You Used to be Cool Nickelodeon
TMC
By: The WebMaster
September 17, 2009
Was there a network that anyone else watched more as a child? Unless
you were one of those weird kids whose parents didn’t have cable
growing (you’re probably a better person for it now though) the answer
is no.
Looking back on the past Nickelodeon lineup there were fantastic shows
like Doug, Rugrats, and Hey Arnold. But retro Nickelodeon was not
limited to just cartoons. No sir, they had great competitive game
shows like Legends of the Hidden Temple, Family Double Dare (we’re
going to take the physical challenge Mark), and a show whose premise
is still awesome to me, Nick Arcade.
Nickelodeon’s older lineup also had some very enjoyable live actions
shows like Salute Your Shorts, Hey Dude, and Pete and Pete. I’m sure
if I were to go back and watch these now I’d say they are pretty
corny, but at the time, I loved them and watched each one religiously.
Then there was one day it all changed, and I’m not exactly sure why.
For me personally, it was around the age of 14 when I was sitting
watching Nickelodeon one day and almost said out loud “this isn’t fun
to watch at all”. From there on out I embarked on the great exodus
from the safe grounds of Nickelodeon to the mature unknown cable
landscape.
I recently returned to my former home of Nickelodeon to check on some
old friends and see what the station was doing these days.
Things have changed…
You won’t be able find nearly any of the shows I mentioned above, but
more disheartening than that, you can’t find any shows close to them.
Here are some of Nickelodeon’s current shows:
H20
-Three kids turn into mermaids when they touch water. They somehow
have to try and balance their social life at school while dealing with
this problem.
Naked Brothers Band
-Two brothers set out to show that rock and roll isn’t just for adults
in a rock-mockumentary parody.
iCarly
-A girl and her friend trying to balance high school life and internet
stardom after creating a hit online web series.
Zoey 101
-Brittany Spears’ little sister goes to an all-boy’s boarding school.
(With what has happend to her recently, it’s almost too easy to make a
joke about this)
True Jackson, VP
-A 15 year old girl gets named the VP of a major fashion company and
has to balance business life with social life.
Internet celebrities, running a fashion business, high school, being a
rock star. When did any of these things become part of being a kid,
or even being interesting as a kid? Maybe I grew up in a simpler
time, but things sure have changed.
While there are a significant greater number of live action/sitcom
style shows now, there are still some cartoons on the network. While
older shows Rugrats and Rocket Power are still shown, many of the new
cartoons seem to be pretty uninspired efforts by Nickelodeon.
One of the new shows, Avatar, has developed a rather strong following
and is actually being made into a feature film written by M. Night
Shyamalan. Hopefully M. Night can step up his game after some recent
stinkers.
While doing my best to avoid this being an old man “In my day we
watched good TV!” type rant, I’m fully aware that kids today are much
different than when I was growing up. With a greater influence by
technology and a number of other more things, these kid’s interests
will ultimately be different than mine were at a young age. In the
end though, I feel that many of these children will be missing out on
some fantastic programming that Nickelodeon was once committed to.