Stick Stickly Summers

People in the know know how zany Nick used to be, and how the idea of a popsicle sick announcer didn't sound weird at all. Stick Stickly was his name, googly eyes and felt mouth, and he was there for us at least a few summers back in the 90s announcing all the shows, doing commercials, and chilling with his popsicle and spork homeboys and girls all those sweltering summer afternoons of yore. There we could find him hosting a segment block called "Nick in the Afternoon," usually occupying some kind of miniature set featuring a prominent outlet in the back while constantly imploring all the shenanigans to "simmer down!" He also had his very own autobiographical special. I mean, this guy got to hang with celebrities, throw parties in the streets, and do whatever he was contracted to do to fill up 20 seconds at a time during commercial breaks, and I got to say, he was a welcome addition to the summer fun while it lasted.

Yeah that stick was alright... but now he's definitely in the "where are they now" file. 

The Adventures of Pete & Pete

The Adventures of Pete & Pete was like the last couple days of summer or at least the early days of thanksgiving break (and not just because the show seemed perpetually set in the late summer or early Autumn), and boy did I love it. It went and did all the things you only thought about doing as a kid, or at least, doing what you did to the Nth. Adults want you to stay after school? Stay there forever! Has oppressive bed time got you down? Join the "Nightcrawlers," stay up forever, and break the "International Adult Conspiracy" (governed by those suffering from hemorrhoids). School getting dull? Fake a sickday, or better yet, go for a "double dipper!" Left home alone? Sell the house! Of all things ginger and flannel cap, you couldn't beat this. From the rock band on the front lawn (the show's own house band, Polaris, from Mark Mulcahy, formerly of Miracle Legion... own their album, it's legitly good!) to the cutting of the grass with the approval of the lawn gnome, it was capital-R Radical, and true to what a brother relationship is like. I know, because this was pretty much my life as well.

And argue about it as much as you want, but we will never know the true lyrics of this song: 

So let's start out with the "Brothers Pete." Back then nobody seemed wiser than that spacey teenager with the denim and curly hair (named Pete) who narrated every "adventure," and nobody was downright cooler than his younger brother (also mysteriously named Pete) who could man his own ham radio station (WART), collect burps in a paper bag, wield a blow torch, and drive a riding mower to Canada. They were your average ginger brothers living in the suburbs of Wellsville, in a state only known as "The Sideburn State" on their license plates. Average, of course, if you ignore everything else about them and their surreal town. 

But then there were all their weird friends and enemies... first of all Ellen, older Pete's lifelong girlfriend, "friend who is a girl" and girl-friend (or whatever they decided it was that episode), a very mature-dressing, often-beret-sporting "young lady" (and a MASSIVE crush for me!) who dared to ask "why?" and played french horn in the marching band formations, scoring the "dot spot" in the word "Squids" (in Roman Gothic font, no less). Then there was also young Pete's lanky-armed "personal superhero" Artie The Strongest Man In The World (who was at least the strangest man in the world)... who was not a figment of his imagination but really just an ever-flexing, lanky mental patient weirdo in tights (sometimes with and without actual super-powers) who lived in a Porta-john and followed him around, calling him "My Little Viking!" (It seemed so much more innocent as a kid, I swear.) After that there was Dad, their very hair-impaired Suburban dad who dreamed of catching the prize-winning fish named Bob, and Mom, who had a metal plate in her head and had something to do with why the drive-in movie phonebooth had been ringing for 27 years (until young Pete saved the town from its endless ringing and finally answer the call). "Mom, it's for you."

