The Orange Years: The Nickelodeon Story

If you grew up watching Nickelodeon, you should check this out. Lots of great info on the network I never even knew. Highly recommended!

This was a documentary that Jaime and I watched together. We started it on a Friday night, I had to leave to catch a movie at the theater so we finished this the next day. We were intrigued to see this since to different degrees, we grew up with the shows that were on the channel, Nickelodeon.

We learn here about the history of this channel. From its humble beginnings in Columbus, Ohio to Geraldine Laybourne taking over and how her approach helped it grow. This also helps to explain why it did so well and the trend that it started with being the first channel dedicated to children. Looking back on it, it makes a lot of sense. During that time, not so much. There were children and teens along with adults who hadn't made it, taking on different shows with producers who were learning on the fly. If that doesn't sound like growing up, I'm not sure what else would.

This was fun to see the likes of Danny Cooksey, Lori Beth Denberg, Melissa Joan Hart, Kel Mitchell, Kenan Thompson and Marc Summers get interviewed. I remembered these people from my childhood years. What I didn't know was that Christine Taylor, Larisa Oleynik and others also got their start on Nickelodeon. Coupling with them are people behind the scenes and hearing their perspective adds another layer as well.

What I'll say is that this is a well-made documentary. I like that it hooked me. It then gives the history and going through the different years/era. It was informative. They edit scenes and clips that helped to showcase what they're conveying. There is a bit about each of the different shows and what their contribution was to the growth. The ending was sad, since my daughter won't know the world before this channel or how it changed what she will watch in her formative years. I enjoyed this quite a bit. I'd recommend it to people my age or those interested in how Nickelodeon changed children's television.

My Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Nickelodeon was my life. I grew up watching it as a toddler, stuck with it as a child, a pre teen, a teenager and rewatched all of the old shows as an adult. I still watch them any chance I get. Rocko's Modern Life was my favorite to rewatch, but they were all great cartoons and live action shows. I started life watching today's special, noozles, David the gnome and the little bits, progressed into Rugrats and just gave my life to Nick after that. My dad says he hated me watching Ren & Stimpy and Aaah Real Monsters, but those shows gave me character. To be honest, Nickelodeon raised me. It was the only channel I watched 24/7 when Beavis & Butthead and Daria weren't on MTV. My parents fought and I ran to Nick. I was a lonely loser and Snick was my Saturday night. I'm more cultured a person because of the diversity of those shows. Weird is cool. I defended Nickelodeon to all the cool kids watching MTV or Adult Swim because they weren't learning empathy or humility. The shows for kids now are embarrassingly bad by comparison and there is no one channel that educates kids while making them laugh without simultaneously brainwashing them. The songs I learned from that channel are still sung to this day (even the Stick Stickley P. O. Box 963 song!). Everyone knows happy happy joy joy, even if you didn't watch the show. There isn't anything like those shows on TV now and it's really sad that kids have no way to learn a sense of humor or quirkiness. So I want to thank every writer, director and producer that did anything for Nickelodeon between 1985 and 1998, because it made my life better and got little me through some really dark times.

With key characters like Melissa Joan Hart, Keenan and Kel this film is a total blast from the past and in a league of its own. I caught myself saying "I used to love that show" so much. It also takes you back to the very very beginning of Nickelodeon and gives you a fun little history lesson. I would recommend this to everyone who is a fan of the children's network. 10 out of 10 for sure!!!

I came of age in the late '80s and early '90s, and in retrospect, I'm not sure there was a single more powerful influence on those formative years than Nickelodeon. Pinwheel and Danger Mouse colored my earliest memories, Double Dare and Mr. Wizard arrived a bit later, Salute Your Shorts and Ren & Stimpy spoke to me as a pre-teen... it seemed that as I grew and matured, so did the network, catering its programming to meet what I wanted or needed at that specific point in my life.

Looking back at it here, through a wide-angled lens, I was startled by how much of this material has lingered in my long-term memory banks and still, subtly, feeds my personality today. That's where The Orange Years makes its hay: coasting through a laundry list of beloved short-run TV shows and catchy pre-commercial bumpers, refreshing fond recollections in its audience while serving a dash of backstage skinny to better humanize the men and women behind this little network that could. And that's really what it was, at least in the early days: a boutique cable channel, catering to a very specific market, in an era before that was a proven formula.

The peeks behind the curtain are wonderful and inspiring - happy conversations with stars, creators and executives who are still jazzed about the product, twenty years after moving on - but the greater urge to service nearly every original property with some degree of inspection grows tiresome after nearly two hours. Should've been twenty minutes shorter.