Nickelodeon:The Best of Slimes

This is an "I Heart" podcast, guaranteed human. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait 4 hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I choose option B. I'm Julie Pignero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're a bookshelf and you're a 4u page or equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture. With your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed, I'm obsessed. Listen to pro society on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Our hometown is not a test tube. 90 miles northeast of Nashville, a battle for the future of America plays out in one small town. Developers with right wing ties have purchased hundreds of acres of land. We need cities on a shining hill. This is our town, a podcast about what happens when a small town becomes the site of a social experiment and fights back. I guess you didn't move in on a bunch of dumb hillbillies now, did you? Listen to our town on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and that makes this a good old-fashioned stuff. You should know, audition. That's right, and unfortunately, we have to issue a COA for this one. Oh, yeah, and it is pretty unfortunate for sure. Yeah, I mean, you see the title Nickelodeon, and you think just a rip-roar in good time, and nostalgia fest, and it is that, but we kind of tell the whole story of Nickelodeon, which very sadly includes some sexual abuse. And so trigger warning for people in general and definitely for parents listening with kids. There you go. Well done. We should just edit that as a clip, and anytime we have a COA, just pop that in. Yeah, great. All right, so let's get to the fun nostalgia part first at least, right? Yeah, for sure. So Nickelodeon was probably a little after your wheelhouse, right? Were you always a little too old for Nickelodeon? Was there ever a venn diagram with you in Nickelodeon and happiness in the middle? There's a brief time of a little bit of Nickelodeon stuff for me, but I was just on the edge of being a little too old. But some of this stuff, like I definitely remember, you can't do that on television, and a little bit of double dare. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, this was right in the middle of your wheelhouse, so I bet. I watched this all the time. Yeah, that's great. I watched pinwheel. I watched, like you said, they can't do that. You can't do that on television, double dare. What else did I watch? Danger Mouse, Inspector Gadget. Wow. I mean, just basically anything they would put on today's special. I was huge into today's special. Anything they would put on, I would definitely watch, and I loved it all. I love it. Well, this one's for you, baby. Thanks a lot, ma'am. One thing I did not realize, though, is that Nickelodeon started in my home state of Ohio. You know, I don't know if you've noticed or not, but I'm pretty selective about when I claim Ohio is my home state. That's sure. And I know you'd love to rub it in that year in Atlanta native, and it's just, you know, I'm a newbie, a carpet bagger. But at any rate, that's where Nickelodeon started, actually, in Columbus, Ohio, as part of like this test that Warner Cable did, pretty forward thinking test in 1977, when they're like, hey, you know, everybody watches TV with antennas. We're going to launch the first cable network in the United States, if not the world. Yeah, it was called Warner Cable. They opened that studio on Cable, Columbus, like you said, and they had 30 channels at first. I guess you pronounce it cube, huh? Yeah, that's, yeah, that's what I'm going with. Q-U-B-E. And you could pay 10 bucks a month, and, you know, depending on what you were into, you could get shows like flippos, magic cars. They had an early show kind of preceded Star Search, even, I think, called Talent Search. Yeah, and I was wondering if Star Search grew out of Talent Search, and I could find no correlation. Yeah, I couldn't either. So we give that rumor two and a half stars. Very nice. I used to love Star Search. I never really watched it that much, but I do know that Rosie O'Donnell got her start there. Oh, really? Okay. Oh, she killed. That was a big band. She won like 15 weeks in a row or something like that. Was she, well, it had adult stuff too, or was it just kids? Oh, her sets were filthy. Right. So yeah, they had Talent Search, but the cable system had a gimmick at first, which was a remote control that was wired to the cable box, I guess, that let you interact with the shows. And it didn't work out. I think they realized that that gimmick, like, didn't fully work. They also had other financial difficulties. And I think it launched in '77 when it was done by '84, but one of the channels, which was Pinwheel or C3, lived on. It was created by a woman named Vivian Horner, who came from the great TV show, The Electric Company. Yeah. And it was commercial-free programming for preschool kids. No, 12 hours a day of it, 14 hours a day on weekends, and like you said, commercial-free. And that was the network, right? And Pinwheel also had an eponymous show called Pinwheel, which I also watched a lot. But now what was that? I mean, it was a show where live human actors interacted with puppets and the most memorable character for me was Gary Genew. Oh, is that where that came from? Yeah, there's no Genews. Wait, there's no Genews, like good Genews with Gary Genew. I've heard Gary Genew. I had no idea what the origin was. So any word that started with N, he said good, and he added that G at the very beginning. What a bit. Can you imagine him just hanging out late one night, smoking a joint, being like, I've got it. Yeah, it was one of those things. It was late '70s, early '80s, pot smoking, like kids, like kids programmers essentially is what that kind of show was. Okay, that's great. It was good. But the whole network was called Pinwheel too. At first, until somebody was like, hey, I really like the sound of the word Nickelodeon, and they said it like 50 times in this one meeting. And finally, everybody was worn down