The Early Years of Nickelodeon: The Tale of Ruined Childhoods

Tale a seat on an orange couch and get ready for a nostalgia road trip.

In part 1 of our discourse on Nickelodeon we talk about the founding of the network in the late 1970's as commercial free kids programming to the network's acquisition by Warner which led to & the so called "Orange Years" (1983-1996) while trying to gain a broader understanding of how Nickelodeon became what it is today 

While some people seemed to always have had the best intentions, the early years of Nickelodeon set the ground work for everything that would follow. From shows like You Can't Do That on Television and the introduction of slime and competition shows like Double Dare to scripted series like Salute Your Shorts, Pete & Pete, Clarissa Explains it All & Are You Afraid of the Dark? In the 1980's and early 90's Nickelodeon was a cornerstone for kids programming.

But how did a network which basically started as public broadcasting with the intent of making children feel seen become a safe haven for some of the most predatory people in the entertainment industry? It started with the Orange Years. 


(content warning: part 1 only covers up to 1995 so we won't be discussing Quiet on Set yet, abuse is still referenced in this episode & shows like Ren and Stimpy that are discussed in this episode will be talked about in greater detail for  part 2, Part 3 will start with the All That spin offs) 

Sources:

The Orange Years (documentary)

Slimed! An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age
Book by Mathew Klickstein

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Our safety record was really good, with the exception of
one kid. As he was coming down, he flipped over.
Now I could have swore he broke his neck. I
thought his head snapped. Afterwards, we go back in the
control room, we watch it on slow mo. This person
shouldn't be alive today. I mean his head went this way,
his neck went this way.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Was frightening.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
We were the anti Disney. We were the anti Saturday Morning.

Speaker 4 (00:30):
It was weird and whacky.

Speaker 5 (00:31):
One of the things that people I think don't know
about Nickelodeon was how many women there were.

Speaker 6 (00:37):
I mean stuff we got away with what was insane.

Speaker 7 (00:39):
The inmates were very much running the asylum back he
was way easier to slip.

Speaker 8 (00:43):
Staff in running Stimpy Dude, Legends of the Hidden Temples
and candidate on television his life the Eventure should be
the salute your short doubled aircat progress tychical world of
Alex neck Orris explains it all.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
Are you afraid of the daughter?

Speaker 9 (00:58):
Hello, neighbors, lovers from and anyone who's sat too close
to the television. I'm Danielliscrima, and you're listening to Broad's
next Door, Ravisiat and maybe a therapist's phone number, because
today we're starting our discourse on the history of Nickelodeon,
the good, the bad, and the worse than you could

(01:18):
ever imagine. Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society,
I call this story the Tale of Ruined childhoods Oh right, Hi? Hello,
how is everybody? It has been a while. If you're
new here, thank you so much for joining us today.

(01:39):
If you're old here, thank you even more for coming back.
This is This has been a rough a rough one
for me to do on that in Part two. If
you haven't watched the recently released docu series Quiet on
the Set, or if you just don't plan to watch
it at all, I know that's too difficult for some
people to watch it all. We are not going to

(01:59):
be talking about those allegations in this episode. That will
all start in part two. Part one is going to
focus on the Orange Ears, the founding of the network
in the late seventies, and then going into about nineteen
ninety five. With Part two, we're going to start with
ren and Stimpy, which whole thing, and also Dan Schneider

(02:19):
taking over as show runner for all that, Geraldine CEO
leaving for Disney It's a big shift in the nineties
where they go from not doing a lot of marketing
for kids toys to doing it ton of marketing for
kids toys too, having all of these women and different
dudes in charge, some of the same people. Not to
say that everyone in the early nineties is in a

(02:42):
simp by any means. This is what lays the groundwork.
But we'll be starting part two with a Dan Schneider
taking over all that from being just a writer, being
the show runner and running this two week boot camp
with Brian Pack and that run and stimpy. Then we'll
go into a man show. There might have to be
a part three because this goes on for so long.

(03:05):
This episode still will reference child abuse and different grooming
stages outside of this introduction is still there. I just
want to be mindful for people who really have a
hard time with that, And if you do have a
hard time with that, then just don't listen to Part
two or three. This is going to give a little
bit of foundation of Nickelodeon and also just what it

(03:26):
was like for a generation to be raised by TV,
the good parts and the bad. My experience with Nickelodeon
was really positive as a kid of the nineties, which
I guess a lot of people who grew up watching
shows like Drake and Josh and Zoey one oh one
in the two thousands. Their relationship was also positive.

Speaker 4 (03:48):
I remember seeing.

Speaker 9 (03:48):
Glimpses of those shows when I was in my twenties nannying,
and any of the kids I nannied for were very
sheltered from screen time to begin with, but I was
always a no Disney like. I didn't want those Disney
shows on, And then I was really surprised to see
these shows on Nickelodeon, where it just looked very soundstage,
super physical comedy. But I thought about things like claristic

(04:11):
explains at all and eat empeat and salute sports, and
those were all weird too in their own right, but
it just felt like a different kind of weirdness that
I couldn't put my finger on. But to me, in
my mind, Nickelodeon was still somehow the anti Disney. It
was educational and the underdog. I had no idea anything

(04:32):
bad was happening. There are also shows that did seem
to do the right thing by their child actors, and
I don't want to discredit that, because that's what we need.
We need more of that, not less of that. At
the same time, you could have fifty amazing shows and
one show with what Dan Schneider did does just kind
of ruin everything. It can't be the same after that.

(04:55):
In this first part, I just want to go over
the history with y'all and kind of focus on what
been referred to as the Orange Ears nineteen eighty three
to nineteen ninety six ish. Though the inception of Nickelodeon
itself started as public broadcasting really trying to just make
programming accessible to kids. I want to talk about what

(05:15):
the impact has been. Is there any good left? Are
our childhood's completely ruined? So in the nineteen seventies, there
were some children's television shows. There was stuff like The
Electric Company, some different PBS things, some after school specials,
but there wasn't that many channels, and there was no
network that was just devoted to children's television, which brings

(05:39):
us to doctor Vivian Horner. She creates the first Nickelodeon series, Pinwheel,
but it's actually part of this much larger thing called
the Q Network, which I'm going to let the Nickelodeon
people explain, because it's kind of confusing.

Speaker 4 (05:56):
Basically, yeah, let let's just hear that clip. This is
from the documentary The Orangeiers.

Speaker 10 (06:03):
In the very beginning, there was an experiment in Columbus,
Ohio called Cube and it was interactive TV.

Speaker 11 (06:09):
In the very for future, Warner Cable will be introducing
an expanded system of communication in Columbus, Ohio. It will
involve television plus what is now known as cable Villa.
It will go beyond both. It starts at this little
black box. The big thing down in Columbus was this
whole interactive.

Speaker 4 (06:23):
Mark Summer's host of Doubledare.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
Correct, and it was television of the future, and everybody thought,
oh my god, this is revolutionary.

Speaker 11 (06:31):
These buttons often the subscriber the capability literally to talk
back to the television set. You can test them, to
give your views on the subject, or take part in
the game. You can answer questions, ask for you shows.

Speaker 6 (06:41):
We had a show called Talent Search and.

Speaker 12 (06:43):
It was sort of like today's American hegand if some
act was on and you didn't like it, you could
press a button at home and see the percentages on
the screen and.

Speaker 6 (06:52):
That act gone within a minute a half.

Speaker 10 (06:54):
One of the people who was the scientist behind Cube
was a woman named doctor Vivian Horner was her pedagoguy
that went behind the early version of Nickelodeon, which actually
was called Penley.

Speaker 9 (07:08):
And there is already Sesame Street, there's PBS at this point,
there is children's programming. Children's programming has been around, but
it's very sporadic, like they say, mainly Saturday morning cartoons
or this specific educational stuff or different specials that exist
already on established IP like Superheroes were a.

Speaker 13 (07:29):
Child, I think watching you know, when you don't have
a lot of money, do you know, because you're in Columbus, Ohio.

Speaker 6 (07:34):
You tend to get recreated.

Speaker 14 (07:35):
It is better in some sense because it was law
and there wasn't all that great production value.

