Nickelodeon (2009-present) (2024)

Nickelodeon is an American pay television channel and television show and film studio that was first formed in 1977 as Pinwheel Entertainment and renamed in 1979.^[1] While it was good before 2009, it went downhill in September of 2009 due to the sixth season of SpongeBob SquarePants, the release of Fanboy & Chum Chum, and the change of the Nickelodeon logo.

Why It's Not Our Nick