#90s nick

cre8tivdemby:

Happy Valentine’s Day, Cre8️⃣tiFans! ❤️ Your favorite 90’s aquatic rodent couple Norbert and Treeflower, aka NorbFlower from The Angry Beavers! ‍❤️‍‍ Celebrate this special lovey dovey day with this fan art feat. these psychedelic sweethearts along with its speed drawing process! Stay TOONed for more Cre8️⃣tiPosts! Peace! ☮️✌

So I’ve been doing a lot of political and personal life rants as of late and I decided that I need to write about something a little more positive. I’m going to try to write a little bit more about my interests. And since Nickelodeon has been in full 90′s cartoon revival swing, why not talk about my favorite Nicktoons? Most of these shows aren’t from the 90′s but they are just some Nickelodeon cartoons that I loved growing up and still love now. 

So…

10. Chalk Zone

The concept behind this show…brilliant. As a kid who loved to draw, this was like the ultimate fantasy for me. I absolutely loved the idea of a whole world of drawings existing behind every chalkboard in the world. It was so cool seeing Rudy creating all these cool drawings and interacting with them and that his best friend was a drawing that he created. And one of the most interesting and creative aspects of the show was that he had to use his drawings as a means of problem solving whenever he was faced with any conflicts. I don’t think our education system stresses how important art and design are to the problem solving process so it’s great that a children’s cartoon does this.

I also appreciated the fact that one of the smartest characters in the show, Penny was a brown-skinned Latina girl as opposed to an Asian girl or another boy. She also played an integral part of each episode helping Rudy solve problems throughout the show. That is something that I always appreciated about a lot of Nickelodeon shows. The opening song was also so catchy and got me excited to watch every time. I didn’t watch the show religiously but I did try to catch it whenever it was on which is why it isn’t higher on the list. Also, they don’t rerun this show like they do the others which is pretty unfortunate. 

9. Doug

This show was so down-to-earth and simple. It was a show about a boy who moves to a new neighborhood and fears that he won’t fit in. He goes to a new school, deals with all the typical trials of being a kid like bullies and crushes and makes friends who help him become acclimated into his new surroundings. 

There were a lot of similar shows like this in the 90s. However, this show had three major quirks that stood out from the rest of the crowd: 

1) Doug had such a vivid imagination. Whenever he worried about something, his anxieties would manifest into the most bizarre and exaggerated scenarios that could never happen in real life. This also happened when he was excited about things as well. He has a whole cast of characters in his head that he also uses as a council including a superhero that he created called Quail Man, a smooth James Bond type character called Smash Adams and an Indiana Jones look-a-like named Race Canyon. Whenever he needs advice about a situation that he’s in, he asks himself…what would -insert character- do? 

2) Doug keeps a journal of everything that happens to him throughout the day. This is something that young male characters rarely do. Normally, boys aren’t taught to express their emotions in calm and creative ways so to have a young male character keep a diary and use it as a way to discuss how he feels about his life is pretty refreshing.

3) Some of the characters in this show have odd skin colors. His best friend, Skeeter has blue skin but according to the creator of the show, Skeeter is supposed to be African American. There are also characters with green skin, purple skin, magenta skin and pink skin. I guess that this is supposed to represent the racial diversity of the town. 

I like that all the characters including the popular kids, the rich kids and the bullies are shown in nuanced lights that make them feel human instead of the one-dimensional caricatures we see in a lot of kids’ programming. The main bully character, Roger who often picks on Doug admits to actually liking him as a person and even hosts a party for Doug at his house to celebrate the anniversary of him moving to town. Bebe, the rich girl of the school owns up to lying about having her property stolen after it winds up broken and she asks Skeeter to fix it for her and Judy, Doug’s older sister who he often can’t stand goes out of her way to help him with a lot of his problems. The animation isn’t always so great but this is one of those shows that depends more on storytelling and imagination than anything else. I still watch this show now as an adult and find it enjoyable. 