Speaker 6 (07:41):
And the footage is well kids.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
It was more real than seeing all this great New
York or Hollywood production.

Speaker 6 (07:48):
It was the beginning of of everything.

Speaker 15 (07:50):
In terms of cable.

Speaker 9 (07:51):
Pinwheel, do they realize, like this voting on your remote
control thing, that the world is not ready for it?
Pinwheel starts out as just daily programming and it runs
from seven am to nine pm Eastern time. I don't
know if you're old enough to remember this. I do
remember it on some channels where the programming would be
over and it would literally just go to static.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
This is pre nick at Night.

Speaker 9 (08:16):
Then they figure out infomercials, which honestly smart. That would
have been my shopping addiction if I was this age
at that time, But I digress. Doctor Vivian Horner asked
everyone to come up with a name for the network.
They're not sticking with Pinwheel because Pinwheel was just basically
a show. So Sandy Kavanaugh, who was a producer on Pinwheel,

(08:39):
suggests Nickelodeon, which is a reference to early nickel Arcade movies,
though in twenty thirteen she said I wasn't thrilled with Nickelodeon.

Speaker 4 (08:48):
It was whimsical sounding, though it had a fun lilt.

Speaker 9 (08:51):
And on April first, nineteen seventy nine, Pinwheel becomes Nickelodeon
and starts being broadcast to an even larger air.

Speaker 12 (09:00):
Nickelodeon introducing Nickelodeon Children's program Let's fit, what's your thirteen
hours of programming a day, seven days a week, but
we'll make them one.

Speaker 9 (09:09):
Yeah, But before we get into the entire history of
Nickelodeon and how it came to be, we're going to
take a quick commercial. It takes Nickelodeon a while to
find its footing because at first it's really just like

(09:29):
overly positive to where it seems fake.

Speaker 4 (09:33):
It's too high of an expectation for kids to be
able to relate to.

Speaker 15 (09:37):
So those early days.

Speaker 13 (09:38):
Of Nickelodeon had sort of an old school feel to it,
you know, shows that had, you know, some kind of
educational value to it. But there was nothing very distinctive
about Nickelodeon in those days. But we call those days
the green Vegetables Days at Nickelodeon because it was good
for you, but it wasn't something really that kids wanted.

Speaker 9 (09:56):
This is Alan Goodman speaking and he's a former care
creative branding executive of Nickelodeon from this time period.

Speaker 13 (10:05):
So piano and kids who are jumping out of airplanes
and you parachuting and just amazing kids who did incredible things,
and those shows made kids feel terrible about themselves because
there's that kid on TV and he's doing something amazing
and I can barely get through third grade.

Speaker 16 (10:25):
Nickelodeon had been run by a guy from the toy business, Sesshnider,
who had his opportunity and then it was passed on
to Jerry Laborne.

Speaker 9 (10:35):
So Geraldine coming on and replacing toy Man is what's
supposed to be this really big shift. Everything is just
supposed to get more progressive. We're gonna have a lot
of women showrunners, women writers, women writers' rooms, which we
still don't have.

Speaker 17 (10:49):
Geraldine Layborne is the most progressive thing.

Speaker 9 (10:53):
This is mainly programming aimed toward preschool aged children, but
it's successful in engaging that audience, not financially successful. There's
a market for it because shows like that aren't being
shown on any other channels. There aren't that many channels,
and when Nickelodeon makes its debut, it owned by Warner

(11:14):
Cable and they're basically taking a loss with this network
since it's commercial free.

Speaker 4 (11:20):
But this is like the dollar fifty hot dog at Osco.

Speaker 9 (11:23):
They're getting your money elsewhere, so enjoy your hot dog
or soft serve cone because they're still they're still getting
cash somehow. One of the first it seems like the
first year they really have a hard time finding their footing.
One of the first shows that airs is called Special Delivery.
But then in nineteen eighty one everything changes with you

(11:45):
can't do that on television which makes its American television
debut because it's actually a Canadian show. A lot of
these shows are it's the series' first hit, and it's
when we get slime. You can't do that in television.
Kind of has these game shows like segments for part
of the stuff, and those are really popular and that's
how we get another show. Double Dare some other shows

(12:07):
listed from the early years, The Third Eye don't remember
that at all, stand By Lights, Camera Action, and Mister
Wizard's World. So this is a period of time now
where they refer to as the Green Years. I believe yeah,
because they're showing a lot of educational stuff, but good
for like preschoolers. Beyond that, it seems like they're having
a hard time engaging children. But then they really mix

(12:30):
that up by adding in these competition shows. Nick at
Night debuted at eight pm on July first, nineteen eighty five,
as a block on Nickelodeon, and it originally showed reruns
of Dennis the Menace, They played the film The Red House,
the original Judy Garland, A Star is Born, and then
they started picking up a bunch of different old series

(12:53):
and running them. And I'm pretty sure Nick at Knights
still exists. And then Roger Price also really changes the
trajectory of everything with his attitude.

Speaker 13 (13:04):
And I think one of the geniuses who really informed
a lot of what happened at Nickelodeon was a guy
named Roger Price was the producer of You Can't Do
That on Television. Roger believed that all kids feel stupid
and alone on the inside. And I think that that
was such a powerful truth. You know that he articulated.

Speaker 18 (13:24):
All of these crazy guys who went to Cambridge and
Oxford were creating this completely inappropriate television, and Roger was
of that vintage. He tried to sell the concept of
a TV show about kids who could just be who
they are, and these very staid producers said, you can't
do that on couch.

Speaker 15 (13:41):
He said.

Speaker 9 (13:43):
During this era, we get two of Nickelodeon's most iconic things.
The orange logo, and the only rule with the logo
was that it had to stay orange. It could be
and it had to be the same Nickelodeon font, but
it could be in any shape or used in any
other way. So they got really creative with that. And
the second thing, the biggest thing probably is slime. This

(14:05):
is from the Nicopedia Fan paid. Slime is a green
substance that is made of a simple mix of vanilla pudding,
apple sauce, green food coloring, and a little oatmeal. The
oatmeal seems really unnecessary. It made its debut on you
can't do that on television, and when someone answered with

(14:25):
the phrase I don't know, that would result in whoever said,
I don't know being slimed.

Speaker 4 (14:30):
But slime stayed a thing.

Speaker 9 (14:32):
They also used it on Double Dare, Wild and Crazy Kid, Wienerville,
Figure It Out, rug Rats, Bungebob, and it became part
of the Nick Choice Award. But you can't do that
on television is what really puts slime on the map.
I remember when I was really little, I didn't under
I didn't understand you can't do that on television. And
in the eighties some of the reruns I kind of got,

(14:55):
but so clearly remember slime.

Speaker 4 (14:57):
I never wanted to be slimed personally. I did want
to be on Doubledare Weld and Crazy Kids.

Speaker 15 (15:02):
Flodion owes a lot.

Speaker 4 (15:04):
This is the producer's talking on the orange ears.

Speaker 13 (15:07):
So you can't do that until not just kind of
the elements of green slime. You know that became iconic
for Nickelodeon. I think the whole way of relating to
kids in a very honest, authentic, real and not you know,
fancy or polished store.

Speaker 9 (15:22):
I think that was one of the feels of you
can't do that on television that I didn't understand when
I was a really little kid is how it made
kids feel normal. It had this kind of like freaks
and geeks, my so called life Canadian the grassy vibe
to it. I've rewat them clips and some of the
humor does not age well. It feels so distinctly Canadian too.

(15:45):
But I actually really appreciate that. But I think that
if you were like in middle school when something like
this came out, I would love to hear from some
gen X people that were older when that came out,
because I bet it would have been really relatable to
see people on TV just kind of messing up. Instead
of being these perfect sitcom kids, They're.

Speaker 4 (16:04):
Just a mess too.

Speaker 9 (16:06):
These nick at Night debuted at eight pm on July first,
nineteen eighty five, as a block on Nickelodeon, and it
originally showed reruns of Dennis the Menace. They played the film,
The Red House, the original Judy Garland, A Star is Born,
And then they started picking up a bunch of different
Bold series and running them.

