The History of Nickelodeon [UPDATED]

down [Music] the year is 1977. a new cable channel debuted it was called Cube to be precise Cube was a cable network based in Columbus Ohio it had a local channel known as C3 C3 only ever aired one show a children's variety program called pinwheel pinwheel was developed by former employees of ctw best known for creating Sesame Street more specifically Dr Vivian Horner who also founded C3 before creating pinwheel Vivian Horner was an educator and researcher for the PBS series The Electric Company C3 broadcast Pinwheel on Loop from December 1st 1977 until March 31st 1979. on April Fool's Day of 1979 everything changed Time Warner Cable purchased C3 and changed its name to the time-honored Nickelodeon Nickelodeon's very first logo looked like this pinwheel was Nick's launching program in addition to pinwheel more shows were added including video Comics nickel flicks by the way and Hocus Focus Nickelodeon actually gets its name from the Nickelodeon the Nickelodeon was the very first type of Cinema that was mainly a thing in the 1900s and 1910s the name itself comes from nickel the five cent coin as well as Odeon as in ovian theater a theater in France in 1980 Nick changed its logo from a boring looking word into a crystal ball with the letters of Nickelodeon being a rainbow while Nickelodeon would initially air for 13 hours a day the alpha Repertory television service or Arts would broadcast at night in 1982 you can't do that on television was added to the schedule basically it was the 80s version of All That in 1984 art stopped existing and it was replaced with Nick at night which broadcast old timey shows from before the 1960s while Arts itself became the non-fiction drama Channel a e which is on a completely different Channel now on October 1st 1984 Nickelodeon retired its crystal ball logo and they replaced it with the iconic orange Splat that most know Nick for also in 1984 Geraldine layborn was made vice president of Nickelodeon according to an interview with Vivian Horner labourne was who was who made Nick such a success we now enter 1985 Nick at night officially starts existing and Turkey Television is added to the lineup in 1986 Nickelodeon premiered a new show that is very important to it double dare a hit new game show the reason double there is so important is because it originated the famous Nickelodeon slime it would pour down on the show's contestants Nickelodeon would proceed to slime various people in Stars even today fun fact I actually got slimed once actually it was with Nickelodeon slime ketchup also in 86 Nickelodeon's parent company Viacom bought MTV Viacom also owned CBS which is considered to be one of the big three networks along with ABC and NBC each of the big three were owned by different companies thus connecting Nickelodeon to the big boys in 1987 Nick created the big ballot a big event where kids got to vote for certain things in 1988 two major Nick related things debuted one of them was Nick Jr Nick Jr with air shows aimed at preschool children on weekdays from 9am to 2PM however preschool programming aired on weekday mornings since the beginning but the block didn't have a unique name until now and the other was the fact that the big ballot changed its name to the Kids Choice Awards after only one year the Kids Choice Awards is an annual show where kids could vote for various things in various categories the winner of each category would receive an orange blimp with Nickelodeon's logo on it in 1989 construction for Nickelodeon Studios Florida began this building is also very bright and colorful isn't it pretty this is also when the Nick Jr block got its first actual show Eureka's Castle Eureka's Castle was a variety puppet show that aired between 1989 and 1991. its head writer was actually Goosebumps author R.L Stein welcome to the 90s the 90s was probably Nick's Prime Time Nick starts publishing magazines but for now they're exclusive to Pizza Hut Nickelodeon Studios officially opens in Orlando Florida this is also where most of Nick's live action shows were filmed and all their game shows for that matter speaking of live action shows we got a bunch of them around this time welcome freshman Clarissa Explains It All and Salute Your Shorts on August 11 1991 three new shows premiered on Nick and they were a big first Doug Rugrats and the Ren and Stimpy show were Nick's first three Nicktoons to summarize Nicktoons are animated cartoon series that would air on Nickelodeon these three were the only ones for a while while but many more would arrive later in 1992 Nick released a block that only aired on Saturday nights Snick Snick would run for two hours and broadcast shows such as these but also two new shows exclusive to the block on April 30th 1992 Nickelodeon buried a time capsule it's filled mostly with things that scream 90s it will be opened in 2042 50 years after being buried see however Nick was also beginning to face competition from the Disney Channel and the newly launched Cartoon Network so they began advertising themselves as the first kids network and they're not technically wrong at this point Nickelodeon was doing amazingly well Nick now had four Nicktoons with Rocco's Modern Life being added to the lineup they also had new live action hits too you know the young preschoolers can tune in on weekday mornings you could vote for your favorite things every year and you could you could tune into