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[insects chirping]

♪ Hon De Laud Hup Hive! Up
NICK! ♪

♪ Hon De Laud Hup Hive! Up
NICK! ♪

♪ Hone De Rikki-Tikki Lo Y
Livin' No. 1 Nickelodeon

[Kenan Thompson] Nickelodeon,
if you want to know about it.

It's a kid-owned environment.

It didn't feel like the version of what
an adult was telling a kid to watch.

It felt like really
what kids were into.

It just had a voice that
kind of had respect for kids.

[Mitch Kriegman]
We were the anti Disney.

We were the anti
Saturday morning.

[Anne Kreamer]
It was weird and wacky.

What are the things that people I
think don't know about Nickelodeon

was how many women
there were at the top.

Kids can smell from a thousand miles away
when they're being sold a bunch of crap

versus something that is a kind of original
production that is targeting them specifically.

From a kid's point of view life can really
suck because grownups make the rules.

If it was a tiny bit naughty,
kids would really appreciate that

and feel that it was real
and it was really for them.

I mean, the stuff we got
away with was insane.

The inmates were very much
running the asylum back then.

It was way easier
to slip stuff in.

[Anne Sweeney] Ren & Stimpy.

The Kenan & Kelshow.

-All That.
-[Graham Yost] Hey Dude.

Legends of the Hidden Temple.

You Can't Do That on Television.

[man 1] Rocko's Modern Life.

The Adventures of Pete & Pete.

Salute Your Shorts.

-[Marc Summers] Double Dare.
-[Angela Santomero] Doug.

-[Paul Germain] Rugrats.
- The Secret World of Alex Mack.

Clarissa Explains It All.

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

[Phil Moore] The team of people
that worked there at that time were...

the most creative and
talented people I've ever met.

So there's all those crazy things that
happened that, you know, nobody knows about.

[upbeat music playing]

In the very beginning, there was an
experiment in Columbus, Ohio, called QUBE,

and it was interactive TV.

In the very near 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
television, but it will go beyond both.

It starts with this
little black box.

The big thing then in Columbus
was this whole interactive thing.

They had these buttons at home
and you could interact.

And it was television
of the future.

And everybody thought, oh, my God,
this is, you know, revolutionary.

[man 2] These buttons offer
the subscriber the capability

literally to talk back
to the television set.

You can press them to give your views
on a subject or take part in the game.

You can answer questions
asked of you.

Ever feel that nothing exciting happens
to you, that life is just passing you by?

Should the possession and use
of marijuana be legalized?

Button I would be for yes,
button 2 would be no.

Touch now

You could sit at home and press buttons
and actually get involved with shows.

We had a show called
Talent Search

and it was sort of like
today's American Idol.

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 that act was gone
within a minute and a half.

♪ You bet your life
That it isn't her ♪

♪ But could she love
Could she woo ♪

♪ Coochie coochie, coochie coo ♪

Ooh.

One of the people who was
the scientist behind QUBE

was a woman
named Dr. Vivian Horner.

It was her pedagogy that went behind
that early version of Nickelodeon,

which actually was
called Pinwheel.

♪ Pinwheel, pinwheel
Spinning around ♪

♪ Look at my Pinwheel
And see what I've found ♪

♪ Pinwheel, pinwheel
Where have you been? ♪

♪ Hello, how are you
And may I come in? ♪

[Burt Dubrow] It was puppets, it was
focused, I think, for the first time,

right to a specific audience.
To children.

[man 2] Button two in the
community column brings you Pinwheel.

This is programming designed especially
for the 2 to 5-year-old preschool children.

♪ It's a shower for a flower
A bath for a bee ♪

♪ A wash for a squash
And a drink for a tree! ♪

[Burt] You know, when you don't
have a lot of money to do, you know,

because you're in Columbus, Ohio,
you tend to get pretty creative.

It was better in some sense
because it was raw

and there wasn't all that great
production value.

And... and I think in a sense
that was better for kids.

It was more real for a child,
I think, watching

than seeing all this great New
York or Hollywood production.

It was sort of the beginning of...
of... of everything in terms of cable.

So when we wrapped the Columbus
versions of Pinwheel,all that crew,

they went to New York
and thought,

"Huh, we should not do just one
show over and over and over again.

Let's do a network for kids.

And I don't know, why don't
we call it Nickelodeon?"

[man 3] Introducing...
Nickelodeon.

Children's programming that's fit for
children, 14 hours of programming a day,

seven days a week that will make
them wonder, laugh, ponder and think.

The story I always understood as
the origin story of Nickelodeon

was that the Warner Brothers, they had bought
a Nickelodeon machine, a movie machine,

and they were screening movies on
their Nickelodeon in their garage.

So when this fabulous company went
into business with American Express,

their first channel
was called Nickelodeon.

[Scott Webb] So those early days 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...
the green vegetables days at Nickelodeon

because it was good for you, but it
wasn't something really that kids wanted.

We're going great...

There was a lot of shows
that were very much about kids

who could play concert piano and
kids who were jumping out of airplanes

and, you know, parachuting and just
amazing kids who did incredible things.

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.

[Alan Goodman] Nickelodeon had been run by
a guy from the toy business Cy Schneider,

who had his opportunity.

And then it was passed
onto Gerry Laybourne.

[Anne Sweeney] Geraldine Laybourne
is the most progressive thinker

the world of media
has ever seen.

The first time I heard Gerry
Laybourne talk about Nickelodeon,

it was about her background as a
teacher and how kids were always first.

[Scott Webb] Part of what's important
to her is that whatever she's working on

is to put it in the form of
a cause, a mission.

And I think she wanted
to change the world.

[Alan Goodman] So Gerry assembled
a core group of her staff.

We all went
out to Gerry's house

and we brainstormed,
and we pitched ideas.

And then Gerry's son Sam came
through the living room at one point

with a very typical
8-year-old's lament.

Gerry watched as he left and she said,
"Boy, it's tough to be a kid."

We realized almost every
one of us almost instantly,

that there was tremendous value
and dignity in letting kids be kids.

[Anne Sweeney] She had the idea
to go out and talk to kids.

We actually had an arrangement with the Watchung
Elementary School in Montclair, New Jersey.

And in exchange for giving them
a television set,

we were allowed to come into
the classroom and talk to kids.

And we talked to kids about
what was going on in their lives.

We didn't say, "Do you like this
television show or that television show?"

We said, "What does it feel
like to be a kid?"

[Geraldine Laybourne] Mothers were going to work
for the first time, divorce rates were high.

Kids were either coming home alone
or into school after school programs.

They needed a place
where they could just be kids.

And that became our mantra.

We had had a logo that was a
silver ball and multiple colors,

and it was so, so condescending,

you can't believe it is this
romp through clichés about kids.

The original theme song had been
done by the London Symphony Orchestra.

[theme music playing]

Tough to find kids that would
connect into that sound.

So Fred Seibert and Alan and I
were trying to figure out

what is going to be something
that kids will attach to.

Now, Fred and Alan had been
involved in the MTV logo.

They knew that a participatory logo
was about as good as it could get.

And we wanted kids
to own Nickelodeon.

It was...
that was our intention.

[Alan Goodman ] We had a lot of success
with the MTV logo that we had developed.

And it was the first logo
I knew about that changed.

And our attitude was,
television moves.

It should be raucous.
It should be noisy.

We thought the same thing
when we got to Nickelodeon.

Let's represent this audience,

which is noisy and crazy and fun
and irreverent and all of that stuff.

[Anne Sweeney] And I'll never forget the
day Fred Seibert stood up in a meeting

and said, "Anne, orange!
It's orange!"

And we said,
"Why? What? Orange?"

And the one promo that has stuck
in my head my whole life has been,

"Orange you glad you got
your Nickelodeon?"

♪ Aren't you glad you got
Your Nickelodeon? ♪

♪ Aren't you glad
You're watching

♪ You're watching
You got your Nickelodeon? ♪

♪ You're watching Nick!
Aren't you glaaaad ♪

♪ You're watching You're
watching You're watching Nick! ♪

[Anne Sweeney] Fred picked
orange because it was a happy color.

Kids responded to it.

[Alan] Pantone 021, which is the orange
color of Nickelodeon's original logo.

It was the perfect color
because it went with nothing.

[Anne Sweeney] You could do anything you wanted
with that color and any number of shapes,

but you couldn't change the typeface
and you couldn't change the color.

[Alan] It was its own thing
that would slap on the screen

the same way that the MTV logo
was a spray painted TV

to say this is thematically
defacing whatever is behind it.

That was my attitude
about the orange logo as well

as that it sort of was there to
deface whatever was behind it.

[Anne Sweeney] In the early years, we couldn't
get any one really in the United States

to sell programs to us.

And I remember talking
to a big syndicator

who had all of the...
the big animated series at the time.

And he said to me, and I quote, "Honey,
I'll never sell a program to you.

The business is on broadcast
and in syndication."

Okay, fine. We'll...
we'll go out and find it ourselves.

We would buy series from Japan
and have them dubbed.

We would buy French series
and have them dubbed.

We would buy shorts.

And it probably wasn't until

we screened You Can't Do That on
Television that came from Canada

that we had the moment
that crystallized

really where this was going.

[theme music playing]

I think that show informed
everything that we did going forward.

[Kenan] You Can't Do That
n Television, I think was like,

"Oh, that is Nickelodeon."

Whenever I would think about
their shows, like that's Nickelodeon,

because they do that slime thing and those
kids are like hanging in those lockers.

-Hey, Adam.
-Yes, Mathew.

I had this nightmare. I dreamt that
I got slimed, told pathetic jokes.

I was humiliated in front
of millions of people.

Yeah, Matthew, that nightmare is still
going on. It's called being on this show.

I hope I wake up soon.

[Geraldine] We put a show called You
Can't Do That on Television on the air,

which was a comedy skit show.

And really it was a show that
understood kids' needs so deeply.

And it really turned
a kid's world upside down.

Time for dessert, kids.

Boo! We hate desserts.

-Can't have more Brussels sprouts, and liver?
-Yeah.

