Nickelodeon, the "first network for kids,"
is more than four decades old. And Nickelodeon truly changed the game in
televised children's entertainment, opening up territory never dreamed about for kids. However, in Nickelodeon's quest to be edgy,
they sometimes went into really, really dark places. One of Nickelodeon's first original cartoons
upon its 1991 debut, Rugrats was truly original and could only have worked as a cartoon. It depicted life from the point of view of
babies and toddlers - surreal, brightly colored, full of wonder, and a little difficult to
understand. A lot of the show's humor derived from Tommy
Pickles, Chuckie Finster, and the rest confidently mispronouncing words and getting the basic
concept of everyday life activities completely wrong. But come on, they're babies - they don't know
anything about anything. Rugrats was almost always a gentle and comforting
show, except for the Season 1 episode "Ruthless Tommy." Grandpa Lou is supposed to be watching Tommy,
but falls asleep, leaving a curious Tommy to crawl out of his playpen and out the front
door, which was inadvertently left ajar. Tommy goes outside to play with a ball, only
for two guys to swing by and swoop him up. Their reasoning for kidnapping a baby on this
children's show is comically misguided: They got the address wrong and meant to kidnap
a different baby, the son of a rich guy. While they throw a ransom note attached to
a brick at the Pickles' house - missing the window - Tommy ends up escaping by causing
so much chaos that he annoys the kidnappers enough to drive him home. Perhaps this Rugrats episode was the seed
that got a generation hooked on true crime-based entertainment. SpongeBob SquarePants mines humor from its
hugely different characters. SpongeBob is silly, childish, and unrelentingly
happy, while his neighbor and Krusty Krab coworker Squidward is reserved, aloof, and
sullen - and, let's face it: if you had to deal with that much happy day in and day out,
you'd be a downer too. However, in the 2012 episode "Are You Happy
Now?" Squidward's malaise turns into full-on depression
after he realizes he has no happy memories. SpongeBob takes it upon himself to create
some for his pal, but his efforts fail, prompting Squidward to lock himself away in his house
for two weeks. SpongeBob peeks through the mail slot to see
a pile of mail and an unusually filthy house. Squidward, shuffling around the house in a
bathrobe, refuses help. And so - because, sometimes, people can make
big ol' boo-boos - the writers thought it'd be funny to toss in not one, not two, but
THREE jokes about Squidward taking his own life. First, SpongeBob remarks: "Hey. Hey. Squidward." "Well, at least we know he's still alive." The second occurs when Squidward confesses
that he, quote, "just can't seem to get happy," and then proceeds to stick his head in his
oven. Of course, it's a ruse, as he's merely pulling
out a pan of burnt brownies. Oh - and did we mention the scene where the
writers trick you into thinking Squidward's about to straight up hang himself. "I can't seem to get happy. Maybe this will help.” That's when SpongeBob takes one last stab
at treating his friend's depression: He throws Squidward a party - but since nobody comes,
and because he'd made 100 papier-mache statues of himself - Squidward works himself into
a rage and destroys every last of them, finally generating a "happy memory." Writing for television is hard. After a few seasons on the air, it's tough
to come up with new ideas, which is why so many TV series wind up doing a riff on It's
a Wonderful Life. In that 1946 movie, a schmo named George Bailey
attempts to kill himself, only to be rescued by an angel who shows him how the world would
be worse off had he never been born. "Get me back to my wife and kids! Help me, Clarence! Please! Please!" Dozens of shows have made their own version,
from ALF to Night Court to The O.C. But it took the Nickelodeon cartoon Fairly
OddParents to truly subvert the idea. Every episode, Timmy Turner asks his bumbling
fairy godparents Cosmo and Wanda to grant him a wish, and in "It's a Wishful Life,"
Timmy, bitter over a lack of recognition for doing good deeds, wishes to have never been
born. Fairy commander Jorgen Von Strangle then arrives
to show Timmy what life would be like for the figures in his life had he never come
around … and they're… well… better. Cosmo and Wanda serve Timmy's friend Chester,
who uses his magic for acts of kindness and charity; Timmy's other friend A.J. grows up
and graduates college, having not been held back by Timmy's bad influence; his bully is
a nice and compassionate guy; and his parents instead had a daughter and are rich. This extremely depressing message is ultimately
undone when the wish's effects are reversed, but still - pretty existential stuff for a
cartoon. There's a fine history of urban blight in
children's television. Probably the most popular and famous kids'
show ever, Sesame Street, takes place in a grimy, rundown Manhattan neighborhood where
one of the characters literally lives in a trash can. Sesame Street doesn't seem to be located too
far from the urban jungle where Arnold of Hey Arnold! resides in a boarding house with
his grandparents. Sure, he lives in cramped quarters among strangers,
but his room is full of high-tech toys, which is a paradise compared to what life is like
for his friend Sid. He's a tough-looking guy who wears a leather
jacket and a backwards ball cap, but that's apparently just armor to keep up his defenses. In the episode "Arnold's Room," Sid teams
up with a rich kid named Lorenzo for a school project, and when Lorenzo suggests they meet
at Sid's house to work, Sid panics. His family doesn't have much money, and his
room is small and ramshackle. So he gets Arnold to let him pretend that
his happy, toy-filled room is his, so as to impress Lorenzo and not embarrass himself. Lorenzo ultimately discovers the lie but forgives
Sid, probably because the situation is just so upsetting. Way back when, The World of David the Gnome
