I'm fifteen and I DON'T have a drinking problem!!

But what about Degrassi??

Fifteen was always on before or after Welcome Freshmen, a much more aloof high school comedy. It was a downer.

I remember being 8 and watching these shows... Fifteen was painful. Welcome Freshmen was better, at least the first year, until it turned into Fifteen.

pakkuri ?

Oh god, WELCOME FRESHMEN...you just knocked some memories loose in my noggin. Since I've nothing to contribute to the Marxy's Book Club, let's get a classic Nick list going.

Pinwheel
The Little Prince
Today's Special (so frightening)
Ct. Duckula/DM/Bananaman (the Thames phase)
Picture Pages!
David The Gnome
The Mysterious Cities of Gold (French/Japanese co-production)

I think these all aired pre-90's
...mmmmmmm, I can almost taste the grilled peanut-butter & honey sandwiches...

I only remember Welcome Freshmen by name.

You are forgetting some early classics:

Turkey TV.
Those sunday afternoon movies.

Later period failures:
Don't Just Sit There!

Hey! Dude always seemed like it wasn't trying to reach me as the target audience.

The Mysterious Cities of Gold always struck me as the most boring TV show ever. If it came on, I would leave the house and play outside. What a waste of my time.

The girl from Salute Your Shorts was kind of hot.

We talking Zee Zee、Telly or Dina?
Who am I kidding, of course Dina.

Hey Dude was my shit.

Man, I'm looking at this site now:
http://johnnorrisbrown.com/classic-nick/index.htm

This is a trip. I had forgotten all about Kid's Court with Paul Provenza. Maya the Bee, Don't Just Sit There, SHARON, LOIS & BRAM'S ELEPHANT SHOW!. hahaha I remember getting pissed when that garbage came on.

Mysterious Cities of Gold is so good! You really screwed yourself by "playing outside." If you want to make it up for your childhood blunderz, I, uh, have the entire series on my harddrive.

Kid's Court. I always hated how the lawyers would get evidence thrown out on constitutional grounds. This was post-Miranda, so things were a bit over the top.

We had a cat named after Maya the Bee. Most obnoxious theme song ever.

Inspector Gadget was my favorite tv show when I was very young (4 or 5, maybe) and when my mom heard the sirens at the beginning of the into song she would always tell me to turn the tv off just to make me upset. In retrospect though, it was probably pretty funny. A few years later Get Smart! would be one of my favorite tv shows, but I didn't figure out until years later the leads were played by the same person.

I'm also going to give a thumbs up to Mysterious Cities of Gold, but I never saw it as a kid. I saw some of it on youtube recently, but then it got taken down. :(

But how about Sports Cartoon? I remember something about those clips always made me a tad uncomfortable. I was really little at the time, so I don't remember the content, only watching and being slightly unnerved.

Hands up for anyone who thinks that Riff Raff and his gang were more interesting than Heathcliff proper.

From the Wikipedia entry on The Cadillac Cats:

"The music store was constantly guarded by a sheepdog named Bush who had long hair and could not see where he was going."

How prescient.

ok, after reviewing this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=azsN_x72SfE&search=sports%20cartoon

it looks like Sports Cartoon was just pretty creepy. Hard to look away from, but, yeah, creepy.

Yes, that and all the doping scandals with the kidtestants on GUTS made a pre-teen Rory lose faith in all that he believed in.

Except for the Noozles.

I totally forgot about Sports Cartoon until I saw it.

Great side story: I tried to make slime once, based on a recipe they mentioned on the show. I mixed jello powder with water and flour. Did not work, and so for some reason, I hid it under my bed. Stuck to high heaven. Very very odd smell. I can't describe it. My mom would come in and be like, what is that smell? Did the cat pee in here? Finally got rid of it at some point.

In college, I made oatmeal and colored it green. Looks exactly like YCDTONTV slime.

Lauren, wow. Sports Cartoons! Filled a gap in my memory there. I used to love those.

Oh, and it's CATillac Cats, I think.
I was attracted to the girlfriend cat... shit, I:ve said too much.

