The good ol' days of 20 years ago. Are we too young to be nostalgic? Of course not! Looking back, us young adults that grew up in the late 80's and throughout the 90's really had it the best. We were on the brink of technology booming while still getting to experience everything kids should experience. And we did it all without Bieber or Twilight.
A generation that awesome deserves a reward and TeenNick is listening to us. By reintroducing the golden age of Nickelodeon for their new programming block "The 90's Are All That" we can relive the glory days of some of the best tv around.
That generation, after all, represents some of the original children of Nickelodeon. The channel says it is responding to the demands of former viewers who joined Facebook groups about the shows — and to the suggestions of some of its interns, who pulled together a presentation last summer to pitch the programming block.Check out the rest of the article and how Nickelodeon will be listening to your feedback:
The repeats will run between midnight and 4 a.m.
Starting next Monday, TeenNick, part of the Nickelodeon family of cable channels for children, will start rebroadcasting old series from the 1990s that are considered classics by young adults. That’s right: classics from the 1990s.
That generation, after all, represents some of the original children of Nickelodeon. The channel says it is responding to the demands of former viewers who joined Facebook groups about the shows — and to the suggestions of some of its interns, who pulled together a presentation last summer to pitch the programming block.
The repeats will run between midnight and 4 a.m. under the title “The ’90s Are All That,” a reference to one of Nickelodeon’s most popular shows in that decade, “All That.” That sketch comedy show (1994 to 2005) is one of the first to be featured in the block, along with the sitcoms “Clarissa Explains It All” (1991 to 1994) and “Kenan & Kel” (1996 to 2001) and the cartoon “Doug” (1991 to 1994).
The channel says that Facebook feedback will influence which other shows it rotates into the block. Research has convinced Nickelodeon executives that the Web — a repository of cherished childhood memories — “is allowing young people to be nostalgic, probably sooner than other generations,” said Cyma Zarghami, the channel’s president.
That rings true to Kenan Thompson, a star of “All That” and “Kenan & Kel” and now a “Saturday Night Live” cast member, who said in an interview, “Ever since I left Nick in 2000, it’s been like a daily thing: ‘Are they going to bring the shows back?’ ”
Mr. Thompson, who has filmed commercials for TeenNick about the ’90s comeback, added, “It’s an absolute compliment that people want to see that era again.”
The ’90s block on TeenNick is a bit like “Nick at Nite,” the prime-time and overnight programming block that made its debut on the main Nickelodeon channel in 1985 and became known for repeats of sitcoms like “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Bewitched.” The difference this time is that Nickelodeon is recycling its own shows.
Ms. Zarghami said in an interview last week that viewer interest in the repeats had been “bubbling up” for four to five years, largely on the Internet, where Nickelodeon noticed nostalgic blog posts and YouTube videos.
The videos are notable because Nickelodeon’s parent, Viacom, sued YouTube in 2007, asserting widespread copyright infringement of its content; a judge dismissed the suit last year. Asked whether Nickelodeon had been inspired by seeing clips of its old shows on YouTube, Ms. Zarghami said, “It wasn’t so much about our stuff, it was their take” on it — homemade homages like “one guy that sang a great rap song about wanting his old Nick back.”
Facebook, too, had proof of the fan interest, in the form of the groups created by college students complaining that Nickelodeon had been much better when they were 12 or 13.
A group of Nickelodeon interns last summer added up the Facebook pages and groups and found then that there were nine million apparent fans of the old shows. (Now, Nickelodeon says, the total is up to 15 million.) During an annual opportunity that some interns are given to pitch programs or projects, the group presented the Facebook fan data and pitched a reruns block. Ms. Zarghami said the pitch influenced the eventual scheduling change.
TeenNick has dabbled in repeats once before: back when it was called Nickelodeon Games and Sports for Kids, or GAS for short, the channel ran old game shows. But when it was turned into a channel for teenagers and tweens in 2008, the old shows stopped. Unlike those repeats, the ’90s block is “very specifically for fans that are not in the Nickelodeon demo.”
For that reason, TeenNick is relying heavily on outside word of mouth about the programming block. Ms. Zarghami noted that for Nickelodeon, there is very little risk involved, because it already owns the shows that it is recycling, and it is doing so at a low-rated time of day for TeenNick.
If the classics cause a ratings increase, it’s easy to foresee the ’90s block’s becoming as permanent as “Nick at Nite.” When Ms. Zarghami returned to her high school in Englewood, N.J., for a presentation earlier this year, the questions, she said, were: “What happened to ‘Hey Arnold!’? What happened to ‘The Wild Thornberrys’? What happened to ‘Legends of the Hidden Temple’? ”
“I said, ‘We’re thinking about bringing all that stuff back,’ and there was literally a resounding cheer in the room.”
And the questions persisted, she said: “Are you going to include ‘Rocko’s Modern Life’? ”I've already left multiple comments about what I hope to see on the channel. Anything hosted by Marc Summers (Double Dare, What Would You Do) and basically, all of the game shows are my dream lineup. What about yours?
Ms. Zarghami said the network would continue to monitor comments and conduct polls on Facebook. “We’ll have the audience pick where we go next,” she said.
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