I Want My 90’s Nickelodeon Back!

Nostalgia is a tricky thing--you never know when it’s going to hit you.

Last week I was sick with the flu, and combating a 100 degree fever with theraflu, tomato soup, and daytime talk shows. That was when it hit me—the feeling of wanting nothing more than to be ten again, curled up on my old couch, wearing my favorite Star Wars pj’s, and watching a marathon of classic 90’s NickToons on Nickelodeon.

There’s something about the 90’s that was so carefree and simple, yet revolutionary. (Stay with me.) The 90’s saw the birth of some of the most influential music of all time, some of the biggest movies of all time, and of course, some of the biggest political scandals of all time (cigars anyone?).

However, I don’t think anything quite captured the essence of the 90’s as vividly as Nickelodeon–the flagship for adolescent culture. With some of the network’s early teen-driven popular shows, such as Hey Dude, Salute Your Shorts, Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Clarissa, Explains it All, as well as some of their iconic alternative cartoons like Ren and Stimpy, Doug, Rugrats, and Rocko’s Modern Life, Nickelodeon’s programming magnificently enthralled a wide variety of kids, from the Happy Meal-bred youth to the aging Gen-X burnouts, and every flannel-clad grunge-rocker in between.

In today’s world, with our youth obsessing over Justin Bieber’s hair and Miley Cyrus’s dual identity (are we sure she isn’t suffering from dissociative identity disorder?), it has at one point made me question my television taste of these classic Nick shows that I remember so fondly and dearly.

Alas, could it have been that my undeveloped, adolescent tastes warped my sense of “good” and “bad” television? Or worse, a conspiracy that has made me a  victim of the mass consumption of youth media trends set forth by major media conglomerates?

OR, were these shows as awesome to me today as they were when I was a kid?

The answer: Yes....yes they are.

Thanks to the amazing power of the internet, Netflix, and people who also remember these shows as being as awesome as I do, I’ve since been able to go back and rewatch my favorites Nick shows.

As a well-educated, employed, somewhat artistic twenty-something, I can assure that Are You Afraid of The Dark? is still every bit as terrifying as you remember, Rocko’s Modern Life is still as bizarrely awesome as you remember, and The Adventures of Pete and Pete is still the best and coolest goddamn kid’s show ever created in the history of everything. (Seriously, little Pete had a tattoo, the Mom could listen to the radio through a metal plate in her head, and the show had stars like Steve Buscemi, Iggy Pop, Janeane Garafolo, and C’MON!).

I remember when I was kid wanting nothing more than to take a crack at the Aggro Crag on GUTS, or thinking how if I had two minutes to get through Olmec’s temple and find the hidden artifact on Legends of the Hidden Temple, I’d at least know how to assemble a freakin’ 3-piece monkey statue the right way.

Hell, I owe a lot to Nickelodeon for making me the man I am today.

I am perhaps one of six people in the world who owns Good Burger on DVD. I still use the “Vital Information” that I learned from Lori Beth Denberg on All That in my “Everyday Life.” I also credit Kenan, from Kenan & Kel‘s “Every Day French with Pierre Escargot” as the root of my obsession with French films, and blame Kel for my love affair with orange soda. I can’t help to think that Clarissa Explains it All might be responsible for my habit of unexpectedly climbing ladders into friends’ bedrooms and creating 8-bit video games of my life problems to help me find solutions (ok, that last bit may be stretching it).

To this day, whenever I walk past anyone sitting on a stoop, I have to exercise the utmost restraint from pointing and screaming "Stoop kid's afraid to leave his stoop!”

Damn your influence on my life, Nickelodeon!

So what made these shows so great? Was it some magical all-star programming team at Nick that really cared about making quality kid’s shows? Were kids in the 90’s just that much cooler then kids today?

Did Nickelodeon secretly put something in my Dunk-A-Roos?

Who Knows? Probably all of those things, but does it really matter? Nostalgia is about looking back and reminiscing, not looking back and trying to figure out what happened and how to change it.

That’s what the DeLorean’s are for.