CBS Storybreak

CBS Storybreak
CBS Storybreak logo, as seen on the show's opening sequence.
Presented by	Bob Keeshan (1985–1989) Malcolm-Jamal Warner (1993–1994)
Theme music composer	Jerry Winn Mark Mercury Tom Burton
Countries of origin	United States Australia
Original language	English
No. of seasons	3
No. of episodes	26
Production
Executive producer	Paul Bogrow
Producer	Steve Lumley
Running time	30 minutes
Production companies	Southern Star/Hanna-Barbera Australia CBS Entertainment Productions
Original release
Network	CBS
Release	March 30, 1985 (1985-03-30) – January 28, 1989 (1989-01-28)

CBS Storybreak is a Saturday morning anthology television series that originally aired on the CBS network from 1985 to 1989. 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.

Background

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, D.C., that were highlighted at the end of show by both Keeshan and Jamal-Warner. Southern Star Productions created and composed the theme song in mid 1984. Synthesizers used in the theme song included the Roland Jupiter 8, PPG Wave, Yamaha DX-7, Korg Poly 61, and the Linndrum.

Episodes

International syndication

• Network Ten (Australia)
• Channel 5 (Singapore)
• RTÉ (Ireland)
• TVNZ (New Zealand)

See also

• The Pagemaster, a film with a similar premise
• Reading Rainbow