Speaker 1: I guess what will? What's that? So when I was
Speaker 1: in third grade, cable came into our neighborhood and for
Speaker 1: one glorious summer, my parents got us cable TV, and
Speaker 1: of course we abused the heck out of it. So
Speaker 1: I saw Spaceballs at least twenty times that summer. I
Speaker 1: watched all these old Disney classics on the Disney Channel,
Speaker 1: and best of all, we got Nickelodeon, which just transformed
Speaker 1: our neighborhood. Oh man, I watched so much Nickelodeon during
Speaker 1: the summers. But I'm curious for you, what what? Why
Speaker 1: did you feel like it transformed your summer? I mean,
Speaker 1: this is when you can't do that on television. Was
Speaker 1: on and I just thought it was the funniest show
Speaker 1: in the world. It almost felt like it was written
Speaker 1: by kids, four kids. But Double Dare was really what
Speaker 1: caught fire with the other kids in the neighborhood. And
Speaker 1: we didn't know how TV worked, so we just assumed
Speaker 1: one day like Double Dare would come to town and
Speaker 1: they'd call us on the phone, and we just have
Speaker 1: to be prepared for that moment. So every day, honestly,
Speaker 1: every day, we'd like quiz each other on trivia questions
Speaker 1: and then we'd like create these ridiculous physical challenges. We
Speaker 1: had a creek behind our house, so we'd get all
Speaker 1: money and like roam through it and we'd like climb
Speaker 1: trees and whatever we could come up with. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we practiced hard because we knew one day
Speaker 1: that call was going to come and it had to
Speaker 1: so so so did it finally come for you? I mean,
Speaker 1: of course not. You know, that hasn't reduced my enthusiasm
Speaker 1: for Nickelodeon. And today we're talking about everything from the
Speaker 1: channel's early history to how it became synonymous with slime,
Speaker 1: to why it really got into the cartoon business. So
Speaker 1: let's dive in. Hey there, podcast listeners, Welcome to Part
Speaker 1: Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined
Speaker 1: by my good friend Manes Ticketer and on the other
Speaker 1: side of the soundproof blasts wearing a spa on recreation
Speaker 1: of quail Man. You know, the Quailman costume from from Doug.
Speaker 1: Of course, that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Now
Speaker 1: you remember quail Man, right mano vaguely. He was the
Speaker 1: kind of the imaginary superhero persona that Doug was always
Speaker 1: doodling in his little journal. You remember this. So I
Speaker 1: like Doug, but I was really more of a hey,
Speaker 1: Arnold guy myself. I'll be honest, I'm with you on that.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's tough to choose a favor from
Speaker 1: so many of the iconic shows from Nickelodeon. The network's
Speaker 1: golden age gave us so many memorable characters. In fact,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you knew this, but Nickelodeon is
Speaker 1: actually going through a bit of a resurgence right now,
Speaker 1: and that's thanks largely to the nostalgia that people feel
Speaker 1: for those early shows. Yeah, it's funny to me because
Speaker 1: my son was at camp and while they were waiting
Speaker 1: at pick up, like, they were all watching Rocco's Modern Life,
Speaker 1: and I could believe it. It feels like a TV
Speaker 1: show that was so many generations ago. Well, and actually,
Speaker 1: if you you look at the Hollywood headlines from recent years,
Speaker 1: I mean it's kind of crazy how many old Nick
Speaker 1: shows are currently set for revivals and reboots. So I
Speaker 1: was just making a list of these. You've got Hey Arnold,
Speaker 1: Rocko's Modern Life, Doubled Air, which is awesome. Clarissa explains,
Speaker 1: it all. Are you afraid of the Dark Invader, zim
Speaker 1: Ren and Stimpy and the Wild Thornberries. I mean, the
Speaker 1: list just goes on and on. Yeah, that's got everything
Speaker 1: on there except Dog for some reason. Yeah, but you
Speaker 1: know that that is, of course a notable emission. But
Speaker 1: maybe today's show will drum up some interest and a
Speaker 1: Doug come back. And you know, with Nickelodeon being back
Speaker 1: in the limelight, now feels like a pretty good time
Speaker 1: to take a closer look at the network's history and
Speaker 1: trying to get a sense of what made those Nick
Speaker 1: shows so special in the first place. And also I
Speaker 1: think we both just want to know how they got
Speaker 1: into the slime business to begin with. That's right, But
Speaker 1: I do feel like we're getting a little ahead of
Speaker 1: ourselves because Nickelodeon wasn't always the network that Slime built.
Speaker 1: In fact, in its earliest days, it wasn't even called Nickelodeon.
Speaker 1: Back in the network launched as Pinwheel, which was this
Speaker 1: low budget channel aimed at preschoolers, and this was during
Speaker 1: the earliest days of cable tv, and and then after
Speaker 1: two years of modest success, the network decided to expand
Speaker 1: its audience and in that process is when it was
Speaker 1: rebranded as Nickelodeon, which is I guess that that word
Speaker 1: means kind of like an old movie theater, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I didn't actually realize that like a Nickelodeon was
Speaker 1: this pop up small theater. And and the name actually
Speaker 1: comes from a combination of the admission price, which was
Speaker 1: obviously just a nickel, and the Greek word for theater. Apparently,
Speaker 1: the first of these Nickelodeon's opened in Pittsburgh, and this
Speaker 1: was way back in and then they popped up all
Speaker 1: over the country for the next five years or so,
Speaker 1: at least until the larger movie palaces began to replace them.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't something I thought about as a kid.
Speaker 1: I just I didn't even know the word came from anything.
