Ah, Nickelodeon... one of the iconic fantasies of the 1990s and one of the heroes of the animation renaissance is falling flat. They had their groundbreaking Nicktoons such as Rugrats, the creative cartoon shorts that would appear as bonus on their VHS and DVDs and the classic bumpers with the orange logo. It seems that Nickelodeon got everything they knew to stand out from the competition. There was a charm on everything Nickelodeon-related, ranging from cartoons, game shows, sitcoms, merchandising, advertising and brand presentation. Nickelodeon used to be the king of cartoons. However, over the past decades, the brand has been steadily declining. Why is this? Let's go back to time...
In the late 70s, Nickelodeon used to be called Pinwheel. It was sold to Warner Bros. and rechristened as Nickelodeon in 1979. That was an experimental period when management was seeing what would work and what would NOT and what kids would like to see. You Can't Do That on Television was Nickelodeon's breakout success. It was a sketch comedy and variety show that was made on Canada, but Nickelodeon acquired the intellectual property. It was fun, creative and coined the iconic slime that would be forever associated with the network. Moving to the early 1980s, Nickelodeon unveiled their new logo: the orange splat with their brand written in the balloon font. They also created new jingles and IDs to give it a fresh look, to greatest success. Nickelodeon was dominating as the number one children's network and didn't stop experimenting, with the addition of Nick at Nite, Nick Jr. and the Kids' Choice Awards. In 1986, Warner Bros. decided to sell Nickelodeon to MTV Networks which would later become Viacom.
Nickelodeon continued its creative streak in the early 1990s with more original programming: Hey Dude!, Salute Your Shorts, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Clarissa Explains it All and The Adventures of Pete and Pete. There was so many to pick from and it all focused on kids who finally had a network to call their own. Yet, Nickelodeon's most groundbreaking feat they ever achieved was their own original animated programming: Nicktoons. The network originally used to be against in-house animation production, believing it to be too expensive. Their thoughts were not unfounded as their first Nicktoons called Doug, Rugrats and The Ren & Stimpy Show were as expensive as Hanna-Barbera's The Pirates of Dark Water and Warner Bros.' Steven Spielberg-produced cartoons such as Tiny Toon Adventures, but all three of them paid off. They all unlocked a new era for Nick which grew over the time: Rocko's Modern Life, Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, KaBlam!, Hey Arnold!, The Angry Beavers, The Wild Thornberrys, CatDog, SpongeBob Squarepants, As Told by Ginger, Chalkzone, Invader Zim, The Fairly Oddparents, The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, My Life as a Teenage Robot, Danny Phantom, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Catscratch, El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, The Mighty B!... Nickelodeon was ruling the animation landscape in the 90s and the first half of the 2000s and was also pushing foward with their live-action comedies and game shows such as All That!, The Amanda Show, Kenan & Kel, Legends of the Hidden Temple, GUTS, Double Dare, Drake & Josh and iCarly. They were the powerhouse of the 90s and first half of 2000s and created a legacy of entertainment that stood out from everything else. They had variety, talent, magic, creativity, momentum. All these wonderful aspects that built the Nickelodeon empire and, in the turn of the millenium, everything started to fall apart. So, when and why did their brand stop being relevant???
Nickelodeon may have embraced aspects of hip-hop and that era's visual tastes in order to make their brand resonate with the audiences, but they were making the 90s more memorable on their own by innovating, creating unique shows and showcasing artists with new ideas. While none of that was flawless, it was still an iconic era full of creativity and innovation that embodied Walt Disney and the Golden Age animators and artists' spirits. But the biggest and worst problem is that Nickelodeon had imprisoned themselves in the comfort zone with no way out, with the formats that made them money in the past and the only changes they made were moving away from pioneering the family entertainment industry to their status quo. Nickelodeon Animation has since had moderate to reasonable to little to even NO success. Their biggest fall from grace had its roots in 1996 when Nickelodeon noticed that there was demand for more family-friendly programming. Shows like Friends were so popular that they were the target of pop-culture referencing in children's shows, yet that show kinda alienated families who didn't want to watch that overrated bullshit with their kids. So, Nickelodeon didn't hesitate and began providing programming that would be more ideal to this demographic. This is when the more corporate version of Nickelodeon was established. They saw success but it also started to fuck up shows that were very different. The direction was starting to shift. According to Hey Arnold! creator Craig Bartlett, "they got bigger and more corporate than when they were young. While Herb was running things, it just grew more and more corporate, and less like you have a personal touch. It was probably just inevitable that it was the way it was going to be. It wasn't Herb's fault. Herb's Nickelodeon was still a great place to be, but each year it got bigger and more out of control." This was the trend on the horizon.
Both SpongeBob and Rugrats became Nickelodeon's biggest cash cow franchises, with their theatrical movies being commercial blockbusters. Such success have led Nickelodeon to extend their runs longer than they really needed and thus their quality dwindled. Both shows have been the tip of the spear for the network for their respective decades. What really happened to the variety? Why Nickelodeon has since placed all of their tips on the SpongeBob-Rugrats combo? To Rugrats' credit, it had friendly competition. Now all I see is nothing but both SpongeBob and The Loud House, their newest cash cow. Sure, they had Avatar: The Last Airbender. That show was mature, fun and unlocked many possibilities. Unfortunately, this resulted into an abysmal live-action theatrical abomination and a sequel called The Legend of Korra that barely made across the finish line. While the actual show is good, Nickelodeon failed to milk it properly. The final season didn't even air on the network itself, but on their streaming services. Why couldn't they have done both? It's almost like they have forgotten to produce and market a show outside the likes of SpongeBob. Meanwhile, shows like Harvey Beaks, despite being a critical darling, were cancelled for not being Nickelodeon's cash cows. To add salt to their injury, they had the opportunity to house Adventure Time, one of the cartoon masterpieces of this decade, but they had since become so corporate that they turned it down not just once, but twice, allegedly in favor of Fanboy and Chum-Chum. This has led Cartoon Network to immediately take it under their wing and make their own SpongeBob out of it, resulting not just on the Cartoon Network Renaissance, but on the current overall television animation renaissance. If this wasn't enough, Nickelodeon also rejected Phineas and Ferb which is also a masterpiece that could easily fit their network's formula but it was instead warmly welcomed into the happiest place on Earth that is Disney.