Normally I'd say no,

-but now we have Liver & Brussel Sprout ice cream.
-[both] Yay!

So at the end of the day, a kid would feel
better watching You Can't Do That on Television,

because their parents
weren't that bad.

Their teachers weren't that bad. Their
principal would never put them in a dungeon.

[Drake Bell] it was so cool to be able to watch
something that wasn't talking down to you.

You look back,
and it's comedy genius, really.

You look at it and you're just like, "Man,
they were just so ahead of their time."

But, you know, if your parents
saw it, it'd be like,

"Okay, it's a little... it's a
little pushing the envelope."

But that's what was
cool about it.

See you around.

[Anne Sweeney] I think
You Can't Do That on Television

was the most critical piece of
programming

that Nickelodeon ever purchased.

And I think one of the geniuses who really
informed a lot of what happened at Nickelodeon

was a guy named Roger Price, who is 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... a
powerful truth, you know, that he articulated.

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 television."

He said, "Yes, I can.

And that's what I'm
going to call it!"

Kids all over the world said,
"I get to be me,

and if I really am lucky,
maybe I get to be slimed."

I think it was super clever because, you know,
the trigger and I don't even want to say it.

You know what it is.

Like what else could there be
in that green stuff?

Well, I don't know.
See, that's one thing about...

[Christine McGlade] You get
punished for not knowing, right?

So that's...
that's the idea there.

You... you are gonna get dumped
on if you don't know the answer.

Just a physical incarnation of this thing
where, like, kids are just dumped on.

And I think that's
how kids feel.

It turned out it's really
great to be slimed.

I've been slimed several times.

It's warm. It's wonderful.

And so the kids loved getting slimed
and they were paid an extra 50 bucks.

I never got paid for being
slimed, but, you know...

I think if I told you what slime was made
out of, I'd probably have to kill you.

[Scott] Nickelodeon owes a lot, obviously,
to ou Can't Do That on Television,

not just kind of the elements
of... of green slime,

you know, that... that became
iconic for Nickelodeon.

But I think the whole way of relating to
kids in a very honest, authentic, real

and not, you know, fancy or polished or,
you know, pretty way.

On your mark. Get set, go.

[announcer 1] These two teams
are in the tension

trying to pop water balloons on
top of their partner's dunce cap.

Who's ever first...

[Marc Summers] Well, if you ask me,
Double Dare put Nickelodeon on the map.

I mean, slime was there
and, you know,

I Don't Know and You Can't
started to bring eyeballs to the set.

But I think we were the first
appointment TV the kids had.

The question was, how do you
make a low cost, high volume program

that could really perform well for kids in
this times lot that we were looking to win?

[Anne Sweeney]
Dee LaDuke, Geoffrey Darby,

and Mike Klinghoffer were in a
room talking about shows,

talking about development,
talking about games.

And one of them said, "Do you
remember when you used to dare someone

to do something
when you were a kid?"

And the response from somebody else
in the room was, "Well, that was fun.

But it was when you double dared
them that it got really interesting."

Thanks, everybody.
Welcome to Double Dare.

It's the game that doubles the challenge
from your brains right down your feet.

[Marc] They shot a pilot in
Geoffrey Darby's basement.

They wanted Geoffrey because Geoffrey
was like the king of Nickelodeon

and Gerry Laybourne thought
everything he did was magical.

And so, "Well, why don't
you do it, Geoffrey?"

Well, if, you know, you see the pilot, you
see why Geoffrey should have never done it.

You start this with a tossup round.
So hands on the buzzer.

Here's the question for ten
dollars and control of the game.

Seventy percent of the Earth's
surface is covered by water.

But what is the name of the
largest ocean in the Earth?

-[buzzes]
-And Mrs. Mr.?

-Atlantic?
-Wrong. I'm so sorry.

[Marc] I was 33 years old.
I didn't want to do a kid show.

I didn't even know what
the hell it was.

I just wanted to get on
television on a regular gig.

This physical challenge is
going to be very easy.

Amy, why don't you come up over
here and Mike right over there?

-Have you ever been to Hawaii?
-No.

Never been there. It's a great place.
You've never learned to hula though?

[Scott] You know what makes Marc special
is that he doesn't talk down to kids.

I mean, that he's just that guy
who's like a... a friend.

Having somebody who's personable
and likable,

I think made him the right
choice for hosting that show.

How about a round of applause for Amy and Mike
for doing such a darn good job here for us.

All right. Very nice.

So first day on the set of ouble Dare,
we were all excited and nervous

and the bigwigs came down
from New York.

And we just wanted
to get it right.

Well, keep in mind, it was the first
time I'd ever done the obstacle course.

And I had a lot going on in my mind, but
it was also everybody else's first time.

So the very first obstacle
was called Nightmare.

And there was a pillow
filled with feathers

and there was a flag
somewhere hidden in that pillow.

Come on, get that flag.
You can't... no, you can't help.

Find the... find the flag.

Find the flag.
It's in there somewhere.

We thought somebody put the flag in,
but they didn't put the flag in.

So for 60 seconds, they're going
through the feathers. There's no flag.

Three, two, one...

Sorry, your time is up.
We never even got to our first flag.

Gee, I feel bad about that. There is
a flag in there somewhere, I promise.

We just, uh, unfortunately don't
have time to go in and find it.

But there is a flag in there and, uh,
we're only to obstacle number one.

We're cutting. Great.
Thank goodness.

It looked scary.

Here was a stiff host wearing
penny loafers, trying to control kids.

And we go to an obstacle course that is supposed
to run, uh, eight obstacles in 60 seconds.

I think it took us two hours to
do a 60-second obstacle course.

We have to shoot four shows
a day to make our budget.

And we only get one show
shot that day.

And I am beside myself.

After the fact, you know, I went to
Gerry and I went, you know, "Are we okay?

What's going on?" "Oh,
you were fantastic. Show was fantastic."

Little did I know she had said to Klinghoffer,
"What have I got myself into here?

I've sent these boys to go down and
play television who have never done it."

So she gets on the train to go
back to New York going,

"Okay, I'll probably be fired
in a week."

And then it became
what it became.

[announcer 2] Every weekday, Nickelodeon
gives kids the physical challenges they want

on Double Dare.
Flying Zucchini Brothers.

William Tell.
Rain on your Parade.

Weatherman, Top Gum.
Scrambled Egg. And more.

The Physical Challenge, another reason to
watch Double Dare every weekday on Nickelodeon.

Double Dare really went for
everything that kids laughed at

that they weren't supposed to
laugh at.

Having kids dive in
to pools of slime

and come out of it
just dripping with goo.

It was epic. It became another
cornerstone of Nickelodeon.

[Kenan] I just loved Double Dare
because it was, you know, food based

and people swimming around and
eating it and competing at the same time

was like the best three things
in the world.

I don't know, it was like weird
and gross and disgusting and fun.

I just remember, like, you had to reach
up into a nose for a flag or something.

Who doesn't want to do that?
[laughs]

Our safety record was really
good with the exception of one kid.

As he was coming down,
he flipped over.

I... I could've sworn he broke his neck.
I thought his head snapped.

And you can hear me saying during
the entire time, "Are you okay?

You feel all right? You okay?"

And you know, they got to
obstacle number six.

And I... and you could see me.
I put my arm around the kid.

I said, "Are you doing
all right? You doing all right?"

You know, so... so then afterwards
we go back in the control room.

We watch it on ska-mo.

This person shouldn't be
alive today.

I mean, his head went this way, his
neck went this way. It was frightening.

We get done
and, uh, his father comes in.

And he goes, "Lucky for you.
My kid's all right." Yeah. Thanks.

"You know, the large screen TV
was obstacle number seven." Yeah.

"I won't sue you if you give us
the large screen TV."

Hey, whatever you want, man.
[laughs]

You want that large screen TV?
Anything else you want?

You want a piece of the set? What else
do you want? What else can we give you?

[Scott] So the success of Double
Dare really showed how important

original programming was
for Nickelodeon,

not just for ratings,

but for Nickelodeon
to have its own identity.

[Marc] Yeah, it became a hit
rather quickly.

And then they asked us to start
doing personal appearances.

So, Robin and I started
to go to malls.

Well, you know, 10,000
people would show up.

And then we realized,
"Oh, my God, this is huge.

Why don't we take and start
putting it in arenas?"

Then there became a competition for
kids because Nickelodeon owned kids,

I think, from that point on
they always have.

Then when they made the deal
at Universal

and families were forced to bring
the kids down to be a part of it,

uh, that's pretty heavy.

When you plan your whole vacation
around a cable network, that's nuts.

[man 4] Nickelodeon is the world's
leading television network for children.

Two sound stages at the side of
live action programming,

while sharing in the excitement of taking
part in programming designed just for them.

Children have a close up look
at how television is produced.

[Geraldine] At one point
in the late '80s,

we were producing seven shows
in seven different places.

And I thought, "Wouldn't it be great if we
had a studio, a central studio with a lot?"

I knew that we couldn't
afford it.

So I tried to think about
who needs us,

who would possibly benefit from
having Nickelodeon on their lot.

And Universal Studios, Florida
was just getting started.

Gerry Laybourne, who was brilliant, went
to Universal Studios management, said,

"You know, down here in Florida,
you got competitors down the street

and they got something you don't have.
They got a mouse.

We can be your mouse."

[Marc] Welcome to the Nick Studios,
ladies and gentlemen, we are live!

First time in 11 years, we're
doing a live broadcast on Nickelodeon,

and it means we are coming to you from our
new home right here in Orlando, Florida.

These are your studios where you
can come to watch Nick being made

and you can audition
to be on a Nick show.

[Alan] It was a place where
shows got produced

because it was supposed to be
a real working studio.

So there were two stages.

We were probably
two floors high.

And then on the third floor,
I think there was a glass walkway

that went between
the two studios.

So the tour could look down into
either stage from this glass walkway

and see us actually
producing shows.

The Orlando Nickelodeon
experience was... was wild.

You would see this Nickelodeon tour and you
would see these kids looking through a window.

Looking at us like a bunch of,
like, talented fish.

