams Family and State of Grace. I'm not too surprised that the channel was struggling. I wasn't aware of it at the time and I remember being surprised when the logo changed to ABC Family, but I think it was too hard for the channel to get the kind of attention that other more established channels and blocks at the time already had. ABC Family was still a pretty solid channel until they got rid of Jetix. While I enjoyed some of their reruns of 90's sitcoms, the channel was just never the same for me once they stopped airing animated series. Now I rarely watch Freeform outside of its Halloween and Christmas events, which is a bit of a shame. With better management from the start, I wonder if they could have had a more successful launch for Fox Family and still be around now, or at least they could have possibly lasted longer than they did.

I'd love to see you cover the early history of the FX Channel and Noggin/Nick Jr down the line!

This takes me back to the weeknights in the late 90s when I watched "Show me the Funny", a show similar to "America's Funniest People", which also showed Jackalope clips and "Mr. Bill Presents".

13 Days of Halloween was AMAZING when I was young!

I was Never really into Disney Channel and Cartoon Network. I was all about FOX PBS and NICKELODEON! Man, what an innovative cool time/era for television.

I really miss this channel is pretty awesome back then.

I love that, as of this writing in August 2023, this same channel known today as Freeform bookends the still-obligatory airings of the 700 Club with a comedy series about a religious cult.

fox family had some heat, 13 days of halloween and 25 days of christmas always hit. basement block was interesting, oh no mr. bill was AMAZING (but i only saw it like once). When ABC family started showing whose line was a great time too. I think whose line came on at 10 to 11, then 11 i'd turn to adult swim and finish watching aqua teen hunger force and all those shows.. good times.

Donkey Kong Country was a Canadian tv series. And The New Addams Family was a joint Canadian-US production.

Seriously a big part of my childhood, loved it

I like how to 'most repeated' part of the video is literally the part where most viewers lost attention and had to go back to catch up

I have a bit of Fox Family nostalgia. That was my first time seeing The Real Ghostbusters.

My parents didn't have cable when I was growing up (save for two years from 1996-1997) because it was too expensive. I would always see advertisements for Fox Family channel in Sonic the Hedgehog comics (the only comics I read) and would be so upset that we didn't have cable and I couldn't watch the shows being advertised. As a gamer and big fan of Mario I especially hated missing out on getting to watch Donkey Kong Country. I had to settle for whatever episodes would sometimes air on Fox Kids to get my fix of the show. Fortunately now I have internet and the first season of Donkey Kong Country on DVD so I can watch it whenever I want.

Very well done, hope to see newer content

There is a clicking sound through the whole video that made me think I was going insane.

Awesome video! Freaking loved that channel.

@6:53 ❤ I love that logo with colors & action. They should have kept it.

We all wish we could hustle like Haim Saban. Fox wanted to buy Saban Entertainment, he said nah and ended up with that joint venture instead. That’s why he got so rich off Eisner’s folly.

I religiously watched Fox Family growing up, and the 700 Club never made sense to me even as a child, it didn't fit. I really hated baseball, and I'll never forget that feeling I got as more and more of my shows gave way to baseball games, but 700 Club never did. It was soul crushing.

I did not know that Pat Robberson (That guy from The 700 Club) invented The FOX Family Channel. lol

"The Virginian Pilot" It took me a minute to realize that's the name of a newspaper and not referring to the pilot episode of a show called The Virginian, lol

Interesting take on the whole channel and it's neverending changes through the years. I used to love watching it with my sisters growing up and we loved everything from It's Itsy Bitsy Time for the magic tricks, to Real Scary Stories/Scariest Places and even some of the teen shows and for me it was the cartoons I was so annoyed that ABC family got rid of a bunch of shows I loved when they bought the network. Like Totally Spies -ABC made a massive mistake in getting rid of that one.

I used to like to watch Fox Family when it 1st launched, and I really enjoyed it during its run. It's one of those now defunct cable channels I really missed.

It's so fascinating to find out the very adult reasons why my favorite networks and shows made changes that to me, as a kid, were dumb and pointless 😅 I remember it took me a long time to get used to saying ABC instead of Fox when they took over 😅

FOX Family was the best thing!

If network TV was still like this, I'd subscribe and never leave my house for anything other than groceries and work again.

I appreciate the Sgt. Pepper homage in the thumbnail

Your content is so good! You eserve so many more views

I thought Moral Oral was on TBN but found out it was Davie and Goliath. The people on the 700 club are vampires 😂

12:02 sorry Pat Robertson but preschoolers and teenagers home sick from school aren't going to watch your vomit when blues clues and gullah gullah island are happening just one channel away.

