Old Nickelodeon

[Drtooth]

Because you were not the only person who watched Nick back then . There are lots of people who like Rocket Power.

Technically it came out very late 90's to the point of being an 00's cartoon. By that logic, Spongebob should be on the line up as well...especially because Spongebob actually predated RP by 3 months. No kidding. SBSP premiered in May of 1999 while RP was August of that year. I guess the X-Games tie in was too 90's to not put on the line up. But when you have stronger, better shows with larger fanbases like Ren and Stimpy, Hey Arnold, Doug, and Rocko, you wonder why The 90's are All That block didn't push for more classics, and not a show that basically came in through a technicality. It's still part of The Splat's line up, but thankfully, we've seen the block more varied and longer to support better classic Nick shows. I think that's what the 90's Block's weakness was. They had a 2 hour window (they repeated to fool everyone into thinking it was 2 hours), and that lead to a small rotation of a few shows. And while those were of the Hey Arnold, CatDog, and Rugrats variety (also... there should have been a pre-movie, or at least pre-second movie cutoff for the Rugrat episodes), Rocket Power got a cushy weekend spot it really didn't deserve while stuff like Rocko, Angry Beavers, and Ren and Stimpy were only temporarily on the line and barely added back in for theme weeks.

Now, I do have a small beef with The Splat. Other than the time shift programming (at least it's on longer now), they are absolutely bonkers with piling up the commercials. So much so that certain shows only get half an episode aired. Sure, they're of the 2 11 minute cartoon variety, but it's kind of a cheat. Plus, at least with this week if I see that Sour Patch Kids commercial where they yank on the kid's non-existent chest hairs ever again, I'm going to lose it. Seriously, if you haven't seen it, there's such a painful special effects fail. They get the smoothest chested guy they could, so instead of pulling on his hair, it looks like the Sour Patch Kids are painfully jabbing into his skin with a Christmas Tree Ornament hook. Very pleasant.

Omg, Invader Zim! Can't believe I forgot about until 2007 when I re-became a HUGE fan of it again. Until 2009 until I got in to South Park.

Zim's of the modern era where they basically (long rant short) seemed to sabotage their animated line up if it wasn't Spongebob. It got much worse when (another long rant) Nick tried to compete with Disney channel and amped up production on live action kidcoms. They're still pulling this today, and something tells me the success rate of the kidcoms is much lower than they think.

 

[Drtooth]

SO...uh...either I forgot this episode existed or I've never seen it before, but ...uh...so they had something analogous to the 1980's AIDS scare in an episode of AAAAAH! Real Monsters? That's pretty out of left field and dark for a kid's show. And I betchya they handled it better than a certain Captain Planet did.

The one where Ickis gets "Spontaneous Combustion" and all the Monsters are afraid he's contagious? And The Gromble getting angry at the ignorance of the student body? That was a powerful episode. Especially how the usually sort of sadistic Gromble becomes sensitive and dead serious about lecturing the class (and Ickis) about how you can continue to have a full, productive monster life and scare career even with Combustion. Seriously... lots of great Gromble moments in this episode. And the heartbreaking part where Krom's father tries to drag him home and barely sparing Ickis's feelings? Wow. Just I never saw this one before.

I'm glad that The Splat shows more than a certain fixed amount of episodes (it's early yet). I've always said, as far as Nicktoons go, AAAHHH Real Monsters is woefully underrated, and clearly KC's best show.

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

 

[Drtooth]

Last Week's "The Splat" theme was Ren and Stimpy. Last night they managed to air two of my least favorite episodes, Aloha Ren and... the worst Ren and Stimpy cartoon of the original series's run. Heck, I'd say probably worst than the adult ones, maybe?

"It's a Dog's Life."

Now, I have to admit, I'm not huge into the Games episodes. They're trying too hard at what the first couple of seasons did subtly, and there was just... strange jokes that were grossout without any substance. Like the running gag about consuming and or milking animals of which are peculiar to consume the milk of, because that's funny somehow. Like milking Bossy the gorilla in "Farm Hands" and drinking Skunk Milk in "Road Apples." And the even stranger running gag of Ren and Stimpy living in strange things like whale carcasses, dead cows, stuff like that. Even the humor was more spastic and almost in tune with bad episodes of Spongebob.

