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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck,

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Speaker 2: and Jerry's here too, and that makes this a good

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Speaker 2: old-fashioned Stuff You Should Know edition.

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Speaker 1: That's right. And unfortunately, we have to issue a COA

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Speaker 1: for this one.

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Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, and it is pretty unfortunate for sure.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, you see the title Nickelodeon and you

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Speaker 1: think just a rip-roaring good time and nostalgia fest. And

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Speaker 1: it is that, but we kind of tell the whole

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Speaker 1: story of Nickelodeon, which very sadly includes some sexual abuse.

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Speaker 1: And so trigger warning for people in general and definitely

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Speaker 1: for parents listening with kids.

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Speaker 2: There you go. Well done. We should just edit that

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Speaker 2: as a clip and anytime we have a COA, just

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Speaker 2: pop that in. Yeah, great. All right. So let's get

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Speaker 2: to the fun nostalgia part first, at least, right?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.

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Speaker 2: So Nickelodeon was probably a little after your wheelhouse, right?

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Speaker 2: Were you always a little too old for Nickelodeon? Or

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Speaker 2: was there ever a Venn diagram with you and Nickelodeon

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Speaker 2: and happiness in the middle?

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Speaker 1: There's a brief time of a little bit of Nickelodeon

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Speaker 1: stuff for me, but I was just on the edge

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Speaker 1: of being a little too old. But some of the

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Speaker 1: stuff Like, I definitely remember You Can't Do That on

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Speaker 1: television and a little bit of Double Dare.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But, yeah, I mean, this was right in the middle

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Speaker 1: of your wheelhouse, though, I bet.

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Speaker 2: I watched this all the time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great.

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Speaker 2: I watched Pinwheel. I watched, like you said, You Can't

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Speaker 2: Do That on television, Double Dare. What else did I watch?

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Speaker 2: Danger Mouse, Inspector Gadget. Oh, wow. I mean, just basically

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Speaker 2: anything they would put on. Today's special. I was huge

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Speaker 2: into today's special. Anything they would put on, I would

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Speaker 2: definitely watch. And I loved it. All.

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Speaker 1: I love it. Well, this one's for you, baby.

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Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, man. One thing I did not realize, though,

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Speaker 2: is that Nickelodeon started in my home state of Ohio.

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Speaker 2: And I don't know if you've noticed or not, but

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Speaker 2: I'm pretty selective about when I claim Ohio is my

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Speaker 2: home state.

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Speaker 1: That's true.

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Speaker 2: And I know you love to rub it in that

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Speaker 2: you're an Atlanta native and it's just, you know, I'm

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Speaker 2: a newbie, a carpetbagger. But at any rate, that's where

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Speaker 2: Nickelodeon started, actually, in Columbus, Ohio, as part of like

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Speaker 2: this test that Warner Cable did. Pretty forward thinking test

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Speaker 2: in 1977 where they're like, hey, you know, everybody watches

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Speaker 2: TV with antennas. We're going to launch the first cable

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Speaker 2: network in the United States, if not the world. Right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was called Warner Cable. They opened that studio

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Speaker 1: in Columbus, like you said, and they had 30 channels

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Speaker 1: at first. I guess you pronounce it cube, huh?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I'm going with.

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Speaker 1: Q-U-B-E. And you could pay $ 10 a month and, you know,

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Speaker 1: Depending on what you were into, you could get shows

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Speaker 1: like Flippo's Magic Cars. They had an early show, kind

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Speaker 1: of preceded Star Search even, I think, called Talent Search.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I was wondering if Star Search grew out

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Speaker 2: of Talent Search, and I could find no correlation.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I couldn't either. So we give that rumor two

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Speaker 1: and a half stars.

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Speaker 2: Very nice.

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Speaker 1: I used to love Star Search.

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Speaker 2: I never really watched it that much, but I do

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Speaker 2: know that Rosie O'Donnell got her start there. Oh, really? Mm-hmm.

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Speaker 1: Okay.

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Speaker 2: Oh, she killed.

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Speaker 1: I was a big fan.

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Speaker 2: She won like 15 weeks in a row or something

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Speaker 2: like that.

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Speaker 1: Was she, well, it had adult stuff too, or was

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Speaker 1: it just kids?

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Speaker 2: Oh, her sets were filthy.

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Speaker 1: Right. So yeah, they had talent search, but the cable

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Speaker 1: system had a gimmick at first, which was a remote

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Speaker 1: control that was wired to the cable box, I guess,

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Speaker 1: that let you interact with the shows. And it didn't

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Speaker 1: work out. I think they realized that that, gimmick, like

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Speaker 1: didn't fully work. Uh, they also had other financial difficulties and, um,

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Speaker 1: I think it launched in 77 when it was done

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Speaker 1: by 84, but, um, one of the channels, which was

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Speaker 1: pinwheel or C3, uh, lived on, it was created by

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Speaker 1: a woman named Vivian Horner, uh, who came from the TV,

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Speaker 1: the great TV show, the electric company. Yeah. And it

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Speaker 1: was commercial free programming for preschool kids.

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Speaker 2: 20 or no, 12 hours a day of it, 14

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Speaker 2: hours a day on weekends. And like you said, commercial free.

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Speaker 2: And that was the network, right? And Pinwheel also had

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Speaker 2: an eponymous show called Pinwheel, which I also watched a lot.

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Speaker 1: Now, what was that?

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Speaker 2: I mean, it was a show where live human actors

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Speaker 2: interacted with puppets. And the most memorable character for me

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Speaker 2: was Gary Gnu.

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Speaker 1: Oh, is that where that came from?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no Gnu's. Wait, there's no Ganoos, like good

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Speaker 2: Ganoos with Gary Ganoo.

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Speaker 1: I've heard Gary Ganoo. I had no idea what the

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Speaker 1: origin was.

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Speaker 2: So any word that started with N, he said good,

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Speaker 2: like he added that G at the very beginning.

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Speaker 1: What a bit. Can you imagine him just hanging out

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Speaker 1: late one night, smoking a joint and being like, I've

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Speaker 1: got it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was one of those things. It was late 70s,

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Speaker 2: early 80s, pot smoking, like kids... Like kids programmers, essentially,

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Speaker 2: is what that kind of show was. Okay.

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Speaker 1: That's great.

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Speaker 2: It was good. But the whole network was called Pinwheel

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Speaker 2: 2 at first until somebody was like, hey, I really

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Speaker 2: like the sound of the word Nickelodeon. And they said

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Speaker 2: it like 50 times in this one meeting. And finally,

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Speaker 2: everybody was worn down enough that they were like, we'll

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Speaker 2: change the network Pinwheel to Nickelodeon. I think that was

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Speaker 2: in 1979. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, 79. And you're right. I think, you know, a

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Speaker 1: Nickelodeon was like an old timey like movie house that

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Speaker 1: you paid a nickel to get into. But they didn't

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Speaker 1: name it for that reason. I think they like you said,

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Speaker 1: I think they just thought it had a nice ring

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Speaker 1: to it, I guess.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And also, weirdly, they had a an old timey

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Speaker 2: man is their first logo, an old timey man looking

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Speaker 2: into like a I guess like a small movie player. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And it was like right in, it dovetailed with that

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Speaker 2: era where if you went to Wendy's, like their wallpaper

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Speaker 2: was made of like 1910 newspaper ads. Oh, yeah.

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Speaker 1: Old Wendy's is great.

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Speaker 2: And Tiffany lamps and all that.

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Speaker 1: Uh-huh.

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Speaker 2: I'm still unsettled by those high lace women's boots.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: That they always advertised.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Too sexy.

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Speaker 2: I might have seen ads for wicker wheelchairs, too. Maybe

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Speaker 2: that's where that came from. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Your biggest fear.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. But at any rate, they got rid of that

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Speaker 2: after a couple of years, and they came up with

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Speaker 2: the first good Nickelodeon logo, which is a silver pinball

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Speaker 2: with Nickelodeon written over it in different colors. It was

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Speaker 2: very pretty.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, very popular bubble letter style at the time. A

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Speaker 1: year later, in 1980, a guy named Cy Schneider, who

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Speaker 1: was an advertising executive, became the first president of the network.

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Speaker 1: He had a little experience. He was involved on the

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Speaker 1: marketing advertising side. when Mattel sponsored the Mickey Mouse Club

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Speaker 1: in the 50s. So he had a little bit of

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Speaker 1: experience with kids TV from the ad side, but this

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Speaker 1: was kind of a new jam for him. So he

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Speaker 1: started marketing Nickelodeon as the young people's network. And they

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Speaker 1: had some, you know, fun shows. I do remember, I

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Speaker 1: didn't watch any of these, but I remember Reggie Jackson's

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Speaker 1: World of Sports. I remember that being a thing. And

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Speaker 1: I also remember the Leonard Nimoy show being a thing.

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Speaker 1: Leonard Nimoy's standby, colon, lights, camera, action.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I never saw or even heard of either of

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Speaker 2: those shows. But it kind of gives you a taste

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Speaker 2: of how Nickelodeon started out as slightly, it skewed slightly older.

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Speaker 2: So I can see 14-year-old boys watching those.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I was nine at the time. So I was

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Speaker 1: aware it was around. I was aware of the show Livewire,

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Speaker 1: which was a live tape show in front of a

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Speaker 1: teenage audience at the Ed Sullivan Theater, even in New

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Speaker 1: York City. It was like a current event show. So

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Speaker 1: I knew about that show and it was really popular.

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Speaker 1: It won their, gave them their first Cable Ace Award.

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Speaker 1: And then I don't think we mentioned that they were

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Speaker 1: splitting airtime. Like they ran programming during the day, but

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Speaker 1: the A & E network was on after hours. Right.

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Speaker 2: Sexy ballet.

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Speaker 1: That's right.

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Speaker 2: Livewire, I looked into that a little bit because I

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Speaker 2: never watched it. I don't know that I'd even heard

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Speaker 2: of it to tell you the truth. But when I

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Speaker 2: saw like the set, It rang like a little bit

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Speaker 2: like a vague bell, but it was definitely older kids,

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Speaker 2: kids older than me, like teens. And there is a

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Speaker 2: there's a clip you can find of Adam Horowitz, King

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Speaker 2: Ed Rock from BC Boys. Oh, yeah. As a 17

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Speaker 2: year old posing as a like he went into the

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Speaker 2: audience of Livewire and he asked a question of Africa Bambada,

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Speaker 2: who is the guest at the time. He's like, hey,

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Speaker 2: have you heard that new record from the Beastie Boys,

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Speaker 2: Cookie Puss? And he got Africa Bombada to admit, like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: he'd listened to it and he had the record and

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Speaker 2: he liked it without ever saying, like, I'm one of

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Speaker 2: the Beastie Boys. Like, he was just plugging this as, like,

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Speaker 2: just some average audience member. It's pretty great.

