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
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!
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(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
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"Top 10 Social Science books"
-- Publishers Weekly
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"Year's Best Books About Movies & TV"
-- Parade Magazine
PRESS
and other nostalgic notations
...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. Shows like You Can’t Do That On Television and Double Dare have become synonymous with the network’s early days, and Mathew Klickstein’s oral history SLIMED!…does a wonderful job of reliving those times through interviews, photos, and assorted behind-the-scenes details...
... 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, including Doug creator Jim Jinkins, SNL alum Kenan Thompson, and Double Dare host Marc Summers. Slimed! explores the behind-the-scenes drama of controversial shows like Ren & Stimpy and the family lives of its child stars, but it also reveals the network’s unconventional programming and knack for recruiting up-and-coming talent...
...But what you will discover in SLIMED! is that there’s an impressive back story behind Nickelodeon. The author, Mathew Klickstein, a fan of the early Nickelodeon shows, admits that he thought the project might turn out to be a “nice little book…I’ll talk to maybe 30 or 50 people and get some colorful stories about Clarissa Explains It All or what have you.” Wrong. 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...
...Ever wonder what slime was made out of?
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If the thought has crossed your mind, SLIMED!: An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age is for you. It's the inside story of the popular kids' channel and is full of fun anecdotes and interesting facts about the network (it coined the word "tween"), its cast and crew members, plus the aforementioned slime recipe...
...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...
...‘Slimed! An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age,’ by Mathew Klickstein
Double Dare gets its moment in the nostalgia spotlight...
...4. SLIMED!
Mathew Klickstein
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...
... 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. Mathew Klickstein wrote an entire book about Nickelodeon but couldn’t figure out the exact slime recipe, however....
...2017 has been a big year for '90s kids. From the 20th anniversary of The Backstreet Boys to the announcements that Hey Arnold! will be returning to screens and Rugrats will be made into a comic book, there is much to celebrate when it comes to '90s nostalgia in pop culture. And in a year that has been otherwise difficult for many reasons, harkening back to simpler times in our lives can be a much needed respite. 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?...
...If you know who Pete and Pete are or you can rattle off a dozen things explained by Clarissa, you obviously grew up watching Nickelodeon in the '80s and '90s.
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."...
...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. Here's what went on behind the scenes, as uncovered by Mathew Klickstein in SLIMED! An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age...
... for those who’d prefer to remember their childhoods happily, Mathew Klickstein offers nostalgic millennials a happy place to return to. In SLIMED! An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age, published September 24, Klickstein argues that ’90s Nick was a near-edenic model of children’s programming, offering, on the one hand, “quirky and edgy and odd” shows like Ren and Stimpy, Clarissa Explains It All, and The Adventures of Pete & Pete, and comforting, chicken-soup programming like Doug and Hey Dude on the other...
...Before my date last Friday night I slipped on my favorite Elizabeth and James LBD; it was a look that said: "composed and ladylike." 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! An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age. The cherry on top: I was going as the date of Ferguson (a.k.a Jason Zimbler), the obnoxious ginger-haired brother from Clarissa Explains It All...
...'Double Dare' host Marc Summers opens up about Nickelodeon's 'golden age'...
... Mathew Klickstein talks new book, the history of Nickelodeon and The Simpsons ... [RADIO/AUDIO]
...Mathew Klickstein (SLIMED! an Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age) sits down to watch “A Hard Days Pete,” one of the most beloved episodes of Pete and Pete. Matt describes why Pete and Pete isn’t absurd, gets deep into the philosophy of Nickelodeon, and drops some serious Nick knowledge...
... The horror show vet spoke to The Globe and Mail about how Nickelodeon helped pave his future success. "Dark? paved the way for me to continue not only in acting but my transition into journalism and meteorology," he explained. "A couple of years ago I was in New York City for the book launch of Slimed by Mathew Klickstein ... [and] I was shocked at the number of fans who traveled from all over the U.S. to be [there]." Hull added, "That's what fueled the creation of my YouTube channel, Guy From That Show." ...
...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, author of the new book “SLIMED!”
“They said, ‘Our job is not to educate kids. Let’s just give the kids what they really want,’ which was a fun destination to hang out.'”...
...The green slime doused over heads on “You Can’t Do That on Television” was not as gross as you may have thought.
It was mostly just oatmeal, green food coloring and Johnson’s Baby Shampoo. An earlier version included green Jell-O.
That’s just one of the fun facts in a new book out Tuesday, “Slimed! An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age,” by upper West Sider Mathew Klickstein...
... While this book isn't only about slime, it is a great go-to for anyone who loves Nickelodeon. There are tons of exclusive interviews with casts and crews of various shows ...
...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. ... The show, and the network it helped launch, is the subject of Mathew Klickstein’s book, Slimed! An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age, released this week...