Speaker 1: But it does feel like a little bit of a
Speaker 1: weird name for kids network in hindsight. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: And and actually people in general tend to be a
Speaker 1: little confused about the word really means, and that's partly
Speaker 1: because of a popular song from the late forties includes
Speaker 1: the line put another nickel in the nickelodeon, which was
Speaker 1: I guess more of a coin operated jukebox or music
Speaker 1: box or piano player. I don't know exactly what it was,
Speaker 1: but there's actually a third meaning to Nickelodeon, which refers
Speaker 1: to these old timey movie picture viewers where you turn
Speaker 1: a crank and through like a viewfinder you'd watch a
Speaker 1: short vaudeville act or something. And it's actually that last
Speaker 1: one that the network had in mind when they chose
Speaker 1: the name Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon's first logo was a cartoon I'm
Speaker 1: looking into a viewer. I've never seen this before, but
Speaker 1: apparently it was shown as an interstitial between shows, and
Speaker 1: the mind would always turn the crank when the next
Speaker 1: program was about to start. Yeah, and I can't imagine
Speaker 1: the mime logos stuck around for all that long though,
Speaker 1: right Like, it feels like a very outdated idea to
Speaker 1: even be using a mime in the first place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really was, And the network changed logos a few
Speaker 1: times in those early years. Eventually they settled on this
Speaker 1: big silver pinball with the name of the channel written
Speaker 1: in rainbow letters, and they stuck with that until the
Speaker 1: iconic orange splat logo hit the scene. And this was
Speaker 1: in alright, so everybody can remember that one or everybody
Speaker 1: that watched TV in this generation. So, so how did
Speaker 1: that come about exactly? Because it is this strange transition
Speaker 1: to go from mind a pinball to orange slime. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say it's a very clear cut progression. Yeah, The
Speaker 1: slime actually debuted on the network's first hit show, You
Speaker 1: Can't Do That on Television, which we talked about earlier.
Speaker 1: The series had started abroad in ninety nine, but Nickelodeon
Speaker 1: did begin airing it until I Guess one in the US,
Speaker 1: and it featured both scripted and improvised skits with a
Speaker 1: few adults and a rotating cast of teen actors or
Speaker 1: preteen actors actually, and those were the first folks that
Speaker 1: were slimed by Nickelodeon. So if at that point, so
Speaker 1: it slime was a recurring part of the sketches, I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like that would be hard to write in
Speaker 1: over and over again. So that's the thing. Apparently, the
Speaker 1: green slime was Roger Price's idea. He was the show's creator,
Speaker 1: and he came up with it as kind of a
Speaker 1: punishment for whenever one of the kids would say I
Speaker 1: don't know during a sketch. I'm sure you remember that
Speaker 1: was a code word to get slimmed. And I always
Speaker 1: thought it was just like a fun joke, but the
Speaker 1: phrase really got on his nerve. And then Price also
Speaker 1: took to dumping water on the actors whenever they said water.
Speaker 1: But that was just because he thought it was funny.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was pretty funny. It was always exciting
Speaker 1: as a kid to see this happening. And of course
Speaker 1: would pretend to have these kinds of scenes at home
Speaker 1: where you'd say I don't know and pretend to dump
Speaker 1: slime on each other. But it is funny that he
Speaker 1: came up with this idea just because the phrase got
Speaker 1: on his nerves. I mean, it doesn't really sound like
Speaker 1: the type of guy who should be working with kids. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think the network was more or less aware
Speaker 1: of that, because the show actually had this rule where
Speaker 1: no parents were allowed on set and the kids weren't
Speaker 1: allowed to take scripts home with them either. But to
Speaker 1: be fair, when the cast started complaining about how frequently
Speaker 1: they were getting slimed and soaked, Price did start paying
Speaker 1: out bonuses of twenty five or fifty dollars for each sliming.
Speaker 1: So these kids, every time they got slimed, they would
Speaker 1: get an extra payment, and it feels like maybe they
Speaker 1: would just start saying I don't know, on purpose, just
Speaker 1: like an extra fifty buck. But it also feels like
Speaker 1: a lot of effort just to keep the whole Slime
Speaker 1: gag going. I mean, it was kind of out of necessity.
Speaker 1: What's interesting is that you can't do that on televion,
Speaker 1: and it was pretty much all the network had going
Speaker 1: for it at this point, and even that wasn't enough
Speaker 1: because the channel had lost four million dollars and they
Speaker 1: routinely finished last in ratings among table channels. Wow. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's kind of surprising to look back because that was
Speaker 1: such a popular show that it's hard to remember that
Speaker 1: there was a time where they weren't doing that well.
Speaker 1: So so how did they manage to turn things around?
Speaker 1: So this is so strange, But the thing that actually
Speaker 1: turned it around was the Slime, or at least I
Speaker 1: guess this like wild messy attitude, you know that Slime represents.
Speaker 1: There was no other place on television where kids could
Speaker 1: see themselves acting up right alongside grown ups or playing games,
Speaker 1: joking around and of course making a huge mess as well.
Speaker 1: And people at the network took notice of this appeal.
Speaker 1: I mean, this sounds dumb, but that summer I was
Speaker 1: talking about the reason we all love Nickelodeon so much
Speaker 1: was that instead of being something dished out and given
Speaker 1: to kids, it actually felt inclusive, like kids were part
Speaker 1: of the process or something, and that it was created
Speaker 1: for you. And honestly, it's it's part of that spirit
Speaker 1: that we were trying to tap into. Like at Mental Plus,
Speaker 1: it was super playful without ever talking down and everyone
Speaker 1: was welcome. Except now I'm thinking we should have used
Speaker 1: more Slime in the process, and we missed this opportunity.
