Porchlight's Adventures from the Book of Virtues is one of the many success stories in children's educational programming. © Porchlight Entertainment.

As a kid, my parents were fairly strict when it came to my intake of television programming. My father laid down the law, decreeing which programs were and were not acceptable for his two young impressionable daughters to be watching. Let it be known that I rarely agreed with his decisions. Try being the only 10 year-old on the block not allowed to watch Laverne and Shirley because there were too many "adult" themes. And my parents had it easy in comparison. Welcome to the 1990s, where the discourse continues over what does and doesn't constitute family-friendly television programming. In today's age of countless channel possibilities, sorting through television's current offerings can be more than a daunting task.

Regulation of the television industry, an ever-growing supply of gore, horror and sexual content in programming, and the passing of new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations in 1997 mandating minimum broadcast hours of child-friendly, educational programming, brought the notion of family programming to the forefront. Networks began scrambling to find shows that fit the FCC's guidelines, often bending the definition to accommodate their own broadcast schedules.

Beyond broadcast television, there's also cable and satellite channels that have thousands of programming hours to fill -- the Family Channel, the Learning Channel, PAX TV Network, the Angel Satellite Network, and so on. The market for a wholesome, completely inoffensive, utterly positive brand of programming has blossomed. Most people would name Disney as the model for creators of family-appropriate programming, but conservative organizations like the National Institute on Media and the Family in Minneapolis, Minnesota, find that even Disney's animated fare doesn't always make the cut for programming appropriate for all ages.

So who are the companies producing wholesome, family-friendly, all-age appropriate animated programming? And what can be said for companies creating programs free of violence, strong language, sexual themes or illegal behavior, and full of quality, educational content and traditional values like honesty, courage, and responsibility?