Nickelodeon:The Best of Slimes

Today we tell the story of the kids TV network that changed it all, Nickelodeon. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:38Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:48Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. And that makes this a good old fashioned Stuff You Should Know edition.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  That's right. And unfortunately, we have to issue a COA for this one.

• 2:01Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah. And it is pretty unfortunate for sure.

• 2:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, you see the title Nickelodeon and you think just a rip roaring good time and nostalgia fest, and it is that. But we kind of tell the whole story of Nickelodeon, which very sadly includes some sexual abuse. And so, trigger warning for, for people in general and definitely for parents listening with kids.

• 2:25Josh Clark?

  There you go. Well done. We should just edit that as a clip and anytime we have a COA, just pop that in.

• 2:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, great.

• 2:35Josh Clark?

  All right. So let's get to the fun nostalgia part first at least, right?

• 2:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 2:39Josh Clark?

  So Nickelodeon was probably a little after your wheelhouse, right? Were you always a little too old for Nickelodeon? Was there ever a Venn diagram with you and Nickelodeon and happiness in the middle?

• 2:52Speaker 02

  There's a brief time of a little bit of Nickelodeon stuff for me, but I was just on the edge of being a little too old. But some of the stuff, like I definitely remember, you can't do that on television and a little bit of Double Dare.

• 3:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  But yeah, I mean, this was right in the middle of your wheelhouse, so I bet.

• 3:12Josh Clark?

  I watched this all the time.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's great.

• 3:15Josh Clark?

  I watched Pinwheel. I watched, like you said, they can't do that. You can't do that on television, Double Dare. What else did I watch? Danger Mouse, Inspector Gadget.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 3:28Josh Clark?

  I mean, just basically anything they would put on. Today's special. I was huge into Today's special. Anything they would put on, I would definitely watch and I loved it all.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  I love it. Well, this one's for you, baby.

• 3:40Josh Clark?

  Thanks a lot, man. One thing I did not realize though, is that Nickelodeon started in my home state of Ohio. And I don't know if you've noticed or not, but I'm pretty selective about when I claim Ohio is my home state.

• 3:55Speaker 02

  That's sure.

• 3:55Josh Clark?

  And I know you love to rub it in that you're an Atlanta native and it's just, you know, I'm a newbie, a carpetbagger. But at any rate, that's where Nickelodeon started, actually, in Columbus, Ohio, as part of like this test that Warner Cable did, pretty forward thinking test in 1977 where they're like, hey, you know, everybody watches TV with antennas. We're going to launch the, the first cable network in the United States, if not the world.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was called Warner Cable. They opened that studio in Columbus, like you said, and they had 30 channels at first. I guess you pronounce it cube, huh?

• 4:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's, yeah, that's what I'm going with.

• 4:36Speaker 02

  Q U B E. And you could pay 10 bucks a month and, you know, depending on what you were into, you could get shows like Flippo's Magic Cars. They had a early show, kind of preceded Star Search even, I think called Talent Search.

• 4:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And I was wondering if it, if Star Search grew out of Talent Search and I could find no correlation.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, I couldn't either. So we give that rumor two and a half stars.

• 5:01Josh Clark?

  Very nice.

• 5:03Speaker 02

  I used to love Star Search.

• 5:04Josh Clark?

  I never really watched it that much, but I do know that Rosie O'Donnell got her start there.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  Oh, really? Okay.

• 5:10Josh Clark?

  Oh, she killed.

• 5:11Speaker 02

  I was a big fan.

• 5:12Josh Clark?

  She won like 15 weeks in a row or something like that.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  Was she, well, it had adult stuff too, or was it just kids?

• 5:19Josh Clark?

  Oh, her sets were filthy.

• 5:22Speaker 02

  Right?

• 5:25Speaker 02

  So yeah, they had Talent Search, but the cable system had a gimmick at first, which was a remote control that was wired to the cable box, I guess, that let you interact with the shows.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  And it didn't work out. I think they realized that that gimmick like didn't fully work. They also had other financial difficulties. And I think it launched in 77 when it was done by 84. But one of the channels, which was Pinwheel or C3, lived on. It was created by a woman named Vivian Horner, who came from the TV, the great TV show, The Electric Company.

• 6:03Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 6:04Speaker 02

  And it was commercial free programming for preschool kids.

• 6:09Josh Clark?

  Twenty, or no, 12 hours a day of it, 14 hours a day on weekends. And like you said, commercial free. And that was the network, right? And Pinwheel also had an eponymous show called Pinwheel, which I also watched a lot.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  Now, what was that?

• 6:26Josh Clark?

  I mean, it was a show where live human actors interacted with puppets and the, the most memorable character for me was Gary Genu.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  Oh, is that where that came from?

• 6:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there's no Genu's, wait, there's no Genu's, like good Genu's with Gary Genu.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  I've heard Gary Genu. I had no idea what the origin was.

• 6:47Josh Clark?

  So any word that started with N, he said good, like he, he added that G at the very beginning, but.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  What a bit. Can you imagine him just hanging out late one night, smoking a joint and being like, I've got it.

• 7:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was one of those things. It was late seventies, early eighties, pot smoking, like kids, like kids programmers, essentially is what that kind of show was.

• 7:11Speaker 02

  Okay, that's great.

• 7:12Josh Clark?

  It was good. But the whole network was called Pinwheel too at first, until somebody was like, hey, I really like the sound of the word Nickelodeon. And they said it like 50 times in this one meeting. And finally, everybody was worn down enough that they're like, we'll change the network Pinwheel to Nickelodeon. I think that was in 1979.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, 79. And you're right. I think, you know, a Nickelodeon was like an old timey, like movie house that you paid a nickel to get into, but they didn't name it for that reason. I think they, like you said, I think they just thought it had a nice ring to it, I guess.

• 7:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And also weirdly, they had a, an old timey man is their first logo, an old timey man looking into like a, I guess, like a small movie player.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:57Josh Clark?

