Kids These Days

I was recently watching the reunion of the members of the cast and crew of the cult television series The Adventures of Pete and Pete. The series was about the surreal and funny adventures of two brothers who happen to have the same name. Oddly enough it aired on Nickelodeon when Nick was in the prime of its programming. The reunited cast and crew reminisced about their experience with the show and answered questions about their time spent making it. The creators of the show, Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi, mentioned how they believed that very few people were watching their show. During a test screening of it, the show only seemed to be drawing in one kid. The rest of the kids called it weird or strange. They said that they were totally fine writing the show for that type of kid who seemed to be in the minority. But I have to disagree with their conclusion. Kids have and will love the absurd, the crazy, and the weird. I know I did, and my friends did, and almost every single one of my peers adored the television programming on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network.

One might argue that a show like Spongebob's success is completely unique compared to its animated predecessors on Nickelodeon, but this overlooks the fact that Spongebob went on the air just around the time that Nick had finely become a really popular and profitable network. It had peaked. Kids loved nearly all the shows that Nick put on the air, but the shows didn't last, and were cut after just a couple seasons. Spongebob has continued to be on the air since its premiere in 1999. But if the continued popularity of these shows long after their time on television, including The Adventures of Pete and Pete, proves anything, it's that the network was honestly foolish in cutting these shows while they were in their prime. Don't believe their popularity? Just do a search on Facebook for 90's Nickelodeon. You will get an extensive list of groups and fan pages for 90's Nickelodeon programming.

And look at what the programming actually was Doug, Rugrats, CatDog, Ren and Stimpy, Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, and Kablam!. CatDog is about a cat-dog hybrid. And this was in an era before the Human Centipede. Real Monsters is about an underground society of monsters taking classes on how to scare people. Kablam! features a variety of strange animated segments including Action League now, arguably its best segment, in which action figures try to save the house of their owner, in a bizarre Toy Story type scenario. Ren and Stimpy was extremely gross out and even at times raunchy to the point of being adult.

And look at Cartoon Network's programming: Cow and Chicken, I Am Weasel, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Powerpuff Girls, Ed, Edd n' Eddy and Johnny Bravo. Cow and Chicken is about a brother and sister who are, you guessed it, a cow and a chicken. On top of that, their parents are feet, and the only really other reoccurring character is a devil creature that is inexplicably there. Courage the Cowardly Dog had some of the creepiest and most messed up programming I've ever seen: as attested by this clip. Ed, Edd, n' Eddy was a show about three weird kids all with the same name who try to scam their neighborhood kids in order to buy jaw breakers. The Power Puff Girls has little girls with super powers fighting some pretty strange monsters and villains.

But the things is that the crazy programming of yesteryear continues to this day with programming as surreal and wonderfully crazy as its predecessors. Nick now has The Fairly Oddparents, and Spongebob. And Cartoon Network has the Regular Show and Adventure Time. And may be it's just me, but I can go back and watch those shows and appreciate and enjoy them just as much as I did when I was a kid. And I can watch some of the newer stuff and like it a lot more than I should. May be it's the kid inside of me; 9 year old me crying out. But the thing is that when you're a kid everything is new and strange and wonderful, and I really do feel like these shows captured that very sort of spirit of what it means to be a kid and that is why we loved it when we were kids, and why kids continue to love it. Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi, you sell yourself too short.