Speaker 19 (16:27):
Effort On Gets It Go.

Speaker 4 (16:30):
Mark Summers again, He's in this a lot.

Speaker 20 (16:33):
Well, he asked me, Doublair put Nickelodeon on the map,
I mean Slime was there, and you know, I don't know,
but I think we were the first appointment TV the
kids had.

Speaker 13 (16:42):
The question was how do you make a low cost,
high volume program that could really perform well for kids
in this time slot that we were looking to win.

Speaker 9 (16:52):
As a producer, I truly wonder how they got any
of this ensured. Because they're doing like obstacle courses in
all of this stuff with children, the rules must have
been different. I really I'm not that familiar with stufford
for television, but I like to do this for a
film now, would he impossible? I don't think that this
They could even have reality TV shows like this with Hid.

(17:14):
These obstacle courses were pretty intense on some of these
these shows, from starting with Double dare going all the
way to Legends of the Hidden Temple. At least with
the Legends of the Hidden Temple, they brought in some
foam and put helmets on the kids.

Speaker 4 (17:27):
But the early years, I don't know how they tested
this stuff.

Speaker 9 (17:31):
I don't know how they got it insured. I would
have loved to see the waivers the parents had to
sign for the kids to do the obstacle courses and
everything either.

Speaker 21 (17:40):
Duke, Jeffrey Darby and Mike Klinghoffer were in a row
talking about those talking about development, talking about game, and
one of them said, did you ever when used.

Speaker 15 (17:49):
To dare someone to do something when you were a kid.

Speaker 21 (17:52):
And the response from somebody else in the room was, well,
that was fun.

Speaker 15 (17:55):
But it was when Doubledare at them that it got
really interesting.

Speaker 22 (18:00):
I'm Doubledare flying, brother William Tin on your parade, scrambled
ay and more. The physical challenge another reason to watch
Double Days.

Speaker 19 (18:14):
Everybody, welcome to double There. It's game that bubbles the
challenge from your brains.

Speaker 20 (18:18):
Right down your They shot a pilot in Jeffrey Darby's basement.
They wanted Jeffrey the king of Nickelodeon and Jerry labor
and thought everything he did was magical and so well,
why don't you do it?

Speaker 23 (18:26):
Jeffrey with a toss up brown so hands on the
bottle buzzer and mister.

Speaker 20 (18:37):
I was thirty three years old. I didn't want to
do a kids show. I didn't even know what the
hell it was. I just wanted to get on television
on a regular gig.

Speaker 12 (18:43):
This physical challenge is going to be very easy.

Speaker 13 (18:45):
You know, what makes Mark special is that he doesn't
talk down to kids. I mean that he's just that
guy who's like a friend. Having somebody who's personable and likable,
I think made him the right choice for hosting that show.

Speaker 20 (19:01):
So first they had a set of double there. We
were all excited and nervous, and the big wigs came
down from New York and we just wanted to get
it right.

Speaker 15 (19:08):
You get that flag.

Speaker 19 (19:09):
Oh you can't help find the flag. Find the flag.
It's in there somewhere.

Speaker 20 (19:13):
We thought somebody put the flag in, but they didn't
put the flag in. So for sixty seconds they're going
through the feathers, there's no flag.

Speaker 15 (19:19):
Sorry, your time is up. We never even got to
our first flag.

Speaker 19 (19:21):
Yeah, I feel bad about that.

Speaker 11 (19:23):
There is a flag in there somewhere, I promise, we
just unfortunately don't have time to go in and find it.

Speaker 19 (19:27):
But there is a flag in there, and we're only
at two obstacle number one.

Speaker 15 (19:30):
We're cutting great, thank goodness.

Speaker 4 (19:32):
So there were some kings in the beginning. You can
tell that some of this was not planned out that well.

Speaker 9 (19:37):
Especially we're still pre Nickelodeon studios, so they don't have
They're just filming on a bunch of different places. They
don't have one set yet, but that's going to become
a priority for Geraldine find a studio.

Speaker 10 (19:50):
At one point in the late eighties, we were producing
seven shows in seven different places, and I thought, wouldn't
you be great had a studio, a central studio with
a lot.

Speaker 15 (20:01):
I knew that we couldn't.

Speaker 10 (20:02):
Afford it, so I and Universal Studios, Florida was just
getting started.

Speaker 9 (20:07):
June seventh, nineteen ninety one of the most exciting parts
of Nickelodeon happened, and that was Nickelodeon Studios opening, labeling
itself the first world headquarter for kids. It was on
Universal property. I remember going there in the early nineties
and just thinking it was the coolest thing in the world.

(20:27):
We got to watch some some game show be tape.
It wasn't Double Dare, but it was something like a
Double Dare and I just thought it was the absolute
greatest thing in the world. Now, I'm really great that
my parents did not grateful that my parents did not
drag me out to Orlando, an hour and a half
away to become a child star, like I've begged them
to do the entire car ride home.

Speaker 20 (20:49):
The next studios, Ladies and gentlemen, we are live, first.

Speaker 24 (20:53):
Time eleven years.

Speaker 22 (20:54):
We're doing a live broadcast on.

Speaker 12 (20:55):
Nickelodeon, and it means we are coming here from our
new home, Orlando, Florida.

Speaker 20 (21:01):
These are your studios where.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
You can come to watch Nick being made and you
can audition to be on.

Speaker 15 (21:06):
A Nick show.

Speaker 9 (21:07):
Recently, Melissa Joanhart has spoken about her experience on The
Universe a Lot and it was it was mainly mainly positive.
She said she had a lot of people looking out
for her, and she did receive backlash for that. But
I'm also gonna included lips of people that did have
positive experiences because I think a big shift happens when
they stopped filming at the Nickelodeon at Universal Studios. Here's

(21:30):
Keenan and Kell talking about what it was like working
on the Lot.

Speaker 25 (21:34):
Universe Studios was our backyard in between like breaks and
stuff like that. In between sketches, we would go hang
out in the Back to the Future ride.

Speaker 26 (21:40):
We would like sneak into the park at lunch time
and like go ride like Terminator.

Speaker 9 (21:45):
And just because any of these people did have positive experiences,
just like anything else, it doesn't mean that anyone else's
bad experiences aren't true. This is earlier in the nineties,
the predatory behavior Nickelodeon. They start being allowed to get
worse and worse. Parents that are managers start having different

(22:08):
roles of involvement where it's much less protecting the kid
and much more exploitation.

Speaker 4 (22:14):
And also, just because these people.

Speaker 9 (22:16):
Are saying that they had good experiences doesn't mean that
they won't come out with other stuff. It takes a
really long time to process abuse. I do think the
atmosphere at Universal was there were a lot of tours,
there were a lot of people going through all the time,
There were live studio audiences. It wasn't these closed sets

(22:39):
where no one could really see what was going on.
There was a different level of accountability in the early years.

Speaker 4 (22:47):
While at the same time completely disregarding children's physical safety,
they did seem to care a bit more for their men.

Speaker 9 (22:55):
I don't know if mental well being is the right word.
They cared more about something.

Speaker 15 (23:01):
The show, like Hey Dude was the next chapter.

Speaker 4 (23:09):
So good, So good.

Speaker 15 (23:12):
Hey Dude was a critical moment for Nickelodeon.

Speaker 9 (23:15):
It was one of my favorites, so I'm including it.
And it took place on the bar Nun Dude Ranch,
which was outside of Tucson, Arizona, and it was like
this city slicker dad with his son, mister Ernst.

Speaker 4 (23:29):
Mister Ernst. Yeah, but they had one of.

Speaker 9 (23:32):
My They had some of my favorite characters of all time.
They had this boy, Danny, who was Native American, and
in one episode he goes and like steals back all
of these artifacts and that had like a really profound
effect on me.

Speaker 4 (23:48):
I remember watching that with my mom. She was telling
me all the buffalo were killed.

Speaker 21 (23:55):
But to do a scripted show, to do something that
their networks did, they did scripted television, so it.

Speaker 9 (24:03):
Was critical that I didn't know Hey Dude was their
first scripted series.

