Flash Back to Your Favorite ’90s Nickelodeon Shows, Starting Next Monday
Audience Participation
If there’s anything I’ve learned in the past half-decade of my life, it’s that you’re never too young to be nostalgic. Less than five years after the decade ended, we were watching I Love the 90s on VH1, and less than four years after that (before that decade had even ended) we were feasting on I Love the New Millenium. We can’t help it. Snap bracelets! Boy bands! Lisa Frank! Clueless! The 90s were great, guys, especially if you got to experience them through the rosy lenses of youth.
Nickelodeon seems to agree. Starting next Monday, TeenNick will be rebroadcasting a number of the shows that have, since their original ’90s air dates, been turned into classics through the ardent nostalgia of the generation who grew up with them.
According to the channel, a big inspiration for the resurgence was taken from the vast amount of support that had rallied around facebook groups remembering the magical youth-centered shows of the decade (apparently there are now up to 15 million fans of these pages on facebook). Another part of the decision came from Nickelodeon’s interns–the people at perhaps the most prime age to have been primarily watching Nick at the time–who worked together to put together a presentation last summer suggesting they bring the shows back.
Facebook won’t only have to do with the inspiration for the re-airs, though; the channel has stated that it will be watching facebook closely to get a sense of which shows to bring back. So far on the repertoire are classics like the Melissa Joan Hart vehicle Clarissa Explains it All, Keenan and Kel, All That, and Doug. With (good) Saturday Morning Cartoons having long gone the way of the dinosaurs, being able to dive into these old shows feels like it could be a really great way to time travel back to those times. As Nickelodeon president Cyma Zarghami said, this new programming plan “is allowing young people to be nostalgic, probably sooner than other generations,” many before they’ve even neared their 30th birthdays.
It’s probably lucky most who’ll be paying attention to the rebroadcasting are still entrenched in youth, as they’ll be airing pretty late; in the block between midnight and 4AM, to be precise.
This excerpt from the New York Times article pretty well sums up where this might be going next:
If the classics cause a ratings increase, it’s easy to foresee the ’90s block’s becoming as permanent as “Nick at Nite.” When Ms. Zarghami returned to her high school in Englewood, N.J., for a presentation earlier this year, the questions, she said, were: “What happened to ‘Hey Arnold!’? What happened to ‘The Wild Thornberrys’? What happened to ‘Legends of the Hidden Temple’? ”
“I said, ‘We’re thinking about bringing all that stuff back,’ and there was literally a resounding cheer in the room.”
Ms. Zarghami said the network would continue to monitor comments and conduct polls on Facebook. “We’ll have the audience pick where we go next,” she said.
So, there you go. What happens next is up to us. If you want The Amanda Show or The Wild Thornberrys back, just be loud on the internet about it. As if you weren’t already doing just that.
(Via New York Times)
(Photo via College Candy)
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