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Speaker 1: Oh, that's funny. I mean, Livewire had some good stuff. Like, R.E.M.

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Speaker 1: performed on Livewire in 83.

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Speaker 2: The Ramones.

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Speaker 1: The Ramones did. I know that Frank Zappa was a guest.

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Speaker 1: So they were definitely, like, somebody... Cool was running that show.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And not only like they were cool enough to

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Speaker 2: want those people on, they were cool enough to get

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Speaker 2: those people on that show. Right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: This is on Nickelodeon, everybody. And this is it was

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Speaker 2: one of their first like really great shows. And then

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Speaker 2: something else changed almost immediately. when Nickelodeon just really started

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Speaker 2: getting going. They brought on a woman named Geraldine Laybourne.

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Speaker 2: And she was kind of like, not the antithesis to

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Speaker 2: Cy Schneider, but certainly had a different view of what

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Speaker 2: Nickelodeon should be doing. Cy Schneider's thing was, you know,

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Speaker 2: like you said, he came from the advertising the kids world.

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Speaker 2: What's wrong with that? And Geraldine Laybourne's whole thing was like,

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Speaker 2: let's find out what the kids want and go on

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Speaker 2: that premise and not try to sell them stuff. Let's

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Speaker 2: just like really make this a network for kids rather

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Speaker 2: than just saying that's what it is. And really it's

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Speaker 2: for advertising or something like that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I think Schneider was a bit older too.

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Speaker 1: If he was working on the Mickey Mouse Club in

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Speaker 1: the 1950s, this was like 30 years after that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And she also recognized like, hey, you know, a lot

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Speaker 1: of people are treating this network in these shows as

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Speaker 1: a stepping stone, like get in the door doing these

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Speaker 1: children's shows so they can go on and do other

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Speaker 1: things in Hollywood. And she was like, I want staff

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Speaker 1: that like wants to do this and wants and is

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Speaker 1: dedicated to like kids programming, which seemed like a really

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Speaker 1: kind of savvy move, I think.

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Speaker 2: For sure. For sure. It didn't matter whether you did cocaine.

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Speaker 2: That was not part of it. It was how do

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Speaker 2: you feel about kids programming? That's right.

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Speaker 1: Full stop.

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Speaker 2: One of the things that Nick did, I'm just going

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Speaker 2: to call it Nick because I watch so much of it.

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Speaker 2: I'm on a first name basis with it. Yeah. But

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Speaker 2: they would basically poach TV shows from Canada. Yeah. They

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Speaker 2: still do. As a matter of fact, there's still like

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Speaker 2: a lot of the shows that were on Nickelodeon that

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Speaker 2: I watched as a youngster. I was like, something's not

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Speaker 2: quite right with this show. Turns out they were all Canadians.

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Speaker 1: As an American, it seems slightly sideways.

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Speaker 2: Exactly. I'm like, these people are really nice.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. You Can't Do That on Television was a

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Speaker 1: Canadian show that came from Ottawa Station a couple of

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Speaker 1: years previous from its debut on Nickelodeon in 1981. And

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Speaker 1: that was a great show. It was created by Roger

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Speaker 1: Price and Jeffrey Darby. And it was a skit show

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Speaker 1: that was like squarely aimed at making kids laugh, like

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Speaker 1: that kind of humor.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And one of the ways that they did that

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Speaker 2: is that the Teen and even preteen actors had like

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Speaker 2: a say in how the scripts went and like what

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Speaker 2: the scenes were. And so that was cool in and

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Speaker 2: of itself, because, I mean, they were speaking directly to you.

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Speaker 2: It kind of ran through that filter. And then also

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Speaker 2: they would. The show itself was almost like a character.

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Speaker 2: The show itself could be like a set or a

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Speaker 2: scene or something like that. And not just like them

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Speaker 2: chatting in between shooting. Like there could be, if I

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Speaker 2: remember correctly, there was a scene where one of the

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Speaker 2: kids was playing a character who was chained up in

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Speaker 2: a dungeon. And another kid who wasn't dressed like them

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Speaker 2: just came in and took over for him because that

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Speaker 2: kid had to like go home and do homework or

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Speaker 2: something like that. And they did it in the middle

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Speaker 2: of the scene. So it was just kind of weird

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Speaker 2: like that, and it really worked for that show. It's

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Speaker 2: a really good show. I went back and watched it,

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Speaker 2: and you definitely have to be of that age to

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Speaker 2: really appreciate it, but I remember loving You Can't Do

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Speaker 2: That on Television.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I went back and watched a lot of this stuff,

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Speaker 1: like clips on YouTube, and I realized that I watched

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Speaker 1: more of this than I remember watching, I guess. And

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Speaker 1: I remember that guy... Who was the main guy on

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Speaker 1: that show, like the main adult cast member?

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Speaker 2: His name was Les Lye.

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Speaker 1: Les Lye. That's it.

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Speaker 2: I think he went by Les, too, because they all

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Speaker 2: went by their real first names.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was kind of like if you've ever seen

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Speaker 1: the Larry Sanders show, it was kind of like that.

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Speaker 1: They would have these meta moments.

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Speaker 2: Right. Well put. This preceded the Larry Sanders show and

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Speaker 2: was actually where it came from.

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Speaker 1: Are you joking?

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Okay.

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Speaker 2: Well, it might have been.

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Speaker 1: You never know.

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Speaker 2: And Alanis Morissette was also on it, too, because you

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Speaker 2: can't have a Canadian TV show without having Alanis Morissette

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Speaker 2: on it. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Ironic that she was on that show, right?

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Speaker 2: I don't know. Do you think?

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Speaker 1: Well, that was where the slime came from. Nickelodeon is

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Speaker 1: very famous for its slime. In fact, I am using

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Speaker 1: the title that Livia, who helped us with this, titled

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Speaker 1: it Nickelodeon, the slime of our lives. Great title. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But Nickelodeon has always been associated with that green slime,

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Speaker 1: and it got its first dump on you can't do

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Speaker 1: that on television.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, if you said I don't know, you would get slimed.

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Speaker 2: That's just how it went.

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Speaker 1: Oh, is that the trigger?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't make the rules. It's just how it went.

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Speaker 2: Except for one show, and this just goes to show

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Speaker 2: you how early 80s this was. They had an episode

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Speaker 2: where the Russians took over, and the slime was red

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Speaker 2: slime instead. If anyone who said the word freedom would

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Speaker 2: get slimed.

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Speaker 1: Well, apparently the story of how it became green slime

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Speaker 1: was an accident because they had made the slime but

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Speaker 1: couldn't shoot that day or something, and it turned green

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Speaker 1: by the next day, and so they ended up with

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Speaker 1: green slime. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And then I guess you would get a bonus of

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Speaker 2: something between $ 25 to $ 50. I guess it depends on

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Speaker 2: how much you held out for. And they would shoot

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Speaker 2: all the sliming scenes at the end of the day,

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Speaker 2: and then you would get slimed, and then they would cut,

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Speaker 2: and you would run off to the showers because... Different

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Speaker 2: iterations of slime sometimes turn to paste in your hair

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Speaker 2: if you didn't get it out fast enough. And they

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Speaker 2: finally found the right one is a methyl cellulose blend

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Speaker 2: that had zero allergens in it. So they could even

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Speaker 2: dump it on audience members without fear of litigation. Right. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Or at least them winning litigation. But it went through

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Speaker 2: all sorts of different things like cottage cheese, vegetable oil,

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Speaker 2: vanilla pudding, jello for a little while.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Applesauce.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Should we take a break?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm getting I'm getting kind of excited. So, yeah.

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Speaker 1: All right. It's getting good, everybody. So we'll be right

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Speaker 1: back with more on Nick.

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Speaker 2: Thank you.

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Speaker 1: All right, so You Can't Do That on Television was

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Speaker 1: a pretty decent success, but Nickelodeon itself was not like

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Speaker 1: a huge hit yet. In late 83, a guy named

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Speaker 1: Bob Pittman, who we've talked about, one of the founders

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Speaker 1: of MTV, and our boss at iHeartMedia.

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Speaker 2: Several rungs up. I don't know if he would consider

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Speaker 2: himself our boss.

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Speaker 1: I think he may know who we are, at least.

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Speaker 2: Perhaps.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Bob runs iHeartMedia, and he became head of Nickelodeon's

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Speaker 1: parent company, which was Warner Amex at the time. He

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Speaker 1: was in 83. He was a lot younger than Cy

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Speaker 1: Schneider was. And the writing was on the wall that

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Speaker 1: like Schneider wasn't going to be around too long and

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Speaker 1: younger folks were going to be running this younger like

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Speaker 1: viewership network.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and Pittman had a lot of cred around the

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Speaker 2: television world because of MTV just from two years before, right?

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Speaker 2: And so he took over Nickelodeon, or he didn't take

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Speaker 2: over Nickelodeon. When he became the head of Warner Amex,

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Speaker 2: he was now over the people who were running Nickelodeon,

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Speaker 2: and he took an interest in it early on. And

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Speaker 2: so after Schneider left, Geraldine Laybourne was put as the

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Speaker 2: head of the network. And now Nickelodeon really blossomed. Like

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Speaker 2: this is the Nickelodeon I remember and like really loved.

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Speaker 2: This is 1984, I think. Yeah. One of the first

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Speaker 2: things that Laybourne did was she turned to the Fred

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Speaker 2: Allen agency, which had helped basically figure out how MTV

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Speaker 2: should brand itself. She said, do this for Nickelodeon. And

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Speaker 2: they got to town. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The other thing they did was they started selling ads

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Speaker 1: and commercials.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: Which they realized, I think, pretty quickly afterward, like, hey,

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Speaker 1: that's a pretty good idea to start getting some money

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Speaker 1: flowing in. So Fred Allen firm comes in. They said,

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Speaker 1: all right, we're going to do focus groups. We're going

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Speaker 1: to get kids together and we're going to find out

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Speaker 1: what they want. And what they found out was kids

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Speaker 1: were kind of roundly annoyed by adults that were patronizing

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Speaker 1: and trying to get them to watch something that basically sucked.

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Speaker 1: And they were tired of it. So they said, you

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Speaker 1: know what we're going to do then? We're going to

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Speaker 1: craft this network around this idea and this theme that

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Speaker 1: like this is for kids and this is for kids

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Speaker 1: to stand up, stand up and like shout like, hey,

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Speaker 1: you're not listening to me like this is for us

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Speaker 1: and do things that we want to see finally.

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Speaker 2: Right. If I remember correctly, an early iteration of their

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Speaker 2: new logo was a child setting a couch on fire

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Speaker 2: inside a living room.