This show had a whole cast of surreal characters. Even the metal plate in Mom's head was a character (named "Mom's Plate" in the opening credits), picking up radio transmissions and frequencies that would cause her to break dishware, as was young Pete's hot chick arm tattoo "Petunia," who he could make "dance" by flexing his muscle (but who "never made it into movies"). Then there was Ken the smoking crossing guard who had seen one too many spy flicks, Monica the "Kreb Scout of death" who never owned a pet that hadn't died (all 30 of them!), and Mr. Tastee the ice cream cone man who ruled the summer with an edible fist. There was Ray the Meter Man electrician who could see the future based on your house's kilowatt hour usage, Stu the love-crossed psychopathic school bus driver who tried to kill them all, Wayne the "Super Genius," and the British gym class teacher whose tyranny called for the great Dodgeball War after young Pete's insurrection.  Then there was Pit Stain, who really had a way of "picking your scabs," together with his crumby gang of bullies: Hair Net, Drawstring, and Nightbrace. Young Pete even had a personal "guardian angel of underwear" named "Inspector 34."

Eventually Artie left the show and they decided to give Younger Pete his own "friend who is a girl" (or girl-friend), and introduced Nona... a girl kind of his tit-for-tat equal and partner in crime! She was played by Michelle Trachtenberg (love of my young life), who later went on to be none other than Harriet the Spy! The untangling of their relationship is genuinely touching, and Polaris supplies the song "Everywhere" to supplement it, which... seriously check it out. Just as cool though is that her dad in the show is played by none other than Iggy Pop! The crazy thing is there's the godfather of punk rock, Iggy Pop, and yet he plays such a non-plussed character, perpetually disengaged from his own daughter (though trying his best). There's even an episode where he gets on stage to perform, and he does a slow crooner lounge number! The B52s also show up at one point. 

Watching a show like this for all three of its seasons could teach you some valuable lessons. For example, that the song "Marmalade Cream" was pretty hardcore. That there is nothing strange about cowboy neighbors branding their lawn equipment like cattle. That a hot summer day really can melt road tar and car tires. That kids who eat a lot of ketchup are definitely space aliens. That getting out of being grounded for life is as easy as tunneling through the yard with a string of Christmas lights and a mantle piece Statue of Liberty (symbolizing your freedom!!). That "Roadkill Bingo" can make a road trip more memorable. That pet geckos with a "lust for life" can play mini-Foosball. And that scissors definitely beats Papercut because he only throws paper!

I suppose the big lesson about the show though was just the brother relationship, and how the "Brothers Pete" could live in two totally different worlds and yet still jell (even if young Pete still needed a fresh supply of oxygen at his bedside after sharing a bedroom with his brother). The older Pete would be off doing the stuff teens do like hanging out with "girls" and working summer jobs (at the golf course and swimming pool) while Pete the younger would be doing all the cool stuff like launching the neighborhood "prank war" or traveling back in time on daylight savings (with the power of "Riboflavin") to exact revenge on the bully "Endless Mike Hellstrom."

This was adults vs. kids, kids vs. bullies, and "kids just being kids" stuff at its best, and it made you believe. Watching it now makes you realize just how innocent (and messed up) you were as a kid. More than sheer entertainment, the show has given me a very large collection of insults and minced oaths that I draw on from time to time in my daily life to "lay it down," so to speak. Such phrases as "get a life brain drain!"  "stuff it jerkweed!" "bust my clamps!" "suck my fumes, nimrod!" "oh poke me with a stick!" and "take that, lunch bag!" all really do the trick. And seriously, who can argue with such classics like "choke on it, tool box!" "kill me with a brick!," "cheese plug!," "no chance, wingnut!," and of course: "buckle up, it's not just the law, it feels good!" You said it younger Pete, nothing feels better than total subversiveness, and that's what this show was.

"Bite my scab!" --Paid for by the Committee to Give Pete the Bowling Ball.

Nickelodeon Gak

Even if you were living under a rock in the 90s, you probably came across Nickelodeon Gak (I think that's where they got it from). It was slimy, stretchy, liquid-y, snot in a plastic cup, and it was fun enough if only because it farted when you squished it in its cup. Gak was also probably the substance that filled me and my friends' heads most of the time back then, and not just because I tried eating it once.