[Josh Server] At first you were very aware
of it, but after a while you just forgot.

So we would be in the hair and
makeup room or in the wardrobe room.

And then all of a sudden you just like turn
around and there would just be like a kid

with his face pressed up
against the glass, like.

And so it created this like it
was like the zoo effect. [laughs]

And so you really felt like
you were always on.

[Marc] Okay, folks. Here we are
in Production Alley.

If you look up in the monitors, that's what
they're doing next door on sound stage 19

where they're recording
Family Double Dare.

This is Production Alley some
of the behind the scenes rooms.

The first room in the back
there, that's the makeup room.

Of course, with those bright lights,
every star, every contestant on Nick

needs to wear makeup
to look their best.

[Marc] After a while, they wanted
every part of our lives exposed.

And I hated that, especially when you're a
performer and you need to be in makeup and hair.

And I... I went to management,
said,

"I'm begging you to close the
curtain while we're getting made up

and get that microphone
out of there."

Well, they said they wouldn't do it.
Okay, fine.

So I waited one night,
until everybody was gone

and I went in and pulled the guts
out of all the microphones in there

and it took them a month.

They couldn't figure out why the hell...
Everything's plugged in.

Everything's plugged in.

But I ripped all the... the
innards out of the microphone

so they couldn't hear what the hell we were
saying because I don't wanna be bothered.

Sorry. No pictures.
No pictures. I'm sorry.

[Kel Mitchel] That was our
backyard.

Like Universal Studios
was our backyard.

In between like breaks
and stuff like that,

in between sketches we would go hang
out on the Back to the Future Ride.

[Kenan] We would like sneak into the park at
lunchtime and like go ride like Terminator Two.

That was like the ride
at the time.

[Marc] Why kids wanted
to be slimed. I don't know.

When we built Universal Studios,
we had a whole room

where people would get slimed
on a regular basis.

[Alan] it was part of the
tour attraction.

They'd go in and they'd play
some Nickelodeon games

that were similar to the games that
were played on Nickelodeon's game shows.

And one kid would get... would
get slimed. And it was a great time.

[Geraldine] Nickelodeon Studios
was a big step forward for us

because it said to the world
that we were big.

We had a big physical presence.

So when people would come, when advertisers
would come down here and see us,

we were no longer
a cable television channel.

We were something
gigantic for kids.

[Alan] Nickelodeon Studios became the thing
that got kids to say to their parents,

"We got to go
to Universal Studios, Florida."

And the lines to get into that
attraction were enormous.

[Anne Kreamer] That gave us a home base.
It was in your face, Disney.

You know, here we are. We've got
this other thing going on right now.

And it really created
an anchor and attraction thing

that extended further that sense of kids
being able to touch and see and participate

in this thing they love,
Nickelodeon.

The Nickelodeon team was
constantly pushing itself.

We were constantly thinking
about what should we be doing next?

You know, how did that work out? And very
conscious of not repeating ourselves.

So going into live action with a
show like Hey Dude was the next chapter.

[announcer 2] Hey Dude.

♪ It's a little wild
And a little strange ♪

♪ When you make your home
Out on the range ♪

[Anne Sweeney] Hey Dude was of
critical moment for Nickelodeon.

To do a scripted show,
to do something that other networks did.

They did scripted television.

So it was critical that
this was written for kids.

And, you know, you look back at some of the
writers that we had, Lisa Mel a med, Graham Yost,

I mean, these are real writers
in Hollywood.

Hey Dude was one of Nickelodeon's
first scripted series.

I would say almost the equivalent of
Saved by the Bell, but on a dude ranch.

Hey Dude,
half hour live action comedy

was about kids working
at a dude ranch in Arizona

that has just been purchased
by a guy from New York.

So a real city slicker,
a real dude.

Mr. Ernst.
And he's there with his son, Buddy.

Beautiful. Just beaut.

That's just beautiful, isn't it?

It is hot, but beautiful.

[Graham] And for a season, there was a
dog and then that was just too much work.

So, Cassie just kind of
disappeared.

Cassie. Cassie. Go get it.
Get it.

There were no veterans
on the show.

There were no people who had been working
in the business for years who could say,

"Oh, don't do that."
We were all just figuring it out.

You know, it was an inexpensive cable show
for kids, but we never wrote down to it.

[Graham] I always said to people it was a
little bit like writers' boot camp in that,

"Okay, let's write the classics.

Have... we've got Brad and Ted, who, you
know, girl and boy who really like each other,

but they're always fighting.

Well, let's have them get
handcuffed together and lose the key."

That's a classic.

Dave Brisbin, he played
Mr. Ernst, the ranch owner.

Let's have him trip and fall
into a water trough.

Man, we went into the water trough...
whenever in doubt have him...

someone fall in the
water trough.

[Christine] We shot Hey Dude in Tucson,
Arizona, in the middle of the desert.

It was the Tanque Verde Ranch, which is
actually a place that people go for vacations

for a dude ranch experience.

But we had some property off of
the ranch itself and they built sets.

It was really interesting. They really
developed a real hybrid way of making a TV show.

What they had miscalculated
was the heat and the locations

because the sets
weren't air conditioned.

And one time we put a thermometer
on the hat of the boom man

and it was one hundred
and twenty six degrees.

We could fry eggs.

[Graham] Everyone felt they were
lucky to be working.

They were having fun,
very little attitude or anything.

I think we absolutely bonded more
because we were living on location.

I mean, what do you do
when you're 17 years old

in the middle of the desert
making this show?

But it was the best.

It was super fun
and we all had the best time.

[Lisa] 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.

And I think if you have the privilege of
putting something out there in the world,

that's what it should be.

[Anne Sweeney] I think because we
had learned a lot about ourselves

and had been successful with Hey Dude,
we felt ready to take on more scripted.

[fanfare]

[Steve] The idea for
Salute Your Shorts came about

because I was a counselor at summer camp
up in Maine and I met a guy named Tom Hill.

We decided to take our
summer camp experience

and put it into a big humor book
called Salute Your Shorts.

Nickelodeon had just begun

creating new shows for...
for kids and they're looking for things.

And they thought that camp would
be a perfect arena for them

because it was kids in a kids' environment
and it was kids living by their own rules.

♪ We run, we jump
We swim and play ♪

♪ We row and go on trips ♪

♪ But the things that last
Forever ♪

♪ Are our dear friendships ♪

♪ Camp An a wanna ♪

♪ We hold you in our hearts ♪

♪ And when we think about you ♪

♪ It makes me wanna fart ♪

[Steve] As we were casting, one of the things
we wanted to make sure that we're doing

was to get kids
who were natural.

We wanted less acting
and we wanted more normal kids.

I remember casting for the pilot
when it was me as Budnick

and Michael as Donkey Lips.

I remember feeling like
that's... this is going to work.

Meet my best friend
in the entire world.

This is Eddie
"Donkey Lips" Gelfen.

I can hock a loogie eight feet in
the air and catch it with my tongue.

I lived with just my father and we...
he was like a single parent family.

We couldn't afford cable
at that time in our life.

So I was literally working
on the Nickelodeon show

and not being able to watch it
at that moment.

[Venus] Being a child actor
in Los Angeles

and then also just the kind
of upbringing that I had,

I wasn't actually exposed
to that much diversity.

So I was the only black kid
on this show, you know.

So, "at that time",
that was very diverse.

[Steve] We're trying to
break the rules.

We were trying to do things that were...
that had never been done before.

My goal was to make it look as
cinematic, and as large as possible.

And so I pitched the show saying
that the camera would be up on the roof,

under the bed,
it would be behind the ball.

And we always want to
do things differently.

Hey, everybody,
it's awful waffle time!

Awful waffle. Awful waffle.
Awful waffle.

What's an awful waffle?

[Michael] So one of the questions
a lot of people want to know is

what is an awful waffle?

Well, we don't truly know!

The awful waffle, I... I never
heard it explained in detail.

It has something to do with like a
tennis... some sort of racket and syrup.

And from there, you can use
your imagination or ask Steve.

Maybe he'll finally...
he'll finally spill the beans.

Do you want to know the secret
of the awful waffle?

There's some secrets
that cannot be told.

And the secret of the awful
waffle is one of them.

Did I ever receive push back
from Nickelodeon? Of course.

They were the studio and they were ultimately
in charge of... of... of what got on

and what the rules were.

One of the big push backs was an episode
where a kid was gonna sneak out of the bunk

and he was going to go down to the
lodge and he was going to steal candy.

Note from network,
"Children cannot steal candy."

The big problem was obesity.

We're gonna... we're very concerned
with obesity and healthy eating.

That's what the network said.
So we had to change it.

And instead, the child had to sneak out
of his bunk, sneak down to the lodge,

risk being thrown out.

And he had to go
and steal an orange.

[Danny] It was like being
in camp.

The crew, we had the same sort of group
of people, and it was... it was fun.

We had a lot of fun
on that show.

[Steve] We were able to tell stories where
the kid didn't have to win at the end.

There was disappointment.
There were bullies.

Kids at home responded to that.

Those were real world problems
that they were facing.

And so now they were able to
watch characters on the screen

who reflected their lives
at home.

I got to go to work
and have pie fights.

I've got to go to work
and play dodge ball.

There was no better time in my professional
career than making Salute Your Shorts.

[Big Pete] It all started
right here on the 50-yard line,

with a sky-high whirling discus
throw that killed an innocent squid.

[Danny Tamberelli] Pete & Pete was a very
weird show, like it wasn't for everybody.

And because of that, I think what people
latched on to was that sort of weirdness.

People used to say it was Twin
Peaks meets the Wonder Years.

[Drake] Pete & Pete.
Oh, my gosh.

I mean, if you watch that show now, have
you watched it recently? It is brilliant.

[Will McRobb] I think the goal of Pete & Pete
was to tell a story the way kids tell stories,

where it's just one big stream
of consciousness,

a burst of images
and half completed thoughts

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... of... of the narrator.

I think one of the things that made people
realize that Pete & Pete was something different

was in our opening credits.