enough that they're like, we'll change the network Pinwheel to Nickelodeon. I think that was in 1979. Yeah, '79. And you're right. I think Nickelodeon was like an old-timey movie house that you paid a nickel to get into, but they didn't name it for that reason. I think, like you said, I think they just thought it had a nice ring to it, I guess. Yeah, and also weirdly, they had an old-timey man as the first logo, an old-timey man looking into, I guess like a small movie player. And it was like right in, it dovetailed with the era where if you went to Wendy's, like their wallpaper was made of like 1910 newspaper ads. Old Wendy's is great. And Tiffany Lamps and all that. I'm still unsettled by those high-laced women's boots that they always advertised. Yeah, too sexy. I might have seen ads for Wicker Wheelchairs too, maybe that's where that came from. Yeah, you're your biggest fear. But at any rate, they got rid of that after a couple of years and they came up with the first good Nickelodeon logo, which was a silver pinball with Nickelodeon written over it in different colors. That was very pretty. Yeah, very popular bubble letter style at the time. A year later, in 1980, a guy named Sai Schneider, who was an advertising executive, became the first president of the network. He had a little experience. He was involved on the marketing advertising side when Mattel sponsored the Mickey Mouse Club in the 50s. So he had a little bit of experience with kids TV from the ad side, but this was kind of a new jam for him. So he started marketing Nickelodeon as the young people's network. And they had some fun shows. I do remember, I didn't watch any of these, but I remember Reggie Jackson's World of Sports. I remember that being a thing. And I also remember the Leonard Nimoy show being a thing. Leonard Nimoy stand by Colin Light's camera action. Yeah, I never saw or even heard of either of those shows, but then it kind of gives you a taste of how Nickelodeon started out as slightly, it skewed slightly older. So I can see 14 year old boys watching those. Yeah, I was nine at the time. So I was aware of the show LiveWire, which was a live tape show in front of a teenage audience at the Ed Sullivan theater, even in New York City. It was like a. turn event show. So I knew about that show and it was really popular. It won. They gave them their first cable ace award. And then I don't think we mentioned that they were splitting airtime like they ran programming during the day, but the A&E network was on after hours. Right. Sexy ballet. That's right. Live wire. I looked into that a little bit because I never watched it. I don't know that I'd even heard of it to tell you the truth, but when I saw like the set, it rang like a little bit at like a vague bell, but it was definitely older kids, kids older than me, like teens. And there is a, there's a clip you can find of Adam Horowitz, King Ed Rock from BC Boys. Oh, yeah. As a 17 year old, posing as a, like he went into the audience of live wire. And he asked a question of Africa, Bombada, who was the guest at the time. He's like, Hey, have you heard that, that new record from the BC Boys cookie pus? And he got Africa bombarded to admit like, yeah, he, he'd listened to it and he had the record and he liked it. Without ever saying like, I'm one of the BC boys. Like he was just plugging this is like just some average audience member. It's pretty great. Oh, that's funny. I mean, live wire had some good stuff like Ari and performed on live wire in 83. The Ramones. The Ramones did. I know that Frank Zappa was a guest. So they were definitely like, somebody cool was running that show. Yeah. And not only like, they were cool enough to, to want those people on. They were cool enough to get those people on that show. Right. Yeah. This is a Nickelodeon, everybody. And this is, it was one of their first like really great shows. And then something else changed almost immediately when, when Nickelodeon just really started getting going. They brought on a woman named Geraldine Layborn. And she was kind of like, not the antithesis to size Schneider, but certainly had a different view of what Nickelodeon should be doing. Size Schneider's thing was, you know, like you said, he came from the advertising to kids world. What's wrong with that? And Geraldine Layborn's whole thing was like, let's, let's find out what the kids want and go on that premise and not try to sell them stuff. Let's just like really make this a network for kids rather than just saying that's what it is. And really it's for advertising or something like that. Yeah. For sure. I think Schneider was a bit older too. If he was working on the Mickey Mouse Club in the 1950s, this was like 30 years after that. And she also recognized like, hey, you know, a lot of people are treating this network in these shows as a stepping stone, like, get in the door doing these children's shows so they can go on and do other things in Hollywood. And she was like, I want staff that like wants to do this and wants and is dedicated to like kids programming, which seemed like a really kind of savvy move, I think. For sure. For sure. It did matter whether you did cocaine. That was not part of it. It was how do you feel about kids programming, right? That's right. Uh-huh. Full stop. One of the things that Nick did, I'm just going to call it Nick because I watched so much of it. I'm on a first name basis with it. Yeah. But they would basically poach TV shows from Canada. Yeah. They still do as a matter of fact. They're still like a lot of the shows that were on Nickelodeon that I watched as a youngster. I was like, something's not quite right with this show. Turns out they were all Canadian. As an American, it seems slightly sideways. Exactly. I'm like, these people are really nice. Yeah. Exactly. Uh, you can't do that on television was a Canadian show. Uh, that came from a Ottawa station a couple of years previous from its debut on Nickelodeon in 1981. And that was a great show. It was created by Roger Price and Jeffrey Darby. And it was, it was a skit show that was