Speaker 4 (24:08):
Oh loved Hay Dude. They touched topics like that, and
this is the early nineties.

Speaker 9 (24:15):
That's one thing is that Nickelodeon casting was much more
diverse then. I think than in a lot of these
later shows. Oh and Christine Taylor was on that as Melody.

Speaker 21 (24:25):
I just I think we absolutely bonded more because we
were living on location.

Speaker 27 (24:29):
I mean, what do you do when you're seventeen years
old in the middle of the desert making the show?

Speaker 4 (24:35):
But it was the best.

Speaker 15 (24:36):
It was super fun and we all had the best time.

Speaker 13 (24:40):
Ultimately, at the end of the day, our stories were
about the kids taking care of each other and being
generous to each other and being good friends.

Speaker 19 (24:47):
And I think if you have the privilege of putting something.

Speaker 4 (24:49):
Buddy's wearing a Mets hat, that's cool to me. The
next big release is Salute Your Shorts.

Speaker 9 (25:01):
Salute Your Shorts, which was, according to my research, is
still the only theme song television theme song to ever
include the word fart, which is impressive.

Speaker 4 (25:11):
Can that really be true? Has no one gone there since?

Speaker 9 (25:15):
I never went to summer camp as a kid, so
I especially enjoyed watching them go to summer camp. Salute
Your Shorts only aired for two seasons and was based
off of this book, Salute Your Shorts, Life at Summer Camp,
which I've actually taken from the library before.

Speaker 4 (25:31):
And it's not like a story book.

Speaker 9 (25:33):
It's more like a satirical guide to what you do
if you go into summer camp. If I remember correctly,
I depend way too much on my ninety sprain. I'm like,
for sure that was right. The nineties was basically what five.

Speaker 4 (25:47):
Ten years ago.

Speaker 9 (25:48):
Seleutr Shorts has picked up the series. In February nineteen
ninety one, Danny Cooksie Buttnick talking about casting for Salute
Your Shorts.

Speaker 15 (26:00):
Michael and Donculus or the field, like, that's this is
gonna work me, my best friend, the entire world. This
is any doculent skill.

Speaker 28 (26:07):
I can hawk a LOOKI eight feet the air and
catch it with my tongue.

Speaker 15 (26:11):
And then also just.

Speaker 4 (26:14):
Talmas.

Speaker 15 (26:15):
She was telling me to that much diversity.

Speaker 24 (26:19):
So I was the only black kid on the show,
you know, so at that time that.

Speaker 19 (26:23):
Was very diverse.

Speaker 9 (26:24):
Nickelodeon also had this thing called the Big Help where
you would call in and pledge hours, and I pledged
like hundreds and hundreds of hours. I was honestly worried
I was going to get arrested, that someone was going
to come and be like, hey, so we know you
haven't spent hundreds of hours cleaning trash out of the ocean.

Speaker 4 (26:42):
I was just waiting for it. And back in the day,
Nick really did try and get poltical.

Speaker 9 (26:47):
That was actually one of their goals was to get
kids actively politically involved. Here's Geraldine again being interviewed about
the inception of Nick News any days.

Speaker 10 (26:59):
Nurture a better group of political candidates for the sake
of our democracy. We tried to figure out who in
the world tells stories about the news?

Speaker 15 (27:10):
Was Linda, Oh, yeah, Christmas, many people go home for
the holidays.

Speaker 29 (27:14):
What if you don't have a home to go to?
Many homeless people we see on the streets seem to
be alone. But what you may not have seen are
the thousands of homeless families across the country.

Speaker 15 (27:24):
There are kids your age was no home.

Speaker 9 (27:26):
In nineteen ninety two, one of my favorite Nick shows debuted,
and that was Nick News with Linda Lerb. Nick News
aired on Sunday nights from eight to eight thirty and
they brought up like a lot of social justice issues
and also had a lot of kids doing news and
talked about stuff that seemed fairly fairly heavy, but I

(27:48):
really enjoyed hearing those things. It was a lot of
stuff that we were typically sheltered from told in this
kind of like sixty minutes format. Nickelodeon is for sure
where I became Nickelodeon. Captain Planet is for sure where
I became aware of, like global warming.

Speaker 10 (28:04):
How do you tell stories so kids feel like they're
part of the world, not frightened by the world. We
weren't trying to break stories. We weren't trying to heighten things.

Speaker 15 (28:12):
We were trying to make it.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
Under the HIV buyerus that I have attained, I will
have to retire from the Lakers.

Speaker 10 (28:18):
When Magic Johnson was diagnosed HIV posse, I called David
Stern and I said, if you ever want this, explain
to kids, Linda and I are ready to do this.

Speaker 4 (28:29):
This is more than the United States government is doing
at this point.

Speaker 9 (28:33):
At this point in the AIDS epidemic, they've spent more
research on the Thailand all murders than on HIV.

Speaker 4 (28:39):
That's actually probably still true now. Fucking HIV.

Speaker 9 (28:42):
AIDS was still so stigmatized at the time too, so
Magic Johnson coming out and speaking about it was a
really big deal. I almost feel like we watched this
in school, but I'm not sure.

Speaker 29 (28:56):
When Magic Johnson went on television and said he was
HIV positive.

Speaker 4 (29:00):
I remember that he wanted to go well.

Speaker 15 (29:03):
About AIDS and say for sex.

Speaker 10 (29:05):
So when she went on the set with Magic Johnson,
he didn't know anything about what she was going to do.
And the first thing she said was how many people
sitting here are HIV positive? And these three little kids
raise their hands and one of them starts to song,
and God bless Magic Johnson.

Speaker 19 (29:22):
He just calms her down.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
I know that, guys, you don't have to crawl because
we are normal people. Okay, you just want to be
treated like that, right, You just want your friends to play.

Speaker 4 (29:44):
All the other little kids are come by.

Speaker 15 (29:48):
And still have sleepovers and things like that.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
Right, Yeah, it's okay to crowd. It's okay to crowd.

Speaker 15 (29:55):
It was really magic.

Speaker 4 (29:57):
I really started Tory watching We will be right back
after these messages.

Speaker 9 (30:08):
In nineteen eighty nine, The Adventures of Pete and Pete
starts airing, but it's originally not a full series. It's
what they call interstecials. I don't know if I'm saying
that right, but though you know what those are. They're
those little in between episodes. They weren't really commercials. A
lot of times they were drawings or they were just
telling short stories, but the Pete and Pete ones were

(30:31):
really unique and they really stood out. And it didn't
start filming for series until nineteen ninety three, come out
until nineteen ninety four, but I think a lot of
us do remember it from earlier because we saw those
characters in rotation for a few years before that.

Speaker 4 (30:47):
This is from an article from Mental Life.

Speaker 9 (30:50):
If Are You Afraid of the Dark was a way
station for future stars on the road to fame. The
Adventures of Pete and Pete, which ran from nineteen ninety
three to nineteen ninety six, was more of a fun
side gig for those who had already made it.

Speaker 4 (31:02):
Here are some of the people who guest starred.

Speaker 9 (31:05):
Steve Buscemi, ll Cool, j Richard Edson, Chris Elliott, Gordon Gano,
Janine Garofflo, Debbie Harry, Patty Hurst, Luscius Jackson, John mcgloughlin, Babingdorf,
Iggy Pop, Michael Stipe, Adam West, Pete and Pete definitely
made notes to the adults through having these guest appearances.

(31:29):
I remember knowing who Michael Stipe was because his music
was really popular at the time and Debbie Harry, but
I don't think I recognized a lot of the cameos.
I didn't know who Iggy Pop was until much later,
and then it was like, oh my God, that these
all these people were on Pete and Pete. So I
understand how they said that Pete and Pete was like

(31:51):
Twin Peaks for kids.

Speaker 4 (31:52):
That's something that's not streaming anywhere. Does anyone have it?
I really want to watch it.

Speaker 9 (31:58):
I just looked, though, and I literally cannot find find
episodes of Pete and Pete, even on sites where you
could normally find things. But I did find this article
that's only nine months old, written by Sean Theson called
the best Nickelodeon series isn't streaming anywhere.

