1 Nickelodeon’s Iconic Slime Ingredients
Nickelodeon’s iconic slime consisted of vanilla pudding, applesauce, oatmeal, and green food dye.
2. The early 2000s Nickelodeon children’s show “LazyTown” was not only filmed in Iceland, but it was also one of the most expensive children’s shows ever made, with each episode costing nearly $1 million to produce.
3. Except for 2004 and 2016, the Nickelodeon special “Kids Pick the President” has correctly predicted the winner of every US presidential election (as of June 2024) since 1988.
4. The song “Who Let the Dogs Out?” sparked a bidding war between Nickelodeon and Disney. Disney wanted to feature it in the movie “101 Dalmatians,” while Nickelodeon aimed to include it in Rugrats in Paris. Ultimately, Nickelodeon won by offering the band their own concert special and covering the cost of the music video.
5. Nickelodeon released the TV movie Cry Baby Lane in 2000, which was so scary that they aired it only once. It remained a lost film for over a decade and only resurfaced during SNICK’s Halloween special, hosted by Melissa Joan Hart.
6 Few Teams Completed Temple Run
Only 32 teams successfully completed the final temple run on the Nickelodeon game show “Legends of the Hidden Temple.”
7. The Nickelodeon channel is named after early 20th-century movie theaters, which derived their name from the five-cent admission price and the ancient Greek word odeion (meaning roofed-over theater). It was also the first cable channel for children.
8. The Nickelodeon cartoon series “The Angry Beavers” is one of the only cartoons where a clock on the wall, visible in most episodes, updates in real time.
9. In the 1980s and 1990s, Nickelodeon held annual Super Toy Run events, where lucky children had 5 minutes to race through a toy store (Toys “R” Us or Kay Bee Toys) and fill shopping carts with toys. They were able to keep all of the toys they brought past the finish line on time.
10. The diverse cast of “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” led to its nomination for an NAACP award. Nickelodeon turned away kids who were “too Disney” for the show. Creator D.J. MacHale described “too Disney” as “apple pie, freckles, cute, over-the-top acting.”
11 Arnold’s Introduction on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse
Nickelodeon first introduced Arnold, the main character from “Hey Arnold!” as a claymation character in three animated shorts on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse in 1988.
12. Nickelodeon executives initially hesitated to back Avatar’s sequel, The Legend of Korra, due to its female lead in an animated action show. However, during test screenings, boys responded that they didn’t care that Korra was a girl, just saying, “She was awesome.”
13. In 1992, Nickelodeon buried a time capsule containing items like a Game Boy, Reebok Pump shoes, Home Alone on VHS, and Gak. They plan to open it in 2042.
14. During a scene in the sitcom “Three’s Company,” John Ritter’s scrotum briefly fell out of his shorts. Nickelodeon deleted the scene for reruns. Ritter humorously commented, “I’ve requested that [Nickelodeon] air both versions, edited and unedited, because sometimes you feel like a nut, and sometimes you don’t.”
15. For over three years in the mid-90s, Gumby reruns were the highest-rated show on Nickelodeon.
16 Woman Sues Over Pie Incident
A woman once attempted to sue Nickelodeon, claiming she couldn’t have sex because Marc Summers threw a pie at her face on Double Dare. The network settled by paying her $25,000 to “go away.”
17. During the mid-2000s, Nickelodeon ran an ad warning about the dangers of hidden sugars and how to correctly identify them.
18. Nickelodeon fired the creator of Ren & Stimpy, partly because his episodes became too offensive and unairable.
19. Almost all Nickelodeon shows have a lifespan of about 60 episodes.
20. Marketing to children, including commercials and toys based on kids’ shows, was illegal in the United States until Ronald Reagan took office and changed the law. This led to the “Dark Ages of Animation,” which lasted until 1991, when Nickelodeon shifted focus back to animators and storytelling.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
21 SpongeBob Pineapple Geometrically Corrected
In 2012, mathematician Vi Hart sent an open letter to Nickelodeon demonstrating that SpongeBob’s pineapple house was geometrically impossible. In response, pineapple designer Kenny Pittenger posted a new “mathematically correct” design on his blog, which the show later used.
22. By 2015, SpongeBob SquarePants had generated $12 billion for Nickelodeon.
23. Nickelodeon initially censored the word “blowhole” on “The Adventures of Pete & Pete,” which was Little Pete’s favorite epithet. The creators had to read the dictionary definition (a muscular flap on a sea mammal) to the standards and practices department before the network allowed its use on air.
24. Dionne Quan, the voice of Trixie Tang from The Fairly OddParents and Kimi from Rugrats, is legally blind, and all her acting scripts were written in Braille.
25. Nickelodeon, initially named Pinwheel, started in 1977 and remained commercial-free until 1984.