was an integral element of Nick Jr., an early morning programming block for toddlers and
preschoolers. This quiet, gentle, fantastical show concerned
a bearded gnome named David roaming around the forest with other gnomes, staying away
from trolls, and hanging out with a fox named Swift. Already steeped in gnome mythology, The World
of David the Gnome doubled down in its final episode - to potentially traumatizing effect. Gnome lore says that gnomes live to the age
of 400 and then die, and for the entire run of the series, David, along with his wife
Lisa and another gnome named Casper, were about 399. The series finale finds David, Lisa, and Casper
accepting their deaths, and they march to the Mountain of Beyond. "Well, this is the end of the road. There's the Mountain of Beyond." Little kids at home then watched - as did
David's heartbroken best friend, Swift - as the gnomes died the way gnomes do, which is
to magically transform into trees. Happy birthday, David! "Don't cry, my friend. Don't cry. After we've gone, you'll find some new friends. I'm sure of it." Hey, kids love references to Dante's Inferno,
the most famous part of The Divine Comedy, the 14th-century epic poem in which a mortal
travels to Hell, right? That's not even nearly the most troubling
thing in "To Heck and Back," a 1993 episode of Nickelodeon's bizarro cartoon Rocko's Modern
Life. Rocko, a wallaby, and his best friend, a male
cow named Heffer, dine at Chokey Chicken, where the gluttonous Heffer orders nearly
$40 worth of food - which is a lot, especially in 1993. While devouring his mountain of food, Heffer
chokes on a rib cage and dies. His soul ascends to Heaven, but then his angel
wings turn into weights, and he crashes down in Hell, or rather Heck. You know, because this is a children's show
and saying the word "Hell" would be inappropriate. It would seem that Heffer's commission of
the deadly sin of gluttony was especially severe, as a highlight reel of his life points
out. He's ultimately saved from eternal torment
for eating too much when Rocko revives him. But as they head out to a movie, Heffer asks
if they can stop for a bite at Beef Barge. Not only did Heffer learn nothing from his
journey to Heck, but seeing as how he's a steer, he's also okay with cannibalism. Yikes. For those of you who've successfully repressed
chilling memories of the crime against humanity that was Mr. Meaty, here's a refresher. This workplace sitcom - which took the form
of both three-minute shorts and full-length episodes - centered on the day-to-day action
at Mr. Meaty, a disgusting fast food restaurant in a mall food court operated by two grotesque
puppets: nerdy Parker and too-cool-for-school Josh. In between trying to impress classmates who
stop by Mr. Meaty, Parker and Josh deal with unusual fast food problems. In one episode, Parker eats 12 "Ms. Meaty"
burgers, topped with Ms. Meaty sauce that's apparently so loaded with estrogen that it
puts him on an excruciating physical transformation into a girl. In another, Parker and a goth girl customer
stick their hands in oil… and then proceed to eat their own crispy fingers. Oh, and then there's the time Parker eats
raw beef and develops a tapeworm. "Gotcha!" As there's something at least mildly disturbing
in almost every Mr. Meaty episode, it probably left an entire generation of kids reluctant
to go out and get that first after-school job at a fast food place. How Invader Zim ever landed on a children's
network is a bit surprising. This cartoon series about an alien named Zim
posing as a child and bent on world domination is the creation of comic book writer and illustrator
Jhonen Vasquez, who was previously best known for his print work - specifically a series
called Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, which centered around the eponymous killer and his
penchant for brutality. Invader Zim wasn't quite as dark as Johnny,
but it did come close on occasion. Take the "Dark Harvest" episode for example. One day, Dib scans Zim with an X-ray device,
noticing that Zim's organs look nothing like human organs. That prompts Zim to take his passing-for-human
up a notch: He goes on a quiet rampage around his grade school, attacking teachers and students,
stealing their organs, swallowing them, and leaving objects in their stead. "Look at you! You've gone too far! You're a hideous blob of stolen organs!" "I've been working out." Zim eventually harvests the organs of everyone
in the school. In other words, his twisted scheme of organ
thievery works, and he suffers no consequences or punishment. Well, except for a case of head pigeons. "That one has head pigeons. The other one is just annoying. Fix it!" Canadian sketch comedy show You Can't Do That
on Television became one of Nick's earliest hits. It was basically a combination of Saturday
Night Live and 30 Rock, although the sketches were surprisingly dark for a kiddie show - one
recurring bit featured a kid tied to a post trying to talk his way out of execution via
firing squad. The suits at Nickelodeon had no problem with
underage capital punishment, so they sure didn't mind joking about adoption. You Can't Do That on Television episodes usually
had a theme, and, for a 1987 episode, that theme was "Adoption," but it was really "let's
make fun of adopted kids." In one sketch, for example, a newly adopted
child is treated like a dog, leash and all. "Why didn't you just go to the Humane Society
and adopt a dog?" "Well, you see dear, the Humane Society charges
$35 to adopt a dog!" After it aired, Nickelodeon decided to pull
it out of rotation. In 2012, show co-creator Geoffrey Darby told
Splitsider: "We ourselves didn't understand what buttons
were being pushed about an episode dealing with adoption. And that was our mistake … And so that was
a bad show. … I think it only ever aired once." Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Grunge videos about your favorite
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