  And it was like, right in, it dovetailed with that era where if you went to Wendy's, like their wallpaper was made of like 1910 newspaper ads.

• 8:08Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Old Wendy's is great.

• 8:09Josh Clark?

  Tiffany lamps and all that. I'm still unsettled by those high lace women's boots that they always advertised.

• 8:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, too sexy.

• 8:19Josh Clark?

  I might've seen ads for Wicker wheelchairs too. Maybe that's where that came from.

• 8:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, your, your biggest fear.

• 8:25Josh Clark?

  But at any rate, they got rid of that after a couple of years and they came up with the first good Nickelodeon logo, which was a silver pinball with Nickelodeon written over it in different colors. It was very pretty.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, very popular bubble letter style at the time. A year later, in 1980, a guy named Si Schneider, who was an advertising executive, became the first president of the network. He had a little experience. He was involved on the marketing advertising side when Mattel sponsored the Mickey Mouse Club in the 50s. So he had a little bit of experience with kids TV from the ad side, but this was kind of a new jam for him. So he started marketing Nickelodeon as the young people's network. And they had some, you know, fun shows. I do remember, I didn't watch any of these, but I remember Reggie Jackson's World of Sports. I remember that being a thing. And I also remember the Leonard Nimoy Show being a thing. Leonard Nimoy's Stand By, colon, Lights, Camera, Action.

• 9:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I never saw or even heard of either of those shows. But then it kind of gives you a taste of how Nickelodeon started out as slightly, it skewed slightly older. So they can see 14-year-old boys watching those.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was nine at the time. So I was aware it was around, I was aware of the show Live Wire, which was a live taped show in front of a teenage audience at the Ed Sullivan Theater even in New York City. It was like a current event show. So I knew about that show and it was really popular. It won their, gave them their first Cable ACE Award. And then, I don't think we mentioned that they were splitting airtime. Like, they ran programming during the day, but the A and E network was on after hours.

• 10:09Josh Clark?

  Right. Sexy ballet.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 10:13Josh Clark?

  Live Wire, I looked into that a little bit because I never watched it. I don't know that I'd even heard of it, to tell you the truth. But when I saw like the set, it rang like a little bit at like a vague bell. But it was for definitely older kids, kids older than me, like teens. And there is a, there's a clip you can find of Adam Horowitz, King Ed Rock from Beastie Boys.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:36Josh Clark?

  As a 17-year-old posing as a, like, he went into the audience of Live Wire and he asked a question of Afrika Bambaata, who was the guest at the time. He's like, hey, have you heard that, that new record from the Beastie Boys, Cookie Puss? And he got Afrika Bambaata to admit like, yeah, he, he'd listened to it and he had the record and he liked it, without ever saying like, I'm one of the Beastie Boys. Like, he was just plugging this as like just some average audience member. It's pretty great.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  Oh, that's funny. I mean, Live Wire had some good stuff, like R.E.M. performed on Live Wire in 83.

• 11:10Josh Clark?

  The Ramones?

• 11:11Speaker 02

  Uh, The Ramones did. I know that Frank Zappa was a guest. So they were definitely like, somebody cool was running that show.

• 11:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And not only like, they were cool enough to, to want those people on, they were cool enough to get those people on that show. So, yeah, this is on Nickelodeon, everybody. And this is, it was one of their first like really great shows. And then something else changed almost immediately when, when Nickelodeon just really started getting going. They brought on a woman named Geraldine Layborn. And she was kind of like, not the antithesis to Si Schneider, but certainly had a different view of what Nickelodeon should be doing. Si Schneider's thing was, you know, like you said, he came from the advertising to kids world. What's wrong with that? And Geraldine Layborn's whole thing was like, let's, let's

• 12:02Josh Clark?

  find out what the kids want and go on that premise and not try to sell them stuff. Let's just like really make this a network for kids, rather than just saying that's what it is. And really it's for advertising or something like that.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. I think Schneider was a bit older too. If he was working on the Mickey Mouse Club in the 1950s, this was like 30 years after that.

• 12:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  And she also recognized like, hey, you know, a lot of people are treating this network and these shows as a stepping stone, like, get in the door, doing these children's shows so they can go on and do other things in Hollywood. And she was like, I want staff that like wants to do this and wants, and is dedicated to like kids programming, which seemed like a really kind of savvy move, I think.

• 12:46Josh Clark?

  For sure, for sure. It didn't matter whether you did cocaine, that was not part of it. It was, how do you feel about kids programming, right?

• 12:54Speaker 02

  That's right. Uh huh. Full stop.

• 12:55Josh Clark?

  One of the things that Nick did, I'm just gonna call it Nick because I watched so much of it, I'm on a first name basis with it.

• 13:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:02Josh Clark?

  But they would basically poach TV shows from Canada.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:07Josh Clark?

  They still do, as a matter of fact. There's still like a lot of the shows that were on Nickelodeon that I watched as a youngster. I was like, something's not quite right with this show. Turns out they were all Canadian.

• 13:17Speaker 02

  As an American, it seems slightly sideways.

• 13:21Josh Clark?

  Exactly. I'm like, these people are really nice.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. You Can't Do That on Television was a Canadian show that came from Ottawa Station a couple of years previous from its debut on Nickelodeon in 1981. And that was a great show. It was created by Roger Price and Jeffrey Darby. And it was, it was a skit show that was like squarely aimed at making kids laugh, like that kind of humor.

• 13:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And one of the ways that they did that is that the teen and even pre-teen actors had like a say in how the scripts went and like what the scenes were. And so that was cool in and of itself because, I mean, they were speaking directly to you. It kind of ran through that filter. And then also, it, they would, the show itself was almost like a character. The show itself could be like a set or a scene or something like that. And not just like them chatting in between shooting. Like, there could be, if I remember correctly, there was a scene where one of the kids was playing a character who was chained up in a dungeon. And another kid who wasn't dressed like them just came

• 14:28Josh Clark?

  in and took over for him because that kid had to like go home and do homework or something like that. And they did it in the middle of the scene. So like, there was, it was just kind of weird like that. And it really worked for that show. It's, it's a really good show. I went back and watched it. And you definitely have to be of that age to really appreciate it. But I remember loving They Can't, or You Can't Do That on Television.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. I, I went back and watched a lot of this stuff, like clips on YouTube. And I realized that I watched more of this than I remember watching, I guess. And I remember that guy, who was the main guy on that show? Like, the main adult cast member?