Speaker 4 (32:14):
And no one knows why.

Speaker 9 (32:16):
Every once in a while, a brilliant coming of age
show comes along, then disappears. Fans of shows like Freaks
and Geeks and Undeclared know the pain, and so do
fans of the nineties Nickelodeon classic Pete and Pete. The
Adventures of Pete and Pete starts Danny Tamborelli as Little
Pete Wrigley, a mischievous child, and Michael Morona as Big
Pete Wrigley, his teenage brother Big Pete, who mean of

(32:38):
preservers may recognize as Jeff McAllister, Kevin's redheaded brother, and
Home Alone narrates the series. The Petes have all kinds
of suburban adventures in this surreal series, thanks largely to
the bizarre supporting cast of the adventures of Pete and
Pete boys are joined by their typical suburban parents, with
an understanding mother and a competitive but easily vexed Pete's

(33:00):
mom has a plate in her head from an unspecified
child accident that allows her to pick up and transmit
radio stations, but it has no effect otherwise. The plate
gets its own title card in the show's brilliant opening
credit sequence, as does Petunia, the tattoo of a saltry
woman in a red dress on Little Pete's forearm. Together,
this wacky cast populates the fictional town of Wellsville, a

(33:21):
suburban town on the same level of ambiguity as The
Simpsons Springfield. Created by Will McRobb and Chris Fiscardi, the
show began in nineteen ninety one as a series of
interstitial short Okay, this is nineteen ninety one and the
other thing I read since nineteen eighty nine anywhere in
between there. The full episode saw the brothers experiences the

(33:42):
challenge of growing up and a loss of innocence through
series of delightful misadventures that made The Adventures of Beaten
Pete a cult classics.

Speaker 4 (33:49):
So where is it?

Speaker 9 (33:50):
The series ran for three seasons and was syndicated until
two thousand and four. In two thousand and five, the
first two seasons of the Adventures of Pete and Pete
were released on DVD, with the third scheduled for release
in early two thousand and six, but that never happened.
According in to the series creators, DVDs for season three
were produced and are sitting somewhere in a warehouse, but
they never went to market. The hold up was apparently

(34:12):
a result of DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures merger, but it's
not really clear now. The series is also absent from
streaming platforms. Many Nickelodeon TV shows from the nineteen nineties
are available on Paramount Plus or even Hulu, but still
The Adventures of Pete and Pete remains mysteriously absent from
the streaming lineup, and there's no clear answer as to

(34:32):
why it all started.

Speaker 25 (34:34):
Pet and p was a very weird show, like it
wasn't for everybody, and because of that, I think what
people latched onto was that.

Speaker 15 (34:42):
Sort of weirdness.

Speaker 28 (34:43):
People used to say it was Twin Peaks meets some
Wonder Years and Pete, Oh my gosh.

Speaker 15 (34:48):
I mean, if you watch that show now, you watch
it great.

Speaker 30 (34:51):
Well it is that underneath it all was a layer
of deep nostalgia, but on top of that, it was
sort of filtered through a very fractured mindset of the narrator.
I think one of the things that made people realize
that pet and Teeth was something different. It was in
our opening credit. We give a tattoo a credit, and

(35:15):
we give a plate. Mom's had her own credit. Petunia
was my tattoo. Nobody knows how.

Speaker 19 (35:20):
I got it.

Speaker 25 (35:21):
But every time I shake my wrist like this and
I can make her dance, my mom fainted. So I
had to wear long sleeve shirts even in the summer.
I've seen a lot of opportunity tattoos, all pretty unique.
A lot of people were like, hey, it's a tattoo real.
I was like, no, it's not, it's not real. I
was seven years old.

Speaker 30 (35:39):
It was interesting that we could get away with that then,
I mean, you know she's it's a partly clad woman.
I mean it's like a real hardcore tattoo, something an
old sailor would have.

Speaker 19 (35:47):
Someone did something illegal to a child.

Speaker 3 (35:50):
We put it on Nickelodeon.

Speaker 28 (35:51):
The main difference between Big Pete and Little Pete would
have to be that little pe is secure in his
child like imagination and brain, but Big Pete.

Speaker 19 (36:01):
Was always struggling with do I want to stay a kid?
Do I want to grow up? He's at the crossroads
and I'm not there yet.

Speaker 15 (36:07):
You girl and your friend, but you're not a girlfriend.

Speaker 9 (36:10):
Pete and Ellen's relationship deeply influenced me. It's funny how
you hear about these things later on and then you
realize the effect that it had.

Speaker 15 (36:19):
And that's from Pete's.

Speaker 6 (36:19):
Point of view, But we do see their relationship develop
over time.

Speaker 3 (36:23):
Both in the Day of the Dot.

Speaker 9 (36:24):
Which was early on in our series, Danny Tamberelli talking
about already the strongest man in the World's wardrobe initial wardrobe,
the argument my.

Speaker 19 (36:36):
Mom didn't like that he wore the tights. Though the
first time Toby put on the tights, I don't.

Speaker 6 (36:40):
Know if he was wearing the thickest underwear.

Speaker 19 (36:43):
And so you know, my mom was like this this
guy running around in.

Speaker 28 (36:47):
Tights anatomically outlined like either this guy an extra pair
of boxers or undies or something.

Speaker 6 (36:54):
Come on.

Speaker 9 (36:55):
It is really interesting to note how the tone changes
over the years. Initially, not that abuse we need again,
we know abuse was happening in Hollywood in the industry
at this time, but it does seem on these shows
in the earlier years a lot more parents on set
and a lot more parents who were able to voice

(37:16):
their opinion. Later, when you see these Zoe Want one
oh one shows, it really looks like there's no parental
interference except you collect a paycheck or like.

Speaker 4 (37:34):
The Amanda Vines, there were times where she would.

Speaker 9 (37:36):
Try and walk off set and her parents would force
her to go back out there. They'd be like, you're
grounded if you don't go out there and perform so
we can take your entire paycheck. And in this documentary also,
that doesn't mean everyone may be saying their entire experiences here.

Speaker 4 (37:56):
I do just want to clarify that as well.

Speaker 9 (37:58):
Larisa explain it all deeply affected me from her reading
a copy of George Orwell's nineteen eighty four to the
music and food she would say she likes. Also learned
how to fake being sick and stay home by running
a ther mom in r under hot Water for an
episode of Clarissa Explains it All where she just wants
to stay home and watch TV for the day. That

(38:20):
episode literally changed the trajectory of my life because back
in the day, like your parents work, if you stayed
home from sick from school, it was like watch television.

Speaker 4 (38:31):
Don't open the door for anyone.

Speaker 9 (38:33):
So listen to how Melissa Joanhart talks about her experience
and how the creators talk about it.

Speaker 17 (38:38):
Hi, I'm Clarissa, Florisa, Darla. Clarissa really captured what we
called the middle aged kid. We realized in conversations that
we were having with kids that life got tricky in
about sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade.

Speaker 15 (38:54):
Some mornings you just don't want to go.

Speaker 27 (38:55):
By the time you figured out when you were as
a kid and you were thrown into this preteen space
that was uncomfortable, Clorisa really became representative.

Speaker 31 (39:07):
Of that kid.

Speaker 17 (39:08):
Larissa to only add normal child too, perfectly normal parents, unless,
of course, you can't can't.

Speaker 24 (39:13):
She was really relatable and it was funny how you
know she was always making father and how she just
had kind of.

Speaker 15 (39:18):
The quirky parents that kind of let her just be herself.
She was smart and interesting and marched to the being
of her own drummer, and I just wanted to be
her best friend. Did you know? I like to break
the mental things on pens and use them to clean
my toenails. Clarissa Darling was. She was a lot like me.

Speaker 24 (39:32):
She was just a girl who was tough, the skinned, creative.
She was very stylish, which I was not talk about
a word, you know, just kind of nonconformist, doesn't care
what anyone thinks, and is going to pay her own way.

Speaker 15 (39:44):
All I know is I'd like to change my mind
all the time.

Speaker 3 (39:46):
Larissa explains it all changed.