like squarely aimed at making kids laugh like that kind of humor. Yeah. One of the ways that they did that is that the teen and even preteen actors had like a say in how the scripts went and like what the scenes were. And so that was cool in and of itself because I mean, they were speaking directly to you, it kind of ran through that filter. And then also it, they would, the show itself was almost like a character. The show itself could be like a set or a scene or something like that. And not just like them chatting in between shooting, like there could be, if I remember correctly, there was a scene where one of the kids was playing a character who was chained up in a dungeon. And another kid who wasn't dressed like them just came in and took over for him because that kid had to like go home and do homework or something like that. And they did it in the middle of the scene. So like there was, it was just kind of weird like that. And it really worked for that show. It's, it's a really good show. I went back and watched it. And you definitely have to be of that age to really appreciate it. But I remember loving they can't, or you can't do that on television. Yeah. I, I went back and watched a lot of this stuff like clips on YouTube. And I realized that I watch more of this than I remember watching, I guess. And I remember that guy who was the main guy on that show, like the main adult cast member, his name was less lie less lie. That's it. I think they, he went by less, too, because they all went by their real first names. Yeah. I was kind of like, if you've ever seen the Larry Sanders shows kind of like that, they would have these meta moments. Right. Exactly. Well put. This was the, this preceded the Larry Sanders show and was actually where it came from. Are you joking? Yeah. Okay. I got to be, you never know. And Atlanta's more set was also on it, too, because you can't track Canadian TV show without having Atlanta's more set on it. Yeah. Ironic that she was on that show, right? I don't know. Do you think? Well, that was where the slime came from. Nickelodeon is very famous for its slime. In fact, I am using the title that Olivia, who helped us with this, titled it Nickelodeon, the slime of our lives. Great title. But Nickelodeon has always been associated with that green slime and it got its first dump on, you can't do that on television. Yeah. If you said, I don't know, you would get slimed. That's just how it went. So is that the trigger? Yeah. I don't make the rules. It's just how, except for one show and this just goes to show you how early 80s this was, they had an episode where the Russians took over and the slime was red slime instead. Anyone who said the word freedom would be slime. Well, apparently the story of how it became green slime was an accident because they like had made the slime but couldn't shoot that day or something and it turned green by the next day. And so they ended up with green slime. Yeah. And then I guess you would get like a bonus of something between $25 to $50. I guess it depends on how much you held out for and they would shoot all the sliming scenes at the end of the day and then you would get slimed and then they would cut and you would run off to the showers because different iterations of slime sometimes turned to paste in your hair if you didn't get it out fast enough. And they finally found the right one is a methyl cellulose blend that it had zero allergens in it so they could even dump it on audience members without fear of litigation or at least them winning litigation. But it went through all sorts of different things like cottage cheese, vegetable oil, vanilla pudding, gelo for a little while. Yeah, applesauce. Yeah. Should we take it right? Yeah, I'm getting kind of excited. So yeah, all right, it's getting good everybody. So we'll be right back with more on Nick. If you're bookshelf and you're for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Pro's Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters and that is of Trojan horse, whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro's Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I choose option B. Every time I try to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smiled at us, not a lot of people smile around here. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies your soul about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Our town is small taters by most standards, right, but to the people who grew up here, it's everything. 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(upbeat music) - All right, so you can't do that on television was a pretty decent success, but Nickelodeon itself was not like a huge hit yet. And late '83, a guy that named Bob Pitman, who we've talked about, one of the founders of MTV, and our boss at iHeart Media. - Several rungs up, I don't know if he would consider himself our boss. - I think he may know who we are, at least. - Perhaps. - Yeah, Bob runs iHeart Media. And he became a head of Nickelodeon's parent company, which was Warner MX at the time. He was in '83, he was a lot younger than Si Schneider was. And the writing was on the wall that like Schneider wasn't gonna be around too long, and younger folks were gonna be running this younger, like, viewership network. - Yeah, and Pitman had a lot of cred around the television world, because of MTV, just from two years before, right? And so he took over Nickelodeon, or he didn't take over Nickelodeon. He, when he became the head of Warner MX, he was now over the people who were running Nickelodeon. He took an interest in it early on. And so after Schneider left, Geraldine Leiborne was put as the head of the network. And now Nickelodeon really blossomed. Like, this is the Nickelodeon I remember and really loved. This is 1984, I think. - Yeah. - One of the first things that Leiborne did was she turned to the Fred Allen agency, which had helped basically figure out how MTV should brand itself. She said, do this for Nickelodeon, and they got to town. - Yeah, the other thing they did was they started