Just For Me: An Exploration of Nickelodeon, TV’s First Network for Kids part V

Another way that Nickelodeon created brand image was through animation. By the late 1980s, animation dominated children’s programming on the major broadcast networks. Through limited animation, produced by such studios as Filmation Associates and Hanna-Barbera Productions, networks found they could create shows based around pre-sold concepts that would appeal to advertisers. Programs like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Garfield, Fat Albert & The Cosby Kids, G.I. Joe, and My Little Pony worked off of previously conceived properties, such as books, toys, or movies, that were instantly recognizable to children and sold as product tie-ins. In some cases, these shows were merely half-hour commercials for the products they featured. Limited animation was economically sound enough to produce sufficient quantity to fill a four-hour time slot, as compared to live-action programming, and such cartoon blocks became quite profitable (Simensky 87-9).



However, these cartoons also received a lot of critical backlash, both from parents and the production community. They were clearly gender divided (He-Man for boys, Care Bears for girls, etc.), promoted little in terms of racial diversity or education, and were typified by violence. Likewise, characters and storylines were shaped by the demands of merchandise licensing. Lobby groups like Action for Children's Television appeared in the late 1960s to voice their concerns about the presentation of violence, anti-social attitudes and stereotypes in Saturday morning cartoons. By the 1970s, TV networks felt compelled to lay down strict content rules for animated programs. Critics and animators have complained that this proceeded to the point where the very basic elements of drama and suspense were severely restricted and artists were left with few avenues of expression. Even more disconcerting was that the prohibition against the depiction of anti-social elements often prompted conformist stories, such as in the Smurfs series, where almost any individual initiative often resulted in trouble for the group and therefore had to be avoided. Aside from the award-winning Muppet Babies program, Saturday morning cartoons continued its legacy as a haven of insipid sitcom rip-offs and hapless reruns (Sandler 46-7).



In order to maintain its kid-parent friendly, non-violent image, Nickelodeon took to creating its own original animated programs, called “Nicktoons”, in 1991. This was revolutionary for several reasons. For one, animation was a costly process and it was rare that a network would produce shows with original characters. “The decision to have original characters made perfect sense in that it would allow Nickelodeon to differentiate itself from the broadcast networks” says Linda Simensky in her essay The Early Days of Nickelodeon (93). “For the most part, the broadcast establishment had little interest in original characters, instead opting to play it safe with easily recognizable marquee characters” (Simensky 93). Also, cartoonists were given creative control, rather than writers and marketing teams, as cartoons had previously always been pre-sold with licensed products in mind. Network shows rarely kept the creator attached to a series for very long because it tended to make the production process slower and harder to manage, but Nickelodeon wanted creator-driven cartoons; they “believed that the best characters all lived inside the heart of their creators” (Simensky 92). By creating it’s own group of characters and allowing cartoonists to do their own work, Nickelodeon could create its own animated identity, as well as its own backlog of programs which could be aired at any time, justifying the production costs. Ultimately, these cartoons were a huge success and have since become the networks staple programming. The creator driven cartoon process has since been copied by almost every major kids network, including Cartoon Network, the Disney Channel, Fox Kids, and Kids WB.



Since its inception in 1979, Nickelodeon has not only become the number one children’s channel, but a household name. The network produces movies, magazines, toys, and all sorts of other licensed products. However, what separates it from previous forms of children’s television is its commitment to quality – putting kids first. Both parents and kids know that Nickelodeon is a fun, safe place to be a kid, and this image extends to every product Nick creates. In such a way, the network is a great example of the way corporate branding functions on cable television. Likewise, Nickelodeon’s radical new forms of approaching children’s programming have had a lasting effect on the children’s entertainment industry, influencing everything from show design to production to basic philosophies. In short, Nickelodeon was the best thing that could have happened to TV for kids.

