Turn of the Century Nickelodeon (~1995-2005) appreciation thread.

[SG-17]

I've been on a nostalgia kick recently for the umpteenth time and I just can't get over how much I loved Nickelodeon at the turn of the century. Everything about it just made it feel like a place I wanted to be and not just a means to watch tv shows.

Everything from Face on NickJr, to Nickelodeon Magazine, to the incredibly varied Screenbugs, to special events like SpongeBob's Nicktoon Summer Splash, Nicktoon Summer Beach House, Nonstop Nicktoons Weekends, Nick or Treat, NickMas, to ongoing regularly scheduled blocks like Friday Night Slimetime, U-Pick, Nickel-O-Zone, and special premier events for episodes like the SpongeBob's You Wish Spectacular Special. Not to mention all of the small stuff like the Nickelodeon fruit snacks, all of the other varied merchandise and video games, the flood of movies based on Nicktoons, and so on.

I don't know if kids today feel the same way about modern Nickelodeon, but I love to reminisce about this period in time for me.

When The 90s Are All That/The Splat first came about (10 years ago now!) and the wave of this time period nostalgia for Nick started to be capitalized on by Viacom I was pretty ecstatic, but I feel that's all evaporated now. Sure, the programs are still readily available and that's fantastic, but for me it's not just about the shows, it's about how the shows were packaged when I was first watching them as a kid. Everything surrounding the shows, the stuff I posted above. Without that it's just not the same.

 

[Ghostbuster]

Similarly, I think Nick UK was at its finest between 1995 and 2001, especially in 1998. We had a great variety of shows, blocks and stunts, live links as well as local programming.

 

[ToonsJazzLover]

As someone that enjoys pop culture for late 90s/early 2000s, I have to agree. Looking back, 1999 was a game changer year for Nick, since its most popular cartoon debuted. And of course they had The Amanda Show premiere which was the reason why we had shows like Drake and Josh, ICarly, etc. Plus they even celebrated its birthday which brought older shows that weren’t airing on the channel. The Abstract era is my favorite branding of Nick because of the screenbugs changing shape seasonally (such as a snowflake logo during the winter) and it was the first branding that I remembered as a kid. I really wish today’s Nick tries to be like this era.

 

[SG-17]

As someone that enjoys pop culture for late 90s/early 2000s, I have to agree. Looking back, 1999 was a game changer year for Nick, since its most popular cartoon debuted. And of course they had The Amanda Show premiere which was the reason why we had shows like Drake and Josh, ICarly, etc. Plus they even celebrated its birthday which brought older shows that weren’t airing on the channel. The Abstract era is my favorite branding of Nick because of the screenbugs changing shape seasonally (such as a snowflake logo during the winter) and it was the first branding that I remembered as a kid. I really wish today’s Nick tries to be like this era.

I just wish that the Nick wikia was more comprehensive about stuff like branding like how the Cartoon Network wikia is, its difficult to parse changes in branding with Nick without it. Though I guess with Nick the changes in branding didn't generally coincide with big sea changes in the network outside of the two major rebrands in 1984 and 2009.

 

[wonderfly]

I've been on a nostalgia kick recently for the umpteenth time and I just can't get over how much I loved Nickelodeon at the turn of the century. Everything about it just made it feel like a place I wanted to be and not just a means to watch tv shows.

Everything from Face on NickJr, to Nickelodeon Magazine, to the incredibly varied Screenbugs, to special events like SpongeBob's Nicktoon Summer Splash, Nicktoon Summer Beach House, Nonstop Nicktoons Weekends, Nick or Treat, NickMas, to ongoing regularly scheduled blocks like Friday Night Slimetime, U-Pick, Nickel-O-Zone, and special premier events for episodes like the SpongeBob's You Wish Spectacular Special. Not to mention all of the small stuff like the Nickelodeon fruit snacks, all of the other varied merchandise and video games, the flood of movies based on Nicktoons, and so on.

I don't know if kids today feel the same way about modern Nickelodeon, but I love to reminisce about this period in time for me.

When The 90s Are All That/The Splat first came about (10 years ago now!) and the wave of this time period nostalgia for Nick started to be capitalized on by Viacom I was pretty ecstatic, but I feel that's all evaporated now. Sure, the programs are still readily available and that's fantastic, but for me it's not just about the shows, it's about how the shows were packaged when I was first watching them as a kid. Everything surrounding the shows, the stuff I posted above. Without that it's just not the same.

I tend to define "turn of the century" years as 1998 to 2002 (or sometimes 1997 to 2003)....but 1995/1996 just felt like "The 90's", to me. Similarly, 2004/2005 felt like "The 2000's". But 1997 to 2003, that's "the Millennium years", and yeah, Nick was huge around then.