selling ads and commercials. - Right. - Which they realized, I think, pretty quickly, afterward, like, hey, that's a pretty good idea to start getting some money flowing in. So Fred Allen, the firm comes in. They said, all right, we're gonna do focus groups. We're gonna get kids together, and we're gonna find out what they want. And what they found out was kids were kind of roundly annoyed by adults that were patronizing and trying to get them to watch something that basically sucked, and they were tired of it. So they said, you know what we're gonna do then? We're gonna craft this network around this idea and this theme that, like, this is for kids and this is for kids to stand up and shout. Like, hey, you're not listening to me, like, this is for us and do things that we wanna see finally. - Right, if I remember correctly, an early iteration of their new logo was a child setting a couch on fire inside a living room. - You're right, yeah. But they actually did redo the logo. They're like, this pinball and rainbow letters thing is so childish and patronizing. - Sci Schneider, come on. - I still like it. - Oh, really? - Yeah, I thought it was very cute. - Right. - I would look at it all day long if I could. (laughing) - Well, you can do that if you want to. - But they, I guess I could. But they changed the logo by essentially picking what designers roundly think of as the ugliest color around. It's Pantone 21. I don't know if you say the zero first, maybe Pantone 021 orange, which is now recognized pretty much everywhere is Nickelodeon orange, but at the time, because everybody thought was so ugly, no one used it. So Nickelodeon basically claimed this ugly color and it became just completely synonymous with the network. It was a great branding move. - Yeah, actually, I just looked up the previous logos and I had forgotten the little pinball multicolored balloon letter thing. But now that I see it, I totally remember it. No, it was a good logo. - Yeah, anything with different color balloon lettering is a okay in my book. (laughing) - Well, your child of the 80s like me. - Yeah. - And as we'll see, many of the sets and everything in the 80s, I guess we'll get to that, but they had some pretty legendary super 80s sets on their shows. - Yes, they do, man. I could look at pictures of those all day too. - But the logo was animated, so it could take different shapes. Sometimes it was an ice cream cone or a rocket ship or something. And then later on, when slime became what the network was at least a symbol of the network, it looks like a slime splat and that's kind of what they stuck with. - Right. They also did bumpers coming in and out of commercial breaks. - Mm-hmm. - Like the animated ones. There was a series of 'em by a do-up singing group called the Jive Five. - Those are great. - Do you remember those? - Yeah, and I went and watched them of 'em today and I was like, oh yeah, I remember these. They were great. - There are two standouts, one I can do. It's Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Lodion. - Right. - No other one. I've never been able to do it. It's too fast for my thick tongue, but it is great. So just go look up Nick, Jive Five, bumpers, and you'll see what I'm talking about. - Well, what was the fast one? Like just tell me a slowed down version or something, so I might recognize it. - No. - No. - All right, I'll look it up after. Yeah, you're gonna have to do that. - Hey, man, I admire your, you know, gumption to stick up for yourself. - I thought about it. (laughing) - So with "Lay Born" running the show, they started doing some pretty great original programs. They had a sketch show called "Out of Control" that I remember, is hosted by Dave Couillier of Fletch Full House, yeah. - Yeah. - And a show called "Turkey TV," which I had not heard of until I saw the description that it was like a clip show basically hosted by a VJ essentially. And then I was like, yeah, I think I remember that one. - I do not remember that one at all, but they would do something that Nickelodeon was also a really good at. Besides poaching Canadian shows, they would go overseas and find funny clips or funny commercials or whatever. Sometimes other clips from other kids shows, like in completely different languages, and then they would overdub them in English and use them, and they did that with "Turkey TV" a lot too. So that was like, they just did that all the time. Now I'm like, yeah, those kids were totally Danish. I had no idea at the time, but again, I was like, there's something not quite right about how these kids are dressed and the toys they're playing with. - Yeah, that's funny. - Yeah, that's exactly what it was. I was watching that without knowing it. - That's just funny that a kid couldn't be like, something slightly off here, and I can't pinpoint what it is. 'Cause you didn't know they did stuff like that back then. - Yeah, and I was shrugged and it was like, whatever. It's still for you to watch, but it was always there. You know, the great gizu was over my shoulder. Like, it's European, don't you? - Right. - So, Leiborne went back to Darby, one of the guys who co-created, you can't do that on television. It was like, what else you got? And he said, what about like a game show where kids go through a kind of a crazy obstacle course to do these wacky things? And that was the seed of the idea that became double-dare. I watched an episode of Double-Dare earlier today too. It was a lot of fun to see. - Yes, so good. - And it was like, truth or dare, where you could answer a trivia question or dare the other team if you didn't have the answer. And if they didn't have the answer, they could double-dare back. And generally, at that point, that the team would opt for what was called the physical challenge. And it was, you know, the one I watched today was two kids stand on one side of the room and throw eggs at the two kids on the other side who are blindfolded and holding, like marching band crash cymbals in their hand. And the first one to just randomly crash a crash cymbal as the egg comes at them without