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Sources:
Gore, Chris. "Cel Out- The Plot to Kill Cartoons”. Wild Cartoon Kingdom #1, 1993
Hendershot, Heather. “Nickelodeon & The Business of Fun”. Nickelodeon Nation. Ed. Heather Hendershot. New York: NYU Press, 2004. 1 – 14.
Hutsul, Christopher. “Ren and Stimpy creator tries an online end-run to get back in the game”. Toronto Star. 6 Apr 2006.
Langer, Mark. “Ren & Stimpy: Fan Culture and Corporate Strategy”. Nickelodeon Nation. Ed. Heather Hendershot. New York: NYU Press, 2004. 155 – 181.
Nakata, Hiroko. “Exporting animation a huge Japanese success story”. The Japan Times. 7 July 2004.
Pecora, Norma. “Nickelodeon Grows Up: The Economic Evolution of a Network”. Nickelodeon Nation. Ed. Heather Hendershot. New York: NYU Press, 2004. 15 –44.
Sandler, Kevin S. “A Kid’s Gotta Do What A Kid’s Gotta Do: Branding the Nickelodeon Experience”. Nickelodeon Nation. Ed. Heather Hendershot. New York: NYU Press, 2004. 45 – 65.
Seiter, Ellen and Vicki Mayer. “Diversifying Representation in Children’s TV: Nickelodeon’s Model”. Nickelodeon Nation. Ed. Heather Hendershot. New York: NYU Press, 2004. 120 – 134.
Simensky, Linda. “The Early Days of Nickelodeon”. Nickelodeon Nation. Ed. Heather Hendershot. New York: NYU Press, 2004. 87 – 107.
Stuart, Audrey. “Animation remains all-powerful in kids TV”. Agence France Presse. 18 Oct 2005.
Stuart, Audrey. “Comedy creeps back into kids TV”. Agence France Presse. 6 Oct 2005

Just For Me: An Exploration of Nickelodeon, TV’s First Network for Kids part III

By 1992, Nickelodeon was beginning to see competition from broadcast channels such as Fox, UPN, WB, as well as cable channels like the Family Channel, Cartoon Network, Discovery Channel, and the Learning Channel. While many of these networks struggled to maintain ratings, Nickelodeon viewer ship steadily rose, making it the number one network on cable and the highest rated children’s network by 1996.



What made Nickelodeon so special? For one, the network had the advantage of brand association before any other kid’s network could develop. In his essay, “A Kid’s Gotta Do What a Kid’s Gotta Do”: Branding the Nickelodeon Experience, Kevin Sandler writes, “promoting specific prosocial elements such as diversity, nonviolent action, appropriate levels of humor, and guidelines for success – all without ever talking down to kids – characterizes the brand attitude of Nickelodeon” (45). In other words, Nickelodeon offers kids the chance to be kids, while still under the approval of adults – something broadcast networks could not provide.



Nickelodeon accomplished the creation of this image in several ways, namely by gaining the attention of kids. When the show You Can’t Do That On Television introduced ‘slime’, a sloppy green goop used for making messes, in 1984, it became the networks trademark, appearing in commercial spots and other programs such as the hit 1986 game show Double Dare. As a visual message, ‘slime’ resonated with kids, showcasing the network at its goofiest; messy and out of control, yet in the spirit of good, wholesome fun. Other trademark visuals, such as the orange splat logo design, worked to reinforce the kids-first attitude of the network (Sandler 48-9).



Likewise, Nickelodeon live action programs proved that the network had a sensitive, relevant side to it as well. Shows like Hey Dude, Welcome Freshman, Fifteen, and Are You Afraid of the Dark? dealt with teenage issues in mature ways. This was attractive not only to kids, but parents who were tired of the violence and stupidity that ran rampant throughout kids programming (Sandler 49). It also opened the floodgates for sensitive teen dramas, like Degrassi and those that air on WB.

Nick bolstered this kid friendly image by being one of the first networks to destroy gender and ethnic myths that plagued children’s programming. Before Nickelodeon, almost all children’s shows were divided by sex, with white males being the dominant focus group. Broadcast networks featured action adventure shows characterized by slapstick violence that catered to young male viewers, counterbalanced by cute, colorful programs for girls. Female characters were often stereotyped, or eliminated from children’s shows entirely. Most networks assumed that boys did not watch girl’s shows, and vice versa (Seiter & Mayer 122).



However, Nickelodeon shattered this concept by casting female leads in shows like Clarissa Explains It All and The Secret World of Alex Mack while still maintaining a strong male audience. These shows worked because they focused on topics affecting all kids – parents, school, friendship – and were not gender specific. At the time, many TV executives saw this as a bi-product of the cable market: “the message was that it worked for cable, and for an all-kids’ network, but was unrealistic as a business strategy for network kids’ shows” (Seiter & Mayer 123). However, the success of these programs proved that entertainment was genderless, and laid the foundation for future cross-marketable programs, such as the WB’s Animaniacs and Disney Channel’s Lizzie McGuire.



Nickelodeons approach to ethnic diversity was similar to its approach to gender. Most broadcast networks would throw an ethnic character into their programs simply to be politically correct, but shied away from programs featuring ethnic leads, but not Nickelodeon. From its pre-school morning programs to late night teen shows, Nickelodeon programs portrayed many diverse characters. Shows like The Brothers Garcia, a sitcom about a Latino family, The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo, a mystery show about an Asian spy, and My Brother & Me, another sitcom featuring an African American family, showed that programs involving race could be universal, and broadened Nick’s appeal as an “all kid” network. As a global network, Nick caters regional programming to fit the culture of the area, while allowing other distinct cultural voices the right to be heard. Like other Nickelodeon programming, these programming philosophies opened the market for other ethnically driven children’s shows, like Disney’s The Proud Family.