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Speaker 1: I think you're right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. But they actually did redo the logo. They're like,

390
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Speaker 2: this pinball and rainbow letters thing is so childish and patronizing.

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Speaker 1: Cy Schneider. Come on.

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Speaker 2: I still like it.

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Speaker 1: Oh, really?

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I thought it was very cute. All right. I

395
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Speaker 2: would look at it all day long if I could.

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Speaker 1: Well, you can do that if you want to.

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Speaker 2: But they, I guess I could. But they changed the

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Speaker 2: logo by essentially picking what designers roundly think of as

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Speaker 2: the ugliest color around. It's Pantone. 21. I don't know

400
00:19:44,840 --> 00:19:48,330
Speaker 2: if you say the zero first, maybe. Pantone 021 Orange. Yeah.

401
00:19:50,100 --> 00:19:53,899
Speaker 2: now recognized pretty much everywhere as Nickelodeon orange. But at

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Speaker 2: the time, because everybody thought it was so ugly, no

403
00:19:56,420 --> 00:19:59,899
Speaker 2: one used it. So Nickelodeon basically claimed this ugly color

404
00:19:59,920 --> 00:20:03,260
Speaker 2: and it became just like completely synonymous with the network.

405
00:20:03,320 --> 00:20:04,460
Speaker 2: It was a great branding move.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, actually, I just looked up the previous logos and

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Speaker 1: I had forgotten the little pinball multicolored balloon letter thing.

408
00:20:12,340 --> 00:20:13,980
Speaker 1: But now that I see it, I totally remember it.

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Speaker 1: It was a good logo.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Anything with different color balloon lettering is A-OK in

411
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Speaker 2: my book.

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Speaker 1: Well, you're a child of the 80s like me.

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00:20:23,420 --> 00:20:24,400
Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And, you know, as we'll see, many of the sets

415
00:20:27,060 --> 00:20:29,969
Speaker 1: and everything in the 80s were like... I guess we'll

416
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Speaker 1: get to that, but they had some pretty legendary, like,

417
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Speaker 1: Super 80 sets on their shows.

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Speaker 2: Yes, they do. Man, I could look at pictures of

419
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Speaker 2: those all day, too.

420
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Speaker 1: But the logo was animated, so it could, like, you know,

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Speaker 1: take different shapes. Like, sometimes it was an ice cream

422
00:20:42,260 --> 00:20:45,280
Speaker 1: cone or a rocket ship or something. And then later on,

423
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Speaker 1: when slime became, like, sort of what the network was,

424
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Speaker 1: you know, at least, like, a symbol of the network,

425
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Speaker 1: it looked like a slime splat, and that's kind of

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Speaker 1: what they stuck with.

427
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Speaker 2: Right. They also did bumpers. You know, coming in and

428
00:21:00,070 --> 00:21:03,709
Speaker 2: out of commercial breaks, like the animated ones. There was

429
00:21:04,050 --> 00:21:08,840
Speaker 2: a series of them by like a doo-wop singing group

430
00:21:08,880 --> 00:21:09,900
Speaker 2: called the Jive Five.

431
00:21:10,060 --> 00:21:10,600
Speaker 1: Those are great.

432
00:21:11,020 --> 00:21:12,340
Speaker 2: Do you remember those? Yeah.

433
00:21:12,359 --> 00:21:13,879
Speaker 1: And I went and watched some of them today and

434
00:21:13,900 --> 00:21:16,170
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, I remember these. They were great.

435
00:21:16,410 --> 00:21:18,870
Speaker 2: There are two standouts. <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL>

436
00:21:18,910 --> 00:21:23,240
Speaker 2: <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> Nice. There's

437
00:21:23,280 --> 00:21:25,840
Speaker 2: another one. I've never been able to do it. It's

438
00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:29,740
Speaker 2: too fast for my thick tongue, but it is great.

439
00:21:29,800 --> 00:21:33,189
Speaker 2: So just go look up Nick Jive 5 bumpers and

440
00:21:33,350 --> 00:21:34,430
Speaker 2: you'll see what I'm talking about.

441
00:21:34,770 --> 00:21:36,669
Speaker 1: Well, what was the fast one? Like, just tell me

442
00:21:36,730 --> 00:21:39,500
Speaker 1: a slowed down version or something so I might recognize it.

443
00:21:41,230 --> 00:21:42,350
Speaker 2: Um, no.

444
00:21:42,850 --> 00:21:45,440
Speaker 1: No? All right. I'll look it up after. Yeah.

445
00:21:45,460 --> 00:21:48,060
Speaker 2: You're going to have to do that. Hey, man.

446
00:21:48,280 --> 00:21:51,240
Speaker 1: I admire your, you know, gumption to stick up for yourself.

447
00:21:51,260 --> 00:21:51,940
Speaker 2: I thought about it.

448
00:21:53,850 --> 00:21:57,350
Speaker 1: So with Lay Born running the show, they started doing

449
00:21:57,390 --> 00:22:00,750
Speaker 1: some pretty great original programs. They had a sketch show

450
00:22:00,790 --> 00:22:03,209
Speaker 1: called Out of Control that I remember is hosted by

451
00:22:03,250 --> 00:22:06,530
Speaker 1: Dave Coulier of Full House.

452
00:22:06,650 --> 00:22:08,430
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.

453
00:22:08,530 --> 00:22:10,790
Speaker 1: And a show called Turkey TV, which I had not

454
00:22:10,850 --> 00:22:13,669
Speaker 1: heard of until I saw the description that it was

455
00:22:13,690 --> 00:22:17,990
Speaker 1: like a clip show basically hosted by a VJ essentially.

456
00:22:18,390 --> 00:22:19,730
Speaker 1: And then I was like, yeah, I think I remember

457
00:22:19,760 --> 00:22:19,960
Speaker 1: that one.

458
00:22:20,850 --> 00:22:22,790
Speaker 2: I do not remember that one at all, but they

459
00:22:22,810 --> 00:22:26,889
Speaker 2: would do something that Nickelodeon was also really good at.

460
00:22:26,930 --> 00:22:31,690
Speaker 2: Besides poaching Canadian shows, they would go overseas and find

461
00:22:32,650 --> 00:22:39,110
Speaker 2: funny clips or funny commercials or whatever. Sometimes other clips

462
00:22:39,130 --> 00:22:42,369
Speaker 2: from other kids shows like in completely different languages. And

463
00:22:42,390 --> 00:22:45,190
Speaker 2: then they would overdub them in English and use them.

464
00:22:45,210 --> 00:22:48,250
Speaker 2: And they did that with Turkey TV a lot, too.

465
00:22:48,390 --> 00:22:51,400
Speaker 2: So that was like that was fantastic. They just did

466
00:22:51,420 --> 00:22:54,180
Speaker 2: that all the time. Now I'm like, yeah, those kids

467
00:22:54,200 --> 00:22:56,900
Speaker 2: were totally Danish. I had no idea at the time.

468
00:22:56,960 --> 00:22:59,810
Speaker 2: But again, I was like, there's something not quite right

469
00:22:59,950 --> 00:23:02,570
Speaker 2: about how these kids are dressed and the toys they're

470
00:23:02,590 --> 00:23:03,090
Speaker 2: playing with.

471
00:23:03,410 --> 00:23:04,130
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's funny.

472
00:23:04,609 --> 00:23:07,629
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly what it was. I was watching that

473
00:23:07,670 --> 00:23:08,389
Speaker 2: without knowing it.

474
00:23:08,770 --> 00:23:11,500
Speaker 1: That's just funny that a kid can be like, something's

475
00:23:11,580 --> 00:23:13,720
Speaker 1: slightly off here and I can't pinpoint what it is.

476
00:23:13,760 --> 00:23:13,980
Speaker 2: Yeah.

477
00:23:14,220 --> 00:23:15,880
Speaker 1: Because you didn't know they did stuff like that back then.

478
00:23:16,280 --> 00:23:18,300
Speaker 2: And I always shrugged and was like, whatever, it's still

479
00:23:18,320 --> 00:23:19,100
Speaker 2: fun to watch.

480
00:23:19,340 --> 00:23:19,879
Speaker 1: It's on TV.

481
00:23:20,040 --> 00:23:22,820
Speaker 2: It was always there, you know. The Great Gazoo was

482
00:23:22,840 --> 00:23:25,389
Speaker 2: over my shoulder like, it's European, dum-dum.

483
00:23:27,650 --> 00:23:30,850
Speaker 1: So, Laybourne went back to Darby, one of the guys

484
00:23:30,869 --> 00:23:33,170
Speaker 1: who co-created You Can't Do That on Television. It's like, hey,

485
00:23:33,190 --> 00:23:37,230
Speaker 1: what else you got? And he said, what about like

486
00:23:37,290 --> 00:23:41,280
Speaker 1: a game show where kids go through kind of a

487
00:23:41,320 --> 00:23:44,480
Speaker 1: crazy obstacle course or do these wacky things? And that

488
00:23:44,520 --> 00:23:46,760
Speaker 1: was the seed of the idea that became Double Dare.

489
00:23:48,140 --> 00:23:51,030
Speaker 1: I watched an episode of Double Dare earlier today, too.

490
00:23:51,050 --> 00:23:51,970
Speaker 1: It was a lot of fun to see.

491
00:23:52,109 --> 00:23:52,350
Speaker 2: So good.

492
00:23:53,250 --> 00:23:55,310
Speaker 1: And it was like Truth or Dare, where you could

493
00:23:55,410 --> 00:23:58,530
Speaker 1: answer a trivia question or dare the other team if

494
00:23:58,570 --> 00:24:00,429
Speaker 1: you didn't have the answer. And if they didn't have

495
00:24:00,450 --> 00:24:03,530
Speaker 1: the answer, they could double dare back. And generally, at

496
00:24:03,570 --> 00:24:06,250
Speaker 1: that point, the team would opt for what was called

497
00:24:06,270 --> 00:24:09,220
Speaker 1: the physical challenge. And it was, you know, the one

498
00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:12,660
Speaker 1: I watched today was two kids stand on one side

499
00:24:12,680 --> 00:24:17,080
Speaker 1: of the room. and throw eggs at the two kids

500
00:24:17,140 --> 00:24:21,470
Speaker 1: on the other side who are blindfolded and holding like

501
00:24:21,530 --> 00:24:24,690
Speaker 1: marching band crash cymbals in their hand. And the first

502
00:24:24,850 --> 00:24:27,550
Speaker 1: one to just randomly crash a crash cymbal as the

503
00:24:27,650 --> 00:24:29,909
Speaker 1: egg comes at them without being able to see it

504
00:24:29,970 --> 00:24:32,660
Speaker 1: is the team who wins. So just really fun, dumb

505
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:35,080
Speaker 1: stuff if you're, you know, nine to 12 years old.