MTV was kind of a rip-off of Nick Rocks, no?

hahahah, hiding slime under your bed?!

When Mom asked what the stink was, wer you kinda reluctant to answer "I don't know." because you suspected she knew about the slime and was just waiting for the right time to dump it on your head?

In one episode of Inspector Gadget, he ran into a garbage dump and the Catillac Cats shook their fists at him. I thought, CROSSOVER - HOW META.

TRL is a rip-off ROUNDHOUSE.

When Mom asked what the stink was, wer you kinda reluctant to answer "I don't know."

I would just say, "I'm not sure. Could be slime."

Roundhouse - A+ for obscurity, but B- on post-92 SNICK.

By 1992, I was listening to Screaming Trees and chasing after girls with Dead Milkmen t-shirts.

Anyone else think that Wes Anderson probably watched a lot of "The Adventures of Pete & Pete"? I get a similar vibe from the two.

Oh man, I seem to remember Roundhouse being on after my bedtime, but I totally wanted to see the dancing. I remember I thought those kids seemed so cool, but this is probably about the same time I wanted a black convertible with black neon glow-in-the-dark shapes on it. Because when I was 7, black + neon colors = cool.

Somehow I thought that I'd be too young/y'all'd be too old to remember so many of the same shows. Obviously not though.

I started watching Nick in late '85, I would guess.

You've got two years on my, so my SNICK routine was in full effect at that time:
Roundhouse
Bowl of the blue Kraft Mac&Cheeze
Are you Afraid of the Dark
Yelling at my dog
Listening to Too Much Joy

My favourite was always the Australian Heartbreak High. It made me realize for the first time in my life that Australia was an actual place with actual people living in it. I now have many Australian people, and try not to disparage them publically.

Think we got cable around '86 or so...I quickly discovered Out of Control.

Right, I was born in 1985, so obviously you have an advantage there.

Though really, seeing as even now you can catch episodes of Nick Arcade on Nick's Games & Sports channel you don't have to experience these things the first time around so age become less important. I have been to a number of parties where people bust either that out or Legends of The Hidden Temple (I know, too late) on DVR.

Noozles tought me that Australia is actually called Kowala-wala Land, where all the stuffed "drop-bears" come to life when you noozle their nozzle.

Sounds like a party to me!

Isn't it hilarious that Obsessive Compulsive Disorder sufferer Marc Summers hosted the messiest, dirtiest, goopiest, sloopiest wacky kids game show on TV?

Dude, I'm looking up Heartbreak High... get outta here with that bullshit.

Peter Engels Productions or nothing at all.

Sorry, guys. Slow Friday, I'm over doing it here, but...

Maya the Bee DID have the most annoying theme ever...
and now you can own it. What is that cover? Maya and a Wada Akiko dragonfly?

I always wonder what it would be like to have to tell people that your job was to be a spotter for some kind of Nick game show, you know, those adults in the background that make sure you don't bust your ass trying to climb up that goopy incline and stuff. It's got to be as a conversation starter, but...

Yeah, I always suspected that Marc was engaging in private physical challenges with that one stage assistant lady, Donna, or whatever.

I used to have a thing for GUTS' Moira Quirk.
That accent got me all agro-crag!

Haha, that cd is awesome.

Weren't Maya's cousins (the hornets) always trying to kill her? Am I remembering that wrong? That just seems a tad fucked up.

Record, darling.

Wouldn't know about Maya's homocidal extended family, could never make it through the theme-song.

Oh, right, record. Sorry, I didn't get past the cover art.

Yeah, Mo is really popular with my guy pals. She looks really short when you see her when the camera pans out though.

I think in a slightly different world, owning a piece of the Agro Crag would mean you get to have your pick of girls/guys from that point onwards. It's pretty much Nickelodeon's stamp of genetic approval.

38 comments. shit people!

I don't want to break the myth that Dave Coultier made for himself, but Out of Control was not very good.

Cut it out!

I never realized this, but Alanis Morisette and Dave Coulier were both on Nickledeon. That's why that song "You Oughtta Know" was written about him.

marxy went straight from nick to post-MTV sophistication? That's what I call a child prodigy.

