I got higher quality/color versions of the photos from the Columbus Dispatch, along with new captions
Caption: NCL WO8BV 25FEB99: Reverend Ella L. Flowers (CQ - background) she is the pastor of Tabernacle Prayer Church and General Manager of WINJ channel 8 poses with her daughter Angela Francis , r, Web Master, Program Director, Camera man, Light and Sound and Sales and adminstrative assistant to the church in the production room of the television station on Reeb Road off off Parsons on the South side of Columbus. The station is an all-volunteer station that offers church-oriented programming along with movies.ncl/Photo by Neal C. Lauron
Caption: NCL WO8BV 25FEB99: Volunteer News Director, Master Control and Community Clipboard director Kathy Newsome works the master deck as she attends to her grandson Tristian , 2, at WINJ channel 8 on Reeb Road off of Parsons on the South side of Columbus. The station is an all-volunteer station that offers church-oriented programming along with movies. ncl/Photo by Neal C. Lauron
Caption: NCL WO8BV 25FEB99: Reverend Ella L. Flowers (CQ), the pastor of Tabernacle Prayer Church and General Manager of WINJ channel 8 designs, writes, produces and all around creates a cartoon story for the television station on Reeb Road off of Parsons on the Souh side of Columbus. The station is an all-volunteer station that offers church-oriented programming along with movies. ncl/Photo by Neal C. Lauron
Oh wow those look great! Not gonna lie, that one model on the screen actually looks better than what they have in PMC, which has blockier looking models. PMC's lowish CGI quality is the reason why I ruled out M3D in the first place. Although Spring definitely looks better than PMC.
So I decided to post the image of what was on Ella Flowers' computer screen and a screenshot from PMC along with a link to PMC on my facebook, just to see if any of my peers from my animation class could give me more info about the character models. An old college friend commented telling me this:
"The name of the show is called Kids Club, and it was done completely by a woman who had her adult daughter animate it using Vistapro, which was pretty much the only option other than Pixar's Renderman and the fledgling 3dmax that were out back then. I remember seing this as a kid, it would come on those christian stations like TBN. Never really watched it, cause it shared the same time slot with Voltron at 5 am. Wasnt about to miss Voltron."
Weirdly enough I don't think this friend lived in Columbus Ohio, I just responded asking him where he lived when he saw it. His info seems to match what has been said, except me being pretty sure he wasn't in Ohio. I have no idea where he got the other info from such as software. I asked follow up questions and he said this:
"TBN, broadcasted out of alanta.. circa 98? 99? I didnt actually watch this show, and it was done with segments.Id catch it every now and again if i got up too early and had to wait for my shows, but for about 5 months, this was the wee morning childrens broadcasting for that channel (which are usually regulated to syndication and shows in syndication that get low ratings but are still under contract to be aired. TV graveyard if you will.) It was replaced by dragontails or some other childhood nonsense that they leased for non-monetary publication from PBS."
I dunno if any of this is helpful, but the only info that I can truly glean out of here is that this show possibly broadcasted to other Christian stations. Thar being said, the only proof he can provide is his memory, and he says he doubts he's getting this confused with another Christian kids show.
Now of course I know we gotta take everything with a grain of salt. Just figured I'd share this info and see what you guys think. I'm actually surprised any of my peers said anything about this show at all, I was literally asking about character models. I know you can click on the video and see the first comment tells you the name Kids Club, and the fact that a lady and her daughter made this, but I dunno why he would pretend to know what this is either, but idk with info like it aired in Alanta on TBN I gotta at least share that here I think.
The thing is, I think all those descriptors that your friend provided probably fit a LOT of Christian cartoons from that era. Christian cartoons went a lot harder on the low-quality CG than secular cartoons because everybody wanted to cash in on VeggieTales, and also that was still the era where people thought digital meant low-effort. I found a lot of truly hideous garbage while I was trawling around trying to find anything analgous to PMC.
That doesn't mean it's impossible that it got picked up by TBN though. I think you were spot-on with your hypothesis that Ella's channel had a cult following with college kids because her animations were so weird and uncanny, so perhaps other Christian stations thought those ratings would translate.
The thing is, I think all those descriptors that your friend provided probably fit a LOT of Christian cartoons from that era. Christian cartoons went a lot harder on the low-quality CG than secular cartoons because everybody wanted to cash in on VeggieTales, and also that was still the era where people thought digital meant low-effort. I found a lot of truly hideous garbage while I was trawling around trying to find anything analgous to PMC.
That doesn't mean it's impossible that it got picked up by TBN though. I think you were spot-on with your hypothesis that Ella's channel had a cult following with college kids because her animations were so weird and uncanny, so perhaps other Christian stations thought those ratings would translate.
I'd personally be surprised if the show made it outside of Columbus Ohio, but maybe it did have that cult factor, or maybe Ella had good connections and was able to convince other stations to air it. I have zero idea on how syndication works for Christian channels. I think if I wanna investigate this, I should probably look into TBN Atlanta and see what I find. If this aired in other states that would be pretty interesting and helpful to track down I think.
But I'm actually wondering where "Kids Club" came from, I thought it was "Kids Festival" maybe I missed something here? Everyone in the YouTube comments are saying "Kids Club."
The thing is, I think all those descriptors that your friend provided probably fit a LOT of Christian cartoons from that era. Christian cartoons went a lot harder on the low-quality CG than secular cartoons because everybody wanted to cash in on VeggieTales, and also that was still the era where people thought digital meant low-effort. I found a lot of truly hideous garbage while I was trawling around trying to find anything analgous to PMC.
That doesn't mean it's impossible that it got picked up by TBN though. I think you were spot-on with your hypothesis that Ella's channel had a cult following with college kids because her animations were so weird and uncanny, so perhaps other Christian stations thought those ratings would translate.
I'd personally be surprised if the show made it outside of Columbus Ohio, but maybe it did have that cult factor, or maybe Ella had good connections and was able to convince other stations to air it. I have zero idea on how syndication works for Christian channels. I think if I wanna investigate this, I should probably look into TBN Atlanta and see what I find. If this aired in other states that would be pretty interesting and helpful to track down I think.
But I'm actually wondering where "Kids Club" came from, I thought it was "Kids Festival" maybe I missed something here? Everyone in the YouTube comments are saying "Kids Club."
"Kids Fun Festival" was the name we picked from the program listings on the former WINJ website because it sounded right. "Kids Club" was the name given to a show in the Columbus Dispatch article we found, I guess people picked that up and ran with it. My theory is that "Kids Fun Festival" was a sort of medley of "Kids Club," of which "Kate and Genie Jokers" would be a segment, Bible stories narrated by Ella Flowers, and possibly classic animated cartoons. I have also seen people mention the network Smile of a Child as a possible lead, which was a part of TBN. Mind you, they also have a show called Kids Club, which is not what we're looking for. If I remember correctly, SOAC actually originated as a morning programming block called Kids Club, then branched out with another segment called Kids Just Like You, or something similar. I think it became its own channel in 2005. I don't know why they would specify TBN Atlanta, the network seems to be national. Regardless, I sent Smile of a Child a message through their website a few days ago asking if they knew anything about Ella Flowers, so we'll have to wait and see on that.
Post by wownowhistorian on Jul 28, 2020 23:10:48 GMT
The credits video I believe was not uploaded to youtube by Jenkem Chic but by someone unrelated on the server. The original video uploaded by Jenkem is still up here:
The credits video I believe was not uploaded to youtube by Jenkem Chic but by someone unrelated on the server. The original video uploaded by Jenkem is still up here: