Nostalgia can be a powerful thing. For almost as long as online social networking has been a thing, online petitions have been thrown up in order to convince Nickelodeon — considered by many a fan to have been in an Audience-Alienating Era for some time — to resurrect its old shows in reruns.
As you could tell by this page, it worked in a way no one expected.
Nick dusted off the Big Orange Couch, gave Kenan Thompson (a seasoned veteran of the network now grown-up and a cast member of Saturday Night Live) a seat on it, and launched the block under the name of The '90s Are All That, airing on TeenNick after the primetime hours. Essentially, this block was to TeenNick what Nick @ Nite is for the flagship Nickelodeon channel, only if they showed classic Nick series.
In 2015, the block was rebranded as The Splat, with a new longer running time and more variety in its programs. Two years later, the block changed its name again to NickSplat in order to strengthen the connection to Nickelodeon. In 2019, the entire block rebranded, again, to NickRewind, focusing on not just '90s shows but shows from the '80s and 2000s.
Originally a small block during TeenNick, the block had a separate entity from TeenNick, as promos and any mention of TeenNick weren't included during its runtime.
NickRewind had a very active online presence, as it encouraged viewers to log in to their Facebook and Twitter pages, note and embrace the resulting memes (#ThingsClarissaDidntExplain, #WheresKel, #NowiGetRocko, etc.), and frequent pollings on favorite shows and related topics. In 2018, NickSplat was given a channel on VRV that housed a rotating lineup of shows.
After nearly 11 years on the air, NickRewind quietly aired its final broadcast on January 31, 2022. The next day, TeenNick began airing shows at late night without the NickRewind branding. The NickRewind brand and its programming still lives on through Paramount Global's streaming app Paramount+, and their social media accounts are still active for the time being. A '90s Nick-oriented Pluto TV channel, called "90's Kids", would also be introduced in fall 2023.
Not to be confused with Nickelodeon Rewind, which was a brand Nickelodeon used during the Turn of the Millennium for their '90s classic shows released on DVD and on-demand, and even as a short-lived programming block on the main Nickelodeon channel.
The many shows that have aired on the block include the following:
- Aaahh!!! Real Monsters
- The Adventures of Pete & Pete
- The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius
- All Grown Up!
- All That
- The Amanda Show
- The Angry Beavers
- Are You Afraid of the Dark?
- As Told by Ginger
- Avatar: The Last Airbender
- Back at the Barnyard
- CatDog
- ChalkZone
- Clarissa Explains It All
- Danny Phantom
- Double Dare
- Doug
- Drake & Josh
- El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera
- Figure It Out
- GUTS
- Hey Arnold!
- Hey Dude!
- KaBlam!
- Kenan & Kel
- Legends of the Hidden Temple
- The Mighty B!
- My Brother and Me
- My Life as a Teenage Robot
- The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo
- Oh Yeah! Cartoons
- The Ren & Stimpy Show
- Rocket Power
- Rocko's Modern Life
- Roundhouse
- Rugrats
- Salute Your Shorts
- The Secret World of Alex Mack
- Space Cases
- Stick Stickly
- The Wild Thornberrys
- Weinerville
- You Can't Do That on Television
- Zoey 101
As Nickelodeon held the airing rights to Power Rangers at the time, the block showed reruns of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers as part of the "Mighty Morphin' Weekend" event celebrating the show's 20th anniversary, making it the first show on the block not considered '90s Nick, as it aired on Fox Kids at the time.
This block contains examples of:
- The '90s: Before the NickRewind rebrand, the show reran classic '90s shows and Nicktoons.
- Adaptational Villainy: Done on purpose with the Splat's fake Halloween horror trailers. They turn Chuckie into a troubled Enfant Terrible, Helga into a Yandere, Mr. Ernst into a psycho with an implicit Split Personality and Doug into a cannibalistic Serial Killer.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Face begins drunkenly trumpeting and injuring himself during the "Party Like It's the '90s" New Year's special after drinking a comically large amount of celebratory champagne.note
- April Fools' Day:
- TeenNick totally trolled their audience in 2013 when the so-called "never-before seen episode of Rocko's Modern Life" turned out to be a still picture of mayonnaise (which would make sense if you've seen "Wacky Delly").
- They did a sort of "Spot the Difference" thing for 2017—the difference being random Jump Scares from other shows being inserted into episodes with no rhyme or reason. One example being that Face, already a source of Accidental Nightmare Fuel for many 90s kids, would show up on the screen at random.
- Ascended Meme: Plenty:
- During the week of the 2014 Kids' Choice Awards, TeenNick held thier own little awards show. One of the nominees for "Scene That Freaked Me Out The Most" was the infamous "Not Tommy" scene. It sadly didn't win. And no, Volcano Sauce Drop did not make the list.
- During the week of 2013's Memorial Day, TeenNick held a "Meme-orial Day Weekend", where viewers sent in 9gag-styled caption memes, which would show up during bumpers.
- On Halloween of 2011, TeenNick aired the infamous CryBaby Lane movie, which had not ever reran. This is most likely taking advantage of an infamous creepypasta of the movie posted earlier that year.
- The bumpers largely resemble YouTube Poops.
- Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Stick Stickly describing the game face of a contestant on Global GUTS:Stick Stickly: Mmm, ooh! Looks like he's constipated, or about to have a baby. Or maybe he's about to have a baby that's constipated.
- Call-Back:
- When Stick Stickly was still used, viewers could write to him on Twitter with "#POBox963". P.O. Box 963 is part of the address used in the "Write to Stick" section of "Nick in the Afternoon".
- During the 2012 New Year's Celebration, Nick's New Years song was sung after 2012 hit, which hasn't seen the light of day in years (mind you, this is the first time in years Nickelodeon held a New Year's Celebration event).
- The Cameo: Stick's brother Woodknot and Nick Jr. host Face appear during Stick's New Year's Eve 2011 special.
- Content Warnings: "The following block may not be suitable for people who did not grow up on '90s Nick."
- Deconstruction: The Halloween fake horror trailer "Fatal Overreaction"
could be seen as one for Helga's obsession with Arnold and the toll it takes on her mental health. - Depraved Kids' Show Host: Face gave off this vibe during the block's early days. He has a habit of telling very mature jokes, some of which are very inappropriate for his original target audience. The 2011 New Year's Eve bumpers make this even more egregious, where he gets visibly and audibly drunk on camera, much to Stick Stickly's dismay.
- Stick: Hey, does anyone know where all that champagne I had for the crew is? I had it right here...[Answer Cut to Face drunkenly trumpeting]Stick: ...That might've... answered my question-[Stick is interrupted by Face trumpeting and breaking something offscreen]
- I Am Not Weasel: One bumper about The Wild Thornberrys lampshades this; one of the voice actors refers to Darwin (a chimpanzee) as a monkey, and it's immediately followed by a clip of Darwin saying "I resent that!"
- Jump Scare: Done for laughs during The Splat's 2017 April Fools event, wherein a Jump Scare was randomly inserted into each show they aired.
- Lampshade Hanging: One of the bumpers says "You know you're a 90s kid if you know that Clarissa never explained why Sam doesn't use the front door".
- Merchandise-Driven: Sort of; the block probably sparked more demand for Shout! Factory's DVDs. Noted by the company's website, when they had a sale on the same day the block rebranded as The Splat.
- Nostalgia Filter: Of the '90s, and after rebranding to NickRewind, the 2000s.
- Periphery Demographic: Invoked. The block is explicitly geared towards the shows' original target cohort, now about 10-20 years older than the originally planned demographic. Face and Stick Stickly have upped their jokes to levels deemed inappropriate for the original targets.
- From 2015 to 2019, the beginning of the block had a warning stating the block is intended for "Mature audiences"
- Since 2015, the block also airs a lot more mature commercials than Nickelodeon and TeenNick.
- Ratings Stunt: And it worked—at launch, ratings were reportedly 850% higher than TeenNick's usual programming.
- Theme Tune Rap: "The '90s Are All That Anthem".
- Unintentional Period Piece: In-Universe, "The Splat" era of this block has a few bumpers that poke fun at parts of the shows they air that make it very apparent they were written in the 90s.