Speaker 1: But but speaking what you were talking about the logo,
Speaker 1: so obviously Slime was the network surprise breakout star from
Speaker 1: that show, and and I'm curious, is that where the
Speaker 1: Splat logo comes in. Yeah, So, with the channel struggling overall,
Speaker 1: the network president decided to hire a team to overhaul
Speaker 1: the Nickelodeon brand and they decided to use Slime as
Speaker 1: a jumping off point and the first thing to go
Speaker 1: was the Pinball logo and to replace it, there was
Speaker 1: this designer named Tom Corey. He came up with a
Speaker 1: familiar splat logo. He actually saw this as something that
Speaker 1: was expressive and flexible and Corey used two colors for
Speaker 1: the logo. He used orange and lime green, which basically
Speaker 1: became the networks go to palette from then on. But
Speaker 1: the reason he chose those was because they're both international
Speaker 1: distress colors, so of course he hoped they'd command the
Speaker 1: same attention when were on screen. Okay, I mean it
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense, and I do like his
Speaker 1: point about the flexibility of a logo like that. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, Nickelodeon was using that pretty literally. When you
Speaker 1: remember watching the channel, you'd see all those I guess
Speaker 1: those bumpers between shows where that splat logo would come
Speaker 1: onto the screen like a sticker and then it would
Speaker 1: reform into like a dog bone or a hat or
Speaker 1: a blimp or whatever it was, and it was it
Speaker 1: was just this fun way to communicate the kind of
Speaker 1: energy and imagination that you expect from a network like this. Definitely,
Speaker 1: And another thing that came out of this rebranding effort
Speaker 1: was the networks association with do Walk Music. So I
Speaker 1: didn't remember this, but prior to Nickelodeon didn't have many
Speaker 1: original productions and the only way to communicate that attitude
Speaker 1: and vibe of the network was through these thirty second
Speaker 1: on air promotions. So they've got this flexible logo. Now
Speaker 1: that's super fun, but they also need an audio hook,
Speaker 1: and the folks there look and look, and then some
Speaker 1: research shows up that kids actually respond really well to
Speaker 1: do you Want music, So that's what they went with.
Speaker 1: Then a couple of animators were brought in, and pretty
Speaker 1: soon Nickelodeon commercial breaks were filled with these uh sneaker
Speaker 1: wearing dinosaurs who just danced around to do wop. It's
Speaker 1: weird because I know that's been so long, but I
Speaker 1: can remember this so vividly. But I'm curious, though, did it?
Speaker 1: Did it work? Yeah? It's really remarkable. Within six months
Speaker 1: of rebranding, Nickelodeon had become the number one channel for
Speaker 1: children's programming, which was the title that actually held onto
Speaker 1: for decades, even the face of all the new competition
Speaker 1: from Disney and Cartoon Network and wherever else. I mean
Speaker 1: six months that is pretty remarkable, and especially when you
Speaker 1: remember that none of the nicktoons existed at this point, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, the network had picked up some I guess
Speaker 1: some pre existing cartoons to rebroadcast. There was the days
Speaker 1: where they even had Looney Tune shorts on there the
Speaker 1: Danger Mouse Show from England. But you know, if you
Speaker 1: think about original cartoons like rug Rats and Dog, I mean,
Speaker 1: those are still a good ways off because we're still
Speaker 1: talking about the mid eighties at this point, right, That's right,
Speaker 1: And most of the success Nickelodeon had prior to the
Speaker 1: nineties really was on the creativity of its ad bumpers
Speaker 1: and the appeal of slime. Well, I do want to
Speaker 1: get to those nicktoons of the nineties, but first, I
Speaker 1: think we have to talk about Double There. I mean,
Speaker 1: we just we just have to talk about Double There
Speaker 1: is big of a part of our childhood as this was,
Speaker 1: and it was the first hit the network produced in house.
Speaker 1: But even more importantly, Double There probably slimed more unsuspecting
Speaker 1: kids and parents than any other show in NICK history. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I'm a huge Double R fan.
Speaker 1: I'm still waiting for that call. But before we dive in,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. You're listening to Part Time
Speaker 1: Genius and we're talking all about Nickelodeon. Of course, this
Speaker 1: children's media empire built on I guess a sticky foundation
Speaker 1: of slime, you could say. And and speaking of slime,
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, Mango, but one thing I've
Speaker 1: always wondered while watching Doubledare was what that goopy green
Speaker 1: stuff was actually made of and when If you look online,
Speaker 1: there are a million different recipes for homemade slime, with
Speaker 1: ingredients from like corn syrup to what my kids use of,
Speaker 1: you know, school glue. But I've always wanted to get
Speaker 1: my hands on the real deal, you know, like some
Speaker 1: of that professional slime I guess you call it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't speak for the slime on Double Dare, but
Speaker 1: I can tell you that you definitely don't want to
Speaker 1: recreate the first slime DApp here on Nickelodeon. And why
Speaker 1: is that? Apparently the initial batch of slime for you
Speaker 1: can't do that on television was just a mix of
Speaker 1: green latex paint and leftover food scraps from the studio cafter,
Speaker 1: so it was disgusting. It was refined later to be
Speaker 1: this mix of cream wheat food coloring in baby shampoo,
Speaker 1: which is also disgusting, but way better for all the
Speaker 1: shows slime dumping needs. And while it's still gross, you know,
Speaker 1: it's definitely better than straight up garbage, you know. All
Speaker 1: I remember of cream of wheat when I used to
Speaker 1: eat it as a kid. Where how tiny those boxes were.
