The original title shot from the block's first four seasons.
The title card used during the 1994-95 and 1995-96 seasons.
The title card used in the Disney Afternoon's last season (1996-97).
The Disney Afternoon, also called TDA for short in its fifth and sixth seasons, was a created-for-syndication two-hour television programming block consisting of four half-hour animated shows produced by Disney Television Animation, which aired from September 10, 1990, to August 29, 1997.
This block did not air in every market across the United States, but for those markets that did not air the block in full, individual shows featured on The Disney Afternoon could be packaged by themselves. In Europe, there was a similar series called the Disney Festival; in Denmark it was called Disney Sjov, in Russia (when translated from Russian) and in Spain it was known as Disney Club, and in Latin America it was referred to as Disney Show.
History[]
The earliest shows in The Disney Afternoon came from already in-circulation cartoons, particularly Adventures of the Gummi Bears, which had debuted on NBC's Saturday morning line-up in 1985. DuckTales and Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers had previously aired in syndication together as an hour-length cartoon block in 1989-1990 and were both incorporated into the Disney Afternoon the next year. TaleSpin was the first series presumably created expressly for The Disney Afternoon.
Another source for Disney Afternoon cartoons were shows inspired by movies created previously by Walt Disney Animation Studios; for a time, a 'two year rule' of sorts became almost reliable, whereby almost two years after a Disney summer movie came out, a Disney Afternoon series featuring characters from that film premiered (example: Aladdin, and Timon and Pumbaa, from The Lion King). Bonkers, another show created for the Disney Afternoon, was also introduced through a series of shorts on the Saturday morning series Raw Toonage, and The Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show spun off from a segment of Marsupilami (itself also spun off from Raw Toonage).
Several of the shows featured on the Disney Afternoon would make their debuts in the spring on the Disney Channel, which at the time was a premium-only cable channel, thus giving the channel's subscribers an early look at the next show that would be part of the block. These shows would then officially join the Disney Afternoon syndicated block the following fall. As each new show was added to the block, the oldest show on the block would be dropped to make room.
Some of the shows would also have episodes premiering on Saturday mornings on ABC or CBS, in addition to the episodes that were premiering as part of the Disney Afternoon itself. The Saturday morning episodes would typically be added to the syndication package in the following television season.
Line-up and presentation[]
The Disney Afternoon programming block always started with its own intro sequence. In the first four seasons, the block's intro sequence was an original piece of animation set to an original song. A shorter version of the intro would appear at the "halfway" point between the second and third shows in each block.
Each of the shows presented on the Disney Afternoon opened with a shortened version of their respective theme songs. Also, the shows were not presented with their original end credits sequences. At the end of each episode, the last frame of the episode would freeze and transition to a bumper, which in the first three seasons would then segue into teasers for the shows that would be airing next on the block (unless it was the last show for the day), narrated by Jerry Bishop. In the 1993-94 season, the next shows' teasers were replaced with generic montages of clips from all the shows. The credits for each show were instead all grouped together in a single credits sequence shown after the last cartoon of the day. (In the first season, the credits matched the order the shows were presented; however, for some reason, later seasons would reverse it so that the latest show's credits were shown first.) In the block's first four seasons, each show's respective credits would be displayed next to teaser clips for the episode that would be airing the next day (or the following Monday, in the case of Friday broadcasts). The teaser clips were phased out after the 1993-94 season, but were brought back for the final season, in which they were presented as a news-style program hosted by Steve Mackall, called "Disney AfterNews".
In the 1994-95 season, the original intro and credits sequences were dropped in favor of new versions. During the season, the line-up was also updated to have certain shows appear only on a specific day of the week. Gargoyles made its debut appearing in Bonkers' timeslot on Fridays starting in October, and The Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show took the spot on Mondays starting the following January. The gimmick of having a show appear once each week continued with Timon & Pumbaa appearing on Fridays in the 1995-96 season, and Mighty Ducks in the 1996-97 season.
| Season | 3:00 PM | 3:30 PM | 4:00 PM | 4:30 PM |
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| Season 1 (1990–1991) | 
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| Season 2 (1991–1992) |
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| Season 3 (1992–1993) |
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| Season 4 (1993–1994) |
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| Season 5 (1994–1995) |
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 (Monday, starting in January 1995) (Tuesday through Thursday)  (Friday, starting in October) |
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| Season 6 (1995–1996) |
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(Monday through Thursday)  (Friday) |
| Season 7 (1996–1997) |
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(Monday)  (Tuesday through Thursday)  (Friday) |