by Ryan Lewellen
I can’t tell you what Nicktoons look like today. I haven’t had extended access to basic cable in about six years for two reasons: I have neither money, nor any interest in watching B-list celebrities feign anger and scream at each other. I don’t even know if children’s television network, Nickelodeon, still produces original animated series’ in 2015. I do know I watched enough of that beloved network to describe for you, in great (bordering on seriously pathetic and sad) detail, what it looked like between 1992 and 2000. That dubious ability is not, as you might have guessed, thanks to the Internet and its most dastardly accomplices, we millenials, so briskly murdering nostalgia via YouTube and our sheep-like patronage to any dead 90s media property with a green-lit reboot. I remember them perfectly because I loved them enough to waste endless summer hours watching the manic and outrageous animations indoors. Now, with everything always available all the time, “Remember when?” has become “Remember now?” We are so preoccupied with popular culture from our childhood, it’s no wonder The Media believes we are desperate to escape adulthood difficulties and crawl back into the womb. We still seek out new fashions, and update the apparel of yesterday, and original movies and TV shows pop up all the time, but reboots and remakes have become an unwelcomed majority in our current decade. It seems what couldn’t quite kill nostalgia has made it stronger, and now, nostalgia is doing some killing of its own.
One should take no issue with preserving retro culture and making it available, as long as the old titles are allowed to stay old, and not receive a facelift every twenty years, arriving under the false pretense of freshness. That’s why I wish I could report a new collection of classic shorts from Shout Factory showcases material that isn’t showing any signs of rebirth. The cartoons preserved by Nickelodeon Out Of The Vault: Halloween don’t seem to be protected by the vault from whence they were plucked. There, they could have been allowed to remain cultural landmarks, creating a time capsule for the age of boundary-crushing children’s entertainment. Instead, that network, once synonymous with creativity and forward thinking is now looking back at its classic titles for the purpose of lazily hitting the “REFRESH” button. It’s funny to think the Nickelodeon of the 90s had a big recycling campaign, because the Nickelodeon of the twenty-teens has another variety of recycling on its mind: culling shows my generation loved in its childhood for “new” programming today.
The time had come for me to write-up my coverage of the above-mentioned cartoon collection. I ferociously consume Halloween festivities by any means accessible to me, be it seasonal beers, haunted houses, pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies, horror films, and most favorably, television holiday specials. So, when I caught this title in a Cinapse e-mail, I politely asked my editor who I would need to destroy in order to obtain it. To my surprise, it arrived in the mail without my having to bloody a single nose. It’s full of nostalgic delights, and excellent Halloween-related tricks and treats to coax anyone into the spirit of things next month, and my review would surely be glowing like a jack-lantern after sundown. However, just as I had begun waxing poetic about how these shows were safe from the greedy retrospection of my fellow twenty(and-a-few-thirty)-somethings, a piece in Variety told me a handful of these classic Nicktoons are traveling through time for a “fresh” update.
Admittedly, the article makes some intriguing recommendations on how to make these updates work. It postulates Doug might find new interpersonal struggles on social media, and Mr. Wizard’s World could be hosted by Neil Degrasse Tyson, who might find simple ways to introduce more advanced sciences to young audiences. Okay, those are great ideas, but what is the problem with a couple new ideas? This fall, one might overhear an observation like, “This new cartoon show is like the Doug of 2015”, and a response of, “Isn’t Doug the Doug of 2015?” We can already expect conversations like: “Dude The X-Files was such a great show.” “I don’t know. I thought last week’s episode was kind of lame.”
What’s wrong with leaving these cultural icons as landmarks of their original time and place? The X-Files, for example, was practically contained entirely within the 90s. It is foremost in defining what television looked like in that decade, and reflected the moods and concerns of the era. I won’t bother arguing for a new show inspired by that truly original creation, because we have already had several: Fringe, Supernatural, and Warehouse 13, most notably. With all of that in mind, could anyone tell me, objectively, what the point of that series’ return would be? Hell, we already had two feature-length films dedicated to Mulder and Scully, one since the show’s end, and neither was particularly well received.
Most of Nickelodeon’s signature animations were some of the most bizarrely imaginative creations which ever graced the small screen. Without them, we might not have seen the absurd works Cartoon Network has offered, a channel, I might add, which has left Nickelodeon in the dust when it comes to creative energy. Even in the previous decade, flagship children’s entertainer generated Spongebob Squarepants and The Fairly Oddparents, but since then, the well seems to have run dry, and rather than seeking out the dozens of great ideas waiting to be discovered, Nickelodeon will be resting on the same laurels its industry seems to find so handy lately.
It’s not that I don’t completely understand this. These characters are loved, and the thought of spending more time with them is attractive, and I get it. For this reason, among others, updating classic shows has been around for ages, but it has a long history of disastrous results (Sorry, Perry Mason). One would think, though, particularly in the days of legal, or illegal access to any media ever made, we would be more willing to let these old titles rest, and keep them as they were. Now, it seems nostalgia may be the ultimate death of invention, and my generation has completely embraced steadying the rifle with creativity in its sights. Most of us are asking for this, and nothing could be easier than giving us what we want. It’s a quick and easy buck for Viacom to re-brand my childhood and throw it back at me.
Don’t these beloved works deserve better? More importantly, doesn’t the next generation deserve treasured icons all its own?
