Nickelodeon’s new original animated series, El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, enjoyed the best premiere performance ever for a Saturday morning series on the network. The show debuted with back-to-back episodes on Saturday, March 3, at 10 a.m. and attracted 3.4 million total viewers.

During the first half hour, 2.3 million kids aged 2-11 tuned in for an introduction to Manny’s world of superheroes and super villains. The 10:30 episode did slightly better as both plays increased Nickelodeon’s Saturday Morning performance by more than 4% over the previous week. Nickelodeon says the premiere even outperformed that of SpongeBob SquarePants, which made its debut in July 1999 and still reigns as the top cable show with kids 2-11.

Created by the Mexican-born husband-and-wife team of Jorge R. Gutierrez and Sandra Equihua, El Tigre is Nickelodeon’s first Flash-animated comedy series. Manny Rivera (voiced by Alanna Ubach) is a well-meaning kid who lives with his father, Rodolfo (Eric Bauza), and his grandfather, Granpapi (Carlos Alazraqui), in Miracle City, a spicy urban melting pot full of colorful heroes and nefarious villains. When he spins his mystical belt buckle, Manny transforms into El Tigre, a brave and powerful masked warrior who possesses the spirit of a good guy but also has potential to be a great baddie. Nickelodeon will air the series regularly on Saturdays from 10:30 a.m. to 11 a.m.