KaBlam!

KaBlam! was created by Robert Mittenthal, Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi, and Nickelodeon premiered it on October 11, 1996, as one of several new shows in its expanded prime-time lineup, airing Friday nights at 8. The idea was to show kids the kinds of animation usually seen in independent films and TV commercials. The Los Angeles Times described it as an animated sketch comedy presented as an electronic comic book. Its hosts, Henry (voiced by Noah Segan) and June (Julia McIlvaine), introduced the shorts.

Action League Now! was about a team of incompetent superheroes played by action figures. It used a technique the show called "Chuckimation": stop motion combined with figures being thrown, dropped or shoved into frame. Around it were Sniz & Fondue, Mo Willems's The Off-Beats, and Stephen Holman's Life with Loopy, whose puppets had metal faces with magnetic features that could be moved around to change expressions. Cote Zellers made Prometheus and Bob, a stop-motion segment in which an alien tries to teach a caveman the basics of human life and records the lessons on video, usually with a monkey getting in the way. Angela Anaconda started as KaBlam! shorts and became its own series on Fox Family in 1999. Gary Baseman's The Louie and Louie Show featured Billy West and Jim Belushi as a hamster and a chameleon.

Lou Rawls played himself in the third season, Richard Simmons and John Stamos each turned up in the final season, and the show aired They Might Be Giants' videos for "Why Does the Sun Shine?" and "Doctor Worm." A 1999 special, The Henry & June Show, was meant as the pilot for a spin-off, but it wasn't picked up. KaBlam! ended on May 27, 2000, after four seasons and 48 episodes, with reruns into November 2001. Nickelodeon then repackaged Action League Now! as a half-hour show of its own. It streamed on Paramount+ from 2021 until it was pulled at the start of 2026.