[theme music playing]

♪ Hey, smilin' strange ♪

♪ You're lookin' happily
Deranged ♪

We give a tattoo a credit and we give
a plate in Mom's head their own credits.

Petunia was my tattoo.

Nobody knows how I got it,

but every time I shake my...
my wrist like this,

I can make her dance,
my mom fainted.

So I had to wear long sleeved
shirts even in the summer.

I've seen a lot of Petunia
tattoos, all pretty unique.

A lot of people are like
"Hey, is the tattoo real?"

I was like, "No, it's not,
it's not real. I was seven years old."

It was interesting that we
could get away with that then.

I mean, you know, she's sort
of a partly clad woman.

I mean, it's like a real hardcore tattoo,
something an old sailor would have.

Someone did something
illegal to a child.

Then we put it on Nickelodeon.

The main difference between Big Pete
and Little Pete would have to be that

Little Pete is secure in his
childlike imagination and brain.

But Big Pete 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.

And I want him to stay with me.
And he wants to stay, too.

But he also has his own
friends in high school.

[Michael] Big Pete
and Ellen's relationship,

as we're introduced to it
in the beginning,

is "you're a girl and you're a friend,
but you're not a girlfriend."

Listen, you're a girl and you're a
friend, but you're not a girlfriend.

And that's from
Pete's point of view.

But we do see their relationship develop
over time, both in the "Day of the Dot",

which was early on
in our series production,

and the "Valentine's Day Massacre",
which was one of our specials.

You can see that, you know, Pete and Ellen
also might have feelings for each other.

And that, I think helps kids understand,
you know, about growing up.

Maybe your childhood friends
turn into something else.

There are a lot of excellent musician
cameos that were on Pete & Pete.

[upbeat music playing]

Katherine Dieckmann,
who was the director.

She's had directed
Shiny Happy People.

She directed Stand.

Because of her contacts, she was able
to get Michael Stipe to be on the show.

I think once we got Michael Stipe
on the show, we had the cool cred.

So then it was like, "Well,
let's see if we can get Iggy Pop."

Iggy Pop's like,
"Oh, yeah, I'll do it."

Iggy Pop was so cool.

He just wanted to hang
and do more stuff.

So they would just start
adding him into scenes

because he wanted to hang out
and he wanted to stay.

I'm sorry, Gumdrop.

But I'd have to be an idiot
to let you go trick or treating.

[Michael] Artie,
the Strongest Man in the World,

was a character that became Little
Pete's bodyguard and personal protector.

And he's a guy who wears pajamas
and can move houses

and fly, apparently,
if he moves fast enough.

[Will] Some people didn't think
he existed.

He just lives
in the kid's imagination.

Some people thought
he was disgusting,

and that tight fitting outfit
certainly didn't help the argument.

My mom didn't like that
he wore the tights, though.

The first time Toby put on the tights, I don't
know if he was wearing the thickest underwear.

And so, you know,
my mom was like,

"Who is this guy running around
in tights, anatomically outlined?"

[laughs] Like, can you give this guy an
extra pair of boxers or undies or something?

Come on. We would, you know, go on
all sorts of crazy adventures together.

And then one day,
he had to leave me.

You're different Viking, now.

Yes, I have to go.

No!

Yes.

Everything you need to learn
is in here.

Out there is some boy
who need me.

He's small. He... he's puny...
Like you were.

But, Artie,
you're my best friend.

I always will be,
my little Viking.

For me personally as a kid
like that resonated with me

because that was exactly
where I was at in that moment.

You know, being like fifth or sixth grade and
people starting to not do kid things anymore.

And... and it was a nice way of showing
that sort of crossroads to... to other kids,

and I think that those episodes
actually, you know,

really resonate with the people
that like the show for that reason.

I know that I'm still nostalgic for
that time in... in history sometimes

when you were younger and...
and didn't know so much stuff,

and ice cream was the most important thing
on... on like a hot afternoon in the summer.

Being a show about growing up, and being
that people hopefully never stop growing up,

it'll hopefully always be
important to them.

Hi, I'm Clarissa.
Clarissa Darling.

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.

Some mornings you just don't
want to go to school.

[Anne Sweeney] By the time you
figured out who you were as a kid,

you were thrown in to this
pre-teen space that was uncomfortable.

Clarissa really became
representative of that kid.

Clarissa, the only abnormal child
of two perfectly normal parents.

[knocking]

Unless, of course,
you count him.

She was really relatable.

And it was funny how, you know, she
was always making fun of her brother,

and how she just had kind of a quirky
parents that kind of let her just be herself.

[Larisa] She was smart and interesting and
marched to the beat of her own drummer.

And I just wanted to be
her best friend.

Did you not like to break the middle things
off pens and use them to clean my toenails?

No.

Clarissa Darling was...
she was a lot like me.

She was just a girl who was
tough, thick skinned, creative.

She was very stylish,
which I was not.

Talk about a wardrobe, huh.

[Melissa] You know,
just kind of nonconformist.

Doesn't care what anyone thinks
and is going to pave her own way.

All I know is I'd like to
change my mind all the time.

[Alan] Clarissa Explains It All
changed the world.

She was the first
female character

who wasn't sitting by the phone
waiting for the boy to call.

Clarissa is a smart, independent,
self-assured 14-year-old girl.

Clarissa is a feminist.

[Geraldine] I think girls are
fantastic.

I think they're really
interesting.

And I think actually, boys like girls,
even though they say they don't.

I think they deeply do.

I just think they don't like girly shows
because they're produced in a stupid way.

They hit on stereotypes
of girls.

[Alan] You know, the... the wise people of
show business were always quick to tell you

that girls will watch shows starring boys,
but boys will not watch shows starring girls.

[Melissa] And Clarissa kind of
debunked that really.

When Clarissa came on, they were just as many boy
viewers in the demographic as there were girls.

So it kind of, I think the ratings
were better than they expected

because it had a... it had
a much wider demographic.

Morn, 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?

[Mitchell] Trying to create Clarissa 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.

[Melissa] That was a big
audition process.

I think it was the third audition,
and I was sitting with Mitchell,

it was like an interview
process thing.

And he wanted to talk to me, and he said,
"Do you like the New Kids on the Block?"

♪ You got the right stuff
Baby a'

And I went, "Oh, I hate them" and then I
went, "Oh, no, this guy's in Hollywood.

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."

I Istanbul was Constantinople ♪

I Now it's Istanbul
Not Constantinople ♪

And he was like, "Okay."
And that stuck with him.

Then They Might Be Giants became
a big part of Clarissa,

we had the posters on the wall and
I think we mentioned him a few times.

I like Twizzlers, Jawbreakers,
and Sugar Bombs.

John, the one without the
glasses in They Might Be Giants.

It turns out that he loved
those answers

because I wasn't, you know, conforming
to what all the little girls loved,

New Kids on the Block,
and I couldn't stand them.

[Mitchell] She was, like,
flawless in her presentation.

She was utterly charming
and relaxed.

But she had none of that fakey kid
actor stuff, which I was terrified of.

[Alan] 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.

Hey, if you're looking for advice,
you never have to look far.

[Melissa] My mom wouldn't let
them touch my eyebrows.

They weren't allowed
to pluck them.

I barely wore lipstick.
You know, there was like no eye makeup.

It was just kind of a concealer or a little
blush to make me look alive on camera

under the bright, bright lights.
And that was it, really.

But I think that's what people related
to, like, "Yeah, I know that girl,"

or "I am that girl," you know?

When I went to do a theme song, I just
went to the coolest girl that I knew

and the coolest girl I knew
was Rachel Sweet.

♪ Listen to me, baby ♪

♪ I won't play the fool ♪

♪ Rather see you dead
Little boy ♪

♪ Than be with another girl ♪

And I didn't really give her
any direction at all.

That's all Rachel.

♪ Na, na, nanana ♪

♪ Na, na, na, na, na, na ♪

♪ All right, all right ♪

[Geraldine] Our goal with Clarissa was
to get Clarissa to be really interesting.

She had a computer, she had a friend,
Sam, who climbed in her window.

[Mitchell] 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 it.
That was it.

That was the way I see it,
love is a roller coaster

You mean, it makes you barf?

No, I mean, once you get to the top,
the only thing you can do is come down.

It was great to see her break
the fourth wall, you know,

literally talking to the
audience and talking to the camera.

Since we're going to be
hanging out a lot

and I'm going to explain all the
things that go on around here,

I think you should know
a few things about me.

There's a lot of speculation about
what Clarissa would do as an adult.

There was a book written, Mitchell wrote
a book called Things I Can't Explain.

I hold very dear to the things that
were dear to her when she was younger

because that's what
I wrapped my character around.

So I feel like she would be
in New York.

She would be loving New York.

You know, probably dated Sam, didn't end up
with him, you know, those high school ones,

they can be a little rocky.

Marrying some kind of creative type or, you
know, just living the high life in New York.

We felt that we were a full network for
kids and the obvious missing piece was news.

The real idea behind Nick News
was to 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.

And it was Linda Ellerbee.

At Christmas, many people
go home for the holidays.

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.

There are kids your age
with no home.

[Geraldine] 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.

We were trying to make it
understandable.

The HIV virus that I have attained,
I will have to retire from the Lakers.

When Magic Johnson was diagnosed
HIV positive,

I called David Stern and I said,

"If you ever want this explained to
kids, Linda and I are ready to do this."

When Magic Johnson went on
television and said he was HIV positive,

he also said he wanted to help kids
know more about AIDS and safer sex.

Good.

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 hand.

And one of them starts to sob.

And God bless Magic Johnson,
he just calms her down.

I want people to know that
we're just normal people.

[Magic] Mm-hmm. Oh.

You don't have to cry.
You don't have to cry...

[crying]

Because we are normal people.
Okay. We are.

You just want to be treated
like that, right?

You just want your friends
to play with you and call you up

and come by and still have
sleepovers and things like that, right?

Yes. And it's okay to cry.

It's okay to cry.

[Geraldine] It was really
magical television.

There was a sign on my door
from a newspaper clipping.

If it ain't broke, fix it anyway,
which is really what you have to do.