being able to see it as the team who wins. So just really fun dumb stuff if you're nine to 12 years old. - Yeah, like what a great idea. But not only, though, was it like, like there were great little parts like that. The whole thing, every single part was just operating on all cylinders. - Yeah. - The host Mark Summers was somehow perfect for that show. - He was great. - He was wonderful. The set, like you said, it was in the Memphis style which was huge in the '80s. - Yeah. - Like PB's playhouse was Memphis. You would know Memphis if you, if you're not familiar with the term, you've seen it a million times. but those sets are good. just a feast for the eyes. And then, yeah, the things they came up with, one of my favorites was the picket where you had to, for a physical challenge, you had to get a flag out of a giant nose and to get the flag out, you had to pick out boogers first and then slime would come out of the nose. And then after all that, you had to stick your arm all the way up there and pull the flag out. That's just so fun to create shows like this. Like, that's what kids want to see. Exactly. Yeah. And then the other thing, every single contestant was so psyched to be there. Yeah. So seriously, it was completely sincere. It was just so wonderful. I love double there. I could watch double there all day long. Yeah. You can do a lot of the stuff all day long. Can you imagine getting that phone call or letter in the mail where you are picked to be a contestant on that show and what that must have felt like as a kid? Yeah. For sure. For other kids, I would have dreaded that. Oh, really? Yeah. I was that kid who was in the circus when the clowns were coming down the aisle. I would be like, do not pick me. Please, God, please don't pick me. Yeah. That was my dad. What he wanted to be picked. No, no, no, my dad would always pick. Yeah. I like, I wonder if I should even say this. I think I will. No, I'm not going to say it. Okay. My dad was not a participant. Let's just say that. All right. Well, I'm in life like that. I'm with them on that. I just, I don't like, I don't like the spotlight, you know? What about today? If you like went to a theme park and they were like, let's get this guy out of the audience. Would you do it or would because you've got a lot of experience on stage now? I would have to do it. I mean, your jerk should not just do it if they pick you. But you wouldn't like love being picked. No, and I would be just like breathlessly, anxiously tired. I mean, yeah, yeah. They'd be like, why is that guy's hand trembling? That's funny because you stand on stage in front of like 2000 people and are great. I know, but think about how much stage fright I had to get over. That's true. And you're still standing up there with your hand trembling. Exactly. Have you ever seen me on stage at a stuff you should know show? And I'm picking up my water with both hands. Right. It's because they're true trembling to pick them up by themselves. Well, maybe that's part of the magic. It makes you good. Thanks, man. I think you're great too, because you're so laid back. It's just so easy for you. Hey, it's, uh, we're at the Yen and Yang, you know? I'm the, um, the shuddery side. That's right. So these were all shot, uh, at the time in Philadelphia, the W-H-Y-Y studios. And, um, you know, it was a big hit. Mark Summers. Everyone loved them, like he said. And that was not their first, but, you know, one of the early, like big, big breakouts that made Nickelodeon kind of a juggernaut. Yeah. One of the other things that made Nickelodeon a juggernaut was after A and E was like Sayonara, we're gonna form our own full network. Um, Nickelodeon had the evening hours to fill all of a sudden. So they just did what to do. They went and turned to, um, reruns of classic TV shows, but they branded it as Nick at night. And I was into this too. I like, I seriously had Nickelodeon on all the time. This is the stuff I would watch when I would go by a six pack of Kingsbury non-alcoholic beer and slim gyms and twigs and just settle in for the night. It was just sit there and watch like F-Troop and Mr. Ed and I spy. I just, it just, the whole network just spoke directly to me. Yeah. I mean, I still say if I had like one wish, it might be two for you and I to have grown up in the same neighborhood and been the same age. I could have learned a lot from you. We'd both be a lot different, I think. Yeah, probably so. I'd be more like you and you'd be more like me. Exactly. There's probably a lot of listeners out there right now who're like, wait a minute, you guys didn't grow up in the same neighborhood? I wish. Uh, so the network grew. They eventually would partner with Universal Studios and open a like studios there and kind of moved Nickelodeon there, which was a big deal because all of a sudden that was like a tourist attraction and if you were a visitor to Universal, you could sit in the audience and maybe even be on some of these shows. If you got pulled from the audience, not me, not me. And after a double day or they were like, these game shows are kind of hot. So they had a show called Finders Keepers. I don't think I watched this a ton, but I definitely remember because it was a big giant fake house and they would hide stuff in there and kids could just basically completely destroy the place looking for the hidden items. Yes. I don't know if I watched that one either. I went and looked at pictures of the set and that didn't really ring a bell. But I was familiar with the concept guts. I'd never heard of before. Same. It was like Ninja Warrior type thing, I think. Yeah. But again, I've run Nickelodeon years and years before. Legends of the hidden temple, it was essentially like a double there where you would answer questions, usually geography related. And then for the physical challenge, it was running through this giant temple that was like cross section so you could see the person running through in it and their secret passages and stuff you need to find like the artifact or whatever. I didn't watch that. But I remember seeing