506
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:39,900
Speaker 2: Yeah, like what a great idea. But not only though

507
00:24:39,940 --> 00:24:42,680
Speaker 2: was it like, like there were great little parts like that,

508
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:46,619
Speaker 2: The whole thing, every single part was just operating on

509
00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:51,800
Speaker 2: all cylinders. Yeah. The host, Mark Summers, was somehow perfect

510
00:24:51,940 --> 00:24:52,680
Speaker 2: for that show.

511
00:24:52,700 --> 00:24:53,460
Speaker 1: He was great.

512
00:24:53,859 --> 00:24:57,060
Speaker 2: He was wonderful. The set, like you said, it was

513
00:24:57,100 --> 00:24:59,389
Speaker 2: in the Memphis style, which was huge in the 80s.

514
00:24:59,609 --> 00:25:00,399
Speaker 1: Yeah.

515
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:04,490
Speaker 2: Like Pee Wee's Playhouse was Memphis. You would know Memphis

516
00:25:04,550 --> 00:25:06,689
Speaker 2: if you're not familiar with the term. You've seen it

517
00:25:06,730 --> 00:25:09,850
Speaker 2: a million times. But those sets are just a feast

518
00:25:09,910 --> 00:25:12,650
Speaker 2: for the eyes. And then, yeah, the things they came

519
00:25:12,670 --> 00:25:15,960
Speaker 2: up with, one of my favorites was the picket, where

520
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:17,820
Speaker 2: you had to, for a physical challenge, you had to

521
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:21,240
Speaker 2: get a flag out of a giant nose. And to

522
00:25:21,300 --> 00:25:23,919
Speaker 2: get the flag out, you had to pick out boogers first.

523
00:25:24,400 --> 00:25:26,820
Speaker 2: And then slime would come out of the nose. And

524
00:25:26,859 --> 00:25:29,060
Speaker 2: then after all that, you had to stick your arm

525
00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:30,830
Speaker 2: all the way up there and pull the flag out.

526
00:25:31,570 --> 00:25:34,490
Speaker 1: That's just so fun to create shows like this. Like,

527
00:25:34,630 --> 00:25:35,869
Speaker 1: that's what kids want to see.

528
00:25:36,210 --> 00:25:40,270
Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah. And then the other thing. every single contestant

529
00:25:40,609 --> 00:25:44,030
Speaker 2: was so psyched to be there. And it took it

530
00:25:44,050 --> 00:25:47,890
Speaker 2: so seriously. It was completely sincere. It was just a wonderful,

531
00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:50,340
Speaker 2: I love Double Dare. I could watch Double Dare all

532
00:25:50,359 --> 00:25:50,800
Speaker 2: day long.

533
00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:53,520
Speaker 1: Yeah. You can do a lot of this stuff all

534
00:25:53,540 --> 00:25:58,500
Speaker 1: day long. Can you imagine getting that phone call or

535
00:25:58,580 --> 00:26:01,300
Speaker 1: letter in the mail where you are picked to be

536
00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:03,659
Speaker 1: a contestant on that show and what like that must've

537
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:04,500
Speaker 1: felt like as a kid?

538
00:26:04,820 --> 00:26:08,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. For other kids, I, I, I would

539
00:26:08,580 --> 00:26:11,720
Speaker 2: have dreaded that. Oh, really? Yeah. I was that kid

540
00:26:11,770 --> 00:26:13,629
Speaker 2: who was like in the circus when the clowns were

541
00:26:13,670 --> 00:26:16,109
Speaker 2: coming down the aisle. I would be like, do not

542
00:26:16,230 --> 00:26:19,310
Speaker 2: pick me, please. God, please don't pick me. Yeah.

543
00:26:19,369 --> 00:26:19,950
Speaker 1: That was my dad.

544
00:26:21,270 --> 00:26:23,790
Speaker 2: What? He would, he wanted to be picked? No, no, no.

545
00:26:23,810 --> 00:26:24,750
Speaker 1: My dad would always.

546
00:26:24,780 --> 00:26:25,540
Speaker 2: Yeah.

547
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:29,419
Speaker 1: Like, I wonder if I should even say this. I

548
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:31,470
Speaker 1: think I will. No, I'm not going to say it.

549
00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:31,780
Speaker 2: Okay. Okay.

550
00:26:32,330 --> 00:26:33,990
Speaker 1: My dad was not a participant. Let's just say that.

551
00:26:34,270 --> 00:26:34,510
Speaker 2: All right.

552
00:26:34,550 --> 00:26:36,090
Speaker 1: Well, in life like that.

553
00:26:36,390 --> 00:26:39,670
Speaker 2: I'm with him on that. I just I don't like

554
00:26:39,830 --> 00:26:40,989
Speaker 2: I don't like the spotlight, you know.

555
00:26:41,230 --> 00:26:43,110
Speaker 1: What about today? If you like went to a theme

556
00:26:43,150 --> 00:26:44,810
Speaker 1: park and they were like, let's get this guy out

557
00:26:44,830 --> 00:26:46,430
Speaker 1: of the audience. Would you do it or would because

558
00:26:46,470 --> 00:26:48,379
Speaker 1: you've got a lot of experience on stage?

559
00:26:48,390 --> 00:26:50,010
Speaker 2: I would have to do it. I mean, you're a

560
00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:52,160
Speaker 2: jerk to not just do it if they pick you.

561
00:26:52,420 --> 00:26:53,740
Speaker 1: But you wouldn't like love being picked.

562
00:26:54,020 --> 00:26:57,240
Speaker 2: No. And I would be just like breathlessly anxious the

563
00:26:57,280 --> 00:26:58,359
Speaker 2: entire time.

564
00:26:58,680 --> 00:26:59,020
Speaker 1: Yeah.

565
00:26:59,140 --> 00:27:01,480
Speaker 2: They'd be like, why is that guy's hand trembling?

566
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:03,639
Speaker 1: That's funny because you stand on stage in front of

567
00:27:03,660 --> 00:27:05,260
Speaker 1: like 2,000 people and are great.

568
00:27:05,660 --> 00:27:08,230
Speaker 2: I know, but think about how much stage fright I

569
00:27:08,270 --> 00:27:09,090
Speaker 2: had to get over.

570
00:27:09,109 --> 00:27:11,510
Speaker 1: That's true. And you're still standing up there with your

571
00:27:11,530 --> 00:27:11,970
Speaker 1: hand trembling.

572
00:27:12,390 --> 00:27:15,669
Speaker 2: Exactly. Have you ever seen me on stage at a

573
00:27:15,750 --> 00:27:18,130
Speaker 2: Stuff You Should Know show and I'm picking up my

574
00:27:18,190 --> 00:27:22,700
Speaker 2: water with both hands? Right. It's because they're too trembly

575
00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 2: to pick them up by themselves.

576
00:27:24,640 --> 00:27:26,400
Speaker 1: Well, maybe that's part of the magic. It makes you good.

577
00:27:27,080 --> 00:27:29,140
Speaker 2: Thanks, man. I think you're great too because you're so

578
00:27:29,180 --> 00:27:30,879
Speaker 2: laid back. It's just so easy for you.

579
00:27:31,270 --> 00:27:33,550
Speaker 1: Hey, we're the yin and yang, you know?

580
00:27:34,390 --> 00:27:36,250
Speaker 2: I'm the shuddery side.

581
00:27:36,270 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 1: That's right. So these were all shot at the time

582
00:27:39,820 --> 00:27:45,639
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia at the WHYY studios. And, you know, it

583
00:27:45,680 --> 00:27:47,859
Speaker 1: was a big hit. Mark Summers, everyone loved him, like

584
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:50,859
Speaker 1: you said. And that was not their first, but, you know,

585
00:27:50,940 --> 00:27:53,080
Speaker 1: one of the early, like, big, big breakouts that made

586
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:55,160
Speaker 1: Nickelodeon kind of a juggernaut.

587
00:27:55,500 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the other things that made Nickelodeon a

588
00:27:58,080 --> 00:28:02,430
Speaker 2: juggernaut was After A & E was like, sayonara, we're

589
00:28:02,450 --> 00:28:06,990
Speaker 2: going to form our own full network. Nickelodeon had the

590
00:28:07,119 --> 00:28:10,040
Speaker 2: evening hours to fill all of a sudden. So they

591
00:28:10,060 --> 00:28:12,580
Speaker 2: just did what you do. They went and turned to

592
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:16,179
Speaker 2: reruns of classic TV shows, but they branded it as

593
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:19,700
Speaker 2: Nick at Night. And I was into this too. Like

594
00:28:19,770 --> 00:28:22,510
Speaker 2: I seriously had Nickelodeon on all the time. This is

595
00:28:22,570 --> 00:28:24,409
Speaker 2: the stuff I would watch when I would go buy

596
00:28:24,430 --> 00:28:27,810
Speaker 2: a six pack of Kingsbury non-alcoholic beer and Slim Jims

597
00:28:27,850 --> 00:28:30,409
Speaker 2: and Twix and just settle in for the night. It

598
00:28:30,430 --> 00:28:32,869
Speaker 2: was just sit there and watch like F Troop and Mr.

599
00:28:33,050 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 2: Ed and I Spy. I just, it just, the whole

600
00:28:36,440 --> 00:28:39,440
Speaker 2: network just spoke directly to me. Yeah.

601
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:42,240
Speaker 1: I mean, I still say if I had like one wish,

602
00:28:42,380 --> 00:28:44,640
Speaker 1: it might be to For you and I to have

603
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:47,080
Speaker 1: grown up in the same neighborhood and been the same age.

604
00:28:47,700 --> 00:28:48,920
Speaker 1: I could have learned a lot from you.

605
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 2: We'd both be a lot different, I think.

606
00:28:51,900 --> 00:28:53,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably so. I'd be more like you and you'd

607
00:28:53,860 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 1: be more like me.

608
00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:57,180
Speaker 2: Exactly. There's probably a lot of listeners out there right

609
00:28:57,220 --> 00:28:58,790
Speaker 2: now who are like, wait a minute, you guys didn't

610
00:28:58,830 --> 00:29:00,670
Speaker 2: grow up in the same neighborhood? I wish.

611
00:29:01,950 --> 00:29:06,530
Speaker 1: So the network grew. They eventually would partner with Universal Studios.

612
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 1: And open a, like, studios there and kind of moved

613
00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:14,100
Speaker 1: Nickelodeon there, which was a big deal because all of

614
00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:16,040
Speaker 1: a sudden that was like a tourist attraction. And if

615
00:29:16,060 --> 00:29:18,920
Speaker 1: you were a visitor to Universal, you could sit in

616
00:29:19,010 --> 00:29:21,930
Speaker 1: the audience and maybe even be on some of these

617
00:29:21,950 --> 00:29:23,710
Speaker 1: shows if you got pulled from the audience.