Sure, you could press it into things for indentations, or bounce it off the desk, or roll it into balls, but the best thing was that if you squished it into its cup, it farted! Yeah, you could stretch it over your mouth and blow a small bubble through it, or pull it to pieces and stick things on the wall with it... but just so you know, it did indeed FART when squeezed... kind of like me. Are you picking up what I'm laying down? Forget the other stuff it did! Just call this stuff the iFart of the 90s! And how appropriate that it should be, seeing as it smelled like some kind of chemical waste.

Gak lost its fun when it started getting dry and crumbly, or once it got sat on and pressed into the couch cushions or stepped on and stuck up your sneaker treads. The novelty soon wore off, but get yourself another batch and it was sticky, oozy, goo-y squishy fun all over again. And for little weirdos like me, anything that meant never-ending ripply, blurping, raspy fart sounds seemed like the only toy I'd ever really need, even if the "sound effects" weren't really up to my exacting standards, but there were a LOT of them. And just like a fart, only try to get your brother to eat it 

Nickelodeon GUTS!

A view from the top.

With the Olympics now in full-swing (me being heavily invested in the US Women's Volleyball team for... reasons that have almost everything to do with their athleticism), it slowly got me thinking about Nickelodeon's own Olympics-like show in the 90s... "The action sports show that's gonna make you sweat!" You know, the one that proved bright yellow helmets actually do match perfectly with any color climbing gear. The one where they were constantly bouncing around on bungy chords and climbing up stuff and having stuff thrown at them.

"Do-do-do do you have it?" You know... GUTS!

Or as I used to say, "BUTTS!" It sure has been a while since Nick had a show that could inflict serious injury on a kid. And for that reason there was always that part of me thinking, "wow that's neat what they just did there,"  and another part thinking, "sure glad it ain't me!" But with a constant theme that sounded like something from Michael Jackson's Dangerous album mixed with random "GUTS!" chants, this show was designed to activate your inner testosterone devil... which is both exactly why they told us not to imitate any of the stunts, and exactly why I ignored that part.

00's kids, this is what you missed.

GUTS was like, gym class on steroids. You had this "in your face" jock named Mike O'Malley doing a lot of fist-pumping in the middle of this massive stadium, surrounded by all these ropes, tramps, and wide assortments of stackable gym cushions, and you'd quickly feel like he'd have you dropping to give him twenty if you failed it. And just like a gym teacher, this guy was just constantly "on it." And I mean, like, face just FULL of cocaine constantly. (He had been the host of another Nick game show "Get the Picture" where he was often memorable as well, constantly eating during the show and complaining about how they don't give him a lunch break.) Watching it felt like those moments in gym class where you'd look around at all the scary equipment and wonder what death-defying things the teacher might wimp-call you into doing that day. But what made it better than gym class for a scrawny dork like me (utterly devoid of muscle) was that all the sports rounds were short. I sucked at every sport there was, so a 30 second time limit would've spared me a lot of pain and embarrassment then, not to mention push-ups.

Then there was that British girl named Moe for some reason who always wore that jail-stripe Nike commercial jersey and wailed on that whistle, calling my name ("On your MARK...!") and saying "Go" every couple minutes (at least I kind of wish she was calling my name... "Uh, hey baby..." -Butthead). And in general there was also a lot of yellow teeth guards, eye guards, elbow pads, knee pads, butt pads... every kind of pad and jock strap around, and somehow the kids wearing them got points along the way from the all-knowing "Leaderboard" that Moe would read from.

Behold, the Aggro-Crag.

And after these kid Olympians swam, bounced, hurdled, biked, and threw a lot of tennis balls at sticky targets, they were suddenly transformed into American Gladiators for the last five minutes, and forced to face the all-intimidating Aggro-Crag! Each player would have to ascend a jumble of fake, jagged rocks just oozing with smoke and lights and dropping fake boulders and snow down on them, and they'd have to hit certain targets, or "actuators"... lights that buzzed and spun when pressed. This thing looked like Godzilla's mountaintop or the actual lair of Rita Repulsa herself, I swear, and it was nothing, because eventually they moved on to the Mega-Crag!, and then the Super-Aggro!.