8. Invader Zim

Man, this show was such a cult-classic. From the twisted mind of Jhonen Vazquez came the story of an incompetent alien named Zim who came to take over earth with his adorable and even more incompetent robot side-kick, Gir. This show was on multiple levels of weird and fucked up. If you were an outcast millennial teen growing up in the mid-2000s, this was one of your favorite shows. It definitely was and still is one of mine. For those of you who haven’t seen it and wonder why everyone loves it so much, you need to go watch it. The best way that I can describe this show is that is that it’s about an alien who looks like your typical green Martian with large black eyes trying to masquerade as a human child going to school with the worst costume ever (human-eyed contact lenses and a wig) and though it’s so painfully and frustratingly obvious to skeptic, Dib, the rest of the world is so oblivious to the fact that this green skinned kid who seems to know the bare minimum of human life is an alien. Throughout each episode, Zim keeps making his failed attempts to take over the world and his plans are often thwarted by Dib, his own incompetence, his fellow aliens who don’t trust him and even his own sidekick Girl. 

A lot of the characters in this show are on so many extremes of either being dim-witted, evil or unattached to reality and I often got the sense that this is Vazquez’s commentary on people in real life who are so far removed from reality that they don’t realize what’s going on around them. Zim is like a massive elephant in the room that no one but Dib cares to address or notices and the same can be said for other things in our reality like our moronic criminal elected leaders -coughTrumpcough- and mass government corruption. I loved the art style. Everything was so dark and grungy looking and this is very much attributed to Vazquez’s alternative/goth aesthetic. The animation was great. When I was a kid, I didn’t realize how much of a nerd I was and how much I liked sci-fi but I always loved the use of robots, mechanical contraptions and fake scientific elements in cartoons and Invader Zim was crawling with all of that stuff. There were so many rememberable and weird stuff about this show like Gir’s cute antics, dancing and singing, the dialogue was so in-your-face and the visuals were so gross but fun to look at. I love and miss this show and I can’t wait for the movie!

7. SkyLand

Does anyone else remember this show? These characters were basically Sokka and Katara before Avatar: The Last Airbender existed. This show took place in the 23rd century in a world where the earth was shattered into billions of pieces. Water is scarce in this world and its supply is being controlled by the antagonists, an organization called The Sphere. When the main characters’ mother is abducted by this organization and they join a group of pirate freedom fighters to go after the mother and fight against The Sphere. In this world, some humans called Seijins have gained the ability to absorb energy from the sun and harness it into energy beams, telepathy and telekinesis. This show wasn’t on for that long and I saw it so long ago that I honestly don’t remember too much from it but this is what I remember loving about this show:

`1) I loved the concept. Before Avatar: The Last Airbender, this is was one of most anime-inspired shows I had ever seen. I loved that this show had that classic freedom fighter storyline behind it where oppressed people are having their people and their natural resources stolen and controlled and they join a band of rebels to fight against them. It felt so relevant to issues that occur in many countries in the world.

2) Powerful female characters. I loved Lena and Diwan. I am very much attracted to young characters who have so much untapped talent and potential. Lena was so powerful at her young age, it would have been great to see how much stronger she would have became if as she grew older. Although Diwan was a villain, it was refreshing seeing that both the hero and one of the antagonists of the show were female.

3) This show took its viewers seriously. It never condescended to kids on any terms. The characters were well-designed and the environments and backgrounds were beautiful. The creators of this show put in a lot of effort to make this show stand out from a lot of other western animated series. I also really appreciated that this show addressed serious issues like kidnapping, absent parents and unethical seizures of natural resources by organizations.

Hats off to the French for this. I bought some episodes of this show on iTunes when I was in college because I remembered how awesome this show was and my opinion on it as a kid hasn’t changed much. I still love it.

6. As Told By Ginger 

A show about a girl living with her single mother and brother who deals with fitting in at school and crushes and being bullied by the popular girls at school…sounds so much like my life growing up! This show was so real. When I was a kid, I was typically into “boys’ shows” but for some reason I loved this show. I didn’t realize how much I related to Ginger until I was much older. There was an episode where she was reciting poetry at a school assembly and her father told her that he would come watch. She then takes to the stage to deliver her poem and doesn’t see him in the crowd. She’s very disappointed about this and when she goes backstage she receives flowers that were left by her father. Then it gets even more real when we learn that her mother is the one who bought them. Her father made yet another excuse as to why he couldn’t make it and we learn that he does this quite often. Her father is essentially, a deadbeat. As a kid with a deadbeat father, this hit home for me. Not many shows are willing to provide such a realistic approach to absentee parents and tell stories about non-traditional families. This show did such a great job of telling this kind of story. 