Speaker 1: So now I'm imagining them having to get like thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands of tiny cream of wheat boxes just to
Speaker 1: make this slime. You know, if you think about, if
Speaker 1: nothing else, it's interesting to trace this evolution of slime
Speaker 1: across the different shows. Like I was reading about some
Speaker 1: of the ingredients that they'd used over the years. I
Speaker 1: read cottage cheese and vegetable oil were also a key
Speaker 1: ingredient at one point. And you know, to come back
Speaker 1: to the idea of double dare the host Mark Summers.
Speaker 1: He claims the show's slime was made from vanilla putting,
Speaker 1: apple sauce, oatmeal, green food coloring, and by the third
Speaker 1: day anything else that was on the obstacle course. So
Speaker 1: do they really reuse the same bash across multiple days stuff? Yes,
Speaker 1: And and bear in mind when the show was at
Speaker 1: peak production, they were taping like six or seven episodes
Speaker 1: a day, So you know, imagine these kids slepting through
Speaker 1: these messy obstacle courses covered in that same week old
Speaker 1: apple sauce, as you know, the last contestant had. And
Speaker 1: actually I came across a pretty funny story about it
Speaker 1: in this this interview with the show's announcer. His name
Speaker 1: was John Harvey, and here's what he said. You know,
Speaker 1: that tank we filled with styrofoam, peanuts or balloons or
Speaker 1: sometimes water in the obstacle course. It was pretty long,
Speaker 1: fifteen or twenty ft, and we'd fill it with various crap.
Speaker 1: One time we filled it, like, I don't know, a
Speaker 1: third of the way up with baked beans. When you
Speaker 1: empty that many baked beans into a tank, you want
Speaker 1: to get your money's worth. So we shot a week's
Speaker 1: worth of shows with baked beans at the end of
Speaker 1: the week, shooting day in and day out under hot lights.
Speaker 1: It was pretty right. So, I mean, you can just
Speaker 1: imagine how gross that view with all the studio lies
Speaker 1: just baking all that squishy food beneath it, And you know,
Speaker 1: I feel bad for the contestants, but also just think
Speaker 1: about the poor stage hand whose job it was to
Speaker 1: empty the tank at the end of the week. That
Speaker 1: just feels so gross. Yeah, I feel way worse for
Speaker 1: that person than I would any of the kids, because
Speaker 1: you know, the kids love it. No matter how bad
Speaker 1: it smelled. The worst it smelled, the more excited they were.
Speaker 1: But I am glad that you mentioned this because Robin
Speaker 1: Russo was actually the long suffering stage assistant who had
Speaker 1: to deal with this kind of thing and come up
Speaker 1: with ways to clean up after these huge messes. And
Speaker 1: according to her, they actually called in one of those
Speaker 1: big vacuum trucks. Those are the ones that are nicknamed
Speaker 1: honey wagons, and it's what people used to empty things
Speaker 1: like septic tanks and porta potties. And apparently when the
Speaker 1: technician had finished sucking out all those baked beans that
Speaker 1: we were talking about, you know, sucking those through a
Speaker 1: giant hose, what he said that the crew was He
Speaker 1: said it was by far the most disgusting thing he'd
Speaker 1: ever had to do, which is probably the highest phrase
Speaker 1: you can get on a supergross kids game show. Totally.
Speaker 1: I am curious, though, Like, did you get a sense
Speaker 1: for how Double Dare happened in the first place? Like,
Speaker 1: I know the network had a slew of game show
Speaker 1: hits after in the nineties, but Double Dare really felt
Speaker 1: so different from anything before it on TV. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was very different than anything you'd seen before. So game
Speaker 1: shows were never really a staple of children's programming in
Speaker 1: the same way that cartoons or variety shows were, And
Speaker 1: in fact, the reason Nickelodeon decided to try one of
Speaker 1: these out it actually had more to do with corporate
Speaker 1: sponsorship than anything else. So in the mid eighties, the
Speaker 1: network was approached by a production group that had already
Speaker 1: signed nabisco On as a sponsor, and so apparently the
Speaker 1: game show slant was really more Nabisco's idea. And so
Speaker 1: as a cookie and snack company, you know, they didn't
Speaker 1: have any characters or toys to promote through animated pieces,
Speaker 1: so they figured that a game show might actually be
Speaker 1: a better way to get their brands on kids TV.
Speaker 1: So did a n Abiscoe come up with the whole
Speaker 1: format to like this idea of mixing trivia questions with
Speaker 1: crazy physical challenges and all those obstacle courses. Now, I
Speaker 1: mean that that all really came from the show's producers.
Speaker 1: They happen to be big fans of the board game
Speaker 1: mouse Trap and also of Rube Goldberg machines, And actually
Speaker 1: that was basically the premise that kicked the whole thing off.
Speaker 1: You know, one of them said, wouldn't it be fun
Speaker 1: if you made a Rube Goldberg machine, but instead of
Speaker 1: a ball, it was a person. I mean, the the
Speaker 1: thing that's so associated with Double Dare to me is
Speaker 1: is Mark Summers. Definitely. I don't know. He just seems
Speaker 1: like one of those guys who was born to be
Speaker 1: a game show host. And obviously I mean that in
Speaker 1: the best possible way. Oh absolutely, And I think he
Speaker 1: would say the same thing. I mean, the guy had
Speaker 1: been a huge game show fan his whole life. His
Speaker 1: first job in l A was actually working on Bob
Speaker 1: Barker's old show that was called Truth or Consequences. Plus
Speaker 1: the guy is even a member of the Stage Magician's League,
Speaker 1: so you know, he was definitely a performer who knew
Speaker 1: how to build this connection with the audience and you know,
Speaker 1: knew how to keep a show moving along. But you know,
Speaker 1: when we're talking about him, there is one aspect of
Speaker 1: Summer's background that didn't gel so much with Double Dare.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing you're talking about his O C. D. That
Speaker 1: is exactly what I'm referring to, and the irony of
Speaker 1: someone with that condition hosting probably the messiest game show
Speaker 1: in the world wasn't lost on the host. In fact
Speaker 1: interview that he did with Oprah a summer set of
Speaker 1: the experience. It was like a bad sitcom there. I
Speaker 1: was hosting a tell of vision show where people were
Speaker 1: throwing green buckets of goo on each other and I
Speaker 1: was having a good time. But you take what was
Speaker 1: going on in that show and multiply it. If you
Speaker 1: watch the first sixty episodes, I never got a drop
Speaker 1: on me. The kids would be over there just consumed
Speaker 1: and whipped cream and chocolate, and I'd be over here.