You know, we were so successful.

We had 56 percent
of all kids' kid TV viewing.

We were... we were growing at 36 percent
a year with a 40 percent profit margin.

So we had to continually
reinvent.

♪ I'm here with my friends
Nickelodeon ♪

♪ The song never ends
Nickelodeon! ♪

[Anne Sweeney] We had done a lot
of animation in our shorts work,

so we were starting to get
comfortable with the kind of animation,

the style of animation, that was
reflective of Nickelodeon;

the channel, the environment,
the tone, the sense of humor.

And Vanessa Coffey was hired

to really put Nickelodeon
into the animation business.

[Jim] Vanessa Coffey is just an
amazing person and a great visionary.

The thing that Vanessa did that
nobody else would do is she says,

"I want them to be creator driven,
original pieces." That's big.

Things that were being on TV was, you know,
was the Ninja Turtles, Where's Waldos,

it was things that had books
and games and stuff behind it.

[Vanessa] Basically, it was if you
had a toy, then you could get a show.

Transformers, GI Joe, My Little Pony,
commercials basically for toys.

And after a while, I just
didn't want to do that anymore.

So they said, "Why don't you go
out and find stuff that you like?"

So in two weeks I came back with
ug, Rugrats, and Ren & Stimpy.

It still is amazing to me to think back
that those are your first three projects

and they turn into your first
three animated hits.

[narrator] You won't find them
in Never Never land.

They're not squishy and sweet and
they don't make you go goo-galoo.

They're the Nicktoons.
Doug, Ren & Stimpy, the Rugrats!

Turn to the Nicktoons every Sunday morning,
starting at ten/nine Central on Nick.

[Geraldine] With Rugrats,
Arlene Klasky had this idea

because she had small children of, you know,
what would it be from their point of view?

And she said, "I want to do
a show about babies."

I thought, "What do I do with
babies, babies, babies?"

That night I went to sleep
thinking about babies.

And I remember when my youngest
brother came home from the hospital,

you know, he's like a week old.

So his eyes aren't focusing and he's drooling
and he can't lift his head, you know.

And I thought
she can't be that stupid.

I bet he's faking me out.

I bet when we leave the room,
he gets up and talks.

So I go into the pitch with Vanessa and
I said "A bunch of incognizant babies.

But when the adults leave the room,
it turns out the babies can talk."

And she looks at me and says,
"That's what I want. Go make that."

And that's how Rugrats happened.

[theme music playing]

The designs for Rugrats, when I
showed them around was like, "Aargh.

They're kind of ugly."
I know.

I love that. I love ugly.

How come everybody draws
babies as these beautiful ones?

When they first come out, heads are kind
of weird looking, kind of funny looking.

And that's why the Rugrats
were drawn like they were.

And that was so real.

[Geraldine] The writing was so clever.
The characters were so fresh-looking.

You'd never seen anything
on TV like that.

Everybody fell in love with it
immediately.

I know, let's play
with my new ball!

[gasps]

[Vanessa] Tommy was modeled
after Paul Germain's son.

He's the leader
and he is fearless.

Who's with me?

Let's go!

[Paul] If my main character
is this intrepid leader,

then I thought, my next character
had to be this guy who was fearful

and that was Chuckie.

I don't know, Tommy.

I don't think this is
such a good idea.

Come on, don't be a baby.

So we had Phil and Lil, who were kind of... we
always thought of them as the peanut gallery.

They're just crazy. [laughs]

And then we also thought,
"Who do we have as a villain?"

And when I was in fifth grade, I used
to get picked on by this girl bully.

And I thought, that's cool...
I've never seen a girl bully before.

And what if the key to her is that she's
really sweet and cute to the adults

and she's a monster
to the other kids?

When we get to the party, daddy,
can I play with little Tommy?

Sure, sweetie.

Listen up, dummy.

This may be your birthday,
but when the presents are opened,

I get first dibs on the toys.

Gabor Csupo, who... who was one of the
other creators of the show, and my boss,

came to me and said, "I've got a
great idea for the music for the show.

I want to get this guy Mark Mothersbaugh
to do the sound for the show."

And I thought, "Well, that's the guy from
Devo, you're not gonna be able to get him."

♪ Crack that whip ♪

♪ Give the past a slip ♪

We did all this research
and finally we tracked him down.

And he was really into doing it.

[theme music playing]

There were all these weird
instruments that sounded childlike

and creepy and yet cute
at the same time,

it was really perfect for what
the tone of the show was.

[theme music playing]

[Geraldine] With Doug, Jim Jenkins had been
one of the original puppeteers in Pinwheel.

And he went off, worked for Sesame
Street on small animated projects

and wrote a book called Doug.

[Jim] I got a phone call.

They're looking for original
ideas to make into animation.

So I went over to Nickelodeon with this
book proposal, Doug Got a New Pair of Shoes.

He came in with his book, which was like bound
together from, you know, FedEx or something.

And I looked at Jim and I looked
at his drawing of Doug.

And I talked to Jim
and his sweet demeanor

and his vulnerability
was all that I needed.

If you know Jim Jenkins, he is the
most decent, kind, lovely human being.

And this series was about
a wonderfully kind guy.

It just was Jim Jenkins.

Later, she told me that what she had
done is run to the person she reports to

and said, "I like this guy.
I want to take him to pilot."

That just doesn't happen.
That is a... that is a miracle.

And it changed my life.

Doug is about as real
as I can think of

depicting the life of an
eleven and a half year old kid.

It's animated
and it's super exaggerated

with what's the best and the worst
that can happen in Doug's imagination.

But to me, it feels very real.

I think a lot of kids aren't the most
popular and they're not the big loser.

They're sort of here
in the middle.

I think that's the majority
of what kids are dealing with,

taking chances, believing in yourself,
trusting your friends.

Doug's fortunate to have Skeeter
as a best friend

and somebody that's a lot easier,
breezier, you know, about life.

Yo, man,
let me take care of this.

The new kid wants three moo cows,
one no cucs, one no sneakers,

one wet one, four cubers,
and four from the vine.

Do you want anything else?

How do you order a salad
from the salad bar?

One salad from the salad bar!

And Patti. Oh, my goodness, Patti, 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
Patti Mayonnaise. I could hear it.

I could hear it my head
and I just couldn't find it.

We were casting
all over the place

and I was at home in New York City
in my apartment getting ready for work.

And the TV is on
in the background.

And all of a sudden I hear
this voice in a commercial.

It happened to be
a mayonnaise commercial.

Today, this fella comes in,
says he'll have chicken salad.

Then he won't. Then he will.

I say, "Darling,
make up your mind."

Says he's cuttin' down
on cholesterol.

I show him Kraft
Cholesterol Free.

Welcome back to mayo, I say!

And I'm like, that's the voice.

That... that's it.

That... that... that girl right there.
That's her. That's Patti Mayonnaise!

Are you doing anything
on Friday night?

No, not yet. I mean.

Well, would you like
to go see a movie?

Sure. Who else is going?

Well, nobody yet. I mean,
I wasn't planning to ask anybody.

-You weren't?
-Did you want to invite someone else?

No. Well, that is... you mean,
just me and you?

Well, yeah.

Oh.

I mean, if...
if you don't want to. That's okay.

No, I mean, yes. I mean.
Well, it sounds great.

Oh, good.

I'll meet you in front of the
Uniplex Friday at 7:30.

-Sounds great. See yah!
-See yah!

Wow! Just me and Patti.

I'd say the number one question asked
of me when we tour or whatever it is,

when is Doug going to
kiss Patti?

And we held that Off.

You know, you want to
keep that tension.

But also, I like the innocence
of where it is.

He dreams about it plenty.

It was, it was simple.

And I think because of that,
it was... it was beautiful.

Hello.
Hope you like Bluffington.

I. Love. Bluffington.

[Jim] When Doug needed
a alter ego superhero,

I'm thinking, what is the most
unexpected, unlikely of heroes?

And I thought about a quail.

[narrator] Quail Man fighting
a never ending battle for truth,

justice and the way
of the way of the quail.

The quail, they sit still
hoping you walk by.

That's their power.

Restraint is their big power.
I love that.

That... that they would use that instead
of big muscles or, you know, flames.

It would just be like
being patient.

Doug messed up
on a regular basis.

He always had a fork in the road and
took the wrong fork and went "Whoa."

And then got on the right track.

That feels a lot like
how life really works.

I had set up in a hotel room and I
had people coming in to pitch things.

John Kricfalusi came in.

He had four projects
that he was pitching.

The only thing that I liked was there was a
dog and a cat in his project called Your Gang.

I said, "If you take that
dog and cat,

let's pull those out and let's
create a show around them."

Because of those characters
are incredible.

[theme music playing]

[Vanessa] Things that we did on Ren
& Stimpy were scary for Nickelodeon.

It didn't look like
anything else.

I guess we just wanted to be
kind of sickening as possible.

[gargling]

How are you fellas doing?

Fortunately,
I was working for somebody.

Gerry Laybourne. Her theory was that when she
hired somebody to do a job, she let us do it.

So I didn't have a lot of people
looking over my shoulders.

I don't think anybody looked at
our storyboards before we shot.

And it probably shows now that there
weren't... there wasn't a lot of oversight

because especially with Ren &
Stimpy is there's some pretty wild

and crazy stuff in there.

Animators are very
sneaky people.

I didn't even know what
a dingleberry was.

[ding]

You can string
the dingleberry garland.

Huh?

We had such great talent
on that show.

Vicky Jensen, who was doing
background painting.

I had her direct as the first
show that she's ever directed.

It was about the village
that made that show.

I mean, Lynn Nailor, Jim Smith,
Vincent Waller, Bob Camp.

Bob Camp, he's amazing.

I mean, he wrote the Logsong.

♪ What rolls down stairs
Alone or in pairs ♪

♪ Falls over
Your neighbor's dog? ♪

♪ What's great for a snack
And fits on your back ♪

♪ It's log, log, log ♪

♪ It's log, log ♪

♪ It's big, it's heavy
It's wood ♪

♪ It's log, log ♪

♪ It's better than bad
It's good ♪

Ren & Stimpy, because of
the... the crossover audience,

MTVthought this should be for us,
it's our audience, which it was.