• 15:06Josh Clark?

  His name was Les Lai.

• 15:08Speaker 02

  Les Lai. That's it.

• 15:09Josh Clark?

  I think they, he went by Les too, because they all went by their real first names.

• 15:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was kind of like, if you've ever seen The Larry Sanders Show, it was kind of like that. They would have these meta moments.

• 15:18Josh Clark?

  Right. Exactly. Well put. This was the, this preceded The Larry Sanders Show and was actually where it came from.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  Are you joking?

• 15:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Okay. Well, it might have been. You never know.

• 15:30Josh Clark?

  And Alanis Morissette was also on it too, because you can't have a Canadian TV show without having Alanis Morissette on it.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. Ironic that she was on that show, right?

• 15:39Josh Clark?

  I don't know. Do you think?

• 15:42Speaker 02

  Well, that was where the slime came from. Nickelodeon is very famous for its slime. In fact, I am using the title that Livia, who helped us with this, titled it, Nickelodeon, The Slime of Our Lives. Great title. But Nickelodeon has always been associated with that green slime. And it got its first dump on You Can't Do That on Television.

• 16:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah. If you said, I don't know, you would get slimed. That's just how it went.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  Oh, is that the trigger?

• 16:09Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I don't make the rules. It's just how, except for one show. And this just goes to show you how early 80s this was. They had an episode where the Russians took over and the slime was red slime instead. And if anyone who said the word freedom would get slimed.

• 16:26Speaker 02

  Well, apparently the story of how it became green slime was an accident because they like had made the slime but couldn't shoot that day or something. And it turned green by the next day. And so they ended up with green slime.

• 16:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And then I guess you would get like a bonus of something between $25 to $50. I guess it depends on how much you held out for. And they would shoot all the sliming scenes at the end of the day. And then you would get slimed and then they would cut and you would run off to the showers because different iterations of slime sometimes turned to paste in your hair if you didn't get it out fast enough. And they finally found the right one is a methylcellulose blend that it had zero allergens in it. So they could even dump it on audience members without fear of litigation.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  Right. Yeah.

• 17:14Josh Clark?

  Or at least them winning litigation. And, but it went through all sorts of different things like cottage cheese, vegetable oil, vanilla pudding, Jell-O for a little while.

• 17:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. Applesauce.

• 17:24Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  Uh, should we take a break?

• 17:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I'm getting, I'm getting kind of excited. So yeah.

• 17:30Speaker 02

  All right. It's getting good, everybody. So we'll be right back with more on Nick.

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• 21:17Speaker 02

  All right, so You Can't Do That on Television was a pretty decent success, but Nickelodeon itself was not like a huge hit yet. In late 83, a guy that, named Bob Pittman, who we've talked about, you know, one of the founders of MTV, and our boss at iHeart Media.

• 21:40Josh Clark?

  Several rungs up, I don't know if he would consider himself our boss.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  I think he may know who we are, at least.

• 21:46Josh Clark?

  Perhaps.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, Bob runs iHeart Media, and he became head of Nickelodeon's parent company, which was Warner Amex at the time. He was, in 83, he was a lot younger than Si Schneider was. And the writing was on the wall that like Schneider wasn't gonna be around too long, and younger folks were gonna be running this younger, like, viewership network.

• 22:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and Pittman had a lot of cred around the television world because of MTV, just from two years before, right? And so he took over Nickelodeon, or he didn't take over Nickelodeon, he, when he became the head of Warner Amex, he was now over the people who were running Nickelodeon, and he took an interest in it early on. And so after Schneider left, Geraldine Leiborn was put as the head of the network. And now Nickelodeon really blossomed. Like, this is the Nickelodeon I remember and like really loved. This is 1984, I think. One of the first things that Leiborn did was she turned to the Fred Allen Agency,

• 22:56Josh Clark?

  which had helped basically figure out how MTV should brand itself. She said, "Do this for Nickelodeon," and they got to town.

• 23:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, the other thing they did was they started selling ads and commercials.

• 23:07Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 23:08Speaker 02

  Which they realized, I think, pretty quickly afterward, like, hey, that's a pretty good idea, to start getting some money flowing in. So Fred Allen firm comes in, they said, "All right, we're gonna do focus groups, we're gonna get kids together, and we're gonna find out what they want." And what they found out was kids were kind of roundly annoyed by adults that were patronizing and trying to get them to watch something that basically sucked, and they were tired of it. So they said, "You know what we're gonna do then? We're gonna craft this network around this idea and this theme that like, this is for kids, and this is for kids to stand up, stand up and like shout, like, hey, you're not

• 23:53Speaker 02

  listening to me, like, this is for us, and do things that we want to see, finally."

• 23:58Josh Clark?

  Right. If I remember correctly, an early iteration of their new logo was a child setting a couch on fire inside a living room.

• 24:07Speaker 02

  I think you're right, yeah.

• 24:08Josh Clark?

  But they actually did redo the logo, they're like, "This pinball and rainbow letters thing is so childish and patronizing."

• 24:15Speaker 02

  Si Schneider, come on.

• 24:17Josh Clark?

  I still like it.

• 24:18Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 24:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I thought it was very cute. I would look at it all day long if I could.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  Well, you can do that if you want to.

• 24:27Josh Clark?

  But they, I guess I could. But they changed the logo by essentially picking what designers roundly think of as the ugliest color around, Pantone 21. I don't know if you say the zero first, maybe? Pantone 021 Orange, which is now recognized pretty much everywhere as Nickelodeon Orange. But at the time, because everybody thought it was so ugly, no one used it, so Nickelodeon basically claimed this ugly color, and it became just like completely synonymous with the network. It was a great branding move.