Speaker 1: And at some point the producers came to me and said,
Speaker 1: you know, you really do have to participate as much
Speaker 1: as possible, And to Mark Summer's credit, he totally did
Speaker 1: after that. In fact, I don't think Mark Summers ever
Speaker 1: let his aversion to messiness interfere with the fun of
Speaker 1: the show, which is probably a big part of the
Speaker 1: reason he was brought back to host later incarnations of
Speaker 1: the show. And even though he seated his hosting duties
Speaker 1: for the two thousand eighteen version of Doubledare, He'll still
Speaker 1: be there for every episode as the new announcer. You know,
Speaker 1: I do like that every time it gets brought back,
Speaker 1: we can always depend on those two constant Slime and
Speaker 1: Mark summers and a giant prop nos for kids to
Speaker 1: dig flags out of that too, so I know where
Speaker 1: both had to talk about the dawn of Nicktoons in
Speaker 1: the early nineties. But before we do, I actually want
Speaker 1: to take this on one more quick tangent about slime,
Speaker 1: and in particular, toy slime. So of course, in the nineties,
Speaker 1: Mattel and Nickelodeon teamed up for their own line of
Speaker 1: nick branded slime, and they made a bundle off it
Speaker 1: because the slime later spawned this whole line of sticky
Speaker 1: goops with ridiculous sounding names. You've got ghack, Floam, smud zsand,
Speaker 1: which I've never heard of, but it has two z's
Speaker 1: at the start of it for maximum wackiness. I guess
Speaker 1: I feel like you made up most of those things
Speaker 1: that I do remember. Ghak, which was it was not
Speaker 1: only gross looking, but it also made this this weird
Speaker 1: like farting noise when you squeezed it into the container.
Speaker 1: So of course this was a hit with all the kids.
Speaker 1: But you know what's kind of messed up about this name.
Speaker 1: The name gak actually comes from a slang term for heroin.
Speaker 1: Did you know this? I mean, I didn't know that,
Speaker 1: but I assume that's coincidental. Yeah, well, apparently the Rowdy
Speaker 1: Double their crew gave it the nickname and somehow sneaked
Speaker 1: it by the network. Since that's crazy. So obviously we're
Speaker 1: familiar with some of the slime toys that came out
Speaker 1: more recently, but I wanted to take a sec to
Speaker 1: tell you about what's considered the first toy slime as
Speaker 1: we know today, and that's Flubber or flying Rubber. Yes,
Speaker 1: and of course we remember this from the absent Minded
Speaker 1: Professor movies, and so they made a toy version of it, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In in nine, Disney partnered with Hasbro to make something
Speaker 1: that was supposed to be just as stretchy and bouncy
Speaker 1: as the on screen counterpart. Obviously that's impossible, but the
Speaker 1: whole thing was a disaster. It bounced and it stretched,
Speaker 1: but it also caused filicky litis, which I guess is
Speaker 1: this infection of the hair follicles. So right after the
Speaker 1: toy hit shelves, there were all these cases of kids
Speaker 1: getting sick with fevers and sore throats and these full
Speaker 1: body rashes and it was horrible. But that's not even
Speaker 1: the worst part. So the company pulls the product from shelves,
Speaker 1: and it's at least a decade before another toy company
Speaker 1: even attempts to sell another toy slime again. So I
Speaker 1: guess you could say abbertaining the good name of slime
Speaker 1: for an entire generation, and that is just so sad.
Speaker 1: But I'm really curious, like, what do you do with
Speaker 1: all that extra slime? They just send it off to
Speaker 1: the landfill. So that's actually my favorite part of the story.
Speaker 1: Hasbro tried to incinerate the stuff, but rather than burning up,
Speaker 1: the slime just smoldered and let off this toxic black smoke.
Speaker 1: So then they got the coast guard involved to help
Speaker 1: them sink the stuff in the ocean, but then it
Speaker 1: floated back up to the surface again and they had
Speaker 1: to try something else, and in the end, the company
Speaker 1: just buried all the remaining tons of unsould flavor and
Speaker 1: then they paved over it to make a parking lot
Speaker 1: for the new warehouse in Rhode Island, and it's still
Speaker 1: in use today. Oh my gosh. All right, well that
Speaker 1: was a pretty good tangent. But I think it's finally
Speaker 1: time for us to talk nicktoons. Absolutely, But first let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break. Okay. Well, so this is gonna
Speaker 1: sound weird, but I have to tell you just one
Speaker 1: more thing about Toys Line, and you've got to bear
Speaker 1: with me, because I promise this part ties in perfectly
Speaker 1: to the creation of those Nicktoons you wanted to talk about.