618
00:29:23,990 --> 00:29:24,890
Speaker 2: Not me. Not me.

619
00:29:25,170 --> 00:29:27,710
Speaker 1: And after Double Dare, they were like, these game shows

620
00:29:27,770 --> 00:29:30,350
Speaker 1: are kind of hot. So they had a show called

621
00:29:30,390 --> 00:29:32,830
Speaker 1: Finders Keepers. I don't think I watched this a ton,

622
00:29:32,850 --> 00:29:35,530
Speaker 1: but I definitely remember because it was a big, giant,

623
00:29:35,710 --> 00:29:39,330
Speaker 1: fake house. and they would hide stuff in there and

624
00:29:39,390 --> 00:29:43,540
Speaker 1: kids could just basically completely destroy the place looking for

625
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:44,260
Speaker 1: the hidden items.

626
00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:47,440
Speaker 2: Yes. I don't know if I watched that one either.

627
00:29:47,500 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 2: I went and looked at pictures of the set and

628
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:51,840
Speaker 2: that didn't really ring a bell, but I was familiar

629
00:29:51,860 --> 00:29:54,460
Speaker 2: with the concept guts. I'd never heard of before.

630
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:55,020
Speaker 1: Same.

631
00:29:55,320 --> 00:30:00,010
Speaker 2: It was like, um, uh, ninja warrior type thing, I think. Yeah.

632
00:30:00,510 --> 00:30:04,930
Speaker 2: But again, Nickelodeon years and years before Legends of the

633
00:30:04,950 --> 00:30:07,890
Speaker 2: Hidden Temple. It was essentially like a double there where

634
00:30:07,930 --> 00:30:13,350
Speaker 2: you would answer questions, usually geography related. And then for

635
00:30:13,390 --> 00:30:16,770
Speaker 2: the physical challenge, it was running through this giant temple

636
00:30:17,170 --> 00:30:19,370
Speaker 2: that was like cross section. So you could see the

637
00:30:19,390 --> 00:30:22,130
Speaker 2: person running through in it. And there are secret passages

638
00:30:22,190 --> 00:30:24,910
Speaker 2: and stuff you need to find, like the artifact or whatever.

639
00:30:25,820 --> 00:30:29,460
Speaker 2: I didn't watch that, but I remember seeing ads for

640
00:30:29,500 --> 00:30:32,570
Speaker 2: it when I was watching the next level of stuff

641
00:30:32,650 --> 00:30:35,130
Speaker 2: on Nickelodeon, like Pete and Pete.

642
00:30:36,010 --> 00:30:38,970
Speaker 1: Yeah, the late 80s and early 90s. And this is,

643
00:30:39,130 --> 00:30:41,290
Speaker 1: you know, late high school and early college for me.

644
00:30:41,350 --> 00:30:43,110
Speaker 1: So I was definitely out of the picture by now.

645
00:30:43,790 --> 00:30:47,670
Speaker 1: But I remember for sure the show Hey Dude. And

646
00:30:47,730 --> 00:30:50,600
Speaker 1: I remember us in college even, I think, sort of

647
00:30:50,710 --> 00:30:52,720
Speaker 1: ironically watching it occasionally. Okay.

648
00:30:52,740 --> 00:30:55,710
Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah, I didn't watch that. I didn't watch Salute

649
00:30:55,730 --> 00:30:57,930
Speaker 2: Your Shorts or Clarissa Explains at all, but they were

650
00:30:57,950 --> 00:31:02,600
Speaker 2: all sitcoms, like live-action sitcoms. Yeah. And they were huge hits, right? Yeah,

651
00:31:02,620 --> 00:31:04,820
Speaker 2: oh yeah. The one that gets me, and this show

652
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:07,660
Speaker 2: is Canadian too, if I'm not mistaken, but The Adventures

653
00:31:07,700 --> 00:31:08,480
Speaker 2: of Pete and Pete.

654
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:09,420
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a big one.

655
00:31:09,780 --> 00:31:13,020
Speaker 2: Is still one of the best shows ever made. Like,

656
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:16,730
Speaker 2: it still holds up. I never saw it. You're just

657
00:31:16,750 --> 00:31:18,190
Speaker 2: going to have to trust me. I didn't know I

658
00:31:18,210 --> 00:31:20,209
Speaker 2: was about to stun you with that revelation.

659
00:31:20,860 --> 00:31:23,080
Speaker 1: No, I mean, I was just too old and I

660
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:26,570
Speaker 1: never caught it after. So I've heard the legend of

661
00:31:26,620 --> 00:31:28,310
Speaker 1: how great that show is. I should probably check it

662
00:31:28,330 --> 00:31:28,590
Speaker 1: out now.

663
00:31:28,650 --> 00:31:30,610
Speaker 2: Yeah, you should. And you know who else would love

664
00:31:30,670 --> 00:31:33,709
Speaker 2: it is Ruby. It's totally up her alley, like the

665
00:31:33,750 --> 00:31:37,340
Speaker 2: kind of weird humor. I really think she'd like it.

666
00:31:37,750 --> 00:31:39,870
Speaker 2: All right. We'll check it out. The only time that

667
00:31:39,890 --> 00:31:42,730
Speaker 2: I've ever been starstruck, Chuck, that I can remember, like

668
00:31:42,830 --> 00:31:47,070
Speaker 2: genuinely starstruck, was when we did a live show in

669
00:31:47,130 --> 00:31:51,890
Speaker 2: San Francisco at the Mariners Hall. Uh-huh. And we followed

670
00:31:51,910 --> 00:31:55,380
Speaker 2: a Pete and Pete reunion. Oh, that's right. They were

671
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:58,060
Speaker 2: there when we were coming in and I could not

672
00:31:58,600 --> 00:32:00,840
Speaker 2: believe who I was in the same room with. I

673
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:03,260
Speaker 2: hung out and talked to little Pete. Big Pete was

674
00:32:03,300 --> 00:32:05,239
Speaker 2: kind of in and out, but I just, I was

675
00:32:05,340 --> 00:32:08,640
Speaker 2: just barely hanging on during that conversation. Yeah.

676
00:32:08,660 --> 00:32:11,280
Speaker 1: I remember one other time you were starstruck when we

677
00:32:11,300 --> 00:32:12,860
Speaker 1: got to go to the Simpson stable read and we

678
00:32:12,900 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 1: met Matt Groening.

679
00:32:13,900 --> 00:32:14,820
Speaker 2: Fair enough. Yeah.

680
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:16,440
Speaker 1: Because I was the same. You and I were both

681
00:32:16,460 --> 00:32:17,740
Speaker 1: like tiny children.

682
00:32:18,180 --> 00:32:19,580
Speaker 2: It's true. That's true.

683
00:32:20,060 --> 00:32:22,910
Speaker 1: Yeah. It was great. Should we take a break?

684
00:32:23,810 --> 00:32:24,070
Speaker 2: Yes.

685
00:32:24,690 --> 00:32:26,370
Speaker 1: All right. We're going to take a break and move

686
00:32:26,390 --> 00:32:27,850
Speaker 1: into the cartoon era right after this.

687
00:32:53,860 --> 00:32:55,780
Speaker 2: So I think one of the things we're back, by

688
00:32:55,800 --> 00:32:57,719
Speaker 2: the way, Chuck, and one of the things that Nickelodeon

689
00:32:57,740 --> 00:33:01,040
Speaker 2: is now thought of more than anything else is a

690
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:04,240
Speaker 2: place where like some really great cartoons have been birthed.

691
00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:05,850
Speaker 1: Yeah.

692
00:33:06,630 --> 00:33:09,490
Speaker 2: Not the least of which was Ren and Stimpy, which

693
00:33:09,750 --> 00:33:12,830
Speaker 2: I always associate with MTV because it got picked up

694
00:33:12,850 --> 00:33:16,010
Speaker 2: by MTV. Like, I think while it was still original

695
00:33:16,050 --> 00:33:19,830
Speaker 2: stuff was running, but they syndicated it so fast that

696
00:33:19,890 --> 00:33:22,190
Speaker 2: MTV had it, too, if I'm not mistaken. But regardless.

697
00:33:22,580 --> 00:33:23,920
Speaker 2: It started out on Nickelodeon.

698
00:33:24,500 --> 00:33:27,340
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Ren and Stimpy show, a show called Doug and,

699
00:33:27,360 --> 00:33:31,600
Speaker 1: of course, Rugrats, all premiered in 1991, which is kind

700
00:33:31,620 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 1: of crazy because those shows were all huge.

701
00:33:33,830 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.

702
00:33:35,570 --> 00:33:38,430
Speaker 1: Laybourne was still the network head in 91, but left

703
00:33:38,570 --> 00:33:41,930
Speaker 1: about five years after that and was succeeded in 96

704
00:33:41,930 --> 00:33:44,950
Speaker 1: by a guy named Herb Scannell, I guess.

705
00:33:45,450 --> 00:33:45,650
Speaker 2: Sure.

706
00:33:46,210 --> 00:33:49,670
Speaker 1: And he really, I guess, was like, this animation thing

707
00:33:49,710 --> 00:33:52,550
Speaker 1: is the thing. We should keep doing it. Um, Ren

708
00:33:52,570 --> 00:33:55,030
Speaker 1: and Stimpy, uh, and you know, parents, this is where

709
00:33:55,070 --> 00:33:57,430
Speaker 1: things get a little dodgy. If you want to tune out,

710
00:33:57,450 --> 00:33:59,380
Speaker 1: if you have kids in the car, but, uh, the

711
00:33:59,390 --> 00:34:02,820
Speaker 1: creator of Ren and Stimpy, uh, John Crisfalusi, uh, he

712
00:34:02,860 --> 00:34:05,220
Speaker 1: ran the first two years, two seasons of that show.

713
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:08,299
Speaker 1: And it was really his brainchild. And it was such a,

714
00:34:08,340 --> 00:34:12,880
Speaker 1: just amazing, wonderful, hysterical show. Uh, but apparently he like, um,

715
00:34:13,260 --> 00:34:15,509
Speaker 1: couldn't stay on budget and would blow a lot of deadlines.