Speaker 16 (39:48):
She was the first female character who wasn't sitting by
the phone waiting.

Speaker 3 (39:52):
For the boy to call.

Speaker 29 (39:54):
Larissa is a smart, independent, self assured fourteen year old girl.

Speaker 15 (39:58):
Larissa is a feminist. I think ros are fantastic.

Speaker 10 (40:00):
I think they're really interesting, and I think actually boys
like they say they don't.

Speaker 15 (40:05):
I think they deeply do.

Speaker 10 (40:06):
I just think they don't like girlish shows because they're
produced in a stupid way.

Speaker 15 (40:11):
They hit on stereotypes of girls.

Speaker 6 (40:14):
You know, the wise people of show business.

Speaker 19 (40:17):
We're always quick to tell you that girls will.

Speaker 16 (40:20):
Watch shows story boys, but boys will not watch shows.

Speaker 15 (40:24):
Story girl and Clarissa kind of debunked that.

Speaker 24 (40:27):
Really, when Clarissa came on, there were just as many
boy viewers in the demographic as they were girls. So
it kind of I think the ratings were better than
they expected because.

Speaker 15 (40:37):
It had a much wider demographic.

Speaker 17 (40:39):
Well, don't you realize that if I don't watch TV,
I won't be able to keep up with the cultural
level of my peers.

Speaker 3 (40:46):
Trying to create Clarissa.

Speaker 32 (40:47):
It was just mainly that I was thinking of every
cool girl that I knew, and I kind of, you know,
amalgamated all those into this girl.

Speaker 15 (40:55):
That was a big audition process. It was the third
audition and I was sitting with Mitchell.

Speaker 24 (40:59):
It was like an interview process thing, and he wanted
to talk to me and he said, do you like
the new.

Speaker 15 (41:03):
Kids on the block? And I went, oh, I hate them.

Speaker 24 (41:09):
And then I went, this guy's in Hollywood, like he
probably knows them, and I just and everyone loves them
and why did I say that? And he goes, well,
who do you like? And I said, I like they
might be giants and he was like okay, and that
stuck with him. Then they might be giants became a
big part of clursa. We had the posters on the wall,
and I think we mentioned him a few times.

Speaker 17 (41:28):
I like Twizzlers, jaw breakers and sugar bombs, jump out
the glasses and the giants.

Speaker 24 (41:34):
It turns out that he loved those answers because I wasn't,
you know, conforming to what all the little girls loved.

Speaker 15 (41:39):
New kids on the block, and I couldn't stand them.

Speaker 32 (41:41):
She was like lawless in her presentation. She was utterly
charming and relaxed. But she had none of that baking
kid actor stuff, which I was terrified of. You can't
teach it, you can't pretend it's there when it's not there.
Some people just have it, and she was a star.

Speaker 15 (42:00):
I'm looking for advice. You never had to look far.

Speaker 24 (42:02):
My mom wouldn't let them touch my eyebrows. They weren't
allowed to pluck them. I barely wore lipstick.

Speaker 33 (42:06):
You know.

Speaker 15 (42:07):
There was like no I make of it.

Speaker 24 (42:08):
It was just kind of a concealer or a little
blush to make me look alive on camera on to
the great right lights. And that was it, really, But
I think what people related to, like, Yeah, I know
that girl, I am that girl, you know.

Speaker 10 (42:19):
When I went to do really interesting. She had a computer.
She had a friend, Sam, who climbed in her window.

Speaker 12 (42:25):
The core idea of Sam was that he was a
boy who was a friend but not a boyfriend. And
that was you know, if you talk about what was
sort of unique and forward looking about.

Speaker 14 (42:37):
It, that was it.

Speaker 9 (42:38):
Snick debuts on August fifteenth, nineteen ninety two, with two
shows that are already huge hits, Chlorisa Explains It All
and Run and Stimpy, And they also introduced two new shows, Roundhouse,
which was like a musical sketch comedy show but I'm
pretty sure it centered around a family. And my personal

(43:00):
favorite of all Nick shows Are You Afraid of the Dark.

Speaker 6 (43:20):
Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Speaker 7 (43:22):
It was twilight Zone for kids, a bit of everything
for everyone, and I think are you afraid of the Dark?

Speaker 3 (43:27):
Really?

Speaker 6 (43:27):
You know, stuck out in that lineup.

Speaker 3 (43:29):
With you Saturday Night explor a sign of Nickelodeon.

Speaker 6 (43:32):
You never knew existed when we asked Are You Afraid
of the Dark?

Speaker 34 (43:36):
Mixed new show spins ghastly tales of ordinary kids and
they're not so ordinary encounters with us supernatural Oh.

Speaker 6 (43:42):
My gosh, Are You Afraid of the Dark? That was
an awesome show that actually used.

Speaker 9 (43:47):
To secure and they were smart with Are You Afraid
of the Dark. They had guest episodes like Melissa Joan
Hart with the Tale of the Frozen Ghost, and then
they also had like up and coming people who would
go on to be really famous Nev Campbell, Ryan Gosling,

(44:08):
Tia and Tamara Lowry who were on Sister Sister.

Speaker 4 (44:11):
In the time.

Speaker 9 (44:12):
Their episode was really scary too. It was called the Chameleon,
but they used an iguana in it instead of a chameleon,
but it was like a doppelganger thing, terrifying, unhappy ending.
So so many people who went on to have really
huge careers were on Are You Afraid of the Dark.
What I loved the most about Are You Afraid of

(44:34):
the Dark is that episodes did not always have a
happy ending. The Tale of the Pinball Wizard. I literally
still think of that. That kid is still trapped in
that pinball machine. He is like pushing fifty now, and
some stories were really sad with really good songs, like
the Tale of the prom Queen. Are You Afraid of
the Dark was this campfire show where members of the

(44:57):
Midnight Society would literally meet around a campfire at night
and they would each.

Speaker 4 (45:03):
Tell a scary story, and to be accepted, you would have.

Speaker 9 (45:07):
To be like blindfolded, brought to the meetup spot and
tell your story to see if you would get in,
to see if it was scary enough. And each week
everyone would say the Tale of the like this would
be the Tale of the Ruined Childhood, and then I
would throw the magic dust on the fire.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
I think this was the difficulty that DJ had as
well trying to convince Nickelodeon to do this show was
the fact that, yes, you are trying to scare kids.

Speaker 6 (45:37):
They said, we may get pushback. So there was a
mandate upfront.

Speaker 7 (45:41):
They said, try to find literary antecedents to draw your
stories from, so that if parents call and start picking
outside the offices, our comepack could be when you're talking
about this is classic literature.

Speaker 6 (45:53):
So what the pilot we did was called The Failed
Twisted Claw, which is.

Speaker 7 (45:56):
To take on the Monkey's pot Tail, Midnight Man, This
was the Pipe Piper, Hamlet, Jekyl and Hyde.

Speaker 6 (46:00):
We did legendo, Sleepy Hollow. Never once did we get
pushed back, didn't talk down to kids.

Speaker 7 (46:05):
It thought of kids as being more sophisticated, and it
gave them a more sophisticated product.

Speaker 2 (46:10):
I think it's just a testament to what that show
brought and how different it was for its time, and
how it stuck out and really struck a chord with kids.

Speaker 6 (46:18):
Everything for everyone, And I think, are you for that?
Was we existed when we ask everything for.

Speaker 15 (46:24):
Every one ream of what Saturday Night should be in
that two hour block.

Speaker 7 (46:30):
Stick provided We took very real kids who were going
through very real dilemmas that all kids could relate to,
and then they happened to run a good book a hit.

Speaker 14 (46:39):
Are You Afraid of the Dark was a group of
kids who would I guess, sneak out of their parents'
place and meet up in the woods and tell ghost
stories around a campfire, which when I explained it like that,
it sounds a little creepy.

Speaker 7 (46:53):
You know, revolved around the Midnight Society who met every
week to tell stories, and the primary part of the
episode was the story itself.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
Clowns and ghosts and random things popping out of doors
and walls.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
Are you afraid of the Dark?

