CBS Storybreak

CBS Storybreak
CBS Storybreak logo, as seen on the show's opening sequence.
Presented byBob Keeshan (1985–1989)
Malcolm-Jamal Warner (1993–1994)
Country of originUnited States
Australia
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons3
No. of episodes26
Production
Running time30 minutes
Production companiesSouthern Star/Hanna-Barbera Australia
CBS Entertainment Productions
Original release
NetworkCBS
ReleaseMarch 30, 1985 (1985-03-30) –
January 28, 1989 (1989-01-28)
Infobox instructions (only shown in preview)

CBS Storybreak is a Saturday morning anthology television series that originally aired on the CBS network from 1985 to 1989.[1] Hosted by Bob Keeshan (and in its 1993 return by Malcolm-Jamal Warner), the episodes are half-hour animated adaptations of children's books published at the time of airing, including Chocolate Fever. Other episodes included Dragon's Blood and Ratha's Creature. The show grew out of a feature on Keeshan's Captain Kangaroo series.[2]

CBS' first in-house cartoon series since their original Terrytoons, it was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program in the 1985–1986 season. It continued in repeats until 1991 and returned to air in reruns (with Jamal-Warner replacing Keeshan as host) from the 1993–94 to 1997–98 seasons. Select episodes were released on home video in 1992 under the title Video Storybreak.

Unique for an American television series, the series featured open captions captioned by the National Captioning Institute for the hearing impaired during its 1993 reairing, instead of the usual closed captioning. In addition to being a convenience for the hearing-impaired, this also allowed those who could hear to read along with the story. The episodes were produced by Australia's Southern Star/Hanna-Barbera Australia for CBS Entertainment Productions. The series featured regular Read More About It project selections from the Library of Congress in Washington DC, that were highlighted at the end of show by both Keeshan and Jamal-Warner.

  1. ^ Perlmutter, David (2018). The Encyclopedia of American Animated Television Shows. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 119. ISBN 978-1538103739.
  2. ^ Erickson, Hal (2005). Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949 Through 2003 (2nd ed.). McFarland & Co. p. 193. ISBN 978-1476665993.