716
00:34:16,090 --> 00:34:19,060
Speaker 1: So he, they were like, you're out of here. And

717
00:34:19,100 --> 00:34:20,940
Speaker 1: the last three seasons, I think he was not a

718
00:34:20,980 --> 00:34:23,799
Speaker 1: part of and everyone was crushed at the time. But

719
00:34:23,860 --> 00:34:27,600
Speaker 1: then many years later in 2018, it was he was

720
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 1: exposed to women, came forward and was like this guy

721
00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:35,420
Speaker 1: sexually abused us in the 90s when we were 13

722
00:34:35,420 --> 00:34:38,680
Speaker 1: and 15. I think one of them like he had

723
00:34:38,719 --> 00:34:42,089
Speaker 1: a full on like relationship as a 15, 16 year old,

724
00:34:43,130 --> 00:34:46,850
Speaker 1: which is just, you know. Horrendous and sick. And he

725
00:34:46,910 --> 00:34:51,250
Speaker 1: later on gave a pretty terrible non-apology where he blamed

726
00:34:51,930 --> 00:34:55,450
Speaker 1: his mental health at the time and his poor impulse control.

727
00:34:56,750 --> 00:35:00,420
Speaker 1: He quit the business. The statute of limitations had passed

728
00:35:00,460 --> 00:35:03,779
Speaker 1: to do anything about that, unfortunately. But that was, you know,

729
00:35:03,940 --> 00:35:07,020
Speaker 1: that was unfortunately sort of the sad way that Ren

730
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:07,839
Speaker 1: and Stimpy ended.

731
00:35:08,780 --> 00:35:11,360
Speaker 2: Yeah. Ren and Stimpy, like you said, it carried on

732
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:15,479
Speaker 2: without him for years and it was great. Still, too. Yeah.

733
00:35:16,120 --> 00:35:20,380
Speaker 1: So by 96, Nickelodeon is the biggest thing in the world, basically.

734
00:35:20,420 --> 00:35:22,800
Speaker 1: They had the most daily viewers of any cable channel,

735
00:35:23,050 --> 00:35:26,290
Speaker 1: and they held that spot for 16 years, which is

736
00:35:26,390 --> 00:35:29,770
Speaker 1: quite a run. They had a bunch of other big cartoons,

737
00:35:29,930 --> 00:35:33,150
Speaker 1: one called Hey Arnold that I'd heard of. The Adventures

738
00:35:33,170 --> 00:35:35,989
Speaker 1: of Jimmy Neutron. Boy Genius was a big one in

739
00:35:36,010 --> 00:35:39,890
Speaker 1: the early 2000s. And then, you know, kind of leaning

740
00:35:39,950 --> 00:35:43,110
Speaker 1: away from these sort of wackier shows. They had shows

741
00:35:43,310 --> 00:35:47,380
Speaker 1: like Avatar, The Last Airbender, and then it's spinoff, The

742
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:51,459
Speaker 1: Legend of Korra, which is voiced, Korra is voiced by

743
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:53,700
Speaker 1: friend of the show and friend in real life, Janet Varney.

744
00:35:53,860 --> 00:35:55,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw that. It's pretty awesome.

745
00:35:55,640 --> 00:35:57,660
Speaker 1: It's the best. Ruby really got into that show and

746
00:35:58,820 --> 00:36:00,200
Speaker 1: for a while I was watching it with her and

747
00:36:00,219 --> 00:36:02,589
Speaker 1: it's really good and Janet was very sweet and would

748
00:36:02,630 --> 00:36:07,010
Speaker 1: send Ruby birthday videos with her like kind of talking

749
00:36:07,050 --> 00:36:08,950
Speaker 1: as Korra and it's just, Janet's the best.

750
00:36:09,110 --> 00:36:11,870
Speaker 2: That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I remember you telling me that,

751
00:36:11,890 --> 00:36:13,850
Speaker 2: and now I've connected the dots.

752
00:36:14,110 --> 00:36:15,270
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.

753
00:36:15,370 --> 00:36:19,390
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we've gone way out of my wheelhouse now.

754
00:36:19,430 --> 00:36:22,250
Speaker 2: The last one, the last cartoon that I watched consistently

755
00:36:22,310 --> 00:36:25,390
Speaker 2: came out in 93. It was Rocco's Modern Life, which

756
00:36:25,430 --> 00:36:28,090
Speaker 2: was really great. And I also used to watch Doug.

757
00:36:28,130 --> 00:36:29,090
Speaker 2: It was a sweet cartoon.

758
00:36:29,670 --> 00:36:30,390
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember Doug.

759
00:36:30,610 --> 00:36:33,760
Speaker 2: Kind of like a Diary of a Wimpy Kid kind

760
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:35,989
Speaker 2: of thing a little bit, too. You know, he's just

761
00:36:36,500 --> 00:36:39,320
Speaker 2: too gentle for, you know, his age group or something

762
00:36:39,380 --> 00:36:43,359
Speaker 2: like that. But far and away, the biggest cartoon that

763
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:47,020
Speaker 2: ever came out of Nickelodeon, the biggest cartoon that maybe

764
00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:51,509
Speaker 2: had ever been on television was and is SpongeBob SquarePants.

765
00:36:51,550 --> 00:36:55,549
Speaker 2: And that started in 1999. And a guy named Steven Hillenburg,

766
00:36:55,910 --> 00:36:59,410
Speaker 2: who I guess studied to be a marine biologist kind

767
00:36:59,430 --> 00:37:04,589
Speaker 2: of famously, he created SpongeBob SquarePants instead. And I think

768
00:37:04,630 --> 00:37:06,359
Speaker 2: it was probably a pretty good move on his part.

769
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:10,060
Speaker 1: Great move. It's still going today. It's in its 17th season.

770
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:14,700
Speaker 1: As of two years ago, when it hit its 25th anniversary,

771
00:37:15,380 --> 00:37:21,310
Speaker 1: the world learned that Nickelodeon had supposedly earned $ 16 billion

772
00:37:21,910 --> 00:37:23,950
Speaker 1: from SpongeBob retail stuff.

773
00:37:24,310 --> 00:37:25,090
Speaker 2: Yeah.

774
00:37:25,190 --> 00:37:27,649
Speaker 1: Toys and clothes and, you know, you name it. Like

775
00:37:27,750 --> 00:37:31,049
Speaker 1: anything up to and including a Broadway musical.

776
00:37:31,660 --> 00:37:35,110
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Hillenburg... Got a substantial chunk of that. He

777
00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:37,330
Speaker 2: had negotiated, I think, from the outset, like a pretty

778
00:37:37,390 --> 00:37:40,190
Speaker 2: decent amount of the merch percentage. Yeah.

779
00:37:40,270 --> 00:37:41,390
Speaker 1: George Lucas advice.

780
00:37:41,830 --> 00:37:43,910
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, yeah. The back end is what you want, right?

781
00:37:44,650 --> 00:37:47,810
Speaker 1: Well, no. Lucas was like merchandising. Like he negotiated that

782
00:37:47,850 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 1: Star Wars merchandising early on. And from then on, everyone

783
00:37:50,500 --> 00:37:51,560
Speaker 1: was like, that's the move.

784
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:54,420
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's always really paid off for us in ACES.

785
00:37:56,140 --> 00:37:59,259
Speaker 1: Well, I think they got mad at him about that, though, right?

786
00:37:59,989 --> 00:38:02,629
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we can kind of jump ahead a little

787
00:38:02,670 --> 00:38:05,549
Speaker 2: bit because today there's a lot of Nickelodeon fans who

788
00:38:05,610 --> 00:38:09,009
Speaker 2: are just really upset and heartbroken and frustrated because they

789
00:38:09,050 --> 00:38:11,410
Speaker 2: feel like the network was allowed to really get run

790
00:38:11,469 --> 00:38:15,330
Speaker 2: into the ground. And they lay the blame mostly at

791
00:38:15,670 --> 00:38:18,630
Speaker 2: the head of the network from 2006 to 2018. Her

792
00:38:19,090 --> 00:38:23,850
Speaker 2: name is Saima Zergami. And she is apparently well known

793
00:38:23,950 --> 00:38:28,010
Speaker 2: for not being happy that Hillenburg made as much money

794
00:38:28,230 --> 00:38:32,630
Speaker 2: as he did from the SpongeBob. rev share arrangement. And

795
00:38:32,710 --> 00:38:34,710
Speaker 2: so she made sure that if you were a new

796
00:38:34,830 --> 00:38:37,549
Speaker 2: creator coming to bring a show on to Nick, you

797
00:38:37,570 --> 00:38:42,739
Speaker 2: got zero bagel percentage of the merch sales from your creation.

798
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:46,220
Speaker 2: So that would scare away new creators who had anything

799
00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:49,060
Speaker 2: good under their belt, right? So that was one thing.

800
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:52,680
Speaker 2: So much so that they actually had what can really

801
00:38:52,739 --> 00:38:58,170
Speaker 2: only be taken as a desperate attempt to attract new talent.

802
00:38:58,250 --> 00:39:02,319
Speaker 2: They had a Nickelodeon animated shorts program in 2012, which

803
00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:05,190
Speaker 2: is like, hey, if you're unknown, submit a brief version

804
00:39:05,210 --> 00:39:07,469
Speaker 2: of your cartoon and maybe we'll pick it up. You

805
00:39:07,489 --> 00:39:10,550
Speaker 2: don't do that if you have like established creators coming

806
00:39:10,590 --> 00:39:11,850
Speaker 2: to you with shows, right?

807
00:39:12,270 --> 00:39:15,110
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's kind of a sneaky way to get free programming.

808
00:39:15,330 --> 00:39:18,050
Speaker 2: Exactly. Or to get people who you can exploit because

809
00:39:18,070 --> 00:39:20,140
Speaker 2: they're hungry to get their foot in the door, right?

810
00:39:20,680 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 2: So there's that. She also turned down Adventure Time when

811
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 2: it was picked to Nickelodeon first, which is like if

812
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:29,590
Speaker 2: you're a cartoon fan and you turn down Adventure Time,

813
00:39:29,630 --> 00:39:33,020
Speaker 2: you're just a pariah. Yeah. And then also, Chuck, and

814
00:39:33,060 --> 00:39:36,839
Speaker 2: this is much more serious, she is basically, she's really

815
00:39:36,900 --> 00:39:40,260
Speaker 2: criticized for essentially turning her head the other way, looking

816
00:39:40,320 --> 00:39:44,030
Speaker 2: the other way, while a guy named Dan Snyder basically

817
00:39:44,090 --> 00:39:47,270
Speaker 2: carried out a reign of terror among a lot of

818
00:39:47,330 --> 00:39:51,649
Speaker 2: the live action fans. shows that featured child actors who

819
00:39:52,050 --> 00:39:54,350
Speaker 2: did not get enough protection from the network.

820
00:39:55,110 --> 00:39:59,610
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Like there was a systemic, um, child

821
00:39:59,730 --> 00:40:02,430
Speaker 1: sexual abuse problem at Nickelodeon. That's the only way to

822
00:40:02,469 --> 00:40:02,740
Speaker 1: say it.