I like that they gave some realistic depth to their other characters. For example, one of her best friends, Macie Lightfoot in one famous episode was adamant about performing a song from a show from their childhood called “I’m a Little Seal Girl” even though she and her other friends had long outgrown the show. She took to the stage and performed the song even after to the radio blew out during her performance. Her bravery won a standing ovation from the crowd and the respect of her friends. In another episode, we learned that her parents still treat her like a child and show her love by showering her with lavish gifts like a petting zoo instead of actually being there for her. This is one of the first shows I ever saw about kids at my age (I watched this in middle school) that took our lives seriously. I haven’t seen reruns of this show in a long time but I would love to see this show again.

5. The Wild Thornberrys

Being the nerd that I was when I was a kid, I love that this show actually taught me things about animals and survival in the wild. I loved Eliza and how much she cares about animals and as a budding xenophile, I loved the fact that they traveled to different countries and learned about different cultures. The adventures that they went on made me experience so many different emotions at once in one episode. One minute I’m laughing at Donnie’s antics while he’s harassing Debbie or Darwin, the next minute I’m fascinated by Nigel’s teachings about the animal they’re documenting in the episode and the next moment, I’m horrified or worried about Eliza while she running for her life from a threat she’s facing. Every episode was such a thriller. 

I loved that they brought in real-life wildlife experts like Jane Goodall onto the show. As a kid, it made me feel like this was a good legit show to learn some real facts about wildlife. I loved the character dynamics; each character is a foil to another. I loved that Darwin, the chimp was so much more civilized than Donnie, this human child who’s at the age where he’s supposed to be learning so much about the world around him. I loved that Debbie, on the surface, was the typical teenage girl who cared about what was cool (I say “on the surface” because at heart, she’s really eclectic and is really great at building relationships with people who don’t speak her language) and her sister was a complete geek. I loved that Nigel was always so free-spirited and throwing caution to the wind and Miriam had to keep his craziness in check to make sure they got their work done, all the characters just played so well off each other and created for some fun dialogue and situations. 

I always thought the art style was a bit strange but it didn’t bother me that much because each episode was packed with so much action. The concept behind this show, although not too original (Eliza is basically a Dr. Doolittle without the medicine) but it was executed in a way that made it feel like a new and fresh concept. I really liked that the animals she spoke to had such diverse personalities and that she used her powers to help out her parents nature show. 

There was a great episode where she met some finches who were struggling to collect food for themselves and she decided to help them out by giving them needles to use to procure worms from trees more easily. After this, the other animals on the island were complaining about food shortages. When she traced the food shortage, it led back to her and she realized that she had tampered with the ecosystem. It was such an excellent lesson for kids about the food chain.

I also appreciated Eliza’s fearlessness and that unlike a lot of young female protagonists, she had a dare-devil/action hero spirit for adventure (much like Tomb Raider) but still used her intellect to solve problems in peaceful ways. I wish that they would rerun this show again. The last time they aired reruns on NickSplat, I still very much enjoyed the show. 

4. Rocket Power 

This show can be described in two words: action-packed. Whenever I watched this show as a kid, I always wished that I could move to California, take up skateboarding and learn to do all the cool tricks that these kids did. But I mostly stuck to playing Tony Hawk games and watching skateboarding documentaries…I’m too uncoordinated to be a skateboarder. But anyway, I loved this show for so many reasons: 

1) This show made me want to go outside and do physical activities like riding my bike. When I was a kid, they had a programming block on Nickelodeon Nick GAS (Games and Sports) and they would air a bunch of sports-related shows.

2)  I really liked that Rocket Power made sports and exercising cool. On summer afternoons, I would watch this show and then take my bike outside and ride around the block a few times. It wasn’t as exciting as what the Rocket Power crew was doing but I still had a lot of fun. 

3) I liked that all the characters had their own unique personalities, strengths and weaknesses and these things were openly addressed. The characters often worked on addressing their weaknesses and fears in various episodes. I thought it was great seeing the characters become stronger and learn new skills and grow. 

I loved the episode where Sam was having trouble with surfing because of his weight and Tito, who is also large in size helped him solve his issue by giving him his iconic long board with the floral pattern. I really appreciate that this show has a character who’s interested in athletics that isn’t skinny like the other kids. I also enjoy the episodes where Sam uses his science and engineering knowledge to help his friends and improve his own athletic skills. It’s important that kids learn that even though they’re not good at something, their skills in another area can help with that skill and when it comes to teamwork, their skill-sets in other things could go a long way toward achieving goals. 