Speaker 6 (47:08):
Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Speaker 7 (47:09):
Was co created by me and my partner, Ned Candle,
and the original idea was bedtime stories for lazy parents.

Speaker 6 (47:15):
We're going to get some old guy, some old actor
who everyone knew, who was out of.

Speaker 7 (47:19):
Work, and we put them in a big easy chair
in front of a roaring fires or company, and you
have a big book that said fairy tales on it,
and he'd.

Speaker 6 (47:26):
Read fairy tales.

Speaker 7 (47:27):
The problem came in when we try to decide what
kind of stories were we going to tell. You know this,
fairy tales are going to tell a little way of
writing and three little pigs. You know, there's borings whatnot.
So Ned asked me the question that we'll live it
in for me. He said, what kind of stories did
you like when you were a kid? I said, I
like scary stories. So suddenly fairy tales became scary tales.

(47:49):
But then having some old guy sitting in a chair
reading scary tales the kids was creepy. So it's like, well,
who tells tales scary tales where they themselves aren't scary. Well,
it's kids sitting right fire. Okay, so the old guy
gets nixed, so let's have kidsindern I can't fire telling
ghost stories.

Speaker 6 (48:05):
I like that, and that's how I was.

Speaker 19 (48:07):
Always excited to join the cast of Are You for
the Door?

Speaker 35 (48:11):
Because as a member of the Midnight Society, I got
to sit in the storyteller's chair and actually throw the
magic dust on the fire and save something for the
approval of the Midnight Society.

Speaker 3 (48:21):
I call this you won't find them. They never never land.

Speaker 6 (48:24):
They're not squeishy and sweet, and they don't make you
go googloo.

Speaker 22 (48:28):
The Nicktoons Doug Women, Stippy, the Rugrats turned without Nicktoons
every Sunday morning, starting at ten nine.

Speaker 3 (48:34):
Central on the Nick.

Speaker 9 (48:35):
On August eleventh, nineteen ninety one, Nickelodeon debuted their Nicktoons
brand with the release of Doug, Rugrats, and The Ren
and Stippy Show. I have a lot to say about
the Ren and Stimpy Show and the creator of that,
but I'm going to put that in part two because
it's so horrible and traumatizing and he was such a monster.

(48:58):
So I do want to be mindful that Geraldine still
did hire him and accept his Little Dog and Cat cartoon.
I still love the Rugrats, and I definitely loved Doug though.

Speaker 23 (49:10):
And Patty, Oh my goodness, Patty, who's so understanding and
patient with his craziness. From the moment Doug arrives in Bluffington,
he sees this girl on a bicycle and he's done
trying to find the voice of Patty Mayonnaise.

Speaker 19 (49:26):
I could hear it. I could hear it my head,
and I just couldn't find it.

Speaker 23 (49:29):
And we were casting all over the place, and I
was at home in New York City and my apartment
getting ready for work, and the TV's on in the background,
and all of a sudden, I hear this voice in
a commercial. It happened to be a Mayonnaise commercial.

Speaker 3 (49:44):
Today.

Speaker 10 (49:44):
The stella comes in, say, still have chicken salad?

Speaker 15 (49:47):
Then he won't.

Speaker 10 (49:48):
Then he will, I say, Darling, make up your mind,
because he's cutting down on cholesterol. I still in craft
cholesterol free.

Speaker 7 (49:56):
Welcome back to Mayo, I say, And I'm like, that's
the that's it.

Speaker 36 (50:01):
That girl right there, that's her, That's Patty Minnix.

Speaker 4 (50:04):
Doug was like one of the original men.

Speaker 33 (50:08):
I was exposed to men like ten year old boys
that would self sabotage, like Patty Mayonnaise would be hitting
on him and be like, do you want to go
to the movies?

Speaker 9 (50:19):
And you would just like mentally work his way out
of it. Does anyone remember when Doug ate sushi for
the first time. I hadn't had sushi yet at that.

Speaker 4 (50:30):
Point in my life. Another thing I've just thought about.

Speaker 31 (50:33):
Animators are very sneaky people. I didn't even know what
a Dingleberry was.

Speaker 9 (50:36):
You can slightly see the shift here where the female
writers are like, hey, we didn't even know what was happening.
There's more of a boys club. I don't know if
I want to call it that because women are complicit
in this too, but you can tell that people are uncomfortable.

Speaker 15 (50:50):
You can the Dingleberry Garland.

Speaker 9 (50:53):
When Geraldine is in charge of things, she really does
have a sense of integrity about Mark and to children.

Speaker 4 (51:01):
So for earlier.

Speaker 9 (51:03):
Shows like Hey Dude, Clarissa, are you Afraid of the dark?
Other than being available on VHS, there aren't like t
shirts or anything. Initially there aren't toys, and even when
they come out with their own IP and do the
Nicktoons stuff and have Doug rug Rats, Run and Stimpy.

(51:23):
That's when the change starts to happen and do and
she agrees to have all these toys come out and
Gak comes out.

Speaker 4 (51:33):
Gak was a big thing.

Speaker 9 (51:35):
It was kind of like slime in a container. But
Nick goes from being very much we're not going to
be predatory to our marketing to children to come stay
at Nick Universal Studios with your gag and your merchandise,
and they just fully go all in, which also is

(51:57):
part of this really big shift in the mid nineties.

Speaker 31 (52:02):
We had such great talent on that show. Vicky Jensen,
who was doing background painting. I had her direct the
first show that she's ever directed. It was about the
village that made that show. Imy wyn Naylor, Jim Smith,
Vincent Waller, Bob Camp, Bob Camp, He's amazing.

Speaker 15 (52:19):
I mean, he wrote the log song Run and Stimpy.

Speaker 31 (52:30):
Because of the crossover audience, MTV thought this should be
for us, it's our audience, which it was.

Speaker 15 (52:37):
We were drawing their audience to Nickelodeon.

Speaker 31 (52:40):
I think that what Ren and Stimpy did for Nickelodeon
was bringing in a new audience.

Speaker 9 (52:49):
By this time in nineteen ninety two post Snick release
run and Stimpy actually becomes one of the most popular
shows on cable television. No No, No, No No becomes
the most popular show on not one of the most
the most popular show on cable television. Very short lived,
but that's still wild, especially when you learn what happened

(53:11):
behind the scenes on that one. But his behaviors, But yeah,
I'm going to put that in part two because it's
just so upsetting to me. It's one of the most
upsetting parts of all of this. Like, it's the thing
that I'm having a really hard time with with these
Nick execs of the early nineties who were talking about
their principles and all of these things.

Speaker 4 (53:29):
They hired some of the most creditory men to be writers.

Speaker 9 (53:33):
Did they really not know? Did they not see these things?
Is that part of the reason that they all left?
Did they just hand over control to these horrible people?
I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but it's something
that I just can't stop thinking about while going through
this episode, Like there had to have been signs or
people had to be complicit, right right. Another kind of

(53:55):
sketch comedy show created by Brian Robbins and Mike Tolan
makes it debut, but it does its debut as like
a sneaky special, and this is written by the now
infamous Dan Schneider. All that will go on to have
spin off shows like The Amanda Show, Keenan and kel
Drake and Josh.

Speaker 6 (54:15):
Let's Sketch Comedy for kids. It was really a due
fresh idea. Nobody had ever done a kid's sketch comedy show.

Speaker 5 (54:22):
If I had to compare it to something, I think
it was closest to in Living Color.

Speaker 15 (54:26):
With the racially diverse cast and R and B and
hip hop.

Speaker 24 (54:31):
We had guest performances done by everybody that's very well
known now.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
Was on a show.

Speaker 9 (54:37):
And when Dan Schneider becomes showrunner, he basically fires everybody
or gives them spin off shows, so he has a
whole fresh, new past.

Speaker 4 (54:44):
But we will get to that coming.

Speaker 6 (54:46):
We started off with amazing right like TLC did our
theme song.

Speaker 15 (54:51):
Oh, it was wacky and it.

Speaker 10 (54:52):
Was messy, and it was a little edgy when you
think about what was on Nickelodeon at that point, Like
you know, a lot of shows didn't have coolios.