823
00:40:02,830 --> 00:40:02,989
Speaker 2: Yeah.

824
00:40:03,469 --> 00:40:05,410
Speaker 1: Uh, there was a documentary, uh, did you ever see it?

825
00:40:06,170 --> 00:40:08,550
Speaker 2: No. Uh, what's it called? Quiet on the set. Yeah.

826
00:40:08,590 --> 00:40:10,780
Speaker 1: Quiet on the set, colon, the dark side of kids TV.

827
00:40:10,820 --> 00:40:13,660
Speaker 1: It was a couple of years ago and I watched it. Uh, it's,

828
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:16,620
Speaker 1: it's pretty upsetting, but I'm sure, um, you know, you're

829
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:17,980
Speaker 1: a big Nickelodeon guy, so I don't know if you

830
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:19,930
Speaker 1: want to, You know all this happened, but it might

831
00:40:19,950 --> 00:40:22,150
Speaker 1: be upsetting for you to actually see the documentary.

832
00:40:22,250 --> 00:40:25,009
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, even without being a Nickelodeon guy, I'm

833
00:40:25,050 --> 00:40:26,850
Speaker 2: sure it's upsetting, right? It is.

834
00:40:26,950 --> 00:40:29,370
Speaker 1: But Dan Schneider, you may know him. He was an actor.

835
00:40:29,450 --> 00:40:32,250
Speaker 1: He was Dennis on Head of the Class. He was

836
00:40:32,370 --> 00:40:37,200
Speaker 1: in Better Off Dead with John Cusack.

837
00:40:37,219 --> 00:40:38,839
Speaker 2: That was him? Yeah, yeah.

838
00:40:38,900 --> 00:40:43,960
Speaker 1: He was the sort of loser neighbor who the exchange

839
00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 1: student lived with.

840
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:47,419
Speaker 2: Yeah. I never put those two characters together, but yeah,

841
00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:48,020
Speaker 2: I see it now.

842
00:40:48,580 --> 00:40:51,000
Speaker 1: So that's where I knew him from. But he started

843
00:40:51,060 --> 00:40:53,580
Speaker 1: out as a writer in 1994 on the sketch show

844
00:40:53,660 --> 00:40:56,680
Speaker 1: All That and created some of their biggest live action shows.

845
00:40:57,390 --> 00:41:02,930
Speaker 1: The Amanda Show with Amanda Bynes, Drake and Josh, Zoey 101, iCarly,

846
00:41:03,370 --> 00:41:07,670
Speaker 1: Henry Danger. Like these are humongous shows. And at the

847
00:41:07,710 --> 00:41:10,390
Speaker 1: time he was being criticized, like even while he was

848
00:41:10,430 --> 00:41:13,730
Speaker 1: there of like, man, this guy's like putting pretty overt,

849
00:41:13,850 --> 00:41:19,070
Speaker 1: like sexual humor in these shows. Shows and like making

850
00:41:19,250 --> 00:41:24,430
Speaker 1: girls do like really kind of pretty obvious sexual things like,

851
00:41:24,570 --> 00:41:27,529
Speaker 1: you know, things that were very phallic. Like, obviously, like

852
00:41:27,550 --> 00:41:30,140
Speaker 1: when you see clips in the documentary, it's just like, man,

853
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:32,280
Speaker 1: are you kidding me? Like, why didn't someone say something?

854
00:41:32,300 --> 00:41:32,620
Speaker 2: Right.

855
00:41:32,660 --> 00:41:35,420
Speaker 1: It's just so obvious. Well, later on, he denied like

856
00:41:35,460 --> 00:41:38,940
Speaker 1: we never did anything like that intentionally. He basically gaslit

857
00:41:38,980 --> 00:41:42,740
Speaker 1: everyone with his apology later. But there was more abuse

858
00:41:42,780 --> 00:41:43,399
Speaker 1: going on, too.

859
00:41:43,480 --> 00:41:47,770
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, Drake Bell, who I didn't watch it, but

860
00:41:47,790 --> 00:41:49,709
Speaker 2: I'm guessing he was one of the characters on Drake

861
00:41:49,750 --> 00:41:52,330
Speaker 2: and Josh as well. Yeah. He started out on The

862
00:41:52,370 --> 00:41:55,839
Speaker 2: Amanda Show with Amanda Bynes. He had a dialogue coach

863
00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:58,880
Speaker 2: who sexually abused him, a dialogue coach named Brian Peck,

864
00:41:59,280 --> 00:42:03,319
Speaker 2: who was convicted in 2004. 2004 was also a bad

865
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:07,469
Speaker 2: year in that production assistant named Jason Handy, who worked

866
00:42:07,510 --> 00:42:10,810
Speaker 2: with some child actors on All That and The Amanda Show.

867
00:42:11,350 --> 00:42:14,650
Speaker 2: He got a six-year sentence for sexually abusing two girls.

868
00:42:15,410 --> 00:42:19,460
Speaker 2: And then a few years after that, another Nickelodeon worker,

869
00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:23,400
Speaker 2: an animator named Ezel Channel, was convicted of sexually abusing

870
00:42:23,460 --> 00:42:25,380
Speaker 2: boys at the studio. So this is what I was

871
00:42:25,420 --> 00:42:30,640
Speaker 2: saying when I was saying, like, Saima Zorgami is– not

872
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:34,629
Speaker 2: very well thought of among fans, just at the very

873
00:42:34,730 --> 00:42:38,730
Speaker 2: least for that, just for not doing anything about that.

874
00:42:39,050 --> 00:42:42,530
Speaker 2: And even if she or the other heads didn't know

875
00:42:42,710 --> 00:42:45,930
Speaker 2: what was going on, the fact that there was that,

876
00:42:46,690 --> 00:42:50,100
Speaker 2: that it was that easy for people to prey on

877
00:42:50,260 --> 00:42:54,620
Speaker 2: child actors. You got child actors, man, like they deserve

878
00:42:54,700 --> 00:42:58,259
Speaker 2: special protection, even more than your average kid. Because your

879
00:42:58,340 --> 00:43:02,509
Speaker 2: average kid is not in a situation with a bunch

880
00:43:02,530 --> 00:43:06,790
Speaker 2: of creators and teamsters and whoever else. Right. Like when

881
00:43:06,989 --> 00:43:08,989
Speaker 2: my niece Mila is on the set, both of her

882
00:43:09,030 --> 00:43:11,350
Speaker 2: parents are there. And at least one of them is

883
00:43:11,370 --> 00:43:13,189
Speaker 2: there all the time. Oh, yeah.

884
00:43:13,469 --> 00:43:13,850
Speaker 1: I'm sure.

885
00:43:14,310 --> 00:43:16,230
Speaker 2: Like that's just what you have to do if you

886
00:43:16,250 --> 00:43:18,650
Speaker 2: have a child actor. And apparently that's just not what

887
00:43:18,690 --> 00:43:20,830
Speaker 2: was going on everywhere in these shows. Yeah.

888
00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:24,379
Speaker 1: No, it was way more lax back then. And, you know,

889
00:43:24,420 --> 00:43:25,839
Speaker 1: you hear all this stuff and you're just like, what

890
00:43:25,900 --> 00:43:29,319
Speaker 1: is going on at Nickelodeon? And the sad truth is

891
00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:33,760
Speaker 1: it was a kid's network with kid shows with kid actors.

892
00:43:33,900 --> 00:43:37,000
Speaker 1: And that's where, like, someone who's a predator will, like,

893
00:43:37,700 --> 00:43:41,470
Speaker 1: go and get a job. And it's deeply, deeply upsetting

894
00:43:41,590 --> 00:43:46,109
Speaker 1: that that happened and was allowed to happen. And there

895
00:43:46,489 --> 00:43:49,029
Speaker 1: weren't more protections in place. Like, the documentary is just

896
00:43:49,770 --> 00:43:50,410
Speaker 1: a brutal watch.

897
00:43:50,530 --> 00:43:59,700
Speaker 2: I bet. So Dan Schneider finally, after I think 24 years, maybe? No. Yeah.

898
00:43:59,700 --> 00:44:04,100
Speaker 2: 24 years at the network. He was fired because an

899
00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:08,080
Speaker 2: actress named Jeanette McCurdy, who was on iCarly and also

900
00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:11,060
Speaker 2: starred with Ariana Grande on Sam and Cat, which is

901
00:44:11,100 --> 00:44:14,920
Speaker 2: an iCarly spinoff. She basically came out and was like,

902
00:44:14,980 --> 00:44:17,969
Speaker 2: I'm not going to keep quiet any longer. And she

903
00:44:18,050 --> 00:44:20,930
Speaker 2: started essentially like saying like Dan Schneider did this, Dan

904
00:44:20,950 --> 00:44:23,489
Speaker 2: Schneider did that. Dan Schneider insisted that I wear a

905
00:44:23,530 --> 00:44:26,770
Speaker 2: bikini for a hot tub scene, even though I wanted

906
00:44:26,810 --> 00:44:29,760
Speaker 2: to wear a one piece. He encouraged us to drink

907
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:32,799
Speaker 2: as like 16 year olds and stuff. Right. So that

908
00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:35,819
Speaker 2: was enough to get Dan Schneider pushed out. But then

909
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:40,340
Speaker 2: she went further. She published a memoir in 2022 titled

910
00:44:40,430 --> 00:44:43,790
Speaker 2: I'm Glad My Mother's Dead. And there's not some ironic

911
00:44:43,890 --> 00:44:46,489
Speaker 2: twist to that title. Like it's exactly what you think.

912
00:44:46,969 --> 00:44:49,299
Speaker 2: Or it sounds like she was glad her mother's dead,

913
00:44:49,660 --> 00:44:52,520
Speaker 2: in part because her mother pushed her into acting and

914
00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:56,000
Speaker 2: basically set her up to be exposed to the stuff

915
00:44:56,020 --> 00:44:58,880
Speaker 2: she was exposed to. And in that, she refers to

916
00:44:58,920 --> 00:45:02,210
Speaker 2: Dan Snyder as the creator. And she just alleged some

917
00:45:02,230 --> 00:45:06,250
Speaker 2: more stuff, too, that really just put a really negative

918
00:45:06,430 --> 00:45:07,989
Speaker 2: light on Nickelodeon.

