How Nickelodeon Changed Children’s Television

by Robert George Armstrong, Oakdale, Minnesota

Early Years

The Nickelodeon channel started on December 1, 1977, as Pinwheel. It was rebranded as Nickelodeon on April 1, 1979. The new name was a tribute to early movie theaters. The channel initially only featured reruns of shows from other networks, such as “Sesame Street” and “The Electric Company” from PBS.

How Nickelodeon Revolutionized Kids Programming

In the 1990s, Nickelodeon launched its Nicktoons brand of animated shows, starting with “Doug,” “Rugrats,” and “Ren and Stimpy.” After their success, Nickelodeon started producing more original content, cartoons like “Spongebob Squarepants” and live-action series like “Kenan and Kel.” Nickelodeon imported reruns from other networks on their later time slot called “Nick at Nite,” and stuck to original programming during the daytime.

The Rise of Nickelodeon and Its Popular Slime Campaign

In later years, Nickelodeon started hosting “The Kids Choice Awards” and developed a marketing campaign based on the use of colorful green slime, used first on the imported Canadian show “You Can’t Do That On Television”, then later in the game show Nick produced, “Double Dare.” On “You Can’t Do That On Television,” if someone would say the phrase “I don’t know,” they would have slime dumped on them. On “Double Dare” the slime was used in the physical challenges. The usage of slime to dump on people would later be featured on “The Kid’s Choice Awards.”

A Look Back at Nickelodeon’s Successful History

Today, Nickelodeon is still a popular children’s channel, having a mix of live-action and animated programming, and even original movies, some based on animated series. Nickelodeon also developed sister channels, like “Nicktoons” and “Nick Jr,” and has created other non-television media, like video games and two theme parks known as “Nickelodeon Universe,” one at the Mall of America and another located at American Dream, a retail and entertainment establishment in New Jersey.

A Nostalgic Look at Nickelodeon’s Best Shows

I remember watching a lot of Nickelodeon when I was young. When I was very little, I would watch “Blue’s Clues” and “Dora the Explorer.” When I got older, my favorite shows were “Spongebob” and “Fairly Odd Parents.” In fact, I enjoyed Nick’s programming so much that I also started to watch shows that had aired before I started watching television, like “Kenan and Kel” and “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” There’s something comforting about watching shows from the past. It brings me back to my childhood. This is probably why Nickelodeon has been so successful.

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