Toonattik
Format	Children's
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
Production
Location(s)	London, England, United Kingdom
Running time	120 minutes (includes adverts)
Production company(s)	ITV Breakfast (CITV)
Broadcast
Original channel	ITV (ITV Breakfast)
Original run	5 February 2005 – 9 May 2010
Chronology
Preceded by	Diggit/Diggin'It (1998-2005) & Up On the Roof (2002-2005)
Related shows	The Fluffy Club, Action Stations!

Toonattik was the flagship children's strand of the British breakfast television station, ITV Breakfast (known on-air as CITV at weekends), which ran from 5 February 2005 to 9 May 2010. The strand aired on weekend mornings from 7.25am until ITV Breakfast's closedown at 9.25am, featuring a selection of both British and imported cartoons, mainly from brands such as Disney, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. Throughout the majority of its run, it was presented by Jamie Rickers and Anna Williamson.

History [edit]

Toonattik launched on 5 February 2005 as the new children's weekend morning slot on GMTV, featuring a mix of imported cartoons for ages 4–12. The slot was originally split into two, with the first half featuring pre-school programming with out-of-vision continuity, and the second half featuring shows for older children, which featured in-vision continuity links provided by Jamie Rickers and Anna Williamson. After a few months on-air it under went a facelift and a change of format. The slot was now completely separate from the pre-school one, which was renamed as Wakey! Wakey!, and Toonattik adopted a boys vs. girls theme that saw the presenters battling it out each week to see who were best by playing games and gaining points in between the cartoons. The loser of the show, either the boys or the girls, would be given a pie in the face as a punishment. Each of the games were chosen randomly by spinning the "Golden Wheel of Twizzle", and who was playing these games was determined by the "Toonattik Twizzler". Viewers also had the chance to send in games, these were pulled from a special chest named the "Challenge Chest".

On 12 March 2006, ITV began simulcasting Toonattik on the CITV Channel, allowing younger Sky Digital, Virgin Media and Freeview viewers to access the show through the children's section of the EPG for the first time. Also, the EPG it gave details for the programmes broadcast in the Toonattik time slot. Even though the strand was officially broadcast under the CITV banner, it remained a GMTV Kids production.

On 6 March 2010 it was reported that Toonattik presenters Jamie and Anna would be made redundant,^[1] as part of ITV plc's buyout of Disney's 25% share in GMTV (since renamed to ITV Breakfast). Jamie and Anna presented Toonattik together for the last time on 9 May 2010, which featured a big song finale at the end. Soon after their departure, Jamie & Anna were hired to work for Nickelodeon. From the following weekend, the slot re-launched with out-of-vision presentation, and this remained until its eventual axing on 9 May 2010.

Action Stations! [edit]

Action Stations! was a children's strand, featuring action themed cartoons for children (boy bias) aged 9 to 12 every weekday, airing from 6am - 9.25am on the CITV channel when Toonattik was not on. Originally, Action Stations! featured the voices of Toonattik presenters Jamie Rickers and Anna Williamson in the form of robots with pre-recorded links in between cartoons. Between September 2009 and May 2010, the slot developed to include live action characters, the only remaining crew stranded on the Action Station space base 85,000 feet above the earth. Commander Action, a Spanish veteran of the skies (David Kangas - also the Producer and Director) led the rest of this team made up of Gribulous Bertnog Pimplewix, an alien (Mike Rance), Boogaloo, a protocol droid and library management system (Simon Fielding) and Akira Neo 'Rocket Girl', the ships engineer (Anna Singleton) in their mission to 'Save the world, one cartoon at a time' from the evil Dr. Poopanski - Poopants (Jimmy Hunt).

References [edit]

External links [edit]

• CITV at itv.com