ads for it when I was watching the next level of stuff on Nickelodeon like Pete and Pete. Yeah. The late 80s and early 90s. And this is, you know, late high school and early college for me. So I was definitely out of the picture by now. But I remember for sure the show, hey, dude. And I remember us in college, even I think sort of ironically watching it occasionally. Okay. Yeah. I didn't watch that. I didn't watch the little shorts or clear six bellings at all, but they were all sitcoms like live action sitcoms. Yeah. And they were huge hits, right? Yeah. Yeah. The one that gets me this shows Canadian too if I'm not mistaken. But the adventures of Pete and Pete. Yeah. That was a big one. Is still one of the best shows ever made. Like it still holds up. Okay. You're just going to have to trust me. I didn't know I was about to stun you with that rubble. No, I mean, I was just too old and I never caught it after. So I've heard the legend of how great that show is. I should probably check it out now. Yeah. You should. And you know who else would love it as Ruby is. Yeah. Yeah. Totally up her alley. Like the kind of weird humor. I really think she'd like it. All right. We'll check it out. The only time that I've ever been Starstruck Chuck that I can remember like genuinely Starstruck was when we did a live show in San Francisco at the Mariners Hall. And we followed Pete and Pete reunion. That's right. That's right. We're there when we were coming in. And I could not believe who I was in the same room with. I hung out and talked to little Pete. Big Pete was kind of in and out. But I just I was just barely hanging on during that conversation. Yeah. I remember one other time you were Starstruck when we got to go to this Simpson stable read and we met Matt graining. Fair enough. Yeah. Because I was the same. You and are both like tiny children. That's true. That's true. Yeah. It was great. Should we take a break? Yes. All right. We're going to take a break and move into the cartoon era right after this. If your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. 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So I think one of the things we're backed by the way Chuck and one of the things that Nickelodeon is now thought of more than anything else is a place where like some really great cartoons have been birthed. Yeah. Not the least of which was Ren and Stimpy which I always associate with MTV because it got picked up by MTV like I think while it was still original stuff was running but they they syndicated it so fast that MTV had it too if I'm not mistaken but regardless it started out on Nickelodeon. Yeah the Ren and Stimpy show a show called Doug and of course Rugrats all premiered in 1991 which is kind of crazy because those shows were all huge. Laborn was still the network head in 91 but left about five years after that and was succeeded in 96 by a guy named Herb Schennell I guess and he really I guess was like this animation thing is the thing we should keep doing it. Ren and Stimpy and you know parents this is where things get a little dodgy if you want to tune out if you have kids in the car but the creator Ren and Stimpy John Christopher Lucy he ran the first two years two seasons of that show and it was really his brainchild and it was such a just amazing wonderful hysterical show but apparently he like couldn't stay on budget and would blow a lot of deadlines so he they were like you're out of here and the last three seasons I think he was not a part of and everyone was crushed at the time but then many years later in 2018 it was he was exposed two women came forward and was like this guy sexually abused us in the 90s when we were 13 and 15 I think one of them like he had a full on like relationship as a 15 16 year old which is just you know horrendous and sick and he later on gave a pretty terrible non-apology where he blamed his mental health at the time and his poor impulse control he quit the business the statute of limitations had passed to do anything about that unfortunately but that was you know that was unfortunately sort of the the sad way that Ren and Stimpy ended yeah Ren and Stimpy like you said it carried on without him for years and it was great still to yeah so by 96 Nickelodeon is the biggest thing in the world basically they had the most daily viewers of any cable channel and they held that spot for 16 years which is quite a run they had a bunch of other big cartoons when called Hey Arnold that I'd heard of the adventures of Jimmy Neutron boy genius was a big one in the early 2000s and then you know kind of leaning away from these sort of wacky or shows they had shows like Avatar the last air bender and then it's spinoff the legend of Korra which is voiced Korra is voiced by friend of the show and friend in real life Janet Barney yeah it's all that it's pretty awesome it's the best Ruby really got into that show and for a while I was watching it with her and it's really good and Janet was very sweet and would send Ruby birthday videos with her like kind of talking his Korra and is just Janet's the best that's awesome yeah yeah I remember you telling me that and now I've connected the dots yeah yeah yeah yeah so we've gone way out of my wheelhouse now the last one the last cartoon that I watched consistently came out in 93 it was Rocco's modern life which was really okay and I also used to watch Doug it was a sweet cartoon yeah I remember Doug kind of like a diary of a wimpy kid kind of thing a little bit you know he's just too too gentle for you know his age group or something like that yeah but far and away the biggest cartoon that ever came out of Nickelodeon the biggest cartoon that maybe had ever been on television was and is SpongeBob Squarepants and that started in 1999 and a guy named Stephen Hillenberg who I guess studied to be a marine biologist kind of famously he he created SpongeBob Squarepants instead and I think it was probably a pretty good move on his part great move it's still going today it's in a 17th season as of two years ago when it hits 25th anniversary the world