919
00:45:08,670 --> 00:45:12,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean— Viacom CBS at the time, they did

920
00:45:12,120 --> 00:45:15,100
Speaker 1: an investigation and came out and said, well, we don't

921
00:45:15,140 --> 00:45:18,660
Speaker 1: have any evidence of sexual misconduct, but Dan Schneider was

922
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:21,319
Speaker 1: verbally abusive, we found out, and he threw tantrums, so

923
00:45:21,360 --> 00:45:24,859
Speaker 1: he's out of here. When she, and this is even

924
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 1: more upsetting, when all this came out, after Salmon Cat

925
00:45:28,060 --> 00:45:32,520
Speaker 1: was canceled, she had a conference call. This was Jeanette McCurdy,

926
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:35,180
Speaker 1: the actress who wrote the book, and the victim, one

927
00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:37,550
Speaker 1: of the victims, she had a conference call with a

928
00:45:37,590 --> 00:45:40,790
Speaker 1: bunch of agents and managers, and She was offered, and

929
00:45:40,810 --> 00:45:43,350
Speaker 1: didn't take it, but she was offered $ 300, 000 just to

930
00:45:43,390 --> 00:45:45,940
Speaker 1: never talk about it again. Don't talk about Dan Schneider.

931
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:49,100
Speaker 1: Don't talk about Nickelodeon. And she turned it down. And

932
00:45:49,120 --> 00:45:52,540
Speaker 1: then after that, there were leaks to the media that, well,

933
00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:55,360
Speaker 1: the series really ended because she was mad that Ariana

934
00:45:55,400 --> 00:45:57,900
Speaker 1: Grande was paid more than her, which is about as

935
00:45:58,200 --> 00:45:59,060
Speaker 1: vile as it gets.

936
00:45:59,160 --> 00:46:04,390
Speaker 2: What scumbags, man. That's just terrible. So, like you said,

937
00:46:04,410 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 2: that docuseries came out and really just kind of got

938
00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:10,800
Speaker 2: the point across about what was going on. There's a

939
00:46:10,860 --> 00:46:15,630
Speaker 2: journalist who was part of the documentary Scotchy Cool. And

940
00:46:15,670 --> 00:46:18,250
Speaker 2: they said that a lot of these people are still

941
00:46:18,290 --> 00:46:19,989
Speaker 2: working in the industry, by the way.

942
00:46:20,469 --> 00:46:20,689
Speaker 1: Yeah.

943
00:46:21,270 --> 00:46:24,190
Speaker 2: So like you said, Schneider, Dan Schneider issued an apology

944
00:46:24,230 --> 00:46:26,830
Speaker 2: on YouTube, but you said it was a non-apology. I

945
00:46:26,870 --> 00:46:28,570
Speaker 2: didn't watch it. Yeah.

946
00:46:28,590 --> 00:46:31,190
Speaker 1: I mean, he basically gaslit everyone and was like, yeah,

947
00:46:31,230 --> 00:46:34,239
Speaker 1: you know what? I did some embarrassing things, but I

948
00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:36,799
Speaker 1: didn't intend to have any sexual jokes on the show. Like,

949
00:46:36,840 --> 00:46:38,560
Speaker 1: you're just seeing what you want to see, basically.

950
00:46:38,780 --> 00:46:42,600
Speaker 2: Right. And then Nickelodeon didn't do itself any favors by issuing, like,

951
00:46:42,640 --> 00:46:47,180
Speaker 2: a really legalese non-apology itself, saying they couldn't corroborate or

952
00:46:47,260 --> 00:46:51,920
Speaker 2: negate allegations of misdeeds decades ago. Like, get over it.

953
00:46:51,960 --> 00:46:55,300
Speaker 2: This sexual abuse is, like, 20 years ago. Yeah.

954
00:46:55,820 --> 00:47:00,740
Speaker 1: Pretty disappointing. Nickelodeon, like you said, has really gone downhill

955
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:03,980
Speaker 1: a lot since then. And, you know... partially because that's

956
00:47:04,440 --> 00:47:06,460
Speaker 1: kind of what happened to a lot of cable TV networks.

957
00:47:07,020 --> 00:47:10,010
Speaker 1: Like people, including kids, obviously have been moving away from

958
00:47:10,370 --> 00:47:14,229
Speaker 1: traditional television and that model. And kids probably like quicker

959
00:47:14,270 --> 00:47:18,830
Speaker 1: than even older viewers. So their ratings have dropped a lot.

960
00:47:18,870 --> 00:47:21,860
Speaker 1: You know, they were number one for 16 years, the

961
00:47:21,890 --> 00:47:24,979
Speaker 1: number one cable network. Now they are the 60th, six

962
00:47:25,020 --> 00:47:30,770
Speaker 1: zero most popular cable channel with about 122,000 daily viewers. But,

963
00:47:30,830 --> 00:47:34,010
Speaker 1: you know, they're diversifying. They're doing programming for other TV

964
00:47:34,050 --> 00:47:38,440
Speaker 1: networks and also doing like web stuff and app stuff.

965
00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:41,739
Speaker 2: Yeah, I looked that up. It's about it's about the

966
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:45,000
Speaker 2: same that Disney Channel, not Disney Plus, but the cable

967
00:47:45,520 --> 00:47:49,140
Speaker 2: Disney cable channel gets every day. So it seems like

968
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:52,759
Speaker 2: it's not just Nick, but they also have about two

969
00:47:52,820 --> 00:47:56,020
Speaker 2: point five times what Cartoon Network gets. But it's only

970
00:47:56,060 --> 00:47:58,419
Speaker 2: a third of what TV land gets every day.

971
00:47:58,520 --> 00:47:58,660
Speaker 1: So.

972
00:47:59,300 --> 00:48:01,500
Speaker 2: Oh, wow. People go nuts for those Friends reruns.

973
00:48:03,020 --> 00:48:05,299
Speaker 1: I watch those in hotels a lot.

974
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:06,319
Speaker 2: Do you?

975
00:48:07,060 --> 00:48:10,100
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, you know, flipping it around. They have the

976
00:48:10,180 --> 00:48:12,910
Speaker 1: awful motion smoothing on all the hotel TVs.

977
00:48:12,930 --> 00:48:13,890
Speaker 2: No, you hate that.

978
00:48:14,469 --> 00:48:15,650
Speaker 1: Oh, man. Of course I do.

979
00:48:15,730 --> 00:48:17,530
Speaker 2: I just don't even know what you're talking about.

980
00:48:18,030 --> 00:48:19,270
Speaker 1: Well, I'll have to show you sometime.

981
00:48:19,290 --> 00:48:19,529
Speaker 2: Okay.

982
00:48:20,630 --> 00:48:25,250
Speaker 1: But some of those older studio audience sitcoms don't look

983
00:48:25,310 --> 00:48:26,299
Speaker 1: as bad with that on.

984
00:48:26,450 --> 00:48:26,740
Speaker 2: I see.

985
00:48:27,180 --> 00:48:27,960
Speaker 1: So that's why I watch that.

986
00:48:28,590 --> 00:48:32,190
Speaker 2: Yeah, once I've seen the Friends without the laugh track videos,

987
00:48:32,370 --> 00:48:33,590
Speaker 2: I can't watch it anymore.

988
00:48:33,610 --> 00:48:35,750
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, I forgot. Those were fun.

989
00:48:35,950 --> 00:48:39,390
Speaker 2: It wasn't a big loss. But anyway, that's Nickelodeon, everybody,

990
00:48:39,450 --> 00:48:41,290
Speaker 2: for you. Sorry to end it on a bummer, but

991
00:48:41,330 --> 00:48:44,410
Speaker 2: that's the state of affairs right now. Hopefully it'll come

992
00:48:44,450 --> 00:48:47,680
Speaker 2: back and get great again. And in the meantime, while

993
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:50,239
Speaker 2: we wait for Nickelodeon to get great again, how about

994
00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:50,879
Speaker 2: listener mail?

995
00:48:53,960 --> 00:48:56,060
Speaker 1: All right, this is short and sweet. Hey, guys, this

996
00:48:56,120 --> 00:48:59,060
Speaker 1: is On Rope. When rope is cut to length and

997
00:48:59,219 --> 00:49:02,980
Speaker 1: used for a purpose on a ship, everybody, it becomes line.

998
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:03,620
Speaker 2: Hello.

999
00:49:04,260 --> 00:49:07,180
Speaker 1: Chuck was using line when hoisting jibs and sails. I've

1000
00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:10,280
Speaker 1: never sailed myself, but whenever I talked with my boss

1001
00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:13,049
Speaker 1: who did sail, I would say rope and he would

1002
00:49:13,090 --> 00:49:16,109
Speaker 1: correct me and say, no, it's line on a boat.

1003
00:49:16,210 --> 00:49:18,870
Speaker 1: So as soon as Chuck said rope in his Nantucket story,

1004
00:49:18,969 --> 00:49:21,299
Speaker 1: I stuttered. it's all good to me though guys but

1005
00:49:21,400 --> 00:49:23,620
Speaker 1: passing this along in honor of my old boss and

1006
00:49:23,660 --> 00:49:28,440
Speaker 1: that is Bill from Latitz I guess is how you

1007
00:49:28,460 --> 00:49:32,040
Speaker 1: pronounce it L-I-T-I-T-Z Latitz Latitz.

1008
00:49:31,960 --> 00:49:33,970
Speaker 2: What is that in a state or is it its

1009
00:49:34,050 --> 00:49:35,820
Speaker 2: own micronation I've.

1010
00:49:35,719 --> 00:49:36,779
Speaker 1: Never heard of it. I'm going to look it up

1011
00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:38,380
Speaker 1: right now, though, while you chit-chat.

1012
00:49:38,660 --> 00:49:41,000
Speaker 2: Okay. Well, thanks a lot, Bill. We're going to try

1013
00:49:41,020 --> 00:49:42,280
Speaker 2: to figure out where you're from.

1014
00:49:42,739 --> 00:49:43,279
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania.

1015
00:49:43,520 --> 00:49:45,890
Speaker 2: Okay. Pennsylvania. I could have guessed that.

1016
00:49:46,210 --> 00:49:47,770
Speaker 1: Yeah, Lancaster County. I love it. Sure.

1017
00:49:47,850 --> 00:49:50,689
Speaker 2: Okay. Oh, hey, Bill hangs out with the Amish there.

1018
00:49:51,170 --> 00:49:52,089
Speaker 1: That's right. All right.

1019
00:49:52,110 --> 00:49:54,390
Speaker 2: Well, Bill, be sure to tell the Amish we say hi.

1020
00:49:54,830 --> 00:49:56,790
Speaker 2: And if you want to be like Bill and correct

1021
00:49:56,850 --> 00:49:59,850
Speaker 2: us ever so gently and kindly like Bill did, you

1022
00:49:59,890 --> 00:50:03,590
Speaker 2: can send it in an email to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com.

1023
00:50:07,480 --> 00:50:10,350
Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

1024
00:50:10,370 --> 00:50:14,480
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1025
00:50:14,660 --> 00:50:16,420
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.