We don’t know about you, but when we think of childhood, we think Nickelodeon. In fact, we still remember every word to the All That theme song, we still know how to greet Good Burger customers, and there is still an Are You Afraid of the Dark episode that continues to haunt our dreams. (The indoor swimming pool episode for those of you wondering.) But there was a lot about Nickelodeon that we didn’t know about as kids, and while these facts don’t change our childhood per se, we certainly have a unique perspective now. Let’s get started!
Who didn’t want to be on Double Dare and fumble through an obstacle course that was covered in slime? As adults, we can’t imagine anything more frustrating. But apparently, the kid contestants felt that too because in an interview host Marc Summers said that he never in his life heard as much swearing as he did while hosting that show. Luckily the kids weren’t miked so not much editing had to happen, but we imagine the audience members and parents on set were uhm, surprised?
You can’t fool us, we know you would still get slimed today if you could. If you were like us, you often wondered what slime was made out of. While we don’t have exact measurements, we can tell you multiple recipes existed, but these were the key ingredients: Cream of Wheat, green food coloring, Johnson’s baby shampoo, vegetable oil, and occasionally cottage cheese.
Remember Gak? It was pretty much packaged slime before making your own was a thing? Well, as fate should have it, ‘gak’ is actually a street name for heroin in Philly. So, that makes our mid-90s Christmas lists seem … sketchy.
Okay, if you’re on TikTok then you’ve probably recently heard about this “lost” film from Nickelodeon that was so disturbing it had to be taken off the air not long after it premiered. The year was 2000 and the film was known as Cry Baby Lane starring Frank Langella. It was said that the film was too edgy and too intense for the target audience, and the film was quickly shelved. We heard you can view the entire thing on YouTube these days though, thanks to some friends that opted to record this movie onto a VHS so many years ago.
If you assumed those kid actors from early Nickelodeon shows were laying in bathtubs full of money these days, you assumed wrong. Kid stars on early Nick shows didn’t get paid much money at all, mostly due to the fact all of the shows were considered low-budget, nor were there laws in place that guaranteed them residuals.
Do you ever find yourself wondering if Doug and Patti Mayonaise ended up together? According to creator Jim Jinkins, the answer is no.