learned that Nickelodeon had support supposedly earned 16 billion dollars from SpongeBob retail stuff yeah toys and clothes and you know you name it like anything include up to and including a Broadway musical yeah and Hillenberg got a substantial chunk of that he had negotiated I think from the outset like a pretty decent amount of the merch percentage yeah George Lucas advice yeah oh yeah the back end is what you want right well no Lucas was like merchandising like he negotiated that Star Wars merchandising early on and from then on everyone is like that's the move yeah it's always really paid off for us and Asus well he he I think they got mad at him about that they're right yeah so we can kind of jump ahead a little bit because today there's a lot of Nickelodeon fans who are just really upset and heartbroken and frustrated because they feel like the network was allowed to really get run into the ground and they lay the blame mostly at the head of the network from 2006 to 2018 her name is Sima Zorgami and she is apparently well-known for not being happy that Hillenberg made as much money as he did from the SpongeBob revshare arrangement and so she made sure that if you were a new creator coming to bring a show on the Nick you got zero bagel percentage of the merch sales from your creation so that would scare away new creators who had anything good under their belt right so that was one thing so much so that they actually had what can really only be taken as a desperate attempt to attract new talent they had a Nickelodeon animated shorts program in 2012 which is like hey if you're unknown submit a brief version of your cartoon and maybe we'll pick it up you don't do that if you have like established creators coming to you with shows right yeah that's kind of a sneaky way to get free programming exactly or to get people who you can exploit because they're hungry to get their foot in the door right so there's that she also turned down adventure time when it was picked to Nickelodeon first which is like if you're a cartoon fan and you turn down adventure time you're just a pariah yeah and then also Chuck and this is much more serious she is basically she's really criticized for essentially turning her head the other way looking the other way while a guy named dance Snyder basically carried out a reign of terror among a lot of the live action shows that featured child actors who did not get enough protection from the network yeah for sure like there was a systemic child sexual abuse problem at Nickelodeon that's only a way to say it yeah there was a documentary did you ever see it no what's it called quiet on the set yeah quiet on the set colon the dark side of kids TV it was a couple of years ago and I watched it it's it's pretty upsetting but I'm sure you know you're a big Nickelodeon guy so I don't know if you want to like you know all this happened but it might be upsetting for you to like actually see the documentary yeah I mean even without being a Nickelodeon guy I'm sure it's upsetting right it is but dance Snyder you may know him he was an actor he was Dennis on head of the class right he was in a better off dead with John Q sack and like that was him yeah yeah he was the sort of loser neighbor who the exchange student live with yeah I never put those two characters together but yeah I see it now so that's where I knew him from but he started out as a writer in 1994 on the sketch show all that and created some of their biggest live action shows the Amanda show with Amanda Bines Drake and Josh Zoe 101 I Carly Henry Danger like these are humongous shows yeah and at the time he was being criticized like even while he was there of like man this guy's like putting pretty overt like sexual humor in these shows and like making girls do like really kind of pretty obvious sexual things like you know things that were very phallic like obviously like when you see clips in the documentary it's just like man are you kidding me like why didn't someone say something right just so obvious well later on he denied like we never did anything like that intentionally he basically gas let everyone with his apology later but there was more abuse going on too right yeah Drake Bell who I didn't watch it but I'm guessing he was one of the characters and Drake and Josh as well yeah he he started out on the Amanda show with Amanda Bines he had a dialogue coach who sexually abused him a dialogue coach named Brian Peck who was convicted in 2004, 2004 was also Also a bad year in that production assistant named Jason Handy, who worked with some child actors on all that in the Amanda show, he got a six-year sentence for sexually abusing two girls. And then a few years after that, another Nickelodeon worker and animator named Ezile Channel was convicted of sexually abusing boys at the studio. So this is what I was saying when I was saying like Simon Zorgami is not very well thought of among fans, just at the very least for that, just for not doing anything about that. And even if she or the other heads didn't know what was going on, the fact that there was that it was that easy for people to pray on child actors, you got child actors, man, like they deserve special protection even more than your average kid because your average kid is not in a situation with a bunch of creators and teamsters and whoever else. Like when my niece Miele is on the set, both of her parents are there and at least one of them is there all the time. Oh yeah, I'm sure. Like that's just what you have to do if you have a child actor and apparently that's just not what was going on everywhere in these shows. No, it was way more lax back then and you know you hear all this stuff and you're like what is going on at Nickelodeon and it's that the sad truth is it's, it was a kid's network with kid shows with kid actors and that's where like someone who's a predator will like go and get a job and it's it's deeply, deeply upsetting that that happened and was allowed to happen and there weren't more protections in place like the documentary is just a brutal watch. So, um, Dan