• 24:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, actually, I just looked up the previous logos, and I had forgotten the little pinball, multicolored balloon letter thing. But now that I see it, I totally remember it. No, it was a good logo.

• 25:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, anything with different color balloon lettering is A-OK in my book.

• 25:15Speaker 02

  Well, you're a child of the 80s like me.

• 25:18Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 25:19Speaker 02

  And, you know, as we'll see, many of the sets and everything in the 80s, like, I guess we'll get to that, but they had some pretty legendary, like, super 80s sets on their shows.

• 25:28Josh Clark?

  Yes, they do, man, I could look at pictures of those all day, too.

• 25:31Speaker 02

  But the logo was animated, so it could take, you know, take different shapes, like sometimes it was an ice cream cone, or a rocket ship or something. And then later on, when slime became like, sort of what the network was, you know, at least like a symbol of the network, it looked like a slime splat, and that's kind of what they stuck with.

• 25:51Josh Clark?

  Right. They also did bumpers, you know, coming in and out of commercial breaks? Like the animated ones? There was a series of them by like a doo-wop singing group called The Jive Five.

• 26:05Speaker 02

  Those are great.

• 26:06Josh Clark?

  Do you remember those?

• 26:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I went and watched some of them today, and I was like, "Oh yeah, I remember these, they were great."

• 26:11Josh Clark?

  There are two standouts. One I can do is Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick, Nickelodeon, right? There's another one, I've never been able to do it, it's too fast for my thick tongue, but it is great. So just go look up Nick Jive Five bumpers, and you'll see what I'm talking about.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  Well, what was the fast one? Like, just tell me a slowed-down version or something, so I might recognize it.

• 26:37Josh Clark?

  No.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  No? All right, I'll look it up after.

• 26:41Josh Clark?

  You're gonna have to do that.

• 26:42Speaker 02

  Hey, man, I admire your, you know, gumption to stick up for yourself there.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  So with Leiborn running the show, they started doing some pretty great original programs. They had a sketch show called Out of Control that I remember, it was hosted by Dave Gouyé of Full House? Yeah.

• 27:02Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  And a show called Turkey TV, which I had not heard of until I saw the description, that it was like a clip show, basically, hosted by a VJ, essentially. And then I was like, "Yeah, I think I remember that one."

• 27:15Josh Clark?

  I do not remember that one at all, but they would do something that Nickelodeon was also really good at, besides poaching Canadian shows, they would go overseas and find funny clips, or funny commercials, or whatever. Sometimes other clips from other kids' shows, like, in completely different languages, and then they would overdub them in English and use them. And they did that with Turkey TV a lot, too. So that was like, that was, they just did that all the time. Now I'm like, "Yeah, those kids were totally Danish." I had no idea at the time, but again, I was like, "There's something not quite right about how these kids are dressed and the toys they're playing with."

• 27:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's funny.

• 27:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's, that's exactly what it was, I was watching that without knowing it.

• 28:03Speaker 02

  That's just funny that a kid can be like, "Something's slightly off here," and I can't pinpoint what it is.

• 28:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  Because you didn't know they did stuff like that back then.

• 28:11Josh Clark?

  And I always shrugged, and was like, "Whatever, it's still fun to watch."

• 28:14Speaker 02

  It's on TV.

• 28:15Josh Clark?

  It was always there, you know, little, "The Great Gazoo is over my shoulder, like, it's European, dum-dum."

• 28:22Speaker 02

  So, uh, Layborn went back to Darby, one of the guys who co-created You Can't Do That On Television. It was like, hey, what else you got? And he said, um, what about like a game show, uh, where kids go through a kind of a crazy obstacle course or do these wacky things? And that was the seed of the idea that became Double Dare. Uh, I watched a, an episode of Double Dare earlier today, too. It was a lot of fun to see.

• 28:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's so good.

• 28:48Speaker 02

  And it was like Truth or Dare, where you could answer a trivia question or dare the other team if you didn't have the answer. And if they didn't have the answer, they could double dare back. And generally, at that point, the, the team would opt for what was called the physical challenge. And it was, you know, the one I watched today was, uh, two kids stand on one side of the room and throw eggs, uh, at the two kids on the other side who are blindfolded and holding like, uh, you know, like marching band crash symbols in their hand. And the first one to just randomly crash a crash symbol as the egg comes at them without being able to see it is the team who wins. So just really fun, dumb stuff if you're, you know, nine to 12 years old.

• 29:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah, like what a great idea, but, um, not only though, was it like, like there were great little parts like that. The whole thing, every single part was just operating on all cylinders.

• 29:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:43Josh Clark?

  The host, Mark Summers, was somehow perfect for that show.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  He was great.

• 29:48Josh Clark?

  He was wonderful. Um, the set, like you said, it was in the Memphis style, which was huge in the eighties.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:55Josh Clark?

  Uh, like Pee Wee's Playhouse was Memphis. Um, you, you would know Memphis if you, if you're not familiar with the term, you've seen it a million times, but those sets are just a feast for the eyes. And then, yeah, the things they came up with, like the, one of my favorites was the picket, where you had to, for a physical challenge, you had to get a flag out of a giant nose. And to get the flag out, you had to pick out boogers first and then slime would come out of the nose. And then after all that, you had to stick your arm all the way up there and pull the flag out.

• 30:25Speaker 02

  That's just so fun to create shows like this, that like, that's what kids want to see.

• 30:31Josh Clark?

  Exactly. Yeah. And then the other thing, every single contestant was so psyched to be there. And it took it so seriously. It was completely sincere. It was just a wonderful, I love Double Dare. I could watch Double Dare all day long.

• 30:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. You can do a lot of this stuff all day long.

• 30:48Josh Clark?

  I know.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  Uh, can you imagine getting that phone call or letter in the mail where you are, are picked to be a contestant on that show and what like that must've felt like as a kid?