I absolutely loved Reggie. She was one of my cartoon crushes growing up. I wanted to be so much like her when I was a kid but sadly, again, I’m not coordinated enough to ride a skateboard. She’s such a great role-model for girls because she exemplifies the fact that girls can do anything that boys can do, skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding and a lot of other extreme sports are not just for boys and that sometimes, girls can even do some physical activities better than boys. As a girl who was told a lot as a kid that I can’t do certain things as well as boys, characters like Reggie really motivated me to surpass boys at a lot of things including drawing. 

I still enjoy this show a lot as an adult. This show has always been entertaining to me. This show immersed me into skater culture and influenced how I dress and speak. Also, I have very real plans of moving to California someday after having visited the place that Ocean Shores is based on (The Santa Monica Pier)! 

3. The Rugrats

This show was a such a large staple in my childhood. When I was growing up, I watched this show so much that watching it now as an adult brings back so much nostalgia of just being a kid. This cartoon was my childhood. The concept behind this show was so creative. If babies could talk, what would they say? How would they see the world around them? This show answers it all. Just like in Doug, these characters had such vivid imaginations. They could take the most mundane situations like going to the car wash and turn them into the biggest adventures. Although we may never know what babies are thinking, I think this show does such a great job of imagining it. The characters’ personalities are also very representative of the kinds of personalities that very young children have. You have Tommy, the child whose curiosity and hunger for adventure often gets him into trouble, Chuckie, the child who’s afraid of everything including the monster under the bed, the closet, trying new things and being in strange places, Phil and Lil, the kids who love getting dirty, playing with and eating bugs and playing in the garbage and there’s Angelica, the spoiled brat who bullies younger kids and always wants things her way and her foil, Suzy, who stands up for the bullied kids and wants to make sure that everything is fair. 

This cartoon tackles so many milestones of growing up like moving from a crib to an actual bed, potty training, having to clean up after one’s self, taking care of younger siblings and dealing with loss. The show did such a great job of addressing the fact that Chuckie’s mother is no longer alive and we see so many signs that Chaz, Chuckie’s father is still dealing with the grief as well, seeking therapy and struggling to find a girlfriend. Chuckie’s response to his father dating was also similar to how a lot of older people tend to handle this as well. 

I also like that this show explores a lot of Jewish culture as well. This was probably the first show that taught me anything about Jewish holidays or religious customs along with my 2nd favorite cartoon. They also touched a bit on Kwanza as well which as an African American, I thought was really cool. This show does such an amazing job of making the viewer feel as though they are part of the Pickles’ family. I have been watching this show for so long, I feel as if I know all the characters so well as if they are people that I know personally. I loved this show as a kid and I still do as an adult.

2. Hey Arnold

As someone who grew up in a working-class community in NYC, Hey Arnold speaks to me in ways that no other show possible could. Arnold comes from an unconventional family as you will find in a lot of poor communities. He also lives in the inner-city, which is a refreshing setting since pretty much every show on my list has characters who are from the suburbs or other small towns. Coming from a large city, I can relate to all the urban myths and legends that Gerald is constantly regaling throughout the show (except in my case, they were usually rumors about different neighborhoods and crime). I can relate to not always feeling safe where I live just like what Arnold deals with when he is mugged. I’ve had “adventures” with my friends hanging out in the city (mostly hopping train-cars and hanging out at the park). Just like Arnold, I had to ride a public city bus to school when I was a kid, I had to deal with bullies and my grandparents had a large part in raising me as a child since my mother is a single parent and my father was seldom involved in my life.

I like that this show delves into the lives of the characters surrounding Arnold and often I am more fascinated by the secondary characters than I am with Arnold (kind of like with OITNB). Helga is a particularly interesting case. The episode “Helga on the Couch” was such a deep and serious episode. It gave us a window into Helga’s life and MO. We see why she picks on Arnold so much and hides her feelings, why she’s angry all the time and how her family treats her. It presents a clear-cut case of child neglect. In the episode, we see that her parents often forget to pack her lunch, let her walk to pre-school by herself and outright ignored her whenever she tried to get their attention. They openly favored their older daughter Olga over her and they often call Helga Olga by mistake. This definitely made Hey Arnold stand out to me more than any other show. The fact that they’re willing to show what real kids go through makes me feel that the creators take kids and their lives seriously. 