We were drawing their audience
to Nickelodeon.

I think that what Ren & Stimpy
did for Nickelodeon

was bring in a new...
a whole new audience.

♪ Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy ♪

♪ Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy ♪

♪ Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy ♪

♪ Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy ♪

♪ Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy ♪

♪ Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy ♪

♪ Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy ♪

Ren & Stimpy was groundbreaking for
Nickelodeon. It's just that simple.

It was groundbreaking.

[Jim] As far as the Nicktoons
growing,

definitely you wanted to see what was
going to be the... the incoming freshmen.

You know, the new guys.

After the three
original series launched

and it was time to start
doing other pilots,

Joe Murray came in
with his pitch for Rocko.

Heh-heh, good as new.

♪ Rocko's Modern Life ♪

Rocko's Modern Life.

[Vanessa] It was a combination of the
sitcom like Rugrats, and Ren & Stimpy,

which is crazy,

and it had a lot of heart
like Doug too.

I mean, Heffer and Rocko's
relationship was so great.

Rocko, Rocko, Rocko, you no want to
be hanging with big fat bovine dork man!

[thud]

That bovine dork
is my best friend.

And if he's not good enough for
your club, I'm not good enough.

Rocko had a lot of irreverence.

We had set this pace with Ren &
Stimpy that you could push the envelope

and, you know,
bust it wide open.

Rockois one of the cartoons that made
it okay for cartoons to be funny again.

I think then and now as...
as new people discover Rocko

and as the kids who grew
up on it and go into adulthood,

they're still discovering
how subversive it was.

Better split up
and look for food.

[munching]

[roars]

[whines]

[Paul] We were like the first
original cartoons on cable.

The idea that there would be a network
that would show cartoons every day

and then eventually
24 hours a day.

That never happened
in history before.

So, it was the beginning of a
revolution, but we did know that.

[Angela] That was their vision
for what Nicktoons would look like.

And every show that was animated after that
really kind of came out of that likeness.

[woman 1] Next Friday catch sneak peek of
the next level of game shows Nick Arcade

after the Nick Hit List at seven/six
Central only in Nick's ♪-Zone.

I've always liked game
shows growing up.

And game shows went away,
I think, for a long time.

Marc did such a spectacular job
with Double Dare.

I always thought him as the
quintessential game show host.

And then you had Nick Arcade,
which was sort of a new technology show,

and then you had
Phil Moore doing it,

who is also great at what he did
with his endless supply of energy.

[cheering]

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

All right, thank you and welcome
to Nickelodeon Arcade

where your video savvy and your video
game skills are put to the ultimate test.

They wanted to have an original element
to Nick Arcade aside from the end game.

Basically they book end the show
with an original game at the front,

and an original thing
at the end.

In the middle,
we play what you knew.

We're about to face-off
in a game we call Brainstorm.

And in this game, each team has
to protect their cerebral neurons

from these incoming
nerve impulses.

The face-off games, when we started out,
was really just glorified Pong.

It really was.
You know, they disguised Pong.

That's what they did.

And I would say from here it's
safe to say that yellow team wins.

All right, yellow team!

Right. Here they go.

[Michael Ray] Well, being on
Nick Arcade with Danny Cooksey.

It was pretty cool because the
guys got to go against the girls.

Could you, like, possibly like do
the song for me going Camp An a wanna?

Sure. Yeah.

One, two, three...

♪ Camp An a wanna ♪

♪ We hold you in our hearts ♪

♪ And when we think about you ♪

♪ It makes me wanna fart! ♪

[Phil] Yeah!

[Phil Moore] The video zone,
when you went inside that,

that was really just blue screen and anything
that you touched had to be physically built.

So when you saw the kids walk upstairs,
there was a blue staircase

and everything was designed exactly
in the shape that you saw on TV.

In order to see
where to move around,

they had television monitors
strategically placed all over.

It was thoroughly odd because you're...
you're playing these games

and you're staring off on... at these monitors
and you can't really see what's going on.

It was a lot of fun.
I... I love...

I would have loved to done
a lot more of the game shows.

[Kirk] And then, of course, they came
up with Legends of the Hidden Temple.

It was like a Raiders of
the Lost Ark game show.

[man 5] In Nickelodeon's never ending
quest to give you what you want comes...

Legends of the Hidden Temple.

The first game show that lets
kids live out legendary adventures.

It's physical.

Metaphysical.

Olmec is the star
of the show, he really is.

[Kirk] I mean, he's this big weird
rock that sits in the middle of the set

and he basically guides everybody
with his stories and his legends

and sets the whole thing up for
kids to succeed and try to conquer

and achieve the lesson
of the day.

It was just a big giant
haunted house, is what it was.

And if you're a kid, you're watching that
show, you get the crap scared out of you

because you're trying to make it
through something,

and you never know when some freaky dude's
going to come out of some room and grab you.

And what a beautiful thing
that was.

Now, that was television.

Do, do, do you have it?
Do, do, do you have it??

Guts.

[Geraldine] Oh, God.
Guts was so fun.

What we tried to do
was show kids

we're not doing a cheap little
television network for you.

We're making this as interesting
and as exciting as we possibly can.

[Mike] Welcome to Guts.

The action sport show
that's gonna make you sweat.

Hello, everyone,
I'm Mike O'Malley!

Welcome to the Extreme Arena,
home of Nickelodeon Guts:

the action sports show where kids live
out their greatest sports fantasies.

[Geraldine] It was a much more
physical game than we'd had,

and we were always concerned
about not having boys win everything.

So it had to have enough stuff in the game
that a girl could have a chance of winning.

[Kirk] These game shows
were really amazing.

Nickelodeon really tapped into
something completely unique

that wasn't like
any other network.

-Hey. Nick.
-Junior.

Nickelodeon,
from the very beginning,

was always conscious of who was in front of
the television set at what time of the day.

So the early part of the day
was devoted to preschoolers.

That was their time.

And that's really
where Nick Jr. came from.

[Eileen] Nick Jr. really filled
a void that wasn't there.

They were doing these
wonderful new shows for kids

and just blew everything wide open
when it came to the preschool set.

We were trying to have a host
for the morning

and Scott Webb came in
with a thing called Face.

And Face was crazy.

And I had remembered in my studies that you
shouldn't do disembodied parts for kids,

that scares them.

So I... I said to Scott,

"I don't know, like, you're not
supposed to do disembodied parts.

What do you think?"

He said, "I think this Face
takes the whole screen

and they're not going to know
it's a disembodied part."

And Face was just a charming,
charming host for preschool stuff.

Hi, it's me, Face.

I'm looking for Blue.

She's a puppy and she's blue.

[Angela] Nick Jr. was still looking
for its footing in terms of what is it,

what's the mission?
What's the goal?

What's the signature show
for Nick Jr.?

And so Brown Johnson wanted to
create a game show for preschoolers

because Double Dare
was so huge.

What would that look like
for little ones?

And so she had asked me to sit in meetings where
creators would pitch ideas about game shows,

where there'd be like relay
races with three-year-olds

or like give a three-year-old a
clicker and they would answer questions.

I would just have it all over my face like,
this is the dumbest idea I've ever heard.

Like, this is never gonna work,

so much so that she looked at me and
she was like, "Well, what would you do?"

And... and I was like, "All right,
let me think about that."

So Blue's Clues was born out of that
desire to be a game show for preschoolers

where kids were interacting and playing
along the way you would on a game show.

♪ We are looking
For Blue's Clues ♪

♪ Wonder where they are ♪

A clue! A clue!

Oh. Oh, did you see a clue?
Where?

Where's the clue?

-I can't find the clue.
-Right there.

Oh.

[Angela] Because we were inherently
fun and active and interactive,

you had to take notice because
kids were screaming at the TV.

The interactive aspect was
instrumental in educating kids.

Kids could learn shapes and
sizes and dances

and all these kinds of things in
a little half hour programming.

So it was... it was
pretty astounding.

Hi. Come on in.

We're so glad you're here.

[Angela] I'm a huge
Fred Rogers fan,

and so what we wanted was a live action
person who could talk directly to kids.

We were looking for a Matthew Broderick,
Ferris Bueller, camp counselor type of person.

Whereas Steve, when he came in, he
was this like skater punk dude, right.

Like, just total dude who thought he was
coming in to, like, do voice over role.

And when we told him what it was, he
was like, "All right, cool," you know.

We had said,
"Can you, for the network,

dress a little bit more conservative,
a little bit preppier?"

And he did.

And I think he'll still say
he hates those pants

and everything that
we made him wear.

But his reaction to the camera, the way that
he talked to kids, got kids, we did research,

got kids screaming
back to him right away.

♪ You know with me and you
And my dog Blue ♪

♪ We can do anything
That we want to do ♪

Bye-bye! See you later!

-Bye-bye!
-Bye.

Come again. Bye-bye!

♪ That we want to do ♪

♪ We can do anything... ♪

[clock ticking]

You guys watch some TV, okay?
We'll be upstairs.

-Don't fight over the remote.
-[both] We won't.

-Bye.
-Bye. See you.

-Bye.
-Bye.

-Bye.
-Phew.

[Geraldine] We wanted to do
prime time shows for kids,

but it was very hard to beat
that economics,

so we decided Saturday night was
a very bad night for television.

Let's give it up to kids.

On Saturday nights, there's a
group of people who are watching TV.

And they're people who are too young to
be on a date and too old to be in bed.

And voila, SNICK.

They called it SNICK,
Saturday Night Nick,

where everybody would sit
on the big orange couch.

[Anne Sweeney] Oh, Saturday
night on Nickelodeon,

SNICK was every kid's dream of
what Saturday night should be.

In that two-hour block, SNICK provided
a variety of programming for kids.

There's a little bit of
everything for everyone.

And I think, Are You Afraid
of the Dark?, really, you know,

stuck out in that lineup.

[man 6] Every Saturday night, explore a
side of Nickelodeon you never knew existed.

When we ask,
"Are you afraid of the dark?"