• 30:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. For other kids, I, I, I would have dreaded that.

• 31:04Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 31:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I was that kid who was like in the circus when the clowns were coming down the aisle. I would be like, do not pick me, please God, please don't pick me.

• 31:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was my dad.

• 31:15Josh Clark?

  What, he would, he wanted to be picked?

• 31:18Speaker 02

  No, no, no. My dad would always, yeah, like, I wonder if I should even say this. I think I will. No, I'm not gonna say it.

• 31:26Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 31:27Speaker 02

  My dad was not a participant, let's just say that.

• 31:29Josh Clark?

  All right, well, I'm-

• 31:29Speaker 02

  In, in life, like that.

• 31:31Josh Clark?

  I'm with him on, on that. I just, I, I don't like, I don't like the spotlight, you know?

• 31:36Speaker 02

  What about today? If you like went to a theme park and they were like, let's get this guy out of the audience, would you do it or would, cause you've got a lot of experience on stage now.

• 31:43Josh Clark?

  I would have to do it. I mean, you're a jerk to not just do it if they pick you.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  But you wouldn't like love being picked?

• 31:48Josh Clark?

  No, and I would be just like breathlessly anxious the entire time, dude.

• 31:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:54Josh Clark?

  They'd be like, why is that guy's hand trembling?

• 31:56Speaker 02

  That's funny, cause you stand on stage in front of like 2,000 people and are great.

• 32:00Josh Clark?

  I, I know, but think about how much stage fright I had to get over.

• 32:04Speaker 02

  That's true. And you're still standing up there with your hand trembling.

• 32:07Josh Clark?

  Exactly. Have you ever seen me on stage at a Stuff You Should Know show and I'm picking up my water with both hands?

• 32:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 32:15Josh Clark?

  It's because they're too trembly to pick them up by themselves.

• 32:19Speaker 02

  Well, maybe that's part of the magic. It makes you good.

• 32:21Josh Clark?

  Thanks, man. I think you're great too, because you're so laid back and it's just so easy for you.

• 32:26Speaker 02

  Hey, it's, uh, we're the yin and yang, you know?

• 32:29Josh Clark?

  I'm the, um, the shuddery side.

• 32:31Speaker 02

  That's right. So these were all shot, uh, at the time in Philadelphia, the WHYY Studios. And, um, you know, it was a big hit. Mark Summers, everyone loved him, like you said. And that was not their first, but, you know, one of the early, like big, big breakouts that made Nickelodeon kind of a juggernaut.

• 32:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah. One of the other things that made Nickelodeon a juggernaut was after A and E was like sayonara, we're gonna form our own full network. Um, Nickelodeon had the evening hours to fill all of a sudden. So they just did what you do. They went and turned to, um, reruns of classic TV shows, but they branded it as Nick at Night. And I was into this too. Like I seriously had Nickelodeon on all the time. This is the stuff I would watch when I would go buy a six pack of Kingsbury non-alcoholic beer and Slim Jims and Twix and just settle in for the night. It was to sit there and watch like F Troop and Mr. Ed and I Spy. I just, it just, the whole network just spoke directly to me.

• 33:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I still say if I had like one wish, it might be to, for you and I to have grown up in the same neighborhood and been the same age. I, I could have learned a lot from you.

• 33:44Josh Clark?

  We'd both be a lot different, I think.

• 33:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, probably so. I'd be more like you and you'd be more like me.

• 33:49Josh Clark?

  Exactly. There's probably a lot of listeners out there right now who are like, wait a minute, you guys didn't grow up in the same neighborhood?

• 33:55Speaker 02

  I wish. Uh, so the network grew. They eventually would, um, partner with Universal Studios and open a, uh, like studios there and kind of moved Nickelodeon there, which was a big deal because all of a sudden that was like a tourist attraction. And if you were a visitor to Universal, you could sit in the audience and maybe even be on some of these shows if you got pulled from the audience.

• 34:18Josh Clark?

  Not me, not me.

• 34:19Speaker 02

  And, uh, after Double Dare, they were like, these game shows are kind of hot. So, uh, they had a show called Finders Keepers. I don't think I watched this a ton, but I definitely remember, cause it was a big giant fake house and they would hide stuff in there and kids could just basically completely destroy the place looking for the hidden items.

• 34:39Josh Clark?

  Yes. I don't know if I watched that one either. I went and looked at pictures of the set and that didn't really ring a bell, but I, I was familiar with the concept. Guts, I'd never heard of before.

• 34:49Speaker 02

  Same.

• 34:50Josh Clark?

  It was like, um, uh, Ninja Warrior type thing, I think.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:55Josh Clark?

  But again, up around Nickelodeon years and years before. Legends of the Hidden Temple, it was essentially like a Double Dare where you would, um, answer questions, usually geography related. And then for the physical challenge, it was running through this giant temple that was like cross sectioned, so you could see the person running through in it. And there were secret passages and stuff you need to find, like the artifact or whatever. I didn't watch that, but I remember seeing ads for it when I was watching the next level of stuff on Nickelodeon, like, um, Pete and Pete.

• 35:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, the late eighties and early nineties, and this is, you know, late high school and early college for me, so I was definitely out of the picture by now. But I remember for sure the show, Hey Dude? And I remember us in college even, I think, sort of ironically watching it occasionally.

• 35:47Josh Clark?

  Okay. Yeah, I didn't watch that. I didn't watch Salute Your Shorts or Clarissa Explains It All, but they were all sitcoms, like live action sitcoms.

• 35:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:55Josh Clark?

  And they were huge hits, right?

• 35:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh yeah.

• 35:58Josh Clark?

  The one that gets me, and this show is Canadian too, if I'm not mistaken, but The Adventures of Pete and Pete.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was a big one.

• 36:04Josh Clark?

  Is still one of the best shows ever made. Like it still holds up.

• 36:09Speaker 02

  I never saw it.

• 36:11Josh Clark?