 

[SG-17]

True, I would have pulled it down to 98-02 but I wanted to keep it broad.

Like by 95 it was clear that Nicktoons weren't just going to be this one off thing.

 

[Daikun]

I remember when Nickelodeon had more varied programming in the early 90s. Nicktoons hadn't yet fully dominated the network and there was wiggle room for other types of shows during the day. Game shows were at their peak, the afternoon hours had classic sitcoms (before they were shuffled over to Nick@Nite/TV Land), and there was occasional acquired programming like Yogi Bear, Yogi's Space Race, Looney Tunes, Fraggle Rock, The Muppet Show, and Underdog. Nick in the 90s was a lot more interesting than the SpongeBob Network it slowly devolved into.

 

[SG-17]

I can remember some acquired programming in the turn of the century era, particularly Looney Tunes, Inspector Gadget, and Muppet Babies.

But I felt that the real draw of the network to me was the original programming, Nicktoons, gameshows, kidcoms, variety programs, and the interstitial programming like Slime Time Live.

 

[Ghoster1987]

It was the time when Nick was becoming bigger and at their peak as more people were getting cable at this time

 

[Dr.Pepper]

I honestly never really watched Nick until the summer of 1998. My parents didn’t exactly forbid it, but I think they just preferred me to watch Disney or CN when I was younger. I became obsessed with Rugrats that summer and was hyped for the movie. I watched Nick pretty regularly for the next year or so but starting in the summer of 2000 I started to watch more and more CN.

To tell the truth Rugrats, and maybe CatDog, are the only Nicktoons I am nostalgic for. I’m not saying they are the only ones I saw or the only ones I like. It’s just I don’t have too many special memories watching many of the others.

 

[SG-17]

I just wanted to share an example of what I mean when the NickRewind block used to try and got close to that feeling.

This was an average night of bumpers and idents back on The Splat in 2015.

This is what it was last year with NickRewind.

Even more recently they stopped doing any sort of bumpers and just have the initial ident and that's it, along with recycling the same throwback facts every hour.

 

[SpongeBobFan2004]

Since I lived in Venezuela…I was very profitable when Nickelodeon was a pure hit in Latin America and Brazil. Yes, a time when DVD's did not have promotions for Nick shows due to licensing restrictions etc…Paramount had all of the advantage in South America (thanks to UIP) to market their films (including the films produced by Nickelodeon Movies) UIP and MTVNLA were basically very separate. (from what I can tell) Nick LA also had a lot of local offerings and acquired shows Americans did not get on the US Nick. Thing started to get worse in 2012 when I moved here…..Nickelodeon was still "NICKELODEON" with Nick's preschool IP being more profitable than they did after 2018….Nick@Nite was still more vintage comedy-based with more syndicated fare than they currently have, NickToons having programs that don’t air on the main Nick (that changed the channel's focus forever) and Nick Jr. getting a refresh for that season. Nick began focusing on more cartoon fare with more IP including TUFF Puppy, Robot & Monster and more. Once Nick rebranded in 2017, it was signalizing the end of a era. After the success of The Loud House…Nick began the craze of picking up programs from other IP such as The Smurfs and LEGO. As well as teaming up with iconic brands such as Pinkfong's Baby Shark and Paddington Bear to create new shows based on their IP. Nick was also developing revivals of older IP such as Rugrats as well as creating new shows based on big names in books (such as Big Nate) The 2nd merger of Viacom and CBS came and (almost) ruined everything about the Viacom brands. First, was the PANDEMIC because this caused the re-focus of CBS All-Access adding more content from Viacom brands. Then, was the move of new work from legacy IP such as Kamp Koral and Rugrats to CBS All-Access so it could be rebranded to match with Viacom's international TV Everywhere service, Paramount+. Paramount+ was many of the reasons that ViacomCBS wanted to focus on a much larger streaming structure in America than the premium streaming content internationally. ViacomCBS would use this strategy for its free PlutoTV service and their premium offerings SHOWTIME, Noggin and BET+. This signalized the refocus of Nickelodeon and the global launch of Paramount+ so international fans may have to watch Kamp Koral. Nick would enter the world of puppetry with their newest IP, The Barbarian and The Troll.. (which the puppet media market was nearly dominated by Disney's Muppets and Henson's Fraggle Rock and The Dark Crystal)

 

[IDOconsiderwaffles]

I think nick was trying their hardest in the late 90s and to a lesser extent the early 2000s, so many underrated shows came out in those 10 years like my life as a teenage robot and the angry beavers