Nick's new show spin's
ghastly tales of ordinary kids.

And they're not so ordinary
encounters with the supernatural.

Oh, my gosh.
Are You Afraid of the Dark?

That was an awesome show.
That show used to scare me.

Are You Afraid of the Dark?
was Twilight Zone for kids.

We took very real kids who were
going through very real dilemmas,

that all kids could relate to, and
then they happened to run the boogeyman.

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 explain it like
that, it sounds a little creepy.

You know, it revolved around
the Midnight Society

who met every week
to tell stories

and the primary part of the
episode was the story itself.

[Ross] Clowns and ghosts and random
things popping out of doors and walls.

I think that was
Are You Afraid of the Dark?

[creaking]

[screams]

Are You Afraid of the Dark? was co-created
by me and my partner, Ned Kandel,

and the original idea was
bedtime stories for lazy parents.

We were going to get some old guy,
some old actor who everyone knew,

who was out of work.

And we put him in a big easy chair in
front of a roaring fire that's all comfy.

And you have a big book that said "Fairy
Tales" on it and he'd read fairy tales.

The problem came in when we tried to decide
what kind of stories we were going to tell.

You know, fairy tales? We're
going to tell Little Red Riding Hood?

Three Little Pigs?
You know, that's boring as what not.

So Ned asked me the question
that will live in infamy.

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.

But then having some old guy sitting in a
chair reading scary tales to kids was creepy.

So it's like, well, who tells tales, scary
tales, where they themselves aren't scary?

Well, it's kids sitting
around a campfire.

Okay, so the old guy gets nixed.

So let's have kids sitting around
a campfire telling ghost stories.

[snap finger] Bing! They liked that.
And that's how it took off.

[theme music playing]

I was always excited to join the
cast of Are You Afraid of the Dark?

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 say, "Submitted for the approval of
the Midnight Society, I call this story."

And to this day, people still
ask me what was in the magic dust,

what was in the magic dust?

And you will never know! Ever!

The powder was coffee-mate.

It was actually coffee-mate.

It actually was nondairy creamer because
that stuff is... is petroleum based

and... and it burns.

There was a pyro effect for the fire to
sort of, you know, do that boom thing.

But it actually helped it
a little bit, too.

So there the secret is out.

[Jason] D.J. also believed that kids were
a lot smarter than you give them credit for

and that they could handle
more sophisticated subjects

and that he could also push the horror or
the... the scariness of it, you know, further.

[Ross] I think this was the
difficulty that D.J. had as well,

trying to convince Nickelodeon
to do this show,

was the fact that, yes,
you are trying to scare kids.

They said we may get push back.
So there was a mandate upfront.

They said try to find literary
antecedents to draw your stories from

so that if parents call and start picketing
outside the offices, our comeback can be,

"What're you're talking about,
this is classic literature."

So for the pilot we did was called
the "Tale of the Twisted Claw",

which is the take
on the Monkey's Paw.

Tale of the "Midnight Madness".
It's the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

We did Jekyll and Hyde.

We did The Legend
of Sleepy Hollow.

Never once did we get push back.

It didn't talk down to kids.

It thought of kids as being more sophisticated
and it gave them a more sophisticated product.

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.

[theme music playing]

[Geraldine] Tommy Lynch did
Alex Mack.

He had this design as a boy
at the center.

I can't remember if it was
Herb Scannell or me who said,

"You know, it really should be
a girl at the center."

I should just face it.
I'm boring.

And it was much more interesting
with a girl at the center.

It was a coming of age show about a
girl who gets doused with a chemical

that gives her superpowers,
not superpowers, special abilities.

Let's call them that.

The morphing did change
a bit from the pilot.

In the pilot, my clothes morphed off
and I guess I was like behind a box,

like, thank God someone had the right idea to
be like, you know, let's not make it like that.

We did not have a ginormous
budget for much.

And actually,
I think it served us.

I mean, truly, like the stuff with the
telekinesis, it was like on fishing wire.

Alex was me.

I mean, it was me and, you know,
the parallel is very obvious.

It's like this kind of extraordinary
thing happened to me at the age of 12.

And I got on a TV show, not only got on
a TV show, but was starring on a TV show.

We were sort of experiencing
this at the same time.

Like how things shift and how
things don't shift and what's important

and just dealing with
being the age that you are

and sort of understanding
who you are as a human

and getting to know yourself
a little bit better.

[man 7] Fresh off the box.
Stop, look and watch.

Ready yet, get set.
It's All That!

All That was a sketch comedy
for kids.

It was really a new, fresh idea.

Nobody had ever done
a kids' sketch comedy show.

If I had to compare it to something, I
think it was closest to In Living Color,

with the racially diverse cast
and the R&B and hip-hop.

[Alisa]
We had guest performances

done by everybody that's very
well known now, was on our show.

We started off
with amazing people.

Right, like TLC did
our theme song.

It was almost like youth
is wasted on the young.

You didn't realize that you were in the
presence of people that were going to be great.

[Lori] It was wacky and it 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 Coolio stopping by.

Being on the set of a kids show, I
don't think that was any different than,

you know,
performing for anybody else.

I remember Coolio was the first time, like,
somebody blew the studio up with, like, weed.

And it was like, "Oh, my God,
what is that smell?"

I was very green back then.

You know, they kind of kept him
in the back in his 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 look to see, like, what
the music people were doing and stuff.

Of course, I don't remember.

Because it was a green day,
obviously.

[Lori] It was cool to have
Chris Farley there.

And I was very much of that age where I was
watching that cast of Saturday Night Live

and all of the movies
that came out of that.

So that was really cool.

He did cooking with Randy and
Mandy, and it's such a blessing.

Cooking with Randy.

He's a master chef
all the way from Chicago,

please welcome, Chef Farley.

Come on over here!

Well, well, how do you do Randy?

[Kenan] He was a ketchup guy.
He loved ketchup.

That was his thing.
And I loved chocolate.

And we were battling to see
which one was better.

[inaudible].
What is you're doing?

We rehearsed it once and we shot
it once. And he was out of there.

He was not playing around,
but he was so nice.

He showed me what being like
a real pro was all about.

[Kel] With all my characters,
I like to add something to it.

And so with Good Burger, I remember how it
started was on a sketch called Dream Remote.

My line was, "Here's your pizza."
But I did it with the Ed Voice.

And I was like,
"Whoa, here's your pizza."

And they were like, yo, this...
we love his voice.

And so they took that voice and created a
whole world around, like, the Good Burger Guy.

During rehearsals it was cool, but
I felt like he needed something else.

And I went into the hair room and I
saw the hair, this Milli Vanilli hair,

his "I Want To Be Down"
Brandy wig.

And I put that on
and it just took off, man.

It just... it was just so
hilarious to me, man.

It... it was just great.
Ed was born.

You know what I mean?
[laugh]

Just don't think about tinkling.
Don't think about tinkling. Okay.

Hello! I'm Connie Muldoon!

Okay, what do you want, Connie?

Well, I have a medium Good Soda here,
which is plenty for me to drink.

But we Muldoons like to drink
out of large cups.

May I have a larger cup?

-Yeah. Okay. Okay. Here you go.
-Thank you!

-|'ll transfer it now!
-Okay.

Wait, you don't have to do that
right here.

[Lori] Doing A II That was like
a great training ground.

It was my first job in show
business and television.

[Kel] You got these kids
from all different cities,

you know,
Chicago, Atlanta, New York.

It gave a lot of hope to a lot of kids coming
from different walks of life saying like,

"Well, I can do this, too."

Any little child could go,
"I look like him or her."

And I think that's important.

It was just like full of good
time energy. We were all young.

We're all out of town, basically,
because nobody was from Orlando.

So it was like being on, like, paid vacation,
doing something awesome to get paid.

You know what I mean?
It was... it was the best ever.

And plus, we thought
we were cool.

[Kel] When they approached Kenan and I to do
our own show, man, that was... that was awesome.

They saw us a lot, you know,
behind the scenes and having fun.

[Kenan] We were hanging out
like 24/7.

So, you know, around all of
that, I think they were like,

let's see, like, you know,
they can do a show and, like,

make something else out of this whole
thing, like, make a little spin off.

And, yeah, it worked.

[theme music playing]

Aw, here it goes!

♪ Everybody out there
Go run and tell ♪

♪ Your homeboys and home girls
It's time for Kenan and Kel ♪

[Coolio] The Kenan & Keltheme
song would probably become

one of the most important things
I did in my career

because it introduces me to
a whole new audience

and a new legion of fans
year after year after year.

[Kel] Kel Campbell, kind of messed up a lot
of stuff at times, you know what I mean?

[Kenan] You need one dude to be zany and
need one dude... one dude to be grounded,

but have zany ideas
at the same time.

And that's what makes them
friends.

Because every time I would try to, like,
condemn him for doing something stupid,

I would have what I think is a brilliant
idea, that turns out to be just as stupid.

You know what I mean? So that's
what I think made that bond work.

-This is a nice sweater!
-Thanks.

My grandma knitted it for me
before she passed away.

Oh, that is so nice.

[stammers] I mean, not that
your grand mama passed away,

but I... I'm saying that she knitted
it before... It's a very nice sweater.

Thanks.

I only wear it
on special occasions.

Did you wear it
at your grand mama's funeral?

Kel.

[Kenan] I don't know, he just
made me laugh so much.

He's so freaking funny.

And I would try to do, you know,
reciprocate and try to, like,

bring up funny things or whatever.
But that dude is he's a beast.

Who loves orange soda?
Kel loves orange soda.

Is it true? Is it true?

Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
Oh, yes, it's true.

I do, I do, I do, I do.

Shooting that was just
a great experience.

We were friends.
You know what I mean?

So it was cool to be on our own show,
doing what we do all the time anyway.

[Geraldine] We were no longer
a cable television channel.

We were something
gigantic for kids.

Gerry Laybourne had a point of view
on Nickelodeon that drove all of us.

We could fail and do a crummy show,
but we couldn't not take a risk.

The energy was such that we thought
we were going to change the world,

like there was no question that
we were doing amazing, great work.