  Okay, you're just gonna have to trust me. I didn't know I was about to stun you with that, Rubbley.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  No, I mean, I've, I was just too old and I never caught it after, so I've, I've, I've heard the legend of how great that show is. I should probably check it out now.

• 36:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you should. And you know who else would love it is Ruby. It's totally up her alley, like the kind of weird humor. I really think she'd like it.

• 36:32Speaker 02

  All right, we'll check it out.

• 36:33Josh Clark?

  The only time that I've ever been starstruck, Chuck, that I can remember, like genuinely starstruck, was when we did a live show in San Francisco at the Mariners Hall.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 36:45Josh Clark?

  And we followed a Pete and Pete reunion.

• 36:49Speaker 02

  Oh, that's right.

• 36:50Josh Clark?

  They were there when we were coming in and I could not believe who I was in the same room with. I hung out and talked to little Pete. Big Pete was kind of in and out, but I just, I was just barely hanging on during that conversation.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I remember one other time you were starstruck, uh, when we got to go to the Simpson Stable Reed and we met Matt Graney.

• 37:08Josh Clark?

  Fair enough, yeah.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  Cause I was the same. You and I were both like tiny children.

• 37:12Josh Clark?

  It's true. That's true.

• 37:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was great. Uh, should we take a break?

• 37:17Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 37:19Speaker 02

  All right, we're gonna take a break and move into the cartoon era right after this.

• 37:34Josh Clark?

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• 37:57Josh Clark?

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• 38:12Speaker 02

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• 38:44Josh Clark?

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• 39:03Josh Clark?

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• 39:44Josh Clark?

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• 40:07Speaker 02

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• 40:31Josh Clark?

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• 41:06Josh Clark?

  So I think one of the things, we're back, by the way, Chuck, and one of the things that Nickelodeon is now thought of more than anything else is a place where like some really great cartoons have been birthed.

• 41:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:19Josh Clark?

  Not the least of which was Ren and Stimpy, which I always associate with MTV because it got picked up by MTV, like I think while it was still, original stuff was running. But they syndicated it so fast that MTV had it too, if I'm not mistaken. But regardless, it started out on Nickelodeon.

• 41:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, The Ren and Stimpy Show, a show called Doug, and of course Rugrats, all premiered in 1991, which is kind of crazy because those shows were all huge.

• 41:48Speaker 02

  Laborn was still the network head in 91, but left about five years after that and was succeeded in 96 by a guy named Herb Scannell, I guess.

• 41:58Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 41:58Speaker 02

  And he really, I guess, was like, this animation thing is the thing, we should keep doing it. Ren and Stimpy, and you know, parents, this is where things get a little dodgy, if you want to tune out, if you have kids in the car. But the creator of Ren and Stimpy, John Christopher Lucy, he ran the first two years, two seasons of that show, and it was really his brainchild. And it was such a just amazing, wonderful, hysterical show. But apparently he like couldn't stay on budget and would blow a lot of deadlines. So he, they were like, you're out of here. And the last three seasons, I think he was not a part of. And everyone was crushed at the time, but then, many years later, in 2018, it was, he was exposed.

• 42:40Speaker 02

  Two women came forward and was like, this guy sexually abused us in the 90s. When we were 13 and 15, I think one of them, like he had a full-on like relationship as a 15, 16-year-old, which is just, you know, horrendous and sick. And he later on gave a pretty terrible non-apology, where he blamed his mental health at the time and his poor impulse control. He quit the business, the statute of limitations had passed to do anything about that, unfortunately. But that was, you know, that was unfortunately sort of the sad way that Ren and Stimpy ended.

• 43:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah, Ren and Stimpy, like you said, it carried on without him for years, and it was great still, too.

• 43:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. So by 96, Nickelodeon is the biggest thing in the world, basically. They had the most daily viewers of any cable channel, and they held that spot for 16 years, which is quite a run. They had a bunch of other big cartoons, one called Hey Arnold that I'd heard of, The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, boy, genius was a big one in the early 2000s. And then, you know, kind of leaning away from these sort of wackier shows, they had shows like Avatar, The Last Airbender, and then its spin-off, The Legend of Korra, which is voiced, Korra is voiced by friend of the show and friend in real life, Janet Barney.

• 44:06Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I saw that. It's pretty awesome.

• 44:08Speaker 02

  It's the best. Ruby really got into that show and, for a while, I was watching it with her, and it's really good. And Janet was very sweet and would send Ruby birthday videos with her, like kind of talking as Korra. And it's just, Janet's the best.

• 44:21Josh Clark?

  That's awesome.

• 44:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I remember you telling me that, and now I've connected the dots.

• 44:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:28Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so we've gone way out of my wheelhouse. Now, the last one, the last cartoon that I watched consistently came out in 93, it was Rocco's Modern Life, which was really great. And I also used to watch Doug. It was a sweet cartoon.

• 44:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I remember Doug.

• 44:43Josh Clark?

  Kind of like a Diary of a Wimpy Kid kind of thing a little bit, too. You know, he was just too, too gentle for, you know, his age group or something like that.

• 44:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:53Josh Clark?

  But far and away, the biggest cartoon that ever came out of Nickelodeon, the biggest cartoon that maybe had ever been on television was, and is, SpongeBob SquarePants. And that started in 1999, and a guy named Steven Hellenberg, who I guess studied to be a marine biologist kind of famously, he created SpongeBob SquarePants instead, and I think it was probably a pretty good move on his part.

• 45:19Speaker 02

  Great move. It's still going today. It's in its 17th season. As of two years ago, when it hit its 25th anniversary, the world learned that Nickelodeon had supposedly earned $16 billion from SpongeBob retail stuff.

• 45:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 45:37Speaker 02

  Toys and clothes and, you know, you name it, like anything up to and including a Broadway musical.

• 45:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and Hellenberg got a substantial chunk of that. He had negotiated, I think, from the outset, like a pretty decent amount of the merch percentage.

• 45:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, George Lucas advice.

• 45:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah, oh yeah, the backend is what you want, right?