The show also has a lot of coming-of-age moments that I appreciate. This was shown in the episode where Herald goes through his bar mitzvah and he was afraid of the responsibilities and implications that came with growing up just like with most kids. He knows that becoming a man means that he’s going to be held accountable for his actions and that’s a pretty scary thing to deal with for him. On the other side, we see that some kids are actually open to gaining new responsibilities. There was an episode where Arnold was tasked with procuring his grandfather’s watch from the jewelry store and he was super excited to be given the responsibility because his grandfather never trusted anyone with that watch and his grandfather explained to him that he’s growing up and it means adults will trust him with really important things now. There were also characters who wanted to grow up too soon like Gerald who getting fed up with his family and wanted so badly to move out. Once he persuaded Arnold and his grandfather to let him move into the boarding house, he realized that he couldn’t handle it and that it was easier being a kid.

The thing I love the most about this show is actually something that most people don’t like about it or at least, a critique that I’ve heard before from other people who watch and review the show. I like that the endings to a lot of the episodes aren’t happy or have some kind of profound message. When you’re a kid, sometimes daily life doesn’t have any profound messages or lessons despite the fact that you’re supposed to be in a state of constant learning. Sometimes you have a shitty day at school, you come home and deal with annoying siblings or parents and your day ends on a low note. Some days you have a great day at school, you chill with your siblings and your parents make your favorite dinner and your day ends on a high note. That’s real life. I think it’s realistic that a lot of episodes don’t have perfect endings. 

I couldn’t get enough of this show as a kid and I still can’t get enough of it now as an adult.

1. Avatar: The Last Airbender 

What can I say about this show that hasn’t already been said? This isn’t just an cartoon, it’s a work of art and philosophy that has yet to be surpassed by any other other show, not even it’s successor, The Legend of Korra (Nickelodeon’s fault, not the creators). 

This show has that classic “with great power comes great responsibility” message. We are introduced to such a young character, a 12 year old boy named Aang who has been reincarnated as the Avatar, the master of all the 4 elements, destined to restore peace and balance to the world. Knowing his destiny, however, scares Aang to the point where he runs away and winds up getting frozen in a ball of ice while protecting himself from a storm. He then wakes up 100 years into the future and learns that the world is being taken over by the Fire Nation and his mentors and peers have all been wiped out. One cannot say whether or not Aang would have been well-trained enough to defeat the Fire Nation but Aang blames himself for what transpired. This child has so much weight on his shoulders it’s no wonder why he clings onto his childhood so much. Imagine being 12 years old and being told that you have the save the world? How does one cope with that?

There are so many amazing things about this show that cannot be counted. And I’m definitely not going to be able to get to everything but here are my top 4 reasons:

1) Each character has so much depth, including the villains. There are also great character dynamics as well. Sokka and Katara have your typical brother-sister relationship. Sokka can be a nuisance to Katara and get tired of her trying to control everyone’s behavior but Sokka reveals that he relies on it. He feel like Katara is the closest thing to their mom to him. There are very few cartoons where we see siblings who appreciate each other to such an extent. 

Then we have Zuko, who is possibly the deepest most well developed cartoon character ever to be on television. Zuko goes from being the main antagonist of the series to being a part of the main cast as a friend and ally. We see this teenager struggle to cope with the fact that his father abused him for speaking out of turn and forced him into exile until he was able to capture Aang. Even after he briefly defeated Aang and returned to his father’s good graces, he still felt unhappy and it’s because he knew that he was on the wrong side. This fact became especially clear when Iroh teaches him that one of his ancestors was the Avatar which creates this internal struggle within him about whether or not he made the right decision. He then learns that his father and his regime need to be taken down and that he needs to join the Avatar. 

Speaking of Iroh, it’s clear that he’s gone through a similar internal struggle as Zuko and I haven’t heard much of anyone mention how much he changed after visiting the spirit world and how he decided against killing the last of the dragons, claiming they were already dead. Seeing how war affected his life and took the life of his son also made him very protective of Zuko and made him not want Zuko to be lost to violence and the war machine as well. 

