10 Nickelodeon Shows That Were Supposed To Look Completely Different

hi it's me over the years Nickelodeon has created many iconic characters there's spongebob Tommy Arnold and for the young ones blue but through the development process these characters were supposed to look very different than the results that we saw on screen from major character changes to huge plot developments watch and learn how some of your favorite Nickelodeon shows of all time were supposed to look completely different the Rugrats was one of the first and Nicktoons to ever be commissioned by Nickelodeon and the show went through a lot during the development process show creators Gabor chapo and arlene klasky were actually working on The Simpsons before Rugrats clearly finding some inspiration through the pacifier sucking antics of little Maggie the first pilot of Rugrats not only featured a very different-looking logo but focused just on Tommy this head was a little different and the signature light blue shirt he wore was replaced with a red one entitled Tommy pickles and the great white thing the pilot features Tommy exploring the bathroom and causing all kinds of antics as he examined exactly what a toilet is following the pilot the characters of Chuckie and Angelica were developed as only Tommy and Spike were the original two characters could you imagine watching the Rugrats width out Angelica there to wreak havoc and cost problems for the babies well this was almost the case because arlene klasky was very against the character it took a lot of convincing from the original staff writers to get Angelica aboard and have her serve as one of the main antagonists so with the addition of Bill and lil a little later in the process and some changes to the color palette we ended up with the Rugrats show we know and love spongebob squarepants has been airing on Nick over 20 years now but the show took several years of development before it would become the iconic cartoon multiple generations grew up on show creator Stephen Hillenburg originally worked as an educator at the ocean Institute before diving into the world of animation it was there where he developed the character of SpongeBob through an educational comic story known as the intertidal zone in it spongebob was not square and didn't wear a tie he was more circular and true to an ocean sponge more than one of the kitchen variety after working for multiple years on Rocko's Modern Life Helen Berg went back to his roots designing spongebob turning him into a square shape and adding his crew of friends before the Bob he was originally called sponge boy but the catcher name caught on and the rest is history the clothes were not initially there either but added to convey an innocence similar to characters like pee-wee Herman or Buster Keaton and who thinks of spongebob without instantly going to the iconic theme song well the initial song was very different with no lyrics and an action theme which had a very similar vibe to the Austin Powers films one of nicks and newest hits is the loud house following the adventures of Lincoln loud the only boy among ten other siblings well the loud house could have been a lot louder at the original production went forward the way it was supposed to instead of being actual humans the loud house was going to feature a whole family of bunnies who pretty much lived and acted like humans well besides munching on rock carrots a little more than usual and thanks to the nature of bunnies and their ability to procreate the house was going to be filled with at least a dozen more sisters for Lincoln to contend with not only would this have increased the animation budget on the show but there probably would have been way too many characters to keep track of it would have been like keeping up with all the Game of Thrones characters all at once in the end of the characters were turned into the human form and the show became what it is known for today if you're wondering what exactly the loud family would have looked like as rabbits then look no further than the episode white hair where a dream sequence showcases what could have been if they were all bunnies do you wish to see what the fairly oddparents would have been like during the initial design stages well your wish is granted because we have all the information here for you let's start with Timmy Turner show creator of Butch Hartman had a vision for Timmy early on and it's so easy to picture the iconic character with his pink hat but it wasn't to always plan this way for the first drawing of Timmy Hartman used a blue marker but when he went to draw him again the blue marker was completely out of ink so he grabbed the pink marker and the rest was history the same color change happened to wand as well a blue to pink transition but this one was done to help prevent blending problems with some of the background colors and let's talk about Wanda for a quick second she was originally going to be named Venus and some early background notes had her being a form fairy godmother - Cinderella herself Wanda also was supposed to be the dim-witted one of the group but the roles were reversed with her and cause in Hartman's animation style he initially wanted the parents to only be seen from the neck down with no faces ever shown animation angles and problems led to the full design and development of these characters which also helped flesh out a lot of the plots better down the line when a story works it's going to be used multiple times and this is the case for the origins of Pei Arnold before getting picked up by Nickelodeon the show's origins can date all the way back to a Simpsons comic book entitled Simpsons illustrated in the short strip Arnold gets challenged to a fight by Harold only to claim that he's crazy and performs a dance number to get out of the fight sound familiar it should because this concept was used for both the Hey Arnold pilot short and the episode 24 hours to live through the similar plot you can see the difference in a lot of the characters in the original comic how go looks the most different supporting smaller and angrier eyes than her cartoon counterpart Harold wears a small crown on his head as opposed to his signature backwards baseball cap and also has a striped shirt on instead of the blue jersey the song arnold sings his difference in the comic as well as Arnold wears a full suit and sings the hello my baby song which was made infamous by the WB frog the short Arnold was adapted from this comic and aired before theatrical