Dan Zanes House Party for Disney Playhouse features a laid-back kids' singer whose videos often include animation.

Many interstitial creators look upon interstitial projects as nothing short of a treat, particularly compared to longer form or commercial work. New York's Buzzco Assoc. has been dong interstitials since the 1980s for a host of clients including USA Network, Nickelodeon, ABC and PBS. "We like doing these, and you can write that in capital letters. You're not selling a product and you're helping educate a population. The creative side of these projects is usually wide open, which makes them a lot more fun."

Interstitials have always been more commonplace in European TV, where they can be as short as one minute. The French studio Xilam produces Rintindumb, a spin-off from the Western spoof Lucky Luke. Speaking to Sarah Baisley in a recent AWN interview, the studio's Marc du Pontavice explained, "In a format like this it's a very small team, eight to nine people max -- it's completely creator and talent driven."

Traditionally, interstitials are used as bridging segments between full-length shows, and very often their characters serve as hosts of a program block. Discovery Channel's "Ready Set Learn!" interstitials star Paz the Penguin and fill a lengthy eight-minute gap between its non-commercial shows. Paz's U.K.-produced segments are a combination of puppetry (from Open Mind Prods.) and animation (King Rollo Films).

"We could have used smaller interstitials," says Erin Wanner, the service's exec producer, "but we wanted kids to have a deeper experience. We conceived of ours as almost a mini-program. Shorter form programming is common in the international market, but is often used as interstitials in the U.S." Interestingly, Paz's segments begin on the hour and half-hour, leading into rather than following the full-length shows.

"Ready Set Learn!" interstitials star Paz the Penguin and fill a lengthy eight-minute gap between Discovery Kids' non-commercial shows. The pieces are conceived as almost a mini-program. Courtesy of Discovery Kids Channel.

Nick Jr. and Noggin look on the interstitials as a development lab for new shows. "We often use new-to-us artists on them," says Teri Weiss, svp of production and development for Nickelodeon Preschool. "It's kind of like dating -- a small project can grow into something bigger." She offers the example of Josh Selig's Linny the guinea pig segments, which eventually evolved into Nick Jr.'s ultra-successful Wonder Pets series.

The channel's umbrella My World series is home to a variety of interstitials, with an "international flavor," according to Teri Weiss. Two projects in development are the intriguingly titled Downward Doghouse, where kids learn about Chinese culture and the Mandarin language, and The Mighty Bug 5, a team of insect superheroes. Neither is on the air yet (Downward Doghouse will premiere in October), but Nick Jr.'s website is already asking parents to offer their feedback on the shorts via Email.

Like Discovery Kids' Paz, Nickelodeon's Noggin service features Moose and Zee, a pair who serve as the overall channel hosts, weaving the shows and Noggin's other interstitials together. "They started as an experiment," Weiss explains, "and now navigate our air time. There are no formulas or restrictions on our development; we just see what people respond to."

Not all Nick Jr. or Noggin interstitials are developed in-house. Teri Weiss keeps an eye on the international film and TV markets for new characters. "There are so many wonderful things out there that we can use domestically," she said. "Non-verbal shows give us more flexibility, and we might acquire an existing package or pre-buy a series that looks promising. Also, if an Australian producer comes to Australia Nickelodeon with an idea, they'll pass word onto us if they think we'd be interested too."

Nickelodeon's Noggin service features Moose and Zee, a pair who serve as the overall channel hosts, weaving the shows and Noggin's other interstitials together. Courtesy of Nick Jr.

The 21st century, short attention-span world of channel zapping and multiple platforms is perhaps the main factor driving the increased appetite for interstitials -- both original and lifted from longer-form shows, with segments `repurposed' to fill any platform's need. Calon TV, based in Wales produces a variety of interstitials as short as 30 seconds, primarily for mobile phones and websites. While some are based on existing shows (like its preschool series Hanna's Helpline), others feature original characters. Calon's Robin Lyons hopes, "to earn some revenue from these, but they're also a comparatively inexpensive way of launching characters."

Cake Ent. in London lifts self-contained jokes from its Scholastic series (Edgar & Ellen, Star Farm and Word Girl) for mobile and online use, while Germany's TV-Loonland has done the same with its Cramp Twins series. The expanding market for shorts and interstitials has led to "a whole new bunch of relationships" with companies like iTunes, Vivendi Mobile and YouTube, according to company spokesperson Justine Bannister.

Bannister notes that if a channel doesn't have its own branded characters, "it may be cheaper for them to buy a series of shorts with strong iconic characters than to create their own." The Dutch public broadcast channel BNN evidently didn't have a budget problem when they hired the Lawson & Whatshisname studio to create a series of 40 8-second shorts. Supposedly network IDs, the shorts are blackout gags starring college students Dennis and Dylan whose slovenly living room just happens to feature a BNN logo covering an entire wall.