SLIMED!
An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age
written by Mathew Klickstein
foreword by Marc Summers
(Penguin Random House, 2013)
5th Anniversary Edition: May 7, 2019
with new intro by Nick Arcade's Phil Moore
ABOUT SLIMED!
SLIMED! An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age tells the surprisingly complex, wonderfully nostalgic, and impressively compelling story of how Nickelodeon — the First Kids’ Network — began as a DIY startup in the late 70s, and forged ahead through the early eighties with a tiny band of young artists and filmmakers who would go on to change everything about cable television, television in general, animation, and children’s entertainment, proving just what can be done if the indie spirit is kept alive in the corporate world.
Get the real back story about all of your favorite Golden Age Nick shows: Everything from such classics as You Can’t Do That On Television, Out of Control and Double Dare to early 90s faves like The Adventures of Pete & Pete, the original three Nicktoons, Clarissa Explains It All and more …
All from those who made it happen!
(5th Anniversary Edition includes tweaks/updates, autograph pages and a new introduction by Nick Arcade's Phil Moore.)
"Top Four Tell-All Books"
-- Entertainment Weekly
"Top 10 Social Science books"
-- Publishers Weekly
"Year's Best Books About Movies & TV"
-- Parade Magazine
PRESS
and other nostalgic notations
Showbiz CheatSheet
If you grew up watching Nickelodeon, you might wonder what the green stuff is made of. Now, we finally have an answer to what exactly is in the Nickelodeon slime recipe. As it turns out, there’s more than one way to make the stuff.
History of the 90s Podcast
During its golden years, Nickelodeon not only had over 50 per cent of the kid audience share, but it was also one of the most profitable cable networks out there ...
Parade Magazine
If you’re a child of the 1980s, chances are good that you’re already quite familiar with some of Nickelodeon’s classic TV programming [and] SLIMED! does a wonderful job of reliving those times through interviews, photos, and assorted behind-the-scenes details...
The Atlantic
The channel’s rise to prominence was actually a major breakthrough in children’s entertainment, as Klickstein illustrates through interviews with more than 200 insiders ...
Kirkus Reviews
While this is a book you can fit in your purse, and while the cover is a happy mixture of the classic Nickelodeon lime green and bright orange, it’s filled with a lot more than nostalgia...
The Hollywood Reporter
Ever wonder what slime was made out of? If the thought has crossed your mind, SLIMED!: An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age is for you ...
Publishers Weekly
And two books remind us that culture isn’t all serious business—sometimes it’s just good fun. From Plume comes SLIMED! An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age by Mathew Klickstein, an oral history of TV network ...
New York Magazine
Double Dare gets its moment in the nostalgia spotlight ...
Entertainment Weekly
What was Amanda Bynes like before this year’s headlines? Klickstein provides a bracing oral history of Nickelodeon in the 1990s, the era of shows like Ren & Stimpy and Clarissa Explains It All ...
The Washington Post
Now for the grossest and undeniably best part of the show, the slime. It is reportedly made of some combination of green food coloring, cream of wheat, baby shampoo and jello ...
Bustle
2017 has been a big year for '90s kids. ... And in between binge watching all those television revivals and listening to all of those old albums, why not pick up a few books that will give you the same feels?...
Newsday
Now the cable network's golden age is re-examined in Mathew Klickstein's new book, "Slimed!" (Plume), which features dozens of interviews with the creative forces and performers behind classic Nick shows, from "Double Dare" to "Ren and Stimpy."...
Mental Floss
Whether you preferred the drama of Hey Dude, the postmodern sensibility of Clarissa Explains It All, or the gross-out humor of Ren & Stimpy, if you were a kid in the '90s, there's a good chance your favorite TV channel was Nickelodeon ...
The Village Voice
For those who’d prefer to remember their childhoods happily, Mathew Klickstein offers nostalgic millennials a happy place to return to ...
