Literary Toons: Franklin (1997)

 By the late 90's, kids were accustomed to the heroic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in reruns and finishing their run on CBS.

In Canada, a series of children's books gave birth to an animated series from Nelvana about a young turtle named Franklin, who made his way to the US on CBS & Nickelodeon, starting in 1998. Franklin is the older of two children. Younger sister Harriette is your typical mischief maker that big brother Franklin has to keep out of trouble.

Franklin had two separate Saturday runs on CBS (1998-9, 2000-2), and aired weekdays on Nickelodeon as part of their Nick Jr. block, before Nick Jr. was rebranded to succeed Noggin as their preschool channel. Reruns aired there until 2013.

To kick off this year's Countdown to Christmas, let's go back to 2001 for Franklin's Christmas Adventure.

I don't know if the books that birthed the series ever made it to American stores and libraries.

Rating: A.