But for all they built that Aggro-Crag! up to be, the kids always seemed to climb it with little trouble. It was mostly facade, but if it was scary looking enough to make them suddenly stupid and unable to hit their own actuators, then it must've been something indeed. In the end it didn't matter, because all I wanted was one of those awesome glowing green crystal rock chunks they gave away to the winners. Supposedly hewn from the rock itself, or from the Emerald City, they all looked exactly the same, and heavy! Totally tubular.

Go Team USA!

What Would You Do?

My recent look back at Legends of the Hidden Temple forced me to instantly remember other great 90s Nick game shows, and here's one that definitely made me go, "Oh man! I totally forgot about this and now I totally remember it!" Of course you know what I'm talking about, because you're feeling it too. It was called What Would You Do? or if you prefer: "wha-wha-wha-would you... wha-wha-wha-would you... wha-wha-wah would you do?" 

This show was basically "pies and eyes." It had a lot of pies, and for some reason, a lot of creepy eyes. They were everywhere: googly eyes with lashes blinking, popping out of walls, spinning around here or there... even the title had a couple eyes in it. Very strange. After that, every episode started off with Marc Summers looking something like a Ken doll in a hypnotic dress-shirt and standing against a set looking something like a pastel comic book with splatter paint and leopard skin patterns and random shapes. He'd tell us where the heck we were, and then we'd enter the "bouncing-ovaly-eyes-against-neon-green-polygons" dimension (what they normally call an "acid trip"), and we'd see shots of Marc gargling the air, dressing as a banana, and painting a French mustache on his face all screwed up. "You're doing it wrong!" 

The audience was a pool of funky neon, tucked-in bulky shirts, pink scrunchies, white shorts, and bare legs, and you'd spend so much time looking at them in the running time that you'd actually begin to tell them apart from one another. Who was wearing the weird costumes and who was wearing the normal clothes? It's impossible to know these days. The people back there were just a stack of colors, stripes, and poka dots, with fanny packs and plastic visor hats as far as the eye could see. Blinding to look at, but always eager to stand up, accept a challenge, and get a pie to the face. Seriously, at this point, what planet was this show beamed in from?

Step on up to the Wall O' Stuff!

As to what it was actually about... I'll fill you in as soon as I know (controlled substances may be needed). But from what I can piece together, it seemed to be about kids torturing their parents in various ways that usually involved humiliating tasks and every possible way to put a cream pie into someone's face. And I really mean that. This show started a pie-face contraption industry. It had the "Pie Pod," the "Pie Slide," the "Pie Pendulum," the "Pie in the Sky," the "Pie Roulette," the "Pie Wash," AND the "Pie Coaster." But you could only take one of these things for a spin by picking a number and retrieving a card out of the trippy and colorful doors on the "Wall O' Stuff." Afterwards, those cream pies probably tasted pretty good, especially pasted to your shoulders and dripping off your chin.

Simply put, this show was idiot TV as high art, but sure fun enough if you were the kid who got to see his dad dress as a bee, strap a stinger to his can, and try to sit on a series of balloons to pop them. You know if he makes ten in 60 seconds, he'll look like an idiot, and if he doesn't, he'll get to go sit in the Pie Pod and have a pie launched at his face. Sounds radical doesn't it? And I guess the show gets its name from the segment where kids had to decide whether to get a pie to the face or do what was written on a card strapped to their head... or maybe it had something to do with what number door you'd open in the Wall O' Stuff, but who really knows? Usually getting the pie to the face was the better option because half the time the card had them eating the sauerkraut and jelly bean sandwich. Yuck. At least cream pies are tasty. 

Still don't get it? What can I say, it was the 90s!

Legends of the Hidden Temple

Sheer awesomeness all around. So let's start with Olmec, a talking rock... head... god... thing, who has some legend to tell about some sub-Young Indiana Jones artifact that a team of kids have to compete to find (Legends brought to you by Sketchers, it's the S!). And there's a lot of swirling camera angles. Chances are if you're in your 20s and teaching archaeology right now, you have this show to thank. And chances are if you're not TEAM SILVER SNAKES, then I probably have nothing to say to you... except that the game was rigged any time we lost. This is the closest thing to a sports fandom I ever had, and I will die on this hill... after failing at the Silver Monkey. 