Schneider finally after I think 24 years, maybe no, yeah, 24 years at the network. He was fired because an actress named Jeanette McCurdy who was on I Carly and also started with Arianna Grande on Sam and Kat, which was an I Carly spin-off. She basically came out and was like I'm not going to keep quiet any longer and she started essentially like saying like Dan Schneider did this Dan Schneider, that Dan Schneider insisted that I wear a bikini for a hot tub scene, even though I wanted to wear one piece. He encouraged us to drink as like 16 year olds and stuff, right? So that was enough to get Dan Schneider pushed out, but then she went further, she published a memoir in 2022 titled I'm Glad My Mother's Dead and there's not some ironic twist to that title like it's exactly what you think or it sounds like she was Glad My Mother's Dead in part because her mother pushed her into acting and basically set her up for to be exposed to the stuff she was exposed to and in that she refers to Dan Schneider as the creator and she just alleged some more stuff too that really just put a really negative light on Nickelodeon. Yeah, I mean, Viacom CBS at the time, they did an investigation that and came out and said, well, we don't have any evidence of sexual misconduct, but Dan Schneider was verbally abusive. We found out and he threw tantrums. So he's out of here when she and this is even more upsetting when all this came out after Sam and Kat was canceled. She had a conference call. This was the Jeanette McCurdy. They actress who wrote the book and the victim, one of the victims. She had a conference call with a bunch of agents and managers and she was offered and didn't take it, but she was offered $300,000 just to never talk about it again. Don't talk about Dan Schneider, don't talk about Nickelodeon. And she turned it down. And then after that, there were leaks to the media that, oh, the series really ended because she was mad that Ariana Grande was paid more than her, which is about as vile as it gets. What scumbags me and that's just terrible. So like you said, that docu series came out and really just kind of got the point across about what was going on. There's a journalist who was part of the documentary, Scotchy Cool. And they said that a lot of these people are still working in the industry, by the way. Yeah. So like you said, Schneider, Dan Schneider issued an apology on YouTube, but you said it was a non-apology. I didn't want it. Yeah. I mean, he basically gas lit everyone and was like, yeah, you know what? I did some embarrassing things, but I didn't, I didn't intend to have any sexual jokes on the show. Like you're just seeing what you want to see, basically. And the Nickelodeon didn't do itself any favors by issuing like a really legal ease non-apology itself saying they couldn't corroborate or negate allegations of misdeeds decades ago. Like get over it. This sexual abuse is like 20 years ago. Yeah. Pretty disappointing. Nickelodeon, like you said, has really gone downhill a lot since then. And you know, partially because that's kind of what happened to a lot of cable TV networks. Like people, including kids, obviously, have been moving away from traditional television in that model. And kids probably like quicker than even older viewers. So their ratings have dropped a lot. You know, they were number one, for 16 years, a number on cable network. Now they are the 60th, 60th most popular cable channel with about 122,000 daily viewers. But you know, they're diversifying. They're doing programming for other TV networks. And also doing like web stuff and app stuff. Yeah, I look that up. It's about it's about the same that Disney channel, not Disney plus but the cable Disney cable channel gets every day. So it seems like it's not just Nick, but they also have about 2.5 times what Cartoon Network gets. But it's only a third of what TV land gets every day. So people go nuts for those friends reruns. I watch those in hotels a lot. Do you? Yeah. Like you know, flipping it around, they have the awful motion smoothing on all the hotel TVs. But you hate this. Oh man, of course I do. I just don't even know what you're talking about. Well, I'll have to show you something. Okay. But some of those older studio audience sitcoms don't look as bad with that on. I see. So that's why I watch that. Yeah, now once I've seen the friends without the laugh track videos, I can't watch it anymore. Oh, yeah. That was fun. It was in a big loss. But anyway, that's Nickelodeon everybody for you. Sorry to end it on a bummer, but that's the state of affairs right now. Hopefully it'll come back and get great again. And in the meantime, while we wait for Nickelodeon to get great again, how about listen or mail? All right. All right, this is Short and Sweet, hey guys, this is on Rope. When Rope is cut to length and used for a purpose on a ship, everybody, it becomes line. Chuck was using line when hoisting jibs and sails. I've never sailed myself, but whenever I talked with my boss who did sail, I would say Rope and he would correct me and say, no, it's line on a boat. So as soon as Chuck said Rope in his nantucket story, I stuttered. It's all good to me though, guys, but passing this along in honor of my old boss. And that is Bill from Littites, I guess is how you pronounce it, L-I-T-I-T-Z, Littites, Littites. What is that in a state or is it its own micro nation? I've never heard of it. I'm going to look it up right now though while you chit-chat. Okay. Well, thanks a lot, Bill. We're going to try to figure out where you're from. Pennsylvania. Okay. Pennsylvania. I get to guess that. Yeah, Lancaster County. Hello. Sure. Okay. Oh, hey, Bill hangs out with the Amish there. That's right. Be sure to tell the Amish we say hi, and if you want to be like Bill and correct us ever so gently and kindly like Bill did, you can send it in an email to [email protected]. Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I choose option B. I'm Julie Pinero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. 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