Saturday nights for the ultimate Nick experience and now Nick magazine was being sold all over the place instead just your local Pizza Hut Nick was a juggernaut too big to be taken down in 1993 Nickelodeon VHS tapes started being produced they were distributed by none other than Sony Wonder on January 2nd 1994 Doug became the first Nicktoon to get canceled but two years later Disney stole it and made new episodes under the name Disney's Doug later in 1994 all that came along all that was a sketch comedy show that ran on it for quite a while this is also the closest Nick ever got to making their own Saturday Night Live Nickelodeon's parent company Viacom also bought Paramount Pictures around this time this may not sound interesting now but it will be in a few years then one day Nick basically said oh shoot we almost forgot Nick Jr existed so they completely retooled it by giving it two new original shows as well as a new mascot named face on top of that Nick started including Nick Jr shows in their VHS lineup in 1995 Nick went online with its own website you know it today as nick.com although it was only accessible via America Online it did get its own website later also in 1995 Nick launched a block called Nick in the afternoon which only aired in the summer the block was hosted by a popsicle stick named stick stickly stick was voiced by Paul Christie who also voices another Nick mascot but we'll get to him in a bit Paul's other character might surprise you as it is one a lot of young 2000's kids might remember meanwhile in Canada nalvana made an animated adaptation of the little bear books by Maury Sendak but then Nick Jr saw it and took it in 1996 Nickelodeon premiered a bunch of new shows including Hey Arnold Keenan and Kel Blues Clues space cases and the Mystery files of Shelby Wu this was also when Nick cut ties with Sony wonder and their tapes were now distributed by Paramount but the most important Nick event in this year was the first ever Nickelodeon movie Harriet the Spy however long time Nick president Geraldine layborn stepped down after 12 years and Herb Scandal took her place Hannah actually had his own section of Nickelodeon magazine called Hey herb where you can interview him this replaced laborin's version of the section called ask the boss lady in 1997 one year after the debut of Harriet the Spy Nickelodeon already released its second movie Good Burger which was based on the all that skid of the same name starring comedy duo Keenan Thompson and Kell Mitchell of course in 1998 Rugrats became the first ever Nicktoon to be adapted into a movie I'm personally confused on why this didn't come out sooner due to Rugrats popularity but whatever works I guess 1998 also saw the debut of nicolozone an hour-long block that aired from 8 pm to 9pm and its schedule was diverse like really really diverse oh see that show right there oh yeah cartoons was created to Showcase Pilots for a potential future Nicktoons in fact these three Nicktoons got their start on this show 1999 was a pretty big year for Nickelodeon because four major things happened first the channel turned 20 years old second they collaborated with ctw the company that owned Sesame Street they created an all-educational Channel called Noggin third they created another separate channel for all their game shows this channel was called Nickelodeon games in sports or net gas if you don't have that much time and finally Nick premiered a show that would change the network forever can you guess what it is yup it's SpongeBob this is hands down the most popular Nickelodeon show and is still going strong even after 24 years so best believe we're gonna be seeing a lot of SpongeBob from this point on we now leave the 90s welcome to the 2000s where the year 2000 kicks off with nicolonium an event that McDonald's sponsored to sort of kick off the new era of time the turn of the century SpongeBob had just entered its second season and the show was starting to insanely grow in popularity and the Nick Jr block just debuted a new show that would basically be its equivalent of SpongeBob apparently Nick didn't think one channel was good enough so they launched Nick two Nick two's schedule was significantly different so expect Nick Jr at 6am rather than 9am which is kind of silly because who would want to watch Blue's Clues at six in the morning in addition to nick2 we also got Nick on CBS Nikon CBS was to give non-cable kids a taste of what Nick had to offer we now enter 2001. a lot happened in 2001 Two Towers were destroyed tragically ending the lives of many George W bush became president and I was born but that doesn't mean Nick didn't have any events of Their Own for instance on March 30th two new Nicktoons premiered Invader Zim and the Fairly Odd Parents on December 21st 2001 a movie called Jimmy Neutron boy Genius debuted it was a revolutionary as Nick property had never been in CGI before Snick also got a Sunday night counterpart in the form of T Nick by the time 2002 rolled around Nickelodeon had already aired 16 different Nicktoons 17 a few count Pelswick meaning they had enough shows for them to be their own separate Channel enter Nicktoons TV Nicktoons TV was made to air Nick's animated content 24 7. and to go with it Nickelodeon turned their movie Jimmy Neutron into a TV series on July 20th so now Nick had four different channels in 2002 ctw which has been since renamed to Sesame Workshop sold its half of Noggin to