On the Team (2001)

Country

United States

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A documentary series follows a youth baseball team in Brooklyn as they prepare for playoff games in 2000. It shows the real experiences of the kids and their team spirit.

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What happens

On the Team is an American documentary television series produced for the Noggin channel. It covers the experiences of a youth baseball team in Brooklyn as they prepare for the 2000 playoff games. The series premiered on Noggin on January 30, 2001. It started airing on Noggin's sister channel, Nickelodeon, on May 2, 2001. It was created by Lisa Wood Shapiro and executive-produced by Shapiro and Gus Reyes. The show was first announced by Variety in November 2000. According to an article in The New York Times, the idea stemmed from Lisa Wood Shapiro's wish to create a "cinéma vérité for kids." She spent the summer of 2000 scouting different teams, looking for a group that demonstrated team spirit. Shapiro eventually chose the Camp Friendship Panthers, a team that played at Brooklyn's Prospect Park. Noggin greenlit a thirteen-episode series based on the team because the network "wanted a program about real kids doing real things." Ahead of the show's premiere, former New York Mets player John Franco hosted promotional events for On the Team. On the Team debuted during Noggin's primetime block, The Hubbub, which was designed to allow viewers to interact with the show as it aired. Viewer comments were played live during interstitials and after each broadcast. The show was aimed at pre-teens. Critical response to the series was positive, with The Los Angeles Times calling it "unexpectedly compelling true storytelling" and The Star Democrat calling it better than most new adult documentaries at the time. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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