Wow! Brings back a lot of memories! Seems like some fever dream of a world forgotten.

This is so ridiculously good. Your modern marvels style voice is smooth af. Would love to see you cover g4.

I was looking for the name of one of the shows ABC/Fox Family channel aired, the girl colored in black and white with short hair and orange outfit. I remember blwatching her show even though I thought the drawing was so weird lol. I saw the thumbnail on your video, hence why I'm here. I didn't know abc and fox were the same channel.

I remember it being the "Reject" channel for Fox shows that didn't last on the main network.

I've been binging this channel, so good

I was obsessssed with that movie Au Pair

I was part of a focus group for Fox Family Channel before it launched. Everybody there was a guy in their 20s. They asked us about the slogan "Fox Family Channel - You Belong" and then asked what we thought about the programming and shows that would be on the network without showing us clips of any of the shows. I had heard of Mr. Bean, but hadn't heard of any of the other shows, so I couldn't really comment on whether I would watch. I thought it was a weird focus group, since I didn't feel like we were the target audience.

i love that medieval moon intro and hope you never rebrand 😂

Loved Fox Family back in the day. So many shows to pick from.

WHAT'S THE BACKGROUND SONG AT THE 15 MINUTE MARK?!?!? I GOTTA KNOW! IT SLAPS!!!!

It would have been better if they aired the preschool stuff in the early afternoons since Nick Jr. and Playhouse Disney would have signed off around that time.

I remember w it was Fox Family, I love 13 Nights Of Halloween Big Wolf On Campus & State Of Grace, Angela Anaconda. I always was curious as to why 700 Club was on there but that wasn't until I was an adult. But I do love you channel and the stuff you cover. Great Work!

I loved Fox Family when it first debuted! It had a great variety of shows, especially a lot of the ones I loved. It marked the return of Pee-wee’s Playhouse reruns to national television, which I had missed since it was pulled from CBS 7 years earlier following Paul Reubens arrest. I also liked that shows such as All Dogs Go To Heaven: The Series, DIC’s Dennis The Menace cartoon, and Bobby’s World were on there too. I liked The New Addams Family too. The channel felt like paradise in my mind. But then, by the latter part of 1999, it didn’t seem quite the same anymore, as they pulled a bunch of the shows I liked from the schedule.

I love your videos.. will you make a come back?

I only know ABC Family/Freeform for the 25 Days of Christmas event, because they at least aired classic Christmas specials, like Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, with some Disney classics and the Pixar shorts.

Its funny that people complained about The Simpsons being the template for Fox Family when its successor Freeform now broadcasts the show.

My favorite channel as a kid I was so sad when it changed.

I VIVIDLY remember the debut of this network. Like first day where they were breaking down all the shows that were coming or returning like “the basement” and “700 hunZzZZZzz club” I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who could see the fox family channel on TV!

I loved Family Channel / Fox Family Channel! Fox Kids! Big Wolf on Campus!!! 13 Days of Halloween and 25 Days of Christmas were EXCELLENT. #FugkFreeform

I knew two college professors (one liberal & one conservative) who filed a joint lawsuit against Pat bc he had raised money to start the Family Channel only to turn around and sell it to News Corp.

The first time Disney bought something from Fox

I lived a lot of their shows... nostalgic ❤

That three friends and Jerry animated sitcom needs more talk and I believe that Saberspark is the one to talk about this show.

As a kid, I loved watching Fox Family; tuning in often for reruns of The Real Ghostbusters. I honestly had no idea they were struggling until I woke up one morning and saw they had renamed to "ABC Family" with zero fanfare.

You belong, you belong, you belong... you belong on Fox Family! I can't believe I still remember this bumper.

I watched family channel/fox family etc … it was one of the 3 kids channels in my small town in the 90s. Disney - Cartoon Network and family channel/fox family. I even watched 7th heaven and Dawson’s creek there I think….

I didn't realize just how much fox family i watched when I was a kid. damn. Like, i forgot donkey kong country. I watched the fuck out of that show. Hell, I remember every single show that was mentioned in this video. I definitely remember watching Fox Kids a lot

That beat in the beginning was fire

I never knew there was a Donkey Kong Country TV show

Oh, International Family Entertainment also owned MTM, who brought us Mary Tyler Moore, Newhart, WKRP In Cincinnati, St. Elsewhere, Hill Street Blues, and several other shows, it would be absorbed into 20th Century Fox Television.