King World Productions, Inc. (also known as King World Entertainment, King World Enterprises, or simply King World) was a production company and syndicator of television programming in the United States independently established in 1964 until acquired by CBS in 1999, with its eventual 2007 incorporation into CBS Television Distribution (now CBS Media Ventures). Following the death of Roger King, the company continues to exist on paper as an intellectual property holder and under the moniker of KWP Studios to hold the copyright for television shows like Rachael Ray, which premiered nationally on September 18, 2006. History Founding with The Little Rascals The division was started in 1964 by Charles King (1912–1972). It was a company that expressly handled television distribution of the Hal Roach-produced Our Gang short comedy films from the 1930s. When Roach lost the rights to the name Our Gang (it was retained by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio, who bought the series from Roach in 1938), the shorts were retitled as The Little Rascals. It was through this acquisition that the comedy shorts made from 1929 through 1938 have been made available to audiences for the past fifty years. King World later co-produced an animated TV special with Muller-Rosen Productions and Murakami-Wolf-Swenson in 1979 called The Little Rascals Christmas Special and later co-produced an 1982–1984 animated The Little Rascals TV series with Hanna-Barbera. King died in 1972 and the company was taken over by King's children: Roger M. King (1944-2007), Michael (1948-2015), Robert (1940-2020), Diana (1949-2019), Richard (1941-2020), and Karen. 1980s expansion In 1983, the company acquired the syndication rights to NBC's daytime game show Wheel of Fortune. Merv Griffin, the show's creator and producer, had shopped the program to various other studios prior to reaching a deal with King World. King World also would acquire the rights to distribute Griffin's own long-running talk/variety program from Metromedia's syndication division. A year later, Griffin announced plans to revive another of his game show creations, Jeopardy!, and King World agreed to distribute that program as well. In 1984 King World formed an ad-sales barter division called Camelot Entertainment Sales. Later that year president Robert King left the company to form The Television Program Source; a television syndication company that was founded as a joint venture between King, Alan Bennett, and Columbia Pictures Television. King World also purchased television and film distributor Leo A. Gutman, Inc. whose titles included the theatricals