As I said, Nickelodeon has gone so corporate that they've been over-reliant on past formulas for success, mainly if not just sitcoms which are genreally pretty formulaic and repetitive, but on Nickelodeon's case they're just trying to copy-and-paste the formulas of Dan Schneider and Disney Channel. Stuff like All That! and its successors reflect what many of us think back to when someone mentions the 90s or the overall good days of the network because at that time it was new and the kid stars were able to have fun on the set to resonate with the younger demographic. However, Nickelodeon's current sitcoms feel uninspired, tiresome and when the kid audiences grow up these shows will never hold up unlike when that demographic were just kids. But the worst problem that Nickelodeon is facing and still won't solve is the building of their line-up and the way that's reflected by the brand. Nothing on that channel stands out in a way that can realistically compete with other platforms. While The Loud House still has its heart and charm, it can't top the likes of Steven Universe and Star vs. The Forces of Evil and plenty other modern hit cartoons, which it's actually alright because you don't have to try trumping over the competition to be a good show, so there wouldn't be a cartoon cannibalization. The real issue is Nickelodeon's lack of saving grace in this modern western animation era and landscape and this is the red signal that Nickelodeon is now nothing more than a third-and-last-rate. Alongside the modern programming, it looks like they're also trying to cash on nostalgia for their good old days with endless revivals of Hey Arnold!, Rugrats, Invader Zim and Rocko's Modern Life. Their plan B just seems to be cashing on nostalgia since their animation department is in incredible danger, but the problem with this is that the original Nickelodeon brand can't simply be brought back the way it used to be because the world has changed too dramatically and just because 90s in nostalgia were hip and cool for so long and might still be hanging on, Nickelodeon's charm has always been the fact that it felt like a channel for kids and when the only bits and pieces of a unique brand that it has left are appealing to the childhoods of people in their 20s and 30s that's not going to end the same. The brand that made all those shows successful was a product of its time. In the 90s, it was to find an era. Today, it's nothing but nostalgia. So, what does the Nickelodeon brand currently has to offer that isn't nostalgia? If you take a look at their current brand, it seems like a bunch of adults got together and said:
Person 1: "This is what kids like these days: smartphones and random nonsense."
Person 2: "But, wasn't the original Nickelodeon brand about just random nonsense?"
It may have seemed like this and I don't wanna put any of this on a pedestal, yet there was at least some degree of familiarity to it. They would choose an idea and stick to it and every single idea would be different. It would be something specific but it would change itsetlf apart from itself. While it would be strange, they wouldn't sacrifice structure because without that pilar weirdness just blends into itself just like Nickelodeon's current presentation which does nothing to set itself apart from other networks aesthetically, especially since Cartoon Network has also been doing the random humor bologna for years to a point of just being dishonest with their corporate pandering to kids. Regardless, to CN's credit and defense, their brand is somehow more a love letter to their classic age than Nickelodeon. Also, who said to these brands that the so-called random humor humbug is still cool? Sure, that trend died with MySpace, so now if you do this, you're no better than Oscar, the dashing hero from the DreamWorks film Shark Tale.
Sincerely, I'm kinda heartbroken at the fact that Nickelodeon has since gone in all ways possible from Garfield and Snoopy to Charlie Brown and Jon Arbuckle and to creeps, televangelists, telemarketers and evil businessmen who's cancelling all your favorite shows and building SpongeBob theme parks. It's not Nickelodeon's animation deparment that's failing miserably. On the contrary, it's still standing strong. It's just being overlooked by the network that may no longer be the home of the Nicktoons. Looks like Nickelodeon has simply fled from the epic war for the television animation market and dominance in general media. Whatta bunch of wimpy and sissy cowards. While Cartoon Network is no longer perfect anymore, they still have a line-up of revolutionary shows that people absolutely have hoots for and their brand is still a huge western animation powerhouse. Disney's on the same ship than Cartoon Network, churning out shows that are worth of their brand even if their treatment of cartoons is sort of debatable occasionally and they're still not as popular as Cartoon Network in the modern animation reality, but they don't have to be popular to be good. Even companies like DreamWorks and other streaming-affiliated animation powerhouses are churning out game changer after game changer while Nickelodeon seems to have SpongeBob, The Loud House and its 90s material as its life support. If they really want to reclaim its long-lost glory taken away by the competition by force, please stop being too comfortable on formulaic success and don't be afraid to take risks anymore.
Looks like Nickelodeon has gone to the point where they're toxically dependant on old formulas to survive because it's not overall bad business. No wonder since it was born Nickelodeon has gradually gone more and more corporate. If I was on a creative studio where the business people have all the invicible power, so naturally they're going to care more about the business' financial well-being than their products' actual quality. So why taking risks of letting creative talents innovate and dictate their own visions when not innovating and playing safe is your shelter from poverty? Just... bite me. Sure, Nickelodeon has recently gone under management shift, Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie is a masterpiece, I can't wait for the Rocko's Modern Life and Invader Zim comeback specials and the Nickelodeon animation department still amazes me. So who knows what kind of future might hold for the network? Yet, if they don't make any effort to present themselves in new ways and recoup their long lost creative spirit, I'm afraid that the network will remain mediocre as the competition single-handedly crushes them mercilessly.