Speaker 1: All right, well, I'm curious to see how you pull
Speaker 1: this off, so so go ahead. Okay. So in the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, the state of Toys Line was looking grim again,
Speaker 1: and rather than being sold on its own merits like
Speaker 1: in the glory days of the seventies, Toys Line was
Speaker 1: now stuck playing second fiddle to other toys. So if
Speaker 1: you think about it, instead of like buying a little
Speaker 1: tub of generic slime and pretending it was toxic waste,
Speaker 1: you'd buy he Man play set that you was slime
Speaker 1: into a pit, or maybe you'd have like a Ghostbusters
Speaker 1: figure that came with some ectoplasm. And obviously this slime
Speaker 1: had to make sense for the toy. But it's interesting
Speaker 1: that slime was no longer kind of a big enough
Speaker 1: draw on its own, and it had to have some
Speaker 1: kind of franchise pined to it. I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: that's kind of set, but but I'm curious, what's the
Speaker 1: connection with with nicktoons? Right, so I'm getting to that
Speaker 1: you might remember this, but back in the eighties, Reagan
Speaker 1: rolled back the regulations about marketing to children, and that
Speaker 1: basically opened the floodgates for all kinds of programming based
Speaker 1: directly on toys and games, and this had never been
Speaker 1: allowed previously. In fact, the shift was so dramatic that
Speaker 1: between cartoons that featured licensed characters increased on TV by
Speaker 1: about three Oh wow. Alright, So so you're saying that,
Speaker 1: just like with toy slime, you couldn't just have a
Speaker 1: toy unless it was attached to some side of like
Speaker 1: a cartoon character or something. Yeah, that definitely helped and
Speaker 1: the market started going that way. But it was the
Speaker 1: other way for cartoon companies to like, like, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: commission a cartoon unless you could build a toy franchise
Speaker 1: off of it. And that's exactly why Nickelodeon shied away
Speaker 1: from making their own original cartoons during the eighties, Like
Speaker 1: they just didn't have the cash to invest in animation
Speaker 1: without the money to also produce a toy line to
Speaker 1: help make it profitable. All right, Well, so then what change, Well, basically,
Speaker 1: this woman named Vanessa Coffee showed up at the studio
Speaker 1: and she started pushing the network to bring back original cartoons.
Speaker 1: She'd worked in development at Marvel for nearly a decade
Speaker 1: at that point, and she was doing toy line tie
Speaker 1: in shows that this was like Transformers or g I Joe.
Speaker 1: And for a while she was feeling pretty burnt out
Speaker 1: and worried that she might be over animation entirely. But
Speaker 1: then it hit her like she still loved telling stories
Speaker 1: through animation. She just hated feeling like all she was
Speaker 1: doing was making toy commercials. And so what was Coffee's
Speaker 1: roll on on the Nicktoons. She got her start with
Speaker 1: Nickelodeon by producing their animated Thanksgiving special, and after that
Speaker 1: they hired her as a consultant to hunt down original
Speaker 1: ideas for potential shows. And the network still wasn't sold
Speaker 1: on the idea of like making their own cartoons, but
Speaker 1: they were curious to see what Coffee could come up with,
Speaker 1: and she was eager to show them too, And and
Speaker 1: she later said of the experience, quote, it's not even
Speaker 1: what Nick needed. I felt like it's what kids needed.
Speaker 1: I felt like kids were being sold toys on television,
Speaker 1: and there was no emotional depth to anything. It felt
Speaker 1: like there was no substance. I mean, I do kind
Speaker 1: of like that this. It feels like this was actually
Speaker 1: a labor of love for her. She was basically a
Speaker 1: one woman animation department. She was meeting with creators, scouring
Speaker 1: literary scene for like promising stories, and and then once
Speaker 1: the execs actually saw the pilot she'd been testing, they
Speaker 1: made her vice president of animation on the spot. It's
Speaker 1: kind of amazing, And her very first task was to
Speaker 1: fill a ninety minute time slot with three cartoons and
Speaker 1: the series. We're all supposed to debut in August, and
Speaker 1: it's pretty amazing when you see that. You know, those
Speaker 1: nicktoons are all legendary, like rug Rats, Doug Ren, and Stimpy.
Speaker 1: I mean, she was three for three right out of
Speaker 1: the gate. What's also interesting is that the shows are
Speaker 1: rooted in such totally different concepts, and it turns out
Speaker 1: that was completely by design. Vanessa Coffee set out to
Speaker 1: find shows that would form what she referred to as
Speaker 1: a balanced meal. So us listening to her describe how
Speaker 1: should put that initial block of programming together, quote, what's
Speaker 1: really good for you? Would be Doug that's kind of
Speaker 1: the broccoli that was going to be the emotional, psychological meal.
Speaker 1: And then I wanted to have a show that was
Speaker 1: spaghetti and meatballs. That's Rugrats. It's really fun to eat
Speaker 1: and you get something out of it, but it's not
Speaker 1: like vegetables. It's spaghetti and meatballs. And then I want
Speaker 1: to dessert that's ren and stimpy, which has no actual
Speaker 1: value and there's absolutely nothing good for you in it.
Speaker 1: It's just sugar. I mean, I do kind of love that.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that most people would recognize this as broccoli, spaghetti,
Speaker 1: meatballs and pure sugar. I don't know how much of
Speaker 1: a balanced meal it actually is, but I mean it
Speaker 1: does make a lot of sense, and it seems so
Speaker 1: smart in retrospect. And you know, going back to how
Speaker 1: distinct these shows were, it's not just that they were
Speaker 1: different from each other. I mean they were unlike anything
Speaker 1: else on TV at the time. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: not only did they lack that, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: common book approach and a toy line or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but the characters they focused on were completely different. I
Speaker 1: mean there was no crime fighting or warring aliens or
Speaker 1: robot invaders and instead you just had ordinary kids. I mean,
Speaker 1: these were characters the viewers could actually, I don't kind
Speaker 1: of kind of see themselves in. Yeah. I mean that's
Speaker 1: a great point. And so many cartoons are just about
Speaker 1: pure escapism, and don't get me wrong, I I think
Speaker 1: that should always have a place at the table. But
Speaker 1: those early nicktoons seemed to offer something so much more substantial.