showings of Harriet the Spy the short is very similar to the 24 hours to live episode except Arnold's head is a little more narrow Harold wears a different outfit and Arnold smashes a lot more plates over his head plus the hello my baby song was replaced with a much more fitting I'm crazy which was written exclusively for the show one of the strangest spin-offs Nick has ever produced was Planet Sheen the show felt nothing like The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron boy genius and cent sheen off to a planet filled with dumb wedded aliens monkeys and other creatures may be one of the reasons the show felt so off from the original was because the concept was never supposed to involve any Jimmy Neutron characters in the first place Nick was originally pitched Planet Sheen as red acres a story about an adult astronaut who crashed lands on a planet they didn't want to move forward with the show featuring an adult as the cartoon lead so Sheen was inserted as the lead character instead then a nail who looked and acted exactly like Karl was at it and the rest is Nicktoons history the show was delayed multiple times before finally premiering and disappointing so many Jimmy Neutron fans looking for the same fun and antics before a child dope into shows like Rugrats and SpongeBob SquarePants their first foray into the world of Nic was through their popular programming on Nick jr. one of the biggest hits was Blue's Clues as the show developed it went through some major changes like can you imagine if blue was actually a kitten and not blue at all the original premise followed an orange cat named and mr. orange got changed to a blue cat named mr. blue and then got switched over to a dog because a cat would have been too similar to other shows Nick was trying to develop at the time and that's where the blue dog came in Blue's Clues is a perfect title but it was originally going to be called blue prints a literal representation of blues prints she left all around us clues and then came Steve one of Steve's signature features is the green striped of long sleeve shirt he wears while in the original pilot Steve wore a short sleeve red shirt instead these subtle changes made a big difference with the perception of the show and helped lead to its massive success including the upcoming reboot invader zim was the little nick tune that could gaining a rabid fan base until the expensive mix of CG and traditional animation was cancelled and disappeared off the map for quite some time such a sudden cancellation was probably disappointing for the creators as well because of how much work went into getting the show off the ground in the first place the brainchild behind the show was shown in Vasquez a comic book artist who ventured into animation after getting offered the gig from Nick originally invader zim wasn't going to be about Zim at all but based off of Vasquez comics squeak when squee was determined to be too dark for Nick networks he went the other direction pretty much creating just as dark of a show but with Zim as the main character instead when choosing a voice for the lead the pilot episode was recorded with Mark Hamill but the famed of portrayer of the Joker voice was deemed too old for Simms voice then Billy West was cast but he was also voicing fry on Futurama at the time and skes wanted Zim's boys to be completely original this led to the casting of Richard Steven Horvitz in the role you could say the show sounded a lot different rather than visually looking a lot different there came a time when Nick was ready to venture into CG properties in recent years Nick jr. shows like paw patrol and Bubble Guppies have made CG feel like the norm but back in the day the 2d Dora was ruling the airwaves that's when the Backyardigans came along not only providing CG effects but great music to boot while Nick never intended the backyard ian's to be CG at first originally it would follow in the footsteps of children shows like Barney the dinosaur and Teletubbies featuring live-action mascots on a large set originally titled me and my friends the character looked the way you would visualize them if Nick owned a full-fledged theme park after taping a pilot which has never been fully aired or seen the show was dropped for a few years before Nick too looked back at the concept again and decided to go the full CG animation route the effort paid off and the show was a hit among young viewers we have to imagine that it would not be as successful if they stuck to the original format one of the oddest and more original Nicktoons to get released was the show cat dog airing from 1998 until 2005 the show was a modest hit for the network and helped follow in the footsteps of shows leaving the network like Doug and Rocko's Modern Life connecting a cat and dog together is a lot harder than it sounds to find inspiration for the characters breeder Peter Hannon looked at conjoined twins in real life to come up with different design options instead of being on opposite ends of each other one of the initial design concepts showcased a single standing body with two heads at the top and a lot closer together this design actually made it harder for the two personalities to separate especially in scenes where they could magically stretch to different areas at the same time because they lived on opposite sides of each other the everyday life of the cat dog was going to be a lot different as well the characters were first pitched as a superhero named cat dog man true story we have to imagine the heroic adventures of the bickering animals would not have been as entertaining as them struggling through their everyday moments downscaling the story made things more interesting and compelling yep the Nick that we all grew up with could have been completely different what shows do you wish were changed anything that we missed are you excited for reboots of the Rugrats and Blue's Clues let us know in the comments thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe to Screen Rant for more great content [Music]

Channel: Screen Rant

Views: 243,032

Rating: 4.8541036 out of 5

Keywords: Nick shows, SpongeBob full episodes, Fairly Oddparents full episode, Rugrats pilot, Blue’s Clues remake, Blue’s Clues Steve, Invader Zim pilot, new Nick shows, Loud House bunnies, Hey Arnold, CatDog, Nicktoons, Rugrats characters, Tommy Pickles, Nick deleted scenes, Screen Rant, ScreenRant

Id: lKaGebk1kbw

Length: 11min 35sec (695 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 15 2019