Speaking of which, let's just get to the teams... all in dashing yellow helmets and beige cargo shorts. There's always the Red Jaguars (usually the jocks), the Blue Barracudas (jocks), the Green Monkeys (nerds), the Orange Iguanas (dorks), the Purple Parrots (losers), and of course... the Silver Snakes (the most badass team of the bunch). (And trust me, it really was a better personality horoscope than what you see in the newspaper.) They all had colorful T-shirts emblazoned with their sacred golden animal insignia only 90s kids would be able to tell apart (or buy on a t-shirt!). Did I mention that I was always rooting for the Silver Snakes? You know, the kids in the white shirts with the gold who kicked ass every time AND just so happened to have the most awesome team name?

Okay, sometimes they lost. So if they didn't make it, then (and only then) the Blue Barracudas. And after that... well fuck this game. And yeah... I know people have done mini dissertations breaking down the stats on this show and have proven the Green Monkeys and Silver Snakes technically tied for "winningest"... even with the Orange Iguanas technically most in contention... but you know, "trivialities." At least we can all agree that the Purple Parrots sucked ass! Anyways it always seemed weird that for a temple so "hidden," it certainly seemed to get a lot of traffic...

 

This guy named Kirk Fogg hosted, and he seemed like a nice chap... looked more like your cool young science teacher than an adventurer, but the cargo shorts and swinging in on a fucking vine will take ya a long way. First there was always some pool challenge called The Moat, where the teams simply had to splash through some kiddy wading pool either by swimming through it or swinging across, or jumping on platforms, and Olmec would always be like "when Kirk gives the signal...," and "If you fail, go back and start again!" The first four teams to hit the podium button and set off the gong sound would advance to the next round. The other two would be sent home with Flubber on VHS (the mark of a loser).

The four remaining teams would progress to the Steps of Knowledge, which were basically stairs that lit up when they got a question right. The first two teams to the bottom would advance, and the other two would be sent home with a Nerf football.

The two last teams would then compete in an American Gladiators-style series of Temple Games, involving riding things, shooting things with giant slingshots, climbing walls, balancing beams, and whatever else they could fit into the episode's theme, whether that be the Cross of Coronado or the Broken Trident of Poseidon. The team that won the three challenges would be bestowed two pendants to shield them against future temple guard molestation once inside.

What would happen after that is still the most mind-altering, crazy awesome three minutes to hang on the edge of your seat for in television history (second only to the typical ending of GUTS). The winning team would have to make a run through the temple, and with room names like this, you know it was quite hardcore:

Silver Monkey... it's only three pieces!

"Start out in the Crypt to retrieve the Book of Skeletons! With it, proceed to the Pit of the Pendulum! Swing on the rope, knock over the column, and enter the King's Storeroom! Smash the clay pots, find the key, and the door will open to the Room of the Ancient Warriors! Place yourself in the correct suit of Mayan armor, and proceed to the Room of the Secret Password! Find the correct inscription tablet and shout out the password to enter the SHRIIIIIINE of the Silver Monkey! Assemble the monkey statue and open the Pharaoh's Secret Passage! Climb down the tunnel to the Quicksand Fog and smash through the rocks to the Dark Forest! But beware of the temple guards that hide in the trees! Find the key to the Jester's Court, and match your body to the correct glowing wall paintings to enter the Tomb of the Headless Kings! Attach the correct skull to the skeletons and race back to the temple gate with the artifact! Retrieve it in time, and you get the home stereo, and the dude ranch vacation..."

"The choice is yours and yours alone! Good luck."  Three minutes on the clock, and... GO!