Speaker 1: Like Doug, for instance, it's about a quiet kid moving
Speaker 1: to a new town and he's dealing with stuff like
Speaker 1: bullies and school crushes and rug rats, like like, that's
Speaker 1: just a group of toddlers learning to navigate a world
Speaker 1: where everything is strange and confusing and so much bigger
Speaker 1: than them. And I don't know, I mean, like everyone
Speaker 1: should be able to relate to that. Yeah, And and
Speaker 1: granted that's that's not exactly true of Running Stimpy, but
Speaker 1: even there, the show's irreverence and and just kind of
Speaker 1: that general anarchist attitude. It's certainly captured a lot of
Speaker 1: what it feels like to be a kid. And the
Speaker 1: other thing I liked about rend and Stimpy was when
Speaker 1: they'd parody those TV commercials and other real world stuff
Speaker 1: that kids were probably just starting to get familiar with Like,
Speaker 1: remember they do those interstitial commercials in the middle of
Speaker 1: an episode, and then this announcer would come on and
Speaker 1: try to sell you a great new product called Log
Speaker 1: and it was literally just a log, but it was
Speaker 1: pitched as this kind of like this landmark new product
Speaker 1: that everybody wanted. So I love LOG and I think
Speaker 1: I was in seventh grade when I came out, and
Speaker 1: I remember we'd always use Log as the name you
Speaker 1: entered at the Buling Alley because it was three initials long,
Speaker 1: you know, and you just felt clever for referencing it.
Speaker 1: But I I do know what you mean about introducing
Speaker 1: the world of adults two kids, while also I guess
Speaker 1: taking it down to peg you know, like like even
Speaker 1: on Doug, which is kind of the most straight lace
Speaker 1: of the Nicktoons, you had Doug's neighbor, Mr Dink, who
Speaker 1: was just completely obsessed with keeping up appearances, and he
Speaker 1: was always showing off latest like very expensive gadget he'd acquired.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a pretty of her lampooning of real
Speaker 1: life dads everywhere. But what's sad to me is that
Speaker 1: I've read that things are more committee driven at Nickelodeon now,
Speaker 1: which is an approach that I guess is more in
Speaker 1: line with what the other channels are doing, you know,
Speaker 1: if you think about like Disney or Cartoon Network. And
Speaker 1: while it's definitely a safer approach for shareholders from a
Speaker 1: creative standpoint, it feels like a step backwards from when
Speaker 1: Vanessa was at the Helm right, Like I think part
Speaker 1: of what made her approach so special was that she
Speaker 1: insisted on working directly with content creators. Like none of
Speaker 1: those shows we talked about were fully formed ideas when
Speaker 1: she first came across them. In every case, Coffee worked
Speaker 1: closely with the creators to develop something original and original
Speaker 1: characters and stories that we feel fresh to kids, and
Speaker 1: also capture something that was true about their experience. And
Speaker 1: and that's just so different from what networks are doing now.
Speaker 1: Like I think Nickelodeon just bought the rights to Ninja
Speaker 1: Turtles a few years back. Yeah, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of a bomber to see them embracing the toy
Speaker 1: commercial mentality that they really helped buck just a couple
Speaker 1: decades ago. I know, But if it's any consolation, hey,
Speaker 1: Arnold already had its revival last year in the form
Speaker 1: of a new TV movie, and it went over really
Speaker 1: well with fans. The original creator and writers came back
Speaker 1: and even if you cast members, So if they stick
Speaker 1: to that approach, there's a good shot of more classic
Speaker 1: shows stepping into the twenty one century unscathed. Well, we'll
Speaker 1: keep our keep our fingers crossed on that. And and
Speaker 1: just because I know the Doug revival is bound to
Speaker 1: happen sooner or later, I I did want to read
Speaker 1: this quote from an Atlantic article on the impact of
Speaker 1: those early nicktoons. So if any Nickelodeon producers are listening,
Speaker 1: here's something to keep in mind for that Doug reboot.
Speaker 1: And this is compliments of a writer named Spencer Cornhaber,
Speaker 1: So here's what he writes today. Doug stands as the
Speaker 1: purest distillation of Nickelodeon's simple, soulful interest in the inner
Speaker 1: lives of kids. Like the rest of his generation, Doug
Speaker 1: Funny wanted to be different, but wasn't. He wished his
Speaker 1: massive nose was smaller. He wished he could dance, He
Speaker 1: wished he were smarter. The show constantly portrayed the false
Speaker 1: relationship between becoming a better person and becoming a different person.
Speaker 1: It grappled again and again with the devastating epiphany of
Speaker 1: adolescence that there are things about you that you just
Speaker 1: can't change. I mean, I feel like I'm still coming
Speaker 1: to terms with all those things, Like I've got a
Speaker 1: big nose. I wish I could dance. I wish I
Speaker 1: was smarter. But kudos to Doug to figuring out all
Speaker 1: that stuff so soon, and and also for helping so
Speaker 1: many other kids figure it out. Yeah, but you dance
Speaker 1: so well with your nose. It's just really impressive. All right. Well,
Speaker 1: now I feel like we've had our broccoli, and I
Speaker 1: think it's time that we skip straight to dessert and
Speaker 1: have ourselves a little fact off. What do you think?