• 45:57Speaker 02

  Well, no, Lucas is like merchandising, like he negotiated that Star Wars merchandising early on. And from then on, everyone was like, that's the move.

• 46:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's always really paid off for us in ACES.

• 46:08Speaker 02

  Well, he, I think they got mad at him about that though, right?

• 46:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so we can kind of jump ahead a little bit because today there's a lot of Nickelodeon fans who are just really upset and heartbroken and frustrated because they feel like the network was allowed to really get run into the ground. And they lay the blame mostly at the head of the network from 2006 to 2018. Her name is Sima Zargami. And she is apparently well-known for not being happy that Hildenberg made as much money as he did from the SpongeBob rev share arrangement. And so she made sure that if you were a new creator coming to bring a show on to Nick, you got zero bagel percentage of the merch sales from your creation. So

• 46:55Josh Clark?

  that would scare away new creators who had anything good under their belt, right?

• 47:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:01Josh Clark?

  So that was one thing. So much so that they actually had what can really only be taken as a desperate attempt to attract new talent. They had a Nickelodeon animated shorts program in 2012, which is like, hey, if you're unknown, submit a brief version of your cartoon and maybe we'll pick it up. You don't do that if you have like established creators coming to you with shows, right?

• 47:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. That's kind of a sneaky way to get free programming.

• 47:27Josh Clark?

  Exactly. Or to get people who you can exploit because they're hungry to get their foot in the door, right? So there's that. She also turned down Adventure Time when it was picked to Nickelodeon first, which is like, if you're a cartoon fan and you turn down Adventure Time, you're just a pariah.

• 47:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:44Josh Clark?

  And then also Chuck, and this is much more serious. She is basically, she's really criticized for essentially turning her head the other way, looking the other way while a guy named Dan Snyder basically carried out a reign of terror among a lot of the live action shows that featured child actors who did not get enough protection from the network.

• 48:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. Like, there was a systemic child sexual abuse problem at Nickelodeon. That's the only way to say it.

• 48:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 48:16Speaker 02

  There was a documentary. Did you ever see it?

• 48:18Josh Clark?

  No, what's it called? Quiet on the Set?

• 48:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, Quiet on the Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV. It was a couple of years ago, and I watched it. It's pretty upsetting, but

• 48:27Josh Clark?

  I'm sure.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  You know, you're a big Nickelodeon guy, so I don't know if you want to, like, you know all this happened, but it might be upsetting for you to like actually see the documentary.

• 48:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I mean, even without being a Nickelodeon guy, I'm sure it's upsetting, right?

• 48:39Speaker 02

  It is. But Dan Snyder, you may know him. He was an actor. He was Dennis on Head of the Class.

• 48:43Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 48:44Speaker 02

  He was in Better Off Dead with John Cusack. And like

• 48:49Josh Clark?

  That was him?

• 48:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. He was the sort of loser neighbor who the exchange student lived with.

• 48:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I never put those two characters together, but yeah, I see it now.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  So that's where I knew him from. But he started out as a writer in 1994 on the sketch show All That and created some of their biggest live action shows. The Amanda Show with Amanda Bynes, Drake and Josh, Zoe 101, iCarly, Henry Danger. Like, these were humongous shows.

• 49:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 49:19Speaker 02

  And at the time, he was being criticized, like even while he was there of like, man, this guy's like putting pretty overt like sexual humor in these shows and like making girls do like really kind of pretty obvious sexual things, like, you know, things that were very phallic, like obviously, like when you see clips in the documentary, it's just like, man, are you kidding me? Like, why didn't someone say something?

• 49:45Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 49:45Speaker 02

  It's just so obvious. Well, later on, he denied, like, we never did anything like that intentionally. He basically gaslit everyone with his apology later. But there was more abuse going on too, right?

• 49:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah, Drake Bell, who I didn't watch it, but I'm guessing he was one of the characters on Drake and Josh as well.

• 50:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:03Josh Clark?

  He started out on The Amanda Show with Amanda Bynes. He had a dialogue coach who sexually abused him, a dialogue coach named Brian Peck, who was convicted in 2004. 2004 was also a bad year in that production assistant named Jason Handy, who worked with some child actors on All That and The Amanda Show. He got a six-year sentence for sexually abusing two girls. And then a few years after that, another Nickelodeon worker and animator named Ezell Channel was convicted of sexually abusing boys at the studio. So this is what I was saying when, when I was saying like, Sima Zargami is not very well thought of among fans.

• 50:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:46Josh Clark?

  Just at the very least for that, just for not doing anything about that. And even if she or the other heads didn't know what was going on, the fact that there was that, it was that easy for people to prey on child actors?

• 51:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:04Josh Clark?

  You got child actors, man. Like, they deserve special protection, even more than your average kid, because your average kid is not in a situation with a bunch of creators and teamsters and whoever else.

• 51:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 51:19Josh Clark?

  Like, when my niece Mila is on the set, both of her parents are there, and at least one of them is there all the time.

• 51:25Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. I'm sure.

• 51:27Josh Clark?

  Like, that's just what you have to do if you have a child actor. And apparently, that's just not what was going on everywhere in these, these shows.

• 51:34Speaker 02

  No, it was way more lax back then. And, you know, you hear all this stuff and you're just like, what is going on at Nickelodeon? And it's, the sad truth is, it's, it was a kids' network with kid shows with kid actors. And that's where, like, someone who's a predator will, like, go and get a job. And it's, it's deeply, deeply upsetting that that happened and was allowed to happen. And there weren't more protections in place. Like, the documentary is just a brutal watch.

• 52:03Josh Clark?

  I bet. So Dan Snyder, finally, after I think 24 years, maybe? No. Yeah, 24 years at the network. He was fired because an actress named Jeanette McCurdy, who was on iCarly and also starred with Ariana Grande on Sam and Cat, which was an iCarly spinoff. She basically came out and was like, I'm not going to keep quiet any longer. And she started essentially like saying like, Dan Snyder did this, Dan Snyder did that, Dan Snyder insisted that I wear a bikini for a hot tub scene, even though I wanted to wear a one-piece. He encouraged us to drink as like 16-year-olds and stuff, right? So that was enough to get

• 52:46Josh Clark?