We even delve into the mental state of Azula whose sociopathic ways stem from a superiority complex that she’s gained from spending her life trying to please her father–the parent she felt that actually paid her any attention and was proud of her. She craved her mother’s love and attention and I got the sense that she wanted so badly to be as powerful and domineering as her father and the rest of the Fire Nation’s regime but her mother looked down upon this. She felt her mother loved Zuko more than her and it hurt her that she was closer with Zuko, someone in her eyes, showed weakness and wasn’t worthy of being the successor to the throne after her father. If Azula wasn’t going to win over her mother, she was going to take power and respect from everyone around her by all means necessary, even if it meant crushing her most loyal friends. Just like Zuko and Iroh once shared an internal struggle of right vs. wrong, I think that Azula and her father Ozai shared this feeling of wanting to gain power and respect from their fathers who looked down upon weakness. Azulon, whom Azula gains her namesake from was very much in line with Sozin’s ruthless totalitarianism but I felt that Ozai took this a step further when he suggested that he’d take over the throne after Lu Ten, Iroh’s son passed away and he could no longer accept the responsibility of being Fire Lord. Even Azulon thought this was pretty fucked up because he was being so insensitive toward his own brother and in return, he suggested that Zuko be killed so that Ozai could see how Iroh felt…damn and all of this is in a kid’s show on Nickelodeon… It goes so deep that I could write a whole case study on this but I need to move on. 

2) Strong female characters! I loved the fact that the creators made Katara a bender as opposed to Sokka. Not only does it create a balance of power within the characters but it also gave young female viewers someone to look up to. Katara is Aang’s first water-bending teacher. And even though Aang is technically the leader of the group, each member of the Gaang plays important roles in making sure that they accomplish their goals. Katara keeps everyone together when they are facing dire situations. In the episode where Appa is kidnapped, it’s Katara who takes charge when Aang is too angry to function and Sokka becomes intoxicated by cactus juice. Aforementioned, Sokka admits that Katara acts as a strong guiding force in his life in the absence of their mother and he looks to her for strength. Typically, strong female characters in cartoons and movies are basically male characters in female bodies which is something similar that was said about Marida from Brave. These characters don’t typically get to deal with the issues that real girls deal with or the traits that real girls have. What the creators did so well with Katara was show a character that embraces her abilities to be a healer, to choose peace and forgiveness over brute force and violence and isn’t afraid to show emotion around the boys. She’s soft, sensitive and at times, motherly but she will totally kick your ass if you threaten her or her friends. Then there’s Toph. There are so many things I want to say about her character as well but I may save it for a possible case-study about each of these characters. One of my favorite episodes with her was when she was hanging out with Katara on their girl’s day out spa outing and she had to step out of her tomboy rough exterior for a day. She was made fun of by some girls after getting a make-over and for the first time, we saw her experience something that every girl goes through in her life: feeling insecure about her looks which is something she admits she’s never had to deal with being blind. I also love that in this show, your sex doesn’t play a role in any of the monarchies. Women can become Fire-Lords. Although Azula is the last character anyone would want assuming that mantel, I thought it was great that a woman could actually become the Fire-Lord so hats off to the creators for that. 

3) The animation and art are so deserving of a better platform than Nickelodeon. They did not deserve to have this show on their network, especially after almost rejecting this show. Just look at this animation. 

4) An intro to Asian culture and philosophy to children! This show dignifies ancient Chinese philosophy and martial arts in ways that a lot of shows that attempt to incorporate similar topics couldn’t come close to. A lot of this is attributed to the fact that the creators consulted actual martial artists, calligraphers and educational sources for this show. The amount of research that they did to create this masterpiece was amazing. I love Asian culture and martial arts related movies and shows and I just loved every minute of this show because of that.

This series represents a milestone in the history of animation and I don’t think it receives half the credit that it deserves. And we definitely deserved more than that god-awful The Last Airbender movie that did nothing but mock the series and anger its fans. This is a great series that I loved since I was kid and will always love. This show has inspired me in so many ways as an artist and a writer and I someday hope to create a story as half as amazing as this. Thank you so much Mike and Bryan!

So that is my list. If you made it this far, it would be awesome if you could reblog this and make your own list! What are your top 10 favorite Nick cartoons?