Like many others of my generation, I still fixate on shows like The Adventures of Pete & Pete, Salute Your Shorts, Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Rocko’s Modern Life, which have stuck with me for over two decades.
There was something incomparable about the programming on Nickelodeon during those days. I always felt that Nickelodeon’s writers and then-CEO Herb Scannell had ESP with their preteen audience. The shows, both live-action and animated, were never patronizing and empowered kids to feel like they mattered and could celebrate the awkwardness of growing up with others across the world who felt the same.
This triumphant return of 1990s Nickelodeon shows to the TEENick network last year is about far more than a handful of programs. For many of my generation, Nickelodeon in the 90s was symbolic of all that was unique about the decade. Most of us were too young to latch onto the sociopolitical issues affecting the news cycle or attend a Nirvana gig, so Nickelodeon was our turf.
And when we went off to college last decade, discussions of Hey Dude and Clarissa Explains it All were tremendous ice breakers with classmates in the often difficult first few weeks after leaving home. In some ways, that bygone era in our lives galvanized the preteen in each of us as we began adulthood. The unsung heroes in this whole resurgence are social media outlets.
Without the Facebooks and Twitters of the world, network execs may have turned a blind eye to the rabid passion for our days of yore. And nearly seven years after Paramount pulled the plug on the “Nick Rewind” DVD series, there is finally reason to celebrate. Sure, some of our beloved shows probably won’t stand the test of time after we get a second look, but I have a feeling that others will be even more poignant to our older and wiser selves.
My favorite was always The Adventures of Pete & Pete, a surreal show about two brothers living in Middle America and their cast of bizarre friends and parents. Even Iggy Pop, the godfather of punk rock, had an acting stint as the dad of one of little Pete’s friends. The music was top-notch 90s indie rock and the stories are even better now than when I was nine, glued to the TV every Sunday night.
Nostalgia overload aside, Nickelodeon presented an array of creative, forward-thinking programming to an audience of hundreds of thousands of millennials worldwide. As we continue to grow into our newly-minted adult lives, these shows continue to inspire us to embrace our individuality, even if the programs feel charmingly dated in an era that feels utterly charmless.
Alex Fencl is based in Dallas, TX.
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