You couldn't watch a minute of that without shouting at the screen. "Turn around! Go up the ladder! No! Go back to the Silver Monkey! Oh get it together you idiot!" Those kids were always getting terribly lost, or confused about how to put that Silver Monkey together, or snatched back to the darkness by the temple guards. They didn't have the benefit of the little map at the bottom of the screen with the pink line of their progress running through it like we did lounging back on the couch on those weekend afternoons, but still, "get it together!" 

Go Silver Snakes!

It would've been the dream of a lifetime for me to test my radical powers of mental agility in the temple, but I know I wouldn't have made it past the Silver Monkey either, unless I was on team Silver Snake. They were still cool, even if they lost sometimes. 

The whole thing was RIGGED anyways. 

Spring Cleaning!

Spring is in the air, and that means if you're like me, and by that I mean a 90's kid, then you probably have this song running through your head... and if you don't, allow me to permanently put it there (Update: unfortunately you got to view it on youtube because every year many poor starving Viacoms go hungry).

Rocko was my favorite cartoon as a kid, and easily one of the most perverse, most mind-f@#%ingly awesome shows ever produced that isn't Ren and Stimpy. So without further adieu, the lyrics to Spring Cleaning:

Summers for fishing, and for lounging around...
Fall is for raking all the leaves off the ground...
Winter is for skating like Torville and Dean...
But we all know that spring is the season to clean.

Spring cleaning, spring cleaning!
We deodorize and sanitize and harmonize too!
Spring cleaning, spring cleaning!
We're gonna make this town look all shiny and new!

Spring cleaning! (I'll sweep off this mat!)
Spring cleaning! (I'll vacuum the cat!)
Spring cleaning! (Where'd I get this dead rat?)
You'll find a lot of stuff when your spring cleaning!

We got a lot of junk that we have just been dying to get rid of,
And there's so much garbage in this can that it's about to blow the lid off

Spring cleaning, spring cleaning!
Our disinfecting prowess is second to none! K?
Spring cleaning, spring cleaning!
It's a sick digusting job... sick disgusting job... sick disgusting job...
But it's gotta get done! *fart*

90's Nick, Where Kids Rule!

I like my butt. I especially like sitting on it. And that's exactly what Nickelodeon made me do to it in the 90s. So sit right down and take a trip through the weirdest blacktop spin LSD roller coaster of a television lineup in history, because that was Nick in the 90s. Don't get me wrong, there were some turds in that laced punch bowl of a "children's entertainment network," but it was all good. Trust me. If Nick Reboot is any guide, not every show was as great as those we remember, but still, it was damn good punch, even with the turds. And if it wasn't all great, that's what Cartoon Network was for! (But seriously, only as a last resort... don't bring that evil in here.) 

I recently heard someone criticizing shows like iCarly for all the perversity, and it got me thinking, "when wasn't Nickelodeon perverse?" You're talking about a network that got its start with dumping green slime onto unsuspecting kids who said "I don't know." This is the network that has brought us the surreal, sick depravity of Ren and Stimpy and Invader Zim, the gross-out splashes of Double Dare and You Can't Do That On Television, the trippy postmodernist double-entendres of Rocko's Modern Life and Adventures of Pete and Pete, the subversive goofyness of Salute Your Shorts and All That, all that bizarre claymation, the existence of puppets of any kind, and those other assorted surreal clips, shorts, and bumpers where giant orange balls leveled cities and boys turned inside out. Plus, a whole lot of Marc Summers working through his germaphobia... and perhaps truly enjoying the process of putting kid contestants through the rigors of "Harvey's Wild Oats" on national television and still not letting them go home with the Garfield telephone.  

My childhood Nickelodeon fanboy obsession probably began when I used to watch Eureka's Castle (don't ask, I just remember the castle), Maya the Bee, and Fraggle Rock... but I was so young then my memory of some of those shows bleeds into the commercial breaks, so if you ask me, Fraggle Rock involved the board game "Knock Out" and for some reason I remember seeing a traffic light with about 10 multicolored lights on it inside David the Gnome. Also, the less said about Weinerville the better, especially in these times (I'd need substances and maybe therapy to deal with it), although I have to admire Nickelodeon for giving what I can only assume was a homeless street performer ("puppeteer?") they found outside the studio his own kids' show. Did the gamble pay off? Well... all I remember is the Halloween one where he asked what the kid in the zombie costume was eating and the kid says, "a hand." Some of it seems to seep up from my subconscious to this day, but some of it may just be a fever dream. I did watch a lot of Pete and Pete and Wild and Crazy Kids in the heat of the summer, so I was quite literally in a fever dream half the time. 

