Old Nickelodeon

[D'Snowth]

I don't see how EE was CN's redheaded stepchild, it was pretty big from the get-go, and its popularity is what merited its uncancelation . . . unfortunately, its uncancelation kind of caused it to veer into Later Installment Weirdness territory: they exhausted all the possible situations they could inthose initial four seasons, so they had to throw them into school, which made it feel like a different show. And if Jimmy and Sarah are younger than the rest of the cul-de-sac kids, why are they in the same school?

 

[beatnikchick300]

I didn't say it was bad because it was unpopular. By no means do I forget the horrible X-Treme fad from the 90's. I have vivid memories of various junk foods (really bad ones) with pictures of kids skateboarding/mountain biking/rollerblading being purchased by kids who never would touch any outside activity in real life. You know those parental groups what get their panties in a bunch because a popular cartoon character is on a piece of candy? I feel their real outrage should be junk foods with pictures of kids doing healthy activities on them.

But yeah. That's why I hate Rocket Power. Anyone remember the classic Simpsons where they introduce Poochie to Itchy and Scratchy? That's essentially why Rocket Power was a thing. If you look at other Nicktoons, they were far from pandering. Heck, Ren and Stimpy was a twisted throwback to 1950's- early 60's cartoons. And it was a hit somehow. Now, I know that if there's one thing kids like to see in cartoons it's either really wacky adults, usually in animal form, but mostly other kids. That's why so many CN shows starred kid characters, be they Ben 10, Dexter, or Cow and Chicken. You had shows on Nick like Rugrats and Doug, and of course Hey Arnold. None of them had to pander (well, later Rugrats) to be popular.

Then came Rocket Power. It's so incredibly last 2 years of 90's it's painful. I have real problems with All Grown Up and all, but essentially the characters had personality more or less based on their original counterparts. Rocket Power, however, had very vapid, personality devoid characters spout buzzwords and try to be hip. And that somehow sold, presumably because of that whole "if you don't like it, you're uncool" mindset. They kept shoving that dumb series in kids faces for years. I mean, I have these little toys that I got on clearance, like deep clearance at Target. They were some dumb gimmick where you put these pods in water and you'd get surprise figures. So I buy a bunch of them and, to give you a clue how far they pushed these dumb characters, the line up included Jimmy Neutron and Spongebob (Spongebob, you'll recall wasn't merchandising levels of popular until 2001). And yes, I got some of these guys. And I'd love to go all Sid from Toy Story on them, or just toss them, but I didn't.

But yeah. Rocket Power was a cynical, pandering, unwatchable series. And I hear crap about "ooh, Sanjay and Craig is so terrible" or "Breadwinners is the worst thing ever." But I rarely hear Rocket Power is a soulless piece of crap designed to make money. Only reason it isn't my most hated Nicktoon is because Fanboy and Chum Chum is actually worse.

Well, I dislike Breadwinners very much, and don't particularly care for Sanjay and Craig (it's okay, but...nothing special. To me at least), but Rocket Power is just..soulless (your comparison to the Simpson's Poochie episode is all too accurate), and, like you said, out of place among all the other Nicktoons at the time.

 

[Drtooth]

I watched a Rebel Taxi episode about hip and edgy cartoons, and I'm very confused Breadwinners was on that list because it's not so much that the show's trying to be hip so much as...that stuff is straight up weird. But not soullessly trying to be hip like RP was. Seriously. Anyone who lived through the 90's remembers how relentless X-games were with kids who probably never got out of the house (cuz this is when PlayStation happened). And you'd see BMX bike racing on packages of ice cream. Something you'd have to do to burn the calories off from eating said ice cream, which I'm guessing kids that was supposed to appeal to didn't do. It's very much the old "culturally irrelevant 40+ year old struggling in vain to appeal to 8 year olds" trick.

I spoke my peace about it, but it's a shame that's what Klasky Csupo was pitching Nick back then. Weird slice of life stuff. And while I have to admit As Told By Ginger wasn't bad for what it was (it was just a more reality grounded, less funny Pepper Ann), All Grown Up was more of a bad idea than a bad show (it wasn't that good, but it had its moments), but Rocket Power was just board room meetings of out of touch older people who saw Extreme something or other and said "HEY! Let's make it a toyline...errr...video game...errr...cartoon." And instead of being a slice of life show with some mild X-Sports theme to it, with was "lookit the coolness, Dudebromeisters! We're so on the go we eat Yogurt through a tube." It actually has unironic fans, and I can't fathom that. I actually tried to watch an episode way back, and couldn't get 2 minutes into it without gagging and changing the channel.