Elle Magazine
Inside, though, my tweenage self was unabashedly ecstatic: I was heading to the 92nd Street Y in NYC for the fly-your-fun-flag event celebrating Mathew Klickstein's new book, SLIMED! ...
Fox News
'Double Dare' host Marc Summers opens up about Nickelodeon's 'golden age'...
WIBX Radio
Mathew Klickstein talks new book, the history of Nickelodeon and The Simpsons ...
Vulture
Matt describes why Pete and Pete isn't absurd, gets deep into the philosophy of Nickelodeon, and drops some serious Nick knowledge...
Nicki Swift
The horror show vet spoke to The Globe and Mail about how Nickelodeon helped pave his future success ...
The Denver Post
"Nickelodeon actually started more than 30 years ago as a ‘green-vegetables’ educational channel that was used to sell the Movie Channel. But they got rid of that reputation because it almost ruined them,” said Mathew Klickstein ...
NY Daily News
The green slime doused over heads on “You Can’t Do That on Television” was not as gross as you may have thought ...
Seventeen Magazine
While this book isn't only about slime, it is a great go-to for anyone who loves Nickelodeon ...
Toronto Star
You Can’t Do That on Television, produced at Ottawa’s CJOH studios, became a worldwide hit that helped launch the youth-oriented Nickelodeon network in the U.S. ...
Colorado Daily
Whether you were a fan of "Ren and Stimpy" gross-out jokes or loved watching people get slimed on "You Can't Do That on Television," chances are good that if you had a television as a kid, you grew up watching Nickelodeon ...
The Atlantic
Weren’t the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon once opposing brands—the former a squeaky-clean twinkle factory, the latter more splattery and indie-spirited—battling for the eyeballs of America’s children? Yes, they were ...
The Verge
A scene from You Can’t Do That on Television, one of the network’s earliest shows, featured a young actor who was supposed to pull a chain and get a bucket of what looked like sewage dumped on his head. The producer stopped short of using actual human waste, but not by much...
Slate
They hadn’t yet worked out a recipe, so the original sliming entailed a bucket of real-life, moldy food slop, onto a child’s head. (“It made people’s eyes water on set, it smelled so terrible,” Klickstein says.) ...
Exquisite Podcast Radio Network
Listen to the full episode here.
Today
Older cartoons aren’t the only sort that have experienced jittery network or studio censorship ...
Notes From The Conquistadork
More than just telling the stories as they objectively happened, Mr. Klickstein interviewed the people who made Nickelodeon possible: from actors to writers to animators, directors and producers ...
Good Books & Good Wine
If you’ve always wanted an orange couch and would totally spend Saturday nights watching Snick, you need to listen to SLIMED!: An Oral History Of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age...
OK! Magazine
You’ve watched Nickelodeon at some point in your childhood, right? If you were a conscious child in the 1980s and early 1990s, you are probably aware of the “golden age” of the network, as detailed in an awesome new book ...
Bitch Media
Like millions of Americans reared in the nineties, I grew up rather mindlessly consuming Nick’s cartoons and teen sitcoms ...
WIRED
As the naysayers noted, the practice of breaking the fourth wall to directly address viewers was practically by the time Nickelodeon came around, used as it was in such popular series as Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and Sesame Street...
Illogical Contraption
Author Mathew Klickstein calls in to talk his new book, Slimed! An Oral History Of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age! ...
The Jeff Rubin Show
“Nickelodeon is the second or third cable channel ever invented. It was a true experiment, they used it as something called narrowcasting instead of broadcasting. Suddenly they said “what about a channel just for kids?” ...
Flavor Wire
Usually anti-authoritarian, always funny, and tons of fun, Nick’s golden years featured a slew of shows, personalities, and moments that are ingrained in the memories of millions ...
WhatCulture
I can't remember how I stumbled upon his project, but I can say that I'm glad I did as every bit of knowledge he's share with myself is priceless ...