Speaking of Wild and Crazy Kids, that show used to get me downright dizzy, and not just for the opening montage. You couldn't watch any second of that show where all these kids would be outdoors doing fun competitions and not turn your head, see a bright beautiful sunny day outside waiting for you, and then turn back to the kids having fun on TV and go... "haha... they got messy!" I distinctly remember watching one in the middle of the blazing hot August sun one day from the couch where the dads had to place their foreheads on the end of a baseball bat and spin in circles until they were dizzy, and then try to play baseball with their kids or something while in the state of delirium. And I distinctly remember the exact combination of my sedentary dehydration, the overstimulation of my eyes, the under-utilization of my brain, the dry heat in the middle of the day, and the repetitive motion of the guys spinning around dizzy, actually making me want to blow CHUNKS. Not to mention it was fun watching the kid from Roseanne get stuck to the Velcro wall and left to die in one very strange cross-promo. 

This is to say nothing about Salute Your Shorts, which actually had the nerve to acknowledge FARTS (celebrated in song no less, and at the start of every episode!), along with the titular underwear hoisted from the mast... and yeah, also mullet punks named Budnick and fatties named Donkeylips who were regular gassholes... plus Zeke the Plumber and Ugg's Nose giving you trauma to this day... and everything else that allegedly happens at summer camps (and no, for the last time, I Am Not Sponge... although that would make a good title for my autobiography). But we are only getting warmed up, because then there was Nick Arcade, which looked like actual freakin' magic as far as I was concerned back then (and not just a kid in front of a green screen) when they somehow managed to actually transport kids INTO video games! Don't even get me started on which Game Wizzard I wanted to go up against in the Video Zone (of course it was Scorchia... give me some good ole clean FEM-DOM any day! Come on baby light my FIRE!). But no, I have no desire to "control Mikey"... just saying. 

"Dun-dun-dun, da-dun dun dun, da-dun dun dun, da-DUN!" (Slowly watching the host lose his mind to that tune day after day MADE the show!) 

URRRRRPLet's see... what else? Seriously Rocko and Pete and Pete are deserving of their own posts. There is just too much to cover. Legends of the Hidden Temple? Own post. GUTS? Own post. What Would You Do? Own post. Nicktoons? Own post. I mean, let's focus on the Arcana of Nickelodeon, the dark underbelly of the orange beast... and by that I mean, the only show that probably was conjuring demons, Are You Afraid of the Dark? To which the reply by me was usually "yesss..." if it was past my bedtime, and especially YES if it was the CLOWN ONE, the ALIEN ONE, the MIRROR ONE, or the "I'm cold..." one! (Fun fact that "only 90s kids know TM" but the Harry Potter actually got his start in Are You Afraid of the Dork. Yeah. He played the dork. And if you don't know what I'm talking about then you probably didn't watch the show.) 

But let's really have a debate about just what slime tastes like for the millionth time. You know they probably changed the recipe often because sometimes it was practically water and other times it was like green cottage cheese. Now I have no idea what Nick Slime tastes like (some say corn starch), but being a booger-eating boy, I manufactured my own slime and I gotta tell ya, it probably had nothing on me. One thing they had that I didn't though were pools, canons, fountains, and explosive taps full of the stuff, literally gushing, splashing, and raining the green ooze from the fucking sky down upon children. THIS was glorious schadenfreude that still gives me a buzz. Nothing beats watching kids get hit with slime, especially GIRLS (and really annoying boys)... so yeah, basically the entire cast of You Can't Do That On Television. This was Nickelodeon Studios... and it was (probably) better than Disneyland. I mean, you can have snot rain down upon you at Nickelodeon studios. You can't even SAY the WORD "fart" in the Lion King. So there!

