Nickelodeon in General

I guess. I don't really know what infamous Marvel comics were around in the 90's.

This was the era when Marvel let its marketing department have editorial control. Make of that what you will.

Needless to say, Marvel's comics based on TV shows - those based on Ren And Stimpy, Beavis And Butthead and (for a short while) Rockos Modern Life, were some of the better titles in their roster.

The Ren And Stimpy comic was really, truly good, and I'm not joking when I say that. The plots were as inventive and funny as the show was; characters like Powdered Toastman and Commander Hoëk and Cadet Stimpy were fleshed out, with more detail added into their worlds - they even had villains; and the artwork was consistently good, with such talents as Mike Kazaleh doing the job.

I've never read the Beavis And Butthead comic so I can't tell you how good that one was. And as for Rockos Modern Life, that comic lasted seven issues and is so rare I've only ever found one issue. I can't tell you if it's as good as the show was based on one issue alone.

Marvel needs a more high-profile series featuring Squirrel Girl.

I never knew about Beavis & Butthead's or Rocko's comic before.

The Rocko comic didn't last long, but the Beavis and Butthead one did.

Both the Beavis and Butthead and Ren and Stimpy comics died in 1996, not coincidentally the same year Marvel nearly went bankrupt.

So yeah. Watched Pig Goat Banana Cricket and I can grow to "accept" it. It's like if Rockos Modern Life was written to be in a post-apocalyptic industrial society. And I guess if we can enjoy Uncle Grandpa, this can't be too bad.

I still have a few of my old Nick Mag issues. Namely the Superhero one featuring a Fairly Odd Parents comic, and the Madagascar issue that has a comic featuring numerous fictional characters solving a donut mystery: Someone stole the last donut that Homer Simpson was gonna eat.

Here are the characters it featured in order of appearance:

• Homer Simpson
• Angelica Pickles
• Garfield
• Scooby Doo
• Sulley
• Pikachu
• Bugs Bunny
• Batman
• Sponge Bob
• The Powerpuff Girls
• Shrek
• Snoopy
• Fred Flintstone
• Mickey Mouse
• Spider-Man
• The Grinch
• Former President George W. Bush

The gimmick was that you only identify each character by their hands.

The April issues of Nick Mag tend to be the best. Mostly cause they were the ones that dedicate most of the issue to comics. Also for their fake cartoon magazines in them. Like the one where Bart and Sakura from Naruto are dating.

Oh, jesus! I remember that cover, and I still couldn't believe that existed! I'm not sure how it makes sense, given that neither The Simpsons nor Naruto, aren't nickelodeon properties. (Not even kids cartoons either, but then again, that didn't stop us from watching them anyway.)

In hindsight, though, while the comics were generally pretty good, I preferred the non-comic articles in the issues. They were always so creative and funny. I remember one article that made fun of the whole "angsty teenager writing a blog and then giving up on it because no one reads it" thing years before that even became a big thing.

I can remember back around the time the Hey Arnold film came out, or thereabouts, they printed an article for fake DVD covers.

One of them featured a warning about a virus that would make your DVD player unable to play anything but Battlefield Earth.

Even Nick Magazine was making jokes about that one.

I remember the fake dvd covers. One was a parody of Desperate Housewives called Desperate Houseplants and another was what I'm guessing might of been either a parody of CGI kids films in general, a parody of those kinds of 'parody' movies(Like Epic Movie) or parody of ripoff CGI kids films since it was this huge amalgamation of Dreamworks and Pixar expies with different plots from those companies movies merged together.

Interesting find... Here's an interview with Geraldine Laybourne, the woman in charge of Nick from 1980 to 1996, about the early days of the network and Nick at Nite. There's a ton of interesting stuff about Nick's early days here:

http://cablecenter.org/k-l-listings/gerry-laybourne-program-hauser-project.html

Fred Seibert similarly had something where he talked about how he reformatted Nickelodeon from the channel that had the worst ratings on cable to the channel that had the best, at here.

I love you more and more everyday, Aldo.

Amazing. Amazingly put. But is it possible that the Psychology of today's kids is just a little too mature for them to keep up with? I don't think many kids were too excited about the release of Sanjay And Craig(yet it still marches forward), and I don't know how well "Game Shakers" will do in the ratings. We can only hope for the best.

I actually think nothing has changed since the time of Gerry Layborne. I think Nickelodeon has forgotten the creative power and mantra of old times. I dont mean just that the good stuff is lesser than the old stuff, no, its that Nickelodeon doesnt care about what children want or need, its that they are about the money and they suffer for it.

Frequently you get what I think of as the MTV mindset. Don't give the audience what they want or like, just find clever ways to sell them what you've got...

It occurs to me that the majority of us probably shouldn't be talking about what kids do or don't like, considering it's been a long time since we've been kids and I'm pretty certain most of the people (if not all of them) in this thread are childless.

Also this too.

Lord knows that as much as we complain about children's programming, if we were to develop an idea for the kids' networks it wouldn't be any better.

BEST. Comment. In. A. While. Around here.

Making cartoons, especially GOOD and even timeless ones... IS much MUCH harder than it actually sounds to us, and definitely to what we think it is! Yet, too many times, especially if it's people on You Tube ranting and whining about this shit (no matter how right they think they are.), they just don't get it, to be honest.

And that doesn't just go for this channel, either.

edited 27th Aug '15 9:20:20 AM by Shokew

You complain a lot too, you know.

I think the problem is that some shows are just not good. Teen Titans Go, Breadwinners, and Sanjay and Craig are the main cartoons aimed at kids today that I can think of that are generally considered bad.

Though in order to make any work of entertainment good, you need to put time, passion, and especially effort into it.

Many do know this, and that realized that what they make may never be timeless, they just give up and just create what they think will attract an audience and profit.

Anyway, Nickelodeon added a new show for Nick Jr. called "Shimmer and Shine." heard of it?

Saw the preview. Look out crappy New season of FOP, you got competition!

Shimmer and Shine? Gotta look this up....

Edit:....Why do these pre-school children shows always suck? Even when part of the intended age demographic I found these shows bad. The only show I liked back in those days was Blues Clues. I can still watch a episode of that nowadays and see what I loved back then

Maybe that's not a good example due to my bias or something....

edited 27th Aug '15 7:20:51 PM by Bleddyn