Speaker 1: I mean? That sounds great to me. You know, Christan
Speaker 1: has actually been collecting scraps from the staff kitchen all
Speaker 1: week for a bucket of slime. And what do you
Speaker 1: say the loser gets soaked. I don't know. I have
Speaker 1: a couple of things in common with Mark Summers, but
Speaker 1: but I'm feeling pretty confident, so let's give it a shot.
Speaker 1: So did you know that Susanne Collins that the the
Speaker 1: author of The Hunger Games. She actually started out writing
Speaker 1: for a slightly less dark show. Clarissa explains at all.
Speaker 1: That's pretty amazing. Actually, I found a fact about Clarissa
Speaker 1: that's great. There was a weird rule on the set
Speaker 1: that no one could use purple. And this comes from Slimed,
Speaker 1: which is a book about Nickelodeon history, and it was
Speaker 1: really a big deal. So Mitchell Kriegman, who created and
Speaker 1: produced the series, didn't want it on his set, or
Speaker 1: in his office or anywhere. He didn't even want people
Speaker 1: wearing it to set. But the funny thing is he
Speaker 1: actually didn't have anything against the color purple. And this
Speaker 1: is what he told Slimed. Quote. Clarissa is the first
Speaker 1: big show I ever ran. And I had this advice
Speaker 1: from an old pro in the business who said, the
Speaker 1: first thing you do when you go down there, come
Speaker 1: up with something arbitrary that everyone's got to do, and
Speaker 1: stick to it and never explain it. But apparently people did,
Speaker 1: you know, realize the human and they tried to sneak
Speaker 1: it onto the show a few times just for fun.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty great rule. All right, Well, here's a
Speaker 1: anything about slime in the creators of Ghostbusters actually threatened
Speaker 1: to sue Roger Price. You remember, he was the guy
Speaker 1: we were talking about who started you Can't Do That
Speaker 1: on television, So they wanted to sue him for stealing
Speaker 1: their idea for green slime, but the suit was eventually
Speaker 1: dropped once they found out that Price had been sliming
Speaker 1: kids for a good five or six years by that point.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he was just randomly sliming kids
Speaker 1: or what this was, but if anything, they might have
Speaker 1: actually taken the idea from him. So, speaking of slime,
Speaker 1: did did you know there's a slime ketchup on the
Speaker 1: market right now. It's this thicker, gross green stuff called
Speaker 1: slime Sauce, and Nickelodeon and Walmart combined together to put
Speaker 1: it out. It costs about two fifty a bottle. And
Speaker 1: I think that's one one idea I'm going to pass on.
Speaker 1: But that's pretty funny that it exists. All Well, it
Speaker 1: turns out the rug Rats creators were actually the ones
Speaker 1: behind the Simpson's yellow skin and Marge's blue hair. So
Speaker 1: before Arlene Klasky and Gabor Supo worked on rug Rats,
Speaker 1: they actually helped animate the Simpsons. And that's pretty esome.
Speaker 1: So I actually have a Simpsons fact too, and Apparently
Speaker 1: the creator of Hey Arnold is Matt Greinigg, who's the
Speaker 1: Simpsons creator. He's his brother in law. And one bit
Speaker 1: of advice he gave him was design characters so that
Speaker 1: they can be recognized from a distance or in silhouettes.
Speaker 1: And that's actually why Arnold has such a distinctive football head.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good, all right. Well here's a fun one.
Speaker 1: John k who designed Renan Stempy, got the idea after
Speaker 1: seeing a picture of a Chihuahua in a sweater. Now
Speaker 1: we're always inspired when we see pictures of chihuahua and sweaters. Well,
Speaker 1: here's what he said about He said, it's a very
Speaker 1: funny picture because here's a psychonic looking monster in a
Speaker 1: cute sweater, which basically sums up in that's pretty funny.
Speaker 1: So here's one about dog. Did you know he was
Speaker 1: almost called Brian? Apparently I didn't friendly the creator. I
Speaker 1: thought the name was too fancy, so he quote geared
Speaker 1: it down and called him Doug because it sounded quote
Speaker 1: incredibly average. And I like that The name Brian just
Speaker 1: sounds to like sophisticated, fancy stuff. You have fancy pants, Brian.
Speaker 1: That's uh, that's pretty good. I will say. I love
Speaker 1: the idea of starting our show with Tristan's tribute to
Speaker 1: Doug and ending with him too, so I feel like
Speaker 1: we should leave it there, and I'm going to give
Speaker 1: you this week's fact off trophy Mango. I can't wait.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, and I guess I'll have to
Speaker 1: uh to get slim. This is a bummer. But before
Speaker 1: I do, I do want to um let our listeners
Speaker 1: know we always love hearing fun facts from you guys.
Speaker 1: I know there's some great Nickelodeon stories and some great
Speaker 1: facts that uh we didn't share today, so we'd love
Speaker 1: to hear those from You can always email us part
Speaker 1: Time Genius at how stuff Works dot com, or you
Speaker 1: can hit us up on Facebook or Twitter. But as always,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part
Speaker 1: Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and
Speaker 1: wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the
Speaker 1: important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan McNeil
Speaker 1: does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song
Speaker 1: and does the mixy mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland does
Speaker 1: the exact producer thing. Gay Bluesier is our lead researcher,
Speaker 1: with support from the Research Army, including Austin Thompson, Nolan
Speaker 1: Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve Jeff Cook gets the
Speaker 1: show to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like
Speaker 1: what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe, And if you
Speaker 1: really really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave
Speaker 1: a good review for us. We did. We forget Jason
Speaker 1: Jason who