But let's just discuss KaBlam! for a second. If Nickelodeon in general was a fever dream, this show was its own fever dream inside of that one, containing the stop-motion bumbling stupor-heroes Action League Now, which was just Robot Chicken before Seth Green decided to blow up his childhood... Life With Loopy, which was an acid trip of cardboard cutouts about a kid who somehow manages to be even more insane than his actually insane sister just by being so blase about what clearly is a problem, Promethius and Bob ("an alien's attempts to educate a caveman"), which just proves there never has been intelligent life on Earth, and a whole other universe of whatever bizarre shit they could cram into that animated comic book of theirs. But perhaps more awesome than anything was just getting to see Henry and June open the show with some rather on-point dance moves... well, not as awesome as watching Henry get hit in every episode! Boys are great as punching bags, girls... just sayin. Have at it. (Jk!) 

Damn, I have not even scratched the surface. I mean, All That had a freakin' Giant CORN for some reason they toted around through the sky attached to airplanes and we got to watch Mary Beth and her very real love-affair for the thing blossom over several seasons of SNickL (see what I did there?). She gave us endless "vital information" words of wisdom we've all benefitted from ("All's fair in love and war, all's smelly in a closet full of baboons"), while Keenan Thomson just loved chocolate and bathtub French lessons. Both of these sagas were truly a better love story than Twilight. Clarissa was not always clueless and the Pink Ranger was, well... The Pink Ranger... but the undying love I had for Harriet the Spy and Alex Mack... no human tongue could tell. Heck my love for Larisa Oleynik continued into Third Rock from the Sun and beyond (hell, even now)... and when it comes to Harriet the Spy (Michelle Trachtenberg), what can I say? She was my first love, my soulmate, my flame... I'm sorry, it's just that I always liked girls. Especially powerful ones who could beat me in a fight (I'd see to that) and would definitely beat me in a battle of wits (...I'm gonna go cry now). 

Anyway, speaking of GIRLS... it certainly seems these days Nickelodeon has gone to the teenage girls, but at one time, it was known as the television network for kids that kids actually liked to watch... all the dirt, guts, butts, and grass stains included. If the 80's showed us a Nick that was more about kids watching the world of adults through the travels of a pinball, in shows like Lights Camera Action and Mr. Wizard, mixed in with kiddy sock-puppet shows, the 90's showed us a Nick of slimy, grimy, kooky craziness where kids ruled and adults could take a hike. And you know what? Both still sound awesome. And it wasn't so cut out like that, because the 80's had the early beginnings of what would be the 90's in You Can't Do That on Television, and the 90's had lingering traits of the 80's in shows like Nick News... Oh damn, Nick News could clear a playroom faster than a ... ahhh who am I kidding? I even watched Nick News! 

The only period where Nick could have been classed as "not perverse" (at least not overtly) would be the late 80's and early 90's when all those foreign cartoons were filling up the morning slots, like the Lit'l Bits, Maya the Bee, and David the Gnome, and they were great too. At one time, Nick had something for everyone: the kiddies who liked the soft-lined musical sweetening of the foreign cartoons and puppetry weirdness, the older kids who liked the subversive guts-filled, surreal, anti-PC "kid's rule" middle-finger at the yawn-fest of "social graces," and the teens who were just into looking cool and getting their way past their clueless parents (Clarissa Explains it All). Girls were always tough and smart, boys were always goofy and slick, little brothers were dorks, big brothers were buttheads, and sisters were just evil and proud of it.

It was an age where the silly gelled pretty easy with the crazy, the absurd, the downright nasty, and even (at times) the educational, but it was always perverse... because a half hour before the archeology fun of Legends of the Hidden Temple, it'd be Wild and Crazy Kids, where kids were sure to be competing to fill a bucket with slime after sitting in a pool of it with a sponge strapped to their butts. 

Speaking of which, I think mine's gone numb.