Remembering the once Great Cable Network

Today I'd like to do a little report on the cable channel Nickelodeon (That's Channel 32 on Guilford County Time Warner Cable and Channel 24 on Forsyth County Time Warner Cable).

My house started to get Nickelodeon in 1986 but I didn't start watching it until about mid-late 1993. My earliest memory of the channel would be Rugrats. Gotta love those dumb babies.

The channel first aired in 1979 as Pinwheel. That was also some sort of live action/cartoon variety show. The channel was renamed Nickelodeon sometime in the early 80's. At that time, Nickelodeon started showing the Cannadian import variety show called "You Can't Do That On Television". That show started the icon that put Nickelodeon on the map which was the green slime. (I still thank that's water with green food coloring). I've only seen one episode of YCDTOT and that was when Nickelodeon was showing some of their old shows during their 25th anniversary celebration back in June of 2004.

In 1986, the trademark and revolutionary game show called Double Dare aired. Beautiful show. Some mess, some questions, and an obstical course. I've only seen Super Sloppy Double Dare, my favorite Family Double Dare, and the poor excuse for Double Dare called Double Dare 2000.

The dawn of the 90's brought even more spectacular shows like Rugrats, Doug, Ren & Stimpy, Family Double Dare, Nick Arcade, GUTS, What Would You Do, Legends of the Hidden Temple, Clarissa Explains it All, Adventures of Pete & Pete, Rocko's Modern Life, and even more. Of course, I came very late in the 80's so all I can remember is the Nick of the 90's.

Let's talk about Family Double Dare. That was the Double Dare version I grew up with. Don't care much for the 1990 ones but love the 1992 ones. The format was the same as Double Dare but you added mom, dad, brother Bob, sister Ashley, and unfortunately not Rex the labador. This was one of two (maybe 3) game shows I'd watch me my mom on Sunday morings before church. Even though the website with Nickelodeon schedules stated that game shows wern't aired on Sunday mornings until 1995 and 1996, I'm positive I was watching them at that time and day around 1994. You just can't trust the Internet.

Let's talk about What Would You Do. What Would You Do featured Double Dare host Marc Summers. I don't remember much about this show except the theme song, some automatic pie/slime chair, and set layout. This might have been another Sunday morning show, but I'm not sure.

Let's talk about Nick Arcade. Another Saturday game show that I watched Sunday mornings. It was sort of like that 80's game show Starcade but with a touch of early 90's. Hosted by Phil Moore, the game featured a red team and yellow team. They would start out by playing a "Face Off" game which would decide who would first have control of Mikey (More on him later). The faceoff would either be a Pong ripoff or some mailman game. After that, they would go to their podeoms. The game featured a virtual gameboard featuring a kid named Mikey. You would have to get him to the goal without running into an enemy. The theme of the Mikey game and the enemy would change every episode. The control of Mikey was verbal so it featured no gamepad or joystick. The board consisted of squares that contained either a "Video Challenge", a "Video Puzzle", a prize, points, enemy, questions, and etc. A video challenge resulted in the team going to this row of arcade games. One person would play and the other would risk points. You had to meet the Wizard's Challenge. If you met it, the points the other person risked would be added to the score and control of Mikey would remain on that team. If you didn't meet it, the points the other person risked would be taken away from the score and control of Mikey would be transfered to the other team. Anyway, the Mikey process kept going until they met the goal or time ran out for the round. After the commercial, the process was repeated. Whoever won the second Mikey round would travel into the "Video Zone". The video zone consisted of 3 levels. A prize would be won for each level completed. What was cool about this part of the game was that they would actually go inside the game via some blue screen.

Let's talk about GUTS. The game is too hard for me to explain but I'll give you a link at the end of this post for information. All I can tell you is that this was my favorite game show. This game wasn't a Sunday morning one, but it was still a great one.

But the late 90's would be the end of the greatness. Since then, they've dumped most of the shows I grew up with and replaced them with garbage. No more Double Dare, no more GUTS, no more Nick Arcade, All That has gotten an entire new cast, and Rugrats ended in 2004. Most of the shows they have on there is ultra trendy and ridiculous. The only 3 shows I like are SpongeBob SquarePants, Fairly OddParents, and Drake & Josh. Just like Carolina Circle Mall, Nickelodeon has died. Well, it's still alive but in another terrible form. Just like the Great Bob Dylan once sang, "The Time they Are a Changin".

One of the worst things they've done in the past 5 years was that Double Dare 2000. I'm glad they canceled that poor excuse for Double Dare. The set was completely blech, Marc Summers was gone, the famous theme music was completely screwed up, and etc. Stay away from DD2k.

But don't give up on this network. Nickelodeon has launched a sister channel called Nickeolodeon GAS. It features most of the game shows from the 80's and the 90's including most versions of Double Dare, GUTS, Nick Arcade, Legends of the Hidden Temple, Finders Keepers (80's), and etc. I wish it had What Would You Do. It's on Guilford County Time Warner Cable Channel 110. It requires Digital Cable.

They also launched NickToons TV. I heard it has a few old 90's cartoons on it. Unfortunately, Time Warner Cable doesn't have it but stay tuned.

Here are some links to some websites that has more classic Nick info:

Antony's Nickelodeon Page
Joe's Double Dare Page
Nick Nostalgia Site (Mainly 80's)
Classic Nick
ClassicNick.com