...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.
Writer and filmmaker Mathew Klickstein, a former reporter for the Colorado Daily, penned a narrative of the network — "SLIMED!: An Oral History of Nickelodeons Golden Age" ...
...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. And Disney won, at least according to the veterans interviewed in SLIMED!, Mathew Klickstein’s recent oral history of Nickelodeon...
...As chronicled in SLIMED!, an oral history of the network, Nickelodeon stumbled onto slime almost by accident. 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...
...Slime would disappear, but kiddie ooze stayed popular and made its way onto TV. According to Mathew Klickstein, author of SLIMED!: An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age, the network’s famous slime first appeared on a weird, anarchic show from Canada called You Can’t Do That on Television, in one of its very first episodes from 1979. They hadn’t yet worked out a recipe, so the original sliming entailed a bucket of real-life, moldy food slop, dumped onto a child’s head. (“It made people’s eyes water on set, it smelled so terrible,” Klickstein says.)...
...This week, we were joined by Mathew Klickstein, author of Slimed!: An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age to discuss the beloved program The Adventures of Pete and Pete. Also, there’s a fair amount of information on slime, so there’s that...
...Older cartoons aren’t the only sort that have experienced jittery network or studio censorship. As Mathew Klickstein, author of “SLIMED!: An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age,” says, early Nick cartoons like “Ren and Stimpy” and even “Rugrats” contained content that made studios nervous...
... 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. The immense amount of history here is impressive in and of itself, but Klickstein's care and tenderness for the subject makes this collection of reminiscences impossible to put down...
...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 by Mathew Klickstein. It will seriously bring you back to childhood, but also make you sad that you can’t go back and that time passes all too quickly...
...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. SLIMED!: An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age, by Mathew Klickstein, is an in-depth oral history that includes the genesis of the channel’s brand and many of its iconic shows...
...Like millions of Americans reared in the nineties, I grew up rather mindlessly consuming Nick’s cartoons and teen sitcoms. SLIMED! author Mathew Klickstein prods viewers like me to revisit the influential channel’s beloved shows with an eye on racial diversity, gender dynamics, and the process behind creating each show...
...Nickelodeon, after all, created Dora the Explorer, and over the years has produced a lot of programming that benefits from the guidance of scholars, psychologists, and child-development experts.
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Almost every one of them were either dismissive of or alarmed by the notion that television could potentially disrupt people's reality. As the naysayers noted, the practice of breaking the fourth wall to directly address viewers was practically de rigueur by the time Nickelodeon came around, used as it was in such popular series as Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and Sesame Street...
...Author Mathew Klickstein calls in to talk his new book, Slimed! An Oral History Of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age!...
...“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?” and later “what about a channel just for music?” No one thought to do that, and Nickelodeon was an experiment in that.” – Mathew Klickstein on the birth of Nickelodeon...
...Kids who grew up in the 1980s and ’90s were lucky enough to have the ultimate cable TV network created just for them: Nickelodeon. 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 ... Mathew Klickstein’s new oral history SLIMED! tracks down the likes of Melissa Joan Hart and Keenan Thompson, who talk about everything from crazy game-show parents to the network’s diversity issues. Click through for some of the book’s craziest revelations...
...Mathew Klickstein has seen past the curtain of our childhoods. More effectively, he's successfully mounted a campaign to chronicle the history of Nickelodeon during its prime era. 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....
...“SLIMED! An Oral History Of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age” hits bookstores today, and it’s jam-packed with ‘90s nostalgia that ranges from “Rugrats” to “Are You Afraid Of The Dark?” 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...
... 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. Don't you wish you'd thought of befriending Marc Summers and the entire Nick Nation first? ...
...In this episode, Patricia and Kevin interview the author of the upcoming book SLIMED! An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age Mathew Klickstein. In it, they discuss about the contents of the book, the Nickelodeon shows that almost had a feature film, how Nickelodeon was almost bankrupt,the changes Nickelodeon made to become the #1 kid's network, and Nickelodeon today...
...SLIMED! is not only the name of Slimer’s autobiography (ironically ghostwritten by a human), but also the title of a new book from Mathew Klickstein, about, to quote its subtitle, “Nickelodeon’s Golden Age.” We’re talking Ren and Stimpyand The Adventures of Pete & Pete and Hey! Arnold and Doug and other animated and otherwise shows that make your friend who still thinks Come On Over is the greatest album ever to internally explode from nostalgia...
...Using the word revolutionary to describe Nickelodeon—the kid-focused TV channel that debuted in the late ’70s—may seem like hyperbole. After all, this is the network that dumped green slime on its stars, and had kids pick a giant nose on Double Dare. But in his new book, SLIMED! An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age,writer Mathew Klickstein explains why the network wasn't just a boon for kids; it was also, yes, revolutionary...