Today I learned that Maya the bee was, like heidi, a beloved german story turned anime... and that it was made into a live action film starring real insects in the 20's.
and that while I was spending my time trying to hook the back of mario's head on that brick in 1-2, or trigger the infinite 1ups on level 3-1, the cool kids were watching tv.

I had an older brother in college. They send you lots of weird music to listen to WHILE you are watching Nick.

Nate, Minus world is the biggest let down, eh?

You know, I was never good at Mario. But I found the minus level almost impossible to beat.

minus world? definitely programmed by a kafka and dostoyevsky reader.

Mario is compelled to ram his head into the wall again and again in the name of acheiving the most obscure of goals and is rewarded with absurd solitude. What should rightly have been shangri-la finds mario accompanied only by belligerent encephalopods who will ceaselessly hunt him, while he pursues anew a non-existent goal... a pursuit that will end only when time/age catches up with him.

The unlimited 1-ups trick in 3-1 was probably added after the fact as a compensatory measure.

I'm not sure why, but somehow, USA network is a bigger part of my memory of the 80's than was nickelodeon. Maybe nick didn't show up on cable out california way until later?

Good lord, I think this blog just found its true vocation as a Gen Y nostalgia site. Abandon Japan, Marxy!

USA CARTOON EXPRESS!
right? They showed Dragon's Lair, that Don Bluth game/cartoon if I recall...

Good lord, I think this blog just found its true vocation as a Gen Y nostalgia site. Abandon Japan, Marxy!

You're right, this is awesome.

Hey guys, same place next week?
On deck: Disney Afternoon.

yeah, look how marxy and 2 of the semi-regular posters have enthusiasm for something other than japan in common. It's now (even more safe) to dismiss everything he says as overly situated in the american perspective!

USA:Lots of hanna barbera too, esp jabber jaw. And some cartoon I only vaguely recall now about a teenager who morphed into a red car. Dragon's Lair was everything I wanted from life as a child.

All hanna-barbara is TALKING ANIMAL + Group of Kids.

I was a big fan of Laff-a-lympics but I never found it so "funny." I was a serious fan of the Yogi team.

Teenage who morphed into a car - Teen Cadillac - is probably the greatest premise ever for a show.

Silk Stalkings - like a porn show they edited all the porn out of.

We could do this for hours...

UP ALL NIGHT with Gilbert Godfrey:
see 'Silk Stalkings'

Oh, and I noticed that Nickelodeon used to show yr favorite, Lance Link, I had no idea.

It's now (even more safe) to dismiss everything he says as overly situated in the american perspective!

Well, I don't think you have to be me to notice a marked difference in tone here.

This is just like recess in between our day of book-reports, though.

Ok, that was a fun Friday at work, thanks guys, I'm off. If that thing falls thru challa at me, mayne.

This is just like recess in between our day of book-reports, though.

Well, it's the weird one-two, nice cop-nasty cop routine this blog tends to work by. It's "Japan is pretty awful, but The Wonder Years -- fucken' brilliant!"

I find it utterly incomprehensible, because anyone who's spent any time in Japan, and any time watching The Wonder Years, knows that the truth is absolutely the opposite.

actually momus, I'm with you there... I'm not especially into the shows we're talking about, not any more than you are top of the pops. But don't mistake nostalgia for respect for the material. We're just talking about shared experience. I personally never thought much of the wonder years, or most anything we're talking about (excluding nintendo). Think of hannah barbera as our pink lady if that helps you view it in a positive light.

actually the live-action only show I remember watching religiously as a child was night court... and I felt especially privileged if I could stay up to watch saturday night live. my taste has always been awful.

Earlier, in Europe: HE-MAN, Transformers, M.A.S.K, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Jem, Popples, Care Bears, Ulysses 31.

I find it utterly incomprehensible, because anyone who's spent any time in Japan, and any time watching The Wonder Years, knows that the truth is absolutely the opposite.

I like that Momus equates a TV show with a nation. Sees why he tends to ignore any of Japan's political or socioeconomic realities. Why read the even bother reading the credits at the end of a TV show?