The only worse and more cynical show Nick aired (though I don't count it as a Nicktoon since they didn't produce it) is (and I've said this a trillion times before) Wild Grinders. How can you make Rocket Power worse? Simple. You copy humor from the (ahem hem hem) """Gold standard""" of """"""""""humor"""""""""" Johnny Test. And make sure to do it as poorly as possible so Johnny Test looks good by comparison. Yep. It took one of the lousiest cartoons from the last decade as a high bar of what kids like in cartoons and made a poor copy of a bad show to begin with. Even going as far as directly lifting the villain from JT as well. And all because the Viacom president is freaking in love with Rob Dyrdek. Much of a piece of X-treme junk RP was, at least the animation was decent.

 

[minor muppetz]

Recently I've been thinking about the Doug episode "Doug's Bum Rap", and isn't it weird how at the beginning, Doug is sent to the principal's office because his test had the exact same answers as Chalky's, and Doug was told that they'd both have to re-take the test if neither of them confessed within 24 hours... And yet Chalky wasn't sent to the principal with Doug? Seems like both students should have been there (of course, that might have affected the plotline of Doug trying and failing to talk with Chalky about the situation).

I know that they think Doug was the one who cheated based on Chalky having a better permanent record than Doug, in addition to his perfection in school and at sports, but he still should have been there.

And at the end, when Chalky admits to his dad that he cheated, it seems like his dad didn't want him to confess. Chalky pointed out that he didn't have time to study because he was so busy with all his activities and practice, and his father asks "don't you want to have as many trophies as your brother?", as if that's more important to him than Chalky doing good in school and not cheating.

 

[Drtooth]

Okay. This gets weird.

Now Nick is going to unveil a 90's network called "The Splat"

Now, I'm sure we all know cable channels would rather cannibalize one of their own channels than go to the hassles of getting another one off the ground. And something tells me everything about this will last...oh..about a year barely before they change the format. The question is, which Nick channel are they going to kick to the curb? Nicktoons (which is essentially the only place to see even their current cartoon line up outside of Spongebob on a regular basis) or Teen Nick (which has the 90's block for 4 hours anyway). Nick Jr? NO WAY! Off the table. Those preschool shows are their bread and butter.

 

[D'Snowth]

I was going to say wasn't Nicktoons Network essentially intended to be what they're apparently creating The Splat for? And on that note, do we even really need another Nick channel? Even Disney doesn't have that many.

 

[Drtooth]

Whatever it is, it's a specialty channel. They'll find a way to dump Game Shakers or some other recent tweencom on it.

I'm not kidding.

Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn is not a friggin' cartoon! Why the SMURF is that smurfing piece of smurf on Smurf Smurfing Nicktoons? Power Rangers is one thing, even then I don't agree with it being on that channel, but the tween coms already air too many times on the regular network.

 

[D'Snowth]

Getting back to Disney, I'd really love it if they'd take a hint and recreate a Toon Disney channel like they had before it became Disney XD: I really miss me some RECESS - it keeps getting nuked from YT, but there's the Watchcartoononline site that has all the episodes . . . sped up because they're from PAL broadcasts, but it's better than nothing.

 

[minor muppetz]

Been thinking a little bit about Doug. It seems like most of the Nicktoons had plenty of adult appeal. Some shows, like Ren and Stimpy and Rocko, were a bit more extreme when it comes to adult humor, while others had fairly subtle jokes or plotlines that would be a little more interesting to adults (and there was a promo stating that Rugrats was not just for kids), but did Doug have any adult appeal? I mean besides for those who saw the show when they were kids?

I don't recall many adult jokes or references that would go over kids heads. Maybe The Beets and some of the sources for Doug's parody fantasies. The closest I can think of would be in "Doug and Patti Sitting in a Tree" where Doug's father tries to give him a "talk" (which I've read was a running gag on the Disney version, and I do recall one episode of that where his dad tries to give him "the talk").

 

[Drtooth]

I knew this would happen. Okay, turns out Splat isn't its own channel, it's just a late night programming block on Teen Nick that starts 2 hours earlier and ends 2 hours later. So all they're giving is 2 more hours, hopefully not all Time Shift Programming. Because The 90's block they have now is 2 hours repeated.

Kinda disappointing, but I guess those crappy tweencoms are much more important to the ratings. What am I saying? It's NICK. If it's not Spongebob, Nick Jr or Tweencoms, it's never important.