Nickelodeon leaving Noggin 100 under viacom's ownership and speaking of Noggin it started sharing a Channel with the N which is a team block that airs at night and then on April 7 2003 Noggin basically became a clone of Nick Jr also on this day not going to introduce two new mascots moose and z z was completely mute but Moose was voiced by Paul Christie the same guy who did stick stickly isn't that neat on April 11 2003 Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon blast first opened it was like a show ride event that featured many Nicktoon characters and they say infinity war is the most ambitious crossover in November 2003 SpongeBob released a game called Battle for Bikini Bottom the game would eventually be remastered years later 2004 saw the premieres of many new shows such as Drake and Josh Danny Phantom and The Backyardigans however in exchange for some decent new premieres a lot of shows got the ax such as these also Nick Studios in Orlando got repainted to a more green white orange 2000s look because this started to look pretty dated and it was around this time that SpongeBob SquarePants truly became Nick's big hit show because SpongeBob received a balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and he also made his big screen debut one more thing in 2004 Nickelodeon launched launched the Worldwide Day of Play where Nick went off the air for a while so that their viewers could get outside and have fun but let's be real nobody actually went outside most of us just changed the channel to Cartoon Network or something so World by day play was kind of pointless in 2005 avatar The Last Airbender first aired why I mention it on its own personal slide is because the show suddenly became popular a whole 12 years after it ended and it's all thanks to Netflix but the other Nicktoons that premiered in 2005 are so obscure that no one talks about them sadly on April 30th 2005 Nick Studios was shut down and Snick was shut down too on September 23 2005 Nicktoons renamed itself to Nicktoons Network and on December 31st 2005 we sadly lost Nick on CBS it got replaced with kol secret slumber party a block on CBS that aired a lot of girly content on January 4th 2006 herb Scannell left Nickelodeon and in his place came Sima zargami by now Nickelodeon was a completely different Channel than it was in the last decade I mean just take a look at all this doesn't scream 90s at all it screams more 2008 this is also when SpongeBob really became not only Nick's most popular show but obviously their favorite SpongeBob marathons were happening more frequently it was the only 90s show that didn't end yet and it was still making new episodes after 10 whole years sadly this is where Nickelodeon began its slow decline as I just mentioned Nick started airing mostly SpongeBob and just stopped caring about its other shows since a lot of other Nicktoons were ending around this time and all the newer shows that were premiering around this time began to feel more lifeless some of them were just plain horrible in fact this also applied to Nick Jr as well even though Nick was rotting around this time a lot of wild stuff did happen iCarly one of the most notable live-action Nick shows debuted the end became its own separate channel from Noggin replacing Nick gas Little Bill finally started airing on Noggin and this book came out this book here contains behind the scenes stuff for every Nick tune up to the mighty bee in 2008 Nickelodeon allowed amazon.com to sell DVDs of their shows and movies so now online shopping for Nickelodeon's content was a possibility Nick also made a deal with Dreamworks Animation to produce shows based on their movies and the first show of that type was the Penguins of Madagascar also in 2008 Nick probably made the biggest mistake of its life a show was pitched to it and this show could have been a total game changer for the channel that's right my friends Cartoon Network's hit show Adventure Time was supposed to be a Nicktoon however Nick was given a choice between a choice to air either one of these two shows one of these shows has an in-depth plot and wholesome characters and episodes while the other is literally nothing but gross humor shouting and immature writing from monkeys with a typewriter however Nick were total Geniuses and went with this monstrosity talk about a tough life so Adventure Time went to air on Cartoon Network instead and yeah that was a smart move on Nick's part but then on September 28th 2009 everything changed for the first time in 25 years Nickelodeon and its whole family changed their logos no no no no no no no no if you ask me these logos look more generic and samey than the older ones in December 2009 Nick magazine published its last regular issue however it would briefly return in 2015 to 2016. it is now the 2010s it was here that the popularity of Nickelodeon sitcoms was at an all-time high they were flooding the channel leaving SpongeBob in Fairly OddParents is the only regularly aired Nicktoons on July 1st 2010 avatar The Last Airbender became the first Nicktoon to be made into a live-action movie but it wasn't very good and then the Fairly Odd Parents decide to do the same thing in 2011. which came at a relevant time considering the show was turning 10. and now Teen Nick has a new Prime Time block dedicated to Nostalgia named after all that sadly however Jimmy Neutron Infinity War closed down after eight years probably because