This one was different. It was terrible for having none of those things. It starts off with Ren and Stimpy at the dog pound on death row (hilarious ) with a priest yammering on as they're going into the gas chamber (and it lasts a long, slow while so it becomes both disturbing and tedious). They then get rescued by a very religious and very rich old woman who gives them biblical names. And then... well... unfunny stuff happens involving a fat Asian butler that looks like Odd Job (and sounds like George Takaei in his one line of dialogue). Then there's one tiny little laugh when the old woman mistakes Ren giving Stimpy the Heimlich Maneuver as errr... relationships and Stimpy then informs them that they're being taken to meet some "very impotent people. A Mr. Spay and a Mrs. Neutered." And if that's the only laugh in an episode of Ren and Stimpy, you know how dire it is.

The episode ends with the old lady dying, and a reading of the will. She leaves everything to the butler, the chauffeur (the butler with a different hat one), and her goldfish (the butler upside down with his head barely fitting into a fishbowl, which would have been funny but it's too late for that), and Ren and Stimpy getting the honor of joining the old woman in heaven. Yep. Killed. They kill Ren and Stimpy at the end of this one, and not even humorously. So the cartoon ends with the butler dusting their dead, taxidermied bodies...because at the beginning of the cartoon, Ren punches a hole in a dead dog trying to wake it up and then being horrified by it. HAW HAW HAW...heeeeeelarious.

Not to mention the pacing of the cartoon is slow as mud. Like it's trying to emulate the slower, funnier pacing of a Spumco short (rather than the laugh-a-minute pace of a Games episode). And while I should applaud the cartoon for not having lame gross out jokes thrown in (something carefully done in John K episodes), I can't see past the dreary, dull, and disturbing cartoon this was. Not to mention how generic it is. There's nothing Ren and Stimpyish about it, even for a Games cartoon. You could plunk down any cartoon characters in this episode and it'll work.

 

[Drtooth]

I try hard not to double post on the same day, but this news just popped up

Hey Arnold is getting a TV movie

The description says "it picks up where the TV show left off" and not any details further. It would be great if that mean a TV version of the Jungle Movie, but there's no clue that it is...or isn't, for that matter.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

I try hard not to double post on the same day, but this news just popped up

Hey Arnold is getting a TV movie

The description says "it picks up where the TV show left off" and not any details further. It would be great if that mean a TV version of the Jungle Movie, but there's no clue that it is...or isn't, for that matter.

Well it may not specifically be THE JUNGLE MOVIE, but the article does say that we'll find out about Arnold's parents' whereabouts.
But the thing that I wonder about is,it seems a bit odd that we'll be finding these things out . I mean will kids even care about the unanswered questions of the show? Most of the kids watching Nickelodeon now have no idea "Hey Arnold!" even exists. I mean of course this is probably mostly for the nostalgic adults,but still,it's a cartoon movie on Nickelodeon,kids are going to watch it. Perhaps they'll start showing reruns of Hey Arnold! before the premiere to get kids familiar with the characters. Either way i'm sure this movie will be a big hit with the ratings and will get the show back on the air.

 

[mr3urious]

Either way i'm sure this movie will be a big hit with the ratings and will get the show back on the air.

I wouldn't want the show back on the air. It ran its course; time to put it to rest after giving it some closure.

 

[Drtooth]

Agreed. HA was a great show, and I don't think adding extra episodes is going to be a good fit. I just want to see the Jungle Movie made at some point. It's completely disheartening that one of the reasons it was never made was Craig Bartlett doing a pilot for CN that didn't even get picked up anyway. The reruns are plenty.

There are some Nick shows that really got a lousy run and should have lasted longer, Hey Arnold isn't one of them. Though if they did that Helga spinoff now and put it on Teen Nick, it might have a shot at being something. Though I doubt they'd bother with that.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Well,I don't actually want them to make more episodes,but Nick did say they were looking to revive it and other past shows.

 

[Drtooth]

I honestly don't think any Nick show should be revived. At least, any of the older ones. It would have been cool to see more El Tigres, and I really think TUFF Puppy deserves a second chance, but this time with an actual treat of a villain instead of various mental defectives. And a little less screaming. I mean seriously. FOP had some dark villains from time to time and some dire moments. I liked TUFF Puppy and all, but it really lacked that Knight of Cerebus that it needed to make it a better, less repetitive show. And yes... Zim. it got one in the form of a comic book that I unfortunately don't have the cash to follow at the moment, let alone catch up with. There's a lot of short run series they never gave the time of day that deserve some sort of second chance rather than either alienating the fanbases of the old one with major changes or making unnecessary retreads.