An after school special is a type of American television program intended to be viewed by adolescents when they returned home from school, usually at about 4:00 pm. The ABC Network coined the term when they designated their offerings in the genre After School Specials; CBS distributed their own productions as CBS Schoolbreak Specials, though ABC's name has come to define the entire genre. Both networks tended to use the young stars of their primetime programs in the specials.

ABC began airing the specials in 1972, while CBS began their series of Schoolbreak Specials in 1975. Both networks would continue their series through 1996. Typically, each network would air four to six specials sporadically throughout each year. Many would be re-aired during subsequent seasons. Most specials were self-contained single episodes, but some were two-part stories. Summer Stories: The Mall (ABC-1992) was the only three-part miniseries.

By the 1990s, the popularity of syndicated talk shows (especially The Oprah Winfrey Show) airing in the same time slots had made the after school special unprofitable. A more realistic treatment of teenage issues in movies and prime time television of the 1990s is also cited as ending the era of after school specials.

Like very special episodes, after school specials presented life and moral lessons, and were often taped and shown in high school classrooms. While some After School Specials were well regarded by educators, and some were either documentaries or "dramedies" with a humorous edge, the genre as a whole has a reputation for heavy handed moralizing - not unlike the classroom "scare" films of the 1950s. Another much maligned trait of After School Specials is their famously literal prosaic titles such as:

• The Boy Who Drank Too Much (1980)
• Please Don't Hit Me, Mom (1981)
• I Think I'm Having A Baby (1981)
• The Day My Kid Went Punk (1987)
• What If I'm Gay? (1987)
• My Dad Can't Be Crazy (Can He?) (1989)
• The Girl With The Crazy Brother (1990)

The shows' ironic popularity, has prompted the release of some episodes on DVD in 1980s-retro packaging designed to resemble a yearbook or Trapper Keeper. Some of the issues appear to be dubs from VHS recordings of the shows, rather than the master copies, and many have been re-titled.

See also

• Last of the Curlews - The very first ABC After School Special (1972), and one of very few animated ones.

• Degrassi
• Schoolhouse Rock
• Very special episode
• Strangers With Candy
• Public information film In the UK, extended versions of these were shown in schools. These were often about safety.

External links

• Review of a DVD collection of ABC After School Specials
• A listing of ABC After School Specials
• The strange afterlife of the After School Special - by Joanna Weiss, Boston Globe January 1, 2006

ABC network shows | CBS network shows | 1970s TV shows in the United States | 1980s TV shows in the United States | 1990s TV shows in the United States | 1970s TV shows in the United States | 1980s TV shows in the United States | 1990s TV shows in the United States | Television programming