Speaker 6 (55:00):
Being on the Son of the Kids side, I don't
think I was in different things, you.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
Know, form with anybody else.

Speaker 6 (55:05):
I remember Coolio was.

Speaker 26 (55:07):
The first time like somebody blew the studio up with
like we just sing, oh my god, what is that smell?
It was very green back then, you know. They kind
of kept him in the back and in the room
and we weren't allowed to kind of go there. So
it was like this very like invisible curtain that we
would always kind of stand at and like to see
like what the music people were doing.

Speaker 6 (55:26):
So, of course I don't remember, because it was a
green day.

Speaker 9 (55:31):
It was kind of messed up maybe in the beginning
they really did when they were coming from this PBS mindset,
Let's get around the table and pick our best name
and get our best hits and show the most honest
experience we can for children and protect them while also
making them politically active and showing them the realities and
that everything isn't perfect and that all starts to fall

(55:54):
apart for money.

Speaker 34 (55:55):
Let's talk about merchandise. Nickelodeon at the time had not
really gotten to that. Yeah, and they hadn't gotten to
it for a lot. First of all, Jerry had some
really super honorable principles about not exploiting kids. Suddenly she
was creating original series, So I think it was hard
to get your head around making toys from that initially,
Like obviously she got there.

Speaker 20 (56:15):
We got offered a cereal, a doubled are cereal that
opened on two ends, and reported on this thing and
turned it upside down, and they offered us a million
dollars and Jerry turned it down and said, we're not
doing that.

Speaker 6 (56:26):
Okay, they get bombarded with that enough.

Speaker 20 (56:28):
Nickelodeon was classy enough to this day and they do
not sponsor that stuff because they could take it a
bazillion dollars.

Speaker 9 (56:35):
But have chosen not to do it so they can
make more money. And I think that that's why a
lot of predatory people start getting away with more stuff,
because the focus starts to change completely from how do
we give kids this amazing experience to how do we
make more and more money until we eventually leave our
jobs for something else.

Speaker 17 (56:53):
And Kramer, I remember coming in to do Nickelodeon magazine
and then the whole developed of the merchandising and licensing.

Speaker 15 (57:03):
Suddenly there was a physical manifestation.

Speaker 4 (57:05):
It sounds like you just wanted to make money at
this point, money.

Speaker 21 (57:10):
Of Nickelodeon, and that's what and David did, which was
to get it out there.

Speaker 36 (57:18):
I believe we got into all the different products that
we got into because we wanted to touch kids in
their lives where they could be. We wanted to be
able to have a magazine they could stick in their
back pocket and have in their backpack and take with
them wherever they went. We want to be able to
have toys that they could play with. And I think
that for a long time Nickelodeon kept the same path.
You know, they came up with great stuff with corporation.

Speaker 20 (57:39):
To remember that that was not originally the goal. Because
you look at Nickelodeon today and they're doing really well.
Door they Explorer grossed a billion dollars.

Speaker 3 (57:46):
We never grossed.

Speaker 5 (57:47):
I thank for Nickelodeon when you weren't the underdog anymore
and you were growing.

Speaker 15 (57:51):
In want part, we.

Speaker 6 (57:52):
Really wanted to be seen in.

Speaker 5 (57:54):
The same light as a Disney, as a PBS and
really have these amazing shows on the that you could
feel really proud of.

Speaker 15 (58:01):
I think, all of a sudden, when.

Speaker 6 (58:03):
You're at the top, what do you do?

Speaker 13 (58:05):
You want to embrace growth and change, And I think
any business like Nickelodeon has.

Speaker 6 (58:10):
To grow and change.

Speaker 10 (58:12):
I felt no sadness when Nick Studios closed down because
it served a real purpose. It put us on the
map with advertisers. It gave us a great facility to
operate in. But it wasn't the easiest.

Speaker 21 (58:26):
Kids would get down there thinking I'm actually going to
be able to crawl inside of Nickelodeon, and over the
years a lot of things were figured out.

Speaker 37 (58:36):
We couldn't produce every show down there. When I got
ware that it closed, it was like, yeah, how many
people know this? But I quit Nickelodeon. I was going
out on those tours on a regular basis, and one
day my son said to me, when he was ten
eleven years old, how come every weekend you're with everybody
else's kids, but you're not with us?

Speaker 6 (58:56):
And I flew to New York the next monday.

Speaker 10 (58:58):
And so for me, I had had a great run
sixteen years Nickelodeon, and we got to do so much.

Speaker 15 (59:07):
But I could sort of see that you have to
scale and you have to be a big business. So
everyone it wasn't really what I was.

Speaker 9 (59:14):
Everyone who was these principles with risk the same.

Speaker 38 (59:20):
Time leaving Nickelodeon was a shock, not just because she
was leaving something that she had birthed and created, but
that she was going to Disney.

Speaker 19 (59:35):
That's what kind of like blew our minds.

Speaker 6 (59:38):
We all cried.

Speaker 5 (59:40):
That's how even her channel was about to be president
of the company was in tears. And we just really
believed in what she was doing and wanted to continue
to work under that kind of vision. We had a
bigger mission.

Speaker 10 (59:56):
We had an audience we cared about, We had an
audience that we wanted to make a difference for, and
I didn't really realize how special that was until I left.

Speaker 15 (01:00:06):
If you missed the orange ears, you missed?

Speaker 4 (01:00:10):
Did we did we miss Did we miss the fun?
I don't know.

Speaker 9 (01:00:20):
Thank you so much for listening to another episode of
Broad's next Door. Part two is going to be really
rub I've literally became sick reading the court documents that
are that are available surrounding the stuff that happened. I

(01:00:41):
had to stop researching and do everything because I literally
had to throw up. And I mean I've done deep
dives on child murders for this show, and this is
this is up there, this is up there with with
that at the level of abuse that happened, and the

(01:01:04):
people were making money off of kids the whole time.
So getting into that is gonna be is gonna be
really hard. I have some friends I'm gonna be talking
to tomorrow that are gonna be recording making appearance on
part two, my gen Z friends who actually watched these
shows in real time, because the shows we're gonna be

(01:01:27):
talking about.

Speaker 4 (01:01:28):
Next the Dan Schneider era.

Speaker 9 (01:01:32):
Hopefully this did preserve some memories of the creators who
were trying to do the right thing in the early
years of the network. Y'all, I'm having I'm having a
hard time still having stuff like Run and Stimpy ruined too.
It just goes so far from having Melissa jon Hart's mom.

Speaker 4 (01:01:57):
Be like, you will not touch my daughters. I browse
to this era we're.

Speaker 9 (01:02:02):
Going to get to where kids just have less and
less autonomy. It's just like, dress my child up like
a mini adult, put them in whatever skit you want.
Not that those abuses weren't happening in the eighties and nineties,
we know that they were.

Speaker 4 (01:02:25):
But I think it becomes I think it gets worse.

Speaker 9 (01:02:28):
I think it gets I don't I don't want to
compare I don't want to compare and say someone had
it worse than someone else with their individual experience, because
either way, nightmare no one deserves. But like to a
Harvey Weinstein level with the allegations where it's just so

(01:02:50):
many people know it and stay quiet. But this is
involving children, all right, members of the Midnight Society.

Speaker 4 (01:03:03):
I call this the tale of all of us being traumatized,
and I will talk to you soon.

Speaker 9 (01:03:14):
I'm sorry I'm having a hard time saying goodbye because
I don't want to.

Speaker 4 (01:03:18):
Be alone and sit with all of this. Oh okay. Also,
if you enjoyed this episode, please like it and review.

Speaker 9 (01:03:27):
It and subscribe and do all of those things for
me because I'm so bad about asking. You can also
find me on social media at Danielliscreama or at Broad's
next Door on all the different things.

Speaker 4 (01:03:42):
Write me if you have any questions. If you want
to add in on this more, I have a post
going about it on Broad's feel.

Speaker 9 (01:03:48):
Free to comment on there. I will respond to you
if you message me. I love talking to all of you.
Had a rough last month, so you've all been so
helpful and I will talk to you soon.

Speaker 11 (01:04:06):
Bye.