Part IV coming soon...

Check out Just for Me Part II!
Check out Just for Me Part I!

Just For Me: An Exploration of Nickelodeon, TV’s First Network for Kids part II

In the mid 1960s, it was discovered that satellite distribution allowed cable services, originally designed to improve reception in geographically difficult areas, the ability to host channels beyond the normal broadcast stations. By the late 1970s, cable offered super stations, pay-TV and other specialty programming. With these new services, industry revenue grew annually by about 15 percent (Pecora 18).



At the time, the three major broadcast networks – ABC, NBC, CBS – dominated the ratings for the two- to eleven-year-old demographic. Early children’s programming had been relegated to the Saturday morning timeslot, where shows like Howdy Doody were often used as springboards for marketing products. In fact, most networks hadn’t paid attention to kids programming much until the mid-1960s, when CBS introduced Saturday morning cartoons, which only acted as cheap substitutes for live action programming. Realizing the potential for profit in the specialization of children’s programming, Warner Cable Company launched the Pinwheel Network (later changing it to Nickelodeon in 1981) on April 1, 1979 with “hearty, wholesome programming that will delight PTA’s, community groups, and just plain anxious parents… as well as the kids” (Pecora 16).



The network worked to champion the idea of cable television to wary adults. Whereas children’s programming was restricted to certain times before, children and parents could now turn on Nick at anytime of day and know they would find something to watch. By reinforcing a ‘kids only’ image, Nickelodeon could lure suspicious parents into purchasing cable TV through their children. In turn, the growth of Nickelodeon as a network is inextricably linked with the growth of home cable access (Pecora 21).

When Nickelodeon went on the air with programming exclusively for children for the first time in 1979, there was nothing else like it. The network relied entirely on subscription fees, and aired mostly low budget programs, such as game or talk shows that were either produced by (Kid’s Writes) or featured kids (Mr. Wizard, Livewire). While this early programming worked to entertain kids in a pro-social, non-stereotypical way, it also earned the channel the reputation for being the “green vegetable network” (Pecora 23). In other words, the shows were good by adult standards, but not exactly what kids wanted to watch. In order to create new programming and maintain costs, the channel introduced advertising in 1983. That year, Nickelodeon turned a profit for the first time in its history, allowing for the development of original programming (Pecora 23).


Part III coming soon!...

Check out part I!

Just For Me: An Exploration of Nickelodeon, TV’s First Network for Kids part I

It’s a fact: children love television. According to Neilson research, the average American child between ages 2-17 will spend about 19 hours and forty minutes in front of the TV screen per week. Approximately 99% of American families own at least one television – 50% own at least three – and 45% of parents say they use TV to occupy their child when they’re too busy. Likewise, 54% of 4-6 year olds say they would rather watch TV than spend time with their parents. 56% of children ages 8-16 have a TV in their bedroom.

It’s a fact: television loves children. In one year alone, the average American child will have seen over 40,000 TV commercials selling a vast array of products. Advertisers spend approximately $1.3 billion on ads directed at young children per year, and almost 97% of American children age six and under own products based on characters from TV shows. In fact, most kids can develop brand loyalty by age 2!



So what do these numbers mean? It is clear that television plays a huge role in the social development of the modern American child, but how does this happen? Who controls it? What makes TV safe for kids?

This next post series will explore the history of Nickelodeon, the number one television network for children, and show how kids went from being completely ignored to the most desirable demographic in all of TV. They will argue that the formation of Nickelodeon in 1979 was crucial to the advent of cable, and will establish that through branding, animation, and other progressive programming, Nickelodeon managed to create a ‘quality’ television environment for children, approved by parents: the perfect example of positive corporate branding on cable TV.

Bamboozled: Effective Criticism or Critically Underscored?

Spike Lee’s Bamboozled is a satirical attack on the way American television misrepresents African Americans. Shot in DV and converted to 35mm, Bamboozled visually reflects television as a medium, using TV’s own formal conventions to mock it as an institution. The films plot focuses on a frustrated African American TV writer named Pierre Delacroix (Daman Wayans) who proposes a satirical blackface minstrel show with hopes to reveal the mediums innate racism. Much to Delacroix’s chagrin, the show becomes a smash hit, and events unfold that culminate in a melodramatic explosion of violence. Bamboozled ultimately presents an overly sardonic, albeit somewhat accurate representation of the network television system, particularly commenting on African American participation both behind the scenes and on the screen.