  Dan Snyder pushed out. But then she went further. She published a memoir in 2022 titled, I'm Glad My Mother's Dead. And there's not some ironic twist to that title, like, it's exactly what you think, or it sounds like. She was glad her mother's dead, in part because her mother pushed her into acting and, and basically set her up for, to be exposed to the stuff she was exposed to. And in that, she refers to Dan Snyder as the creator. And she just alleged some more stuff too, that, that really just put a really negative light on Nickelodeon.

• 53:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, ViacomCBS at the time, they did an investigation that, and came out and said, well, we don't have any evidence of sexual misconduct. But Dan Snyder was verbally abusive, we found out, and he threw tantrums, so he's out of here. When she, and this is even more upsetting, when all this came out, after Sam and Cat was canceled, she had a conference call, this was the Jeanette McCurdy, the actress who wrote the book, and the victim, one of the victims, she had a conference call with a bunch of agents and managers, and she was offered, and didn't take it, but she was offered $300,000 just to never talk about it again. Don't talk about Dan Snyder, don't talk about Nickelodeon. And she turned it down. And then after that, there were leaks to the media that, oh, the series really

• 54:06Speaker 02

  ended because she was mad that Ariana Grande was paid more than her, which is about as vile as it gets.

• 54:11Josh Clark?

  What scumbags, man. That's just terrible. So, like you said, that docuseries came out and really just kind of got the point across about what was going on. There's a journalist who was part of the documentary Scotchy Cool, and they said that, that a lot of these people are still working in the industry, by the way.

• 54:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:33Josh Clark?

  So like you said, Schneider, Dan Snyder issued an apology on YouTube, but you said it was a non-apology. I didn't watch it.

• 54:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, he basically gaslit everyone and was like, yeah, you know what, I did some embarrassing things, but I didn't, I didn't intend to have any sexual jokes on the show. Like, you're just seeing what you want to see, basically.

• 54:51Josh Clark?

  Right. And then Nickelodeon didn't do itself any favors by issuing like a really legalese non-apology itself, saying they couldn't corroborate or negate allegations of misdeeds decades ago. Like, get over it. This sexual abuse is like 20 years ago.

• 55:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. Pretty disappointing. Nickelodeon, like you said, has really gone downhill a lot since then. And, you know, partially because that's kind of what happened to a lot of cable TV networks. Like, people, including kids, obviously have been moving away from traditional television and that model. And kids probably like quicker than even older viewers. So their ratings have dropped a lot. You know, they were number one for 16 years, the number one cable network. Now they are the 60th, six zero, most popular cable channel with about 122,000 daily viewers. But, you know, they're diversifying, they're doing programming for other TV networks, and also doing like web stuff and app stuff.

• 55:51Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I looked that up. It's about, it's about the same that Disney Channel, not Disney Plus, but the cable, Disney Cable Channel gets every day. So it seems like it's not just Nick, but they also have about 2.5 times what Cartoon Network gets, but it's only a third of what TV Land gets every day. So

• 56:11Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 56:12Josh Clark?

  People go nuts for those Friends reruns.

• 56:15Speaker 02

  I watch those in hotels a lot.

• 56:18Josh Clark?

  Do you?

• 56:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, you know, flipping it around.

• 56:21Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 56:22Speaker 02

  They had the awful motion smoothing on all the hotel TVs, but

• 56:25Josh Clark?

  No, you hate this.

• 56:27Speaker 02

  Oh, man. Of course I do.

• 56:28Josh Clark?

  I just don't even know what you're talking about.

• 56:30Speaker 02

  Well, I'll have to show you sometime.

• 56:32Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 56:33Speaker 02

  But some of those older studio audience sitcoms don't look as bad with that on.

• 56:39Josh Clark?

  I see.

• 56:39Speaker 02

  So that's why I'll watch that.

• 56:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Now, once I've seen the Friends without the laugh track videos, I can't watch it anymore.

• 56:46Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, I forgot. Those were fun.

• 56:48Josh Clark?

  It wasn't a big loss. But anyway, that's Nickelodeon, everybody, for you. Sorry to end it on a bummer, but that's the state of affairs right now. Hopefully, it'll come back and get great again. And in the meantime, while we wait for Nickelodeon to get great again, how about listener mail?

• 57:06Speaker 02

  All right, this is short and sweet. Hey, guys, this is on rope. When rope is cut to length and used for a purpose on a ship, everybody, it becomes line.

• 57:15Josh Clark?

  Hello?

• 57:16Speaker 02

  Chuck was using line when hoisting jibs and sails. I've never sailed myself, but whenever I talked with my boss who did sail, I would say rope and he would correct me and say, no, it's line on a boat. So as soon as Chuck said rope in his Nantucket story, I stuttered. It's all good to me, though, guys, but passing this along in honor of my old boss. And that is Bill from, uh, Lititz, I guess is how you pronounce it. L I T I T Z? Lititz?

• 57:44Josh Clark?

  What, is that an estate or is it its own micro nation?

• 57:48Speaker 02

  I've never heard of it. I'm gonna look it up right now, though, while you chit chat.

• 57:51Josh Clark?

  Okay, well, thanks a lot, Bill. We're gonna try to figure out where you're from.

• 57:55Speaker 02

  Pennsylvania.

• 57:56Josh Clark?

  Okay, Pennsylvania. I could've guessed that.

• 57:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, Lancaster County. I love it.

• 58:00Josh Clark?

  Sure, okay. Oh, hey, Bill hangs out with the Amish there.

• 58:03Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 58:04Josh Clark?

  All right, well, Bill, be sure to tell the Amish we say hi. And if you want to be like Bill and correct us ever so gently and kindly like Bill did, you can send it in an email to [email protected].

• 58:20Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 58:35Josh Clark?

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