Huffington Post
Written by Mathew Klickstein with a foreword by “Double Dare” and “What Would You Do?” host Marc Summers, “SLIMED!” digs deep into the depths of Nickelodeon’s “golden age” with interviews and fun facts ...
Walden Ponders
Mathew, a kindred nostalgic Nickelodeon fan, has compiled an oral history featuring over 200 interviews from the men and women who imagined a kids-only domain of rule-breaking freedom, mess, fun, and slime, and who unarguably gave us some of the best memories of our childhoods ...
Old School Lane
In this episode, Patricia and Kevin interview the author of the upcoming book SLIMED! An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age Mathew Klickstein ...
Uproxx
Fortunately, these childhood shows hold up as an adult, and Klickstein believes that they’re important, too. ...
Thrillist
You saw this with MTV. You saw this with SNL. You saw this with other artistic or musical movements, like punk. It’s the inevitable cycle where there are young people working kind of under the radar, putting something out there that they’re frustrated isn’t out there already ...
Pop Culture Tonight
Go Beyond The GREEN SLIME with Patrick as he explores the glory days of Nickelodeon featuring special guests Mathew Klickstein, Composer Edd Kalehoff, and Double Dare host, Marc Summers ...
Little Village Magazine
While every generation nostalgically believes they had the best music, movies or television (and there are more than a few people looking through rose-colored glasses in this book), the stories in SLIMED! do capture a special period in television’s history ...
The DJ Bob Show
DJ Bob talks to Mathew Klickstein, Author of SLIMED: An Oral History Of Nickelodeon's Golden Age ...
WGSN Insider
With programming among the ranks of Clarissa Explains It All, The Adventures of Pete & Pete, Salute Your Shorts, What Would You Do?, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, All That, Ren and Stimpy, and many more, Klickstein highlights how this First Kids’ Network’s indie spirit persevered and conquered children’s entertainment ...
Super Joe Pardo
Mathew Klickstein took his writing skills and put together a childhood dream book! ...
Toon-in Talk
If you grew up in the 1990s, you most likely watched Nickelodeon and were a fan of their Nick Toons. The 1990s have become known as the Golden Age of Nickelodeon Studios and nostalgia always comes into play when that decade is mentioned ...
Old School Lane
Patricia interviews book authors and pop culture enthusiats Mathew Klickstein and Caseen Gaines discussing about how Doug, Rugrats, and The Ren & Stimpy Show influence pop culture...
Geek & Sundry
The definitive book on 90's Nickelodeon television ...
WGXC
The May episode of The Work Show was recorded while driving around Columbia and Greene counties with itinerant author and social critic Mathew Klickstein ...
Book Q & A with Deborah Kalb
I wrote an oral history about Nickelodeon's "Golden Age" because no one else had told the story in full before ...
Mental Floss
According to Mathew Klickstein’s book, Slimed! An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age, one adult employee tried it out and got stuck. “Wouldn’t surprise me,”Taylor says. “It was meant for 80-pound kids.” ...
Ain't It Cool News
It's the story of how the network was set up and the scuttlebutt behind the creation and execution of those shows I watched obsessively as a kid, so yeah. This one's right up my alley ...
Do You Remember?
Clarissa wasn’t really a tomboy and she wasn’t really the weird girl. She was always just herself, she explained in...
Chicken Scratch Comedy
Last week I had a chance to indulge some of my adolescent TV love when I talked to the author of Slimed! An Oral History Nickelodeon’s Golden Age, which looks at Nick’s mostly live-action programming from the 1990s ...
The Gazette
Klickstein was candid about the bittersweet nature of nostalgia, even for Millennials hoping to recall the days of things as silly as Stick Stickly and slime...
TV Madness
In time for the 35th anniversary of Nickelodeon, podcast host Mekeisha Madden Toby talks to writer and historian Mathew Klickstein ...
People Magazine
15 Things You Didn't Know About These Groundbreaking Series ...