The film begins with Delacroix describing the problems modern television networks face: despite offering over 900 channels with endless programs to choose from, audiences are turning away their “idiot boxes like rats fleeing from a sinking ship”. Networks, then, must come up with something new, something fresh that people have never seen before. The network in Bamboozled, named CNS, turns to their sole black head writer to come up with an ‘urban’ show that will “make headlines”.

CNS is portrayed as being an ignorant, greedy institution. Executive Programmer Thomas Dunwitty (Michael Rappaport) claims to understand what it’s like to be black because he’s married to an African woman and supports black sports stars, yet he upholds negative stereotypes such as ‘negro time’, unwittingly uses the word ‘nigger’, and ultimately is looking for a show that demeans blacks, rather than supports a dignified view. When Delacroix’s blatantly racist show is pitched, Dunwitty immediately loves it, seeing dollar signs rather than the social effects of the show’s content. He even goes so far as to edit the show according to his own narrow ideas. Similarly, the network shows little respect for black talent. Delacroix himself is often belittled by coworkers, called an ‘oreo’ for his white –catering demeanor. For a show making fun of blacks, not a single black writer is hired; the white ones who are chalk this up to a possible lack of drive, unwillingness to work for small pay, or that blacks simply “couldn’t put their crack pipes down”. Despite this lack of black writing talent, the network produces an embarrassing influx of black performers, posing the question if blacks actors are desperate for work. The network also hires a public relations expert, who comes up with a list of ways to balance the show’s racist content with positive images of African Americans, claiming “the show can’t be racist because it was written by a non-threatening black male”. Finally, the network pursues sponsors that exploit black culture, advertising products such as malt liquor and flashy clothing.



Bamboozled presents this fictional network as a reflection of real television programming institutions. Although the details are extremely exaggerated, much of what the film describes is accurate. Struggling to compete with the Internet, film, and other mediums, TV networks are now forced to find edgy, new material that pushes boundaries and grabs attention. Shows with radical sexual, violent, and racial content, like Desperate Housewives or The Shield, as well as the influx of supposed ‘reality’ based programming reflect this. Likewise, Bamboozled’s representation of blacks working in TV is rooted in fact. Currently there are very few African American writers working in the medium, and those that do exist are expected to come up with ‘hip’ and ‘urban’ concepts. The number of black performers on TV is high, but they are often found in platforms that create caricatures, rather than actual representations of African Americans. Though I doubt executives are rushing to rewrite shows to demean African Americans, the film makes a valid point about black participation within the medium. In this sense, Spike Lee’s contentions that networks do not want to see dignified blacks on the air is somewhat justified.

Delacroix’s creation, Mantan & The New Millennium Minstrel Show, is a blackface song and dance show that takes place in a watermelon patch. It gets its roots from minstrel shows, America’s most popular form of entertainment in the 19th century. Minstrel shows began in the 1830’s with white men dressing in blackface and imitating black musical and dance forms, combining savage parody of black Americans with a genuine fondness for African American cultural forms. Performers like Burt Williams and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, who often either wore blackface or catered to white audiences, clearly influenced Delacroix’s show. Mantan also finds its roots in early TV shows like Amos & Andy, which portrayed a pair of black men as bumbling, money-hungry fools. The film draws parallels between these blatantly racist forms of entertainment to more modern forms, namely the ‘gangsta’ portrayal of blacks in rap videos. The similarities are certainly there: rap videos are loved by young whites, much like minstrel shows were, and package demeaning black stereotypes as entertainment. This, coupled with the use of blackface, seem to suggest that a craze for ‘acting black’ has reached new heights with the rise of the youth hip-hop nation.



While many of these ideas are interesting, they do not exactly work within the tone of the film. Bamboozled defines satire right in the beginning as “the use of ridicule, sarcasm, or irony to expose, attack, or deride vices, follies, stupidities, abuses, etc”. Mantan works as a prime example: an obviously repugnant and humorless show that, in the real world, would stand no chance of becoming a national hit or critical success. In fact, it would never make it to the airwaves to begin with! Delacroix claims his goal is to get America to wake up to the racist content they consume. He cites the civil rights movement and it’s depiction on television as inspiration: “White America needed to see black people being beaten on the six o’clock news to promote change”. Ultimately this idea backfires, but by transforming such an overtly racist program into a ratings champion, the film argues that American TV viewers are fundamentally racist and that the entertainment industry collaborates by providing entertainment that demeans blacks. The evidence for this exists, and is humorously presented in the film first-hand through reels of historical footage and second-hand through network representation. However, the film’s preachy tone and outlandish melodrama seem to lose sight of its initial goals, and it ultimately produces the very caricatures and silly devices that Lee is rallying against. Though the point that stereotypical images continue to exist in new forms can be found, it’s hard to see Bamboozled as anything more than a rant, rather than effective criticism.