Jimmy Neutron stopped airing long before this occurrence during this time Nickelodeon started airing shows of already existing pieces of media and this time pieces of media that didn't belong to DreamWorks on February 29 2012 moose and Z were retired from Nick Jr after nine years and in October Nick Jr went back to having a nighttime Block in the form of Nick mom it was also around this time that Nick's shows were unwatchable for instance they started airing Fred the Show making it the first Nick show to be based on YouTube material this show was so bad that it was canceled after one stupid season hey remember Snick it didn't actually shut down it just went unnamed for seven years not anymore though because now it's called Gotta See Saturdays I hear it even airs in the morning too but it doesn't last very long bear with me here about 99 of all Nick shows that premiered after 2013 are garbage so I won't even bother mentioning most of them anymore but in October 2014 Viacom launched a new streaming platform called CBS All Access it may not be popular now but it will be relevant later on also in 2014 the Kids Choice Awards got a spin-off in the form of Kids Choice Sports but unlike KCA KCs would Air at a different point in the year specifically The Fall season 2015 however some pretty interesting things occurred some good and some bad Nick clearly wanted its fans to get a taste of that Nostalgia juice so they did a few things to quench their thirst for instance Invader Zim returned as a comic book series and Noggin was brought back except now it was no longer a cable channel but rather a streaming service and finally Teen Nick changed the 90s or all that's name to the Splat which is the nighttime block that airs NYX all their content and in February 2015 SpongeBob released its second movie Sponge Out of Water and on April 6 2015 this absolute monstrosity of a show premiered make it pop or as I like to call it Nick's attempt at making a live-action anime thankfully it's been canceled after just 16 months and with luck Nick will never air it again but then again Nick's always hyper focused on SpongeBob so yeah yeah it seems as though Nick really wants some Nostalgia juice going because they nabbed four of their old properties back and decide to make movies out of them two of them aired on the channel itself while the other two went to Netflix in 2019. on August 11 2016 Nick animation celebrated its 25th anniversary and in 25 years Nick had produced a total of 42 Nicktoons hey remember the DreamWorks deal yeah well that's officially no more and on September 9th 2016 Nick music arrived to replace MTV hits on March 13 2017 a very terrifying thing happened SpongeBob SquarePants Creator Stephen hillenberg was diagnosed with ALS and it was guaranteed to kill him in a year or so hillenberg announced that he would continue to work on his show for as long as he could in July 2017 The Fairly Odd Parents finally ended after 16 years of granting wishes in 2018 double dare returned and it was slimier than ever in long time show creators Butch Hartman and Dan Schneider left Nick after so many years for both also simasargami left the channel she was replaced with current Nick president Brian Robbins and now on to the saddest event of 2018 on November 26 2018 Stephen hillenburg's ALS had finally killed him and every SpongeBob fan big and small went into mourning this officially makes Steven the first Nicktoon Creator to pass away in January 2019 Viacom acquired Pluto TV a free streaming service so now Pluto TV had shows of Nickelodeon and Nick Jr available on it on March 19 2019 the Splat was replaced with Nick rewind Nick rewind continued to broadcast on Teen Nick until January 31st 2022. around this time Nickelodeon officially acquired the comic strip Garfield still with plans to make a new animated series starring the Garfield cast sometime in the future also Worldwide Day of Play officially stops existing after 15 years most likely because it took Nick that long to realize that people just aren't going to listen to them about going outside and getting sunburned we now enter 2020 which was without a doubt the worst year of the 21st century so far around this time the new streaming platform Disney plus debuted and in order to compete with Disney's new streaming service Viacom took CBS all access through nearly every Nick and Nick Jr show onto it and changed its name to Paramount Plus on March 4th 2021 on that same day a spin-off of SpongeBob called Camp Coral premiered Paramount plus is making new revamped versions of other Nick Classics such as a CGI reboot of Rugrats and a newer more modern iCarly in fact Paramount became so prominent to Viacom that Viacom outright changed its name to Paramount Global in 2022. and Nick's founder Dr Vivian Horner sadly passed away at the age of 88. but there's something pretty sick in 2023 on March 4th 2023 Nickelodeon aired their 36th annual Kids Choice Awards and it came with a neat little surprise Nickelodeon officially welcomed their iconic orange glob of slime back into their logo this along with a new aesthetic for their bumpers are still being used right now well looks like we made it to the end Nickelodeon is still going strong after 40 plus years I hope I mentioned enough for this to be an improvement the end now

Channel: Wyatt Olinger

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Length: 27min 9sec (1629 seconds)

Published: Tue May 16 2023