It was like driving to an extremely
professional million dollar playground.

Everybody's imagination,
everybody's mind, was just

if it worked and it had fun
and it made you laugh.

It didn't matter
if it looked normal.

It didn't matter
if it felt right.

Nickelodeon was a... a relationship
between us and kids, and kids and us.

And our mission statement was
to connect with kids

and connect kids with each other
through entertainment.

That's only one manifestation
of Nickelodeon.

[man 8] Picture this, Nickelodeon takes
over your school and puts you in charge!

[Larisa] It was like,Nick Takes Over Your
School, Kids' Choice Awards, and The Big Help,

they were all just like
big reunions for us.

Who sent in the postcard?

[man 9] The postcard! Send it in
and you have the power

to win Nick Takes Over
Your School.

[Danny] Nick Takes Over
Your School was exactly that.

They would come in and they would
just like take over everything.

Put green and orange
stuff everywhere.

[Kenan] But I remember I only did
it once and I had a stomach virus

and I spent the entire time
in the bathroom.

And that was my only trip
to Naples, Florida.

I... I took over their entire
plumbing system.

It was... it was kind
of messed up.

[Mitchell] Let's talk about
merchandise.

Nickelodeon at the time had
not really gotten to that yet,

and they hadn't gotten to it
for a lot of decent reasons.

First of all, Gerry 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.

We got offered a cereal, a Double
Dare cereal that opened on two ends

and you poured it on this thing
and turned it upside down.

And they offered us a million dollars.
And Gerry turned it down.

She said,
"We're not doing it, okay?"

They get bombarded
with that enough.

Nickelodeon was classy enough, to this
day, and they do not sponsor that stuff

because they could take in a bazillion
dollars, but have chosen not to do it.

[Anne Sweeney] Anne Kreamer, I remember
coming in to do Nickelodeon magazine

and then the whole development
of the merchandizing and licensing.

Suddenly there was a physical
manifestation of Nickelodeon

and that's what Anne and David did,
which was to get it out there.

[Anne Kreamer] 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
that could stick in their back pocket

and have in their backpack and
take with them wherever they went.

We wanted them to be able to have toys
that they can play with, that were unusual.

I'm not sure if you can
see it on camera,

but Gak is basically a
fluorescent amorphous blob of goo.

For my money, nothing sums up that Nickelodeon
spirit than this wonderful blob of mess.

What is Gak?

Gak is great stuff.

Oozy.-

Ugh.

[laugh]

[David] Gak really became kind
of a cultural phenomenon.

Nickelodeon partnered
with Mattel.

And back then, Mattel had the
best chem lab in the business.

And they essentially said, "Okay,
Mattel, we're your partner.

Show us all the ideas that
the other guys rejected."

The Mattel people came to
Nickelodeon and said,

"Well, we've got this recipe for this funny blob
of goo and we don't know what to do with it."

And when Nickelodeon saw that, they
said... [snap finger] that's for us.

[Anne Kreamer] With the Gak
packaging that we made,

we forced Mattel to spend a lot more money
than they wanted to just on the packaging,

because we designed it in a
splat and then we made the lid

so that when you put your Gak back
into the container, it would fart.

[farting sound]

We created Gak,
we created Floam.

We created something called the Zog
Logs, which I adored, but kind of sucked.

♪ Grab Zog Logs little one ♪

♪ They'll stick together
Just like they ought to ♪

Zog Logs

Videocassettes seems so
old school now,

but videocassettes
always came out of their sleeves

and then you'd have just these
piles of things all over the floor

and who knew what video
was what.

So I made our videos orange.

Everything had a kind of logic
to it that was about highlighting

and sort of promoting the brand but
at the same time over sewing our kids.

And I think that for a long time,
Nickelodeon kept the same path.

You know, they came up with
great stuff with Sponge Bob.

♪ Who lives in a pineapple
Under the sea? ♪

♪ Sponge Bob Square Pants ♪

[Alan] The biggest change at Nickelodeon
came when Sponge Bob Square Pants

and Dora the Explorer started to
deliver a lot of money in licensing.

Once a corporation starts
to taste that kind of success,

it's very difficult for the
people at that corporation

to remember that that was not
originally the goal.

But you look at Nickelodeon
today and they're doing really well.

Dora the Explorer grossed
a billion dollars. Okay?

We never grossed
a billion dollars.

I think things changed for Nickelodeon
when you weren't the underdog anymore

and you weren't growing
and wanting really hard.

We really wanted to be seen in
the same light as a Disney, as a PBS

and really have these amazing shows on the
air that you could feel really proud of.

I think all of a sudden,
when you're at the top, what do you do?

[Scott] You want to embrace
growth and change.

And I think any business like
Nickelodeon has to grow and change.

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 thing.

[Anne Sweeney] Kids would
get down there thinking,

"I'm actually going to be able
to crawl inside of Nickelodeon."

And, you know, over the years,
a lot of things were figured out.

We couldn't produce every
show down there.

[Kenan] When I got word that it closed, it
was like, yeah, a piece of your childhood,

like, closing up and it was sad.

It was like its own little own
kind of little world, you know?

Listen closely, Harvey is gonna
tell you everything...

[Marc] Not many people know
this, but I quit Nickelodeon.

I was going out on those tours
on a... on a regular basis.

And one day my son said to me
when he was 10, 11 years old,

"How come every weekend you're
with everybody else's kids

but you're not with us?"

And I flew to New York
the next Monday and... and quit.

You know, for me, I had had a
great run 16 years at Nickelodeon,

and we got to do so much.

But I could sort of see that you have to
scale and you have to be a big business.

And that wasn't really
what I was interested in.

And I was interested
in making new stuff.

And I wanted to take
a risk on myself.

[Scott] Gerry Laybourne
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. [laughs]

That's what kind of like
blew our minds.

[Angela] We all cried like that's how...
even Herb Scannell,

who was about to be president
of the company, was in tears.

We just really believed
in what she was doing

and wanted to continue to work
under that kind of vision.

[Geraldine] We had a bigger
mission.

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.

[Anne Sweeney] If you missed the
Orange Years, you missed the laboratory,

you missed the building of the
lab and the experiments that went on.

And also an understanding
of kids that was unique.

[D.J.] We were given
the golden ticket.

We were given the orange ticket.

Here's your orange ticket.

And that orange ticket says, "You
got a good idea, my friend. Go with it."

And there were so many
great shows that came out of it.

You take raw talent with raw producers
and real kids and you get great TV.

And that's what Double Dare and
all those other shows on Nickelodeon

during the '80s and '90s
were delivering.

People come up to me and
literally say verbatim, they say,

"You made my childhood,"
which is like an amazing thing.

I get, "Hey, you look familiar.
Did we go to high school together?

Were you on a... Wait a minute,
were you on a show?

What show were you on?

Were you... was it Are You Afraid...you're
on Are You Afraid of the Dark?"

The fact that it resonates so much with
people and people still want to talk about it,

it's awesome.

I'm thrilled to be a part

of the era of Nickelodeon
television that I was.

I got a lot of love, and I think that
our show gave people a lot of love, too.

It was a great part of my life
and it gave me a career.

So if you think I'm sick of hearing,
"We grew up watching you."

What a great feeling.
Who... who gets that?

[Jim] Through that chaos,
something very original happened.

And I'm just... I feel really
fortunate to be a part of it.

[Danny] You know,
I never did get slimed.

And that could have been, you know, take your
pick of... of which shows to get slimed on.

[Vanessa] We really wanted to make a place
for kids to actually have a good time,

but learn about themselves
at the same time.

[Geraldine] We were a
progressive broad-minded network

that cherished everybody,
regardless of race, ethnicity.

We tried to broaden people's minds about
the arts with opera and doo-wop and jazz.

We tried to open eyes to new kinds
of creative ways of visualizing things,

to playing with our audience
to come up with new things.

The legacy is you.

The legacy is every kid
who watched us.

♪ Yeah, I miss you ♪

♪ When you're away ♪

♪ And I don't want to go ♪

♪ But I doubt you will stay ♪

I'm Al, also known
as TheSolePurpose.

I'm pretty much known as the
biggest Nickelodeon collector

out there
on the social media platform.

My Nickelodeon collection started back
maybe over 12 years ago, give or take.

I love every item from the
cheapest to the most expensive.

I cherish every one of them.

When I first started collecting
Nickelodeon merchandise,

I thought that I was probably
the only one collecting

and I thought maybe that this is
something I shouldn't share.

And then as I got more into it,

I started realizing that there
was a lot more people into this.

Let's face it, the pinnacle of
athletic achievement

for basically our whole generation
was a piece of the Aggro Crag.

Now, I'm not that athletic.

I never went to Orlando, so I never
actually got a chance to win one.

But I do have eBay, so I eventually did
find one after 13 years of searching.

So thanks, Mike, and thanks Nickelodeon
for having the best show ever.

So for my 31st birthday, Emily
threw me a Nickelodeon party.

All of our friends got on board.

I had costumes and themed food,
slime filled cupcakes.

I bought five hundred to a thousand
ball pit balls, a giant swimming pool.

I knew I was gonna do
a Double Dare course.

The grand prize winners won
the... the Aggro Crag.

Second place won a big
Stick Stickly that I made.

And then we just basically said,
"Hey, who wants to get slimed?"

[man 10] So this is the
Mondo Gallery.

We do limited edition screen,
printed posters,

and, you know,
we do soundtracks and collectibles.

We wanted to celebrate Nicktoons and
Nickelodeon and that culture and that era

of just amazing programming.

We have people come out
and have a good time

and just kind of relive their
past and experience childhood again.

It was fun to kind of relive
the nostalgia

and get to have a picture
with the giant nose

and try and dig your hands up
inside of it.

It helps us to connect
with that inner child.

And it brings us back to a time when
life was just a little bit more fun.

It was funny and it was gross and it was
stupid and it was stuff you wanted to watch.

It was great.
And it's still funny.

It gave me like a different
perspective to every other channel.

It reflected things that normal, typical kids
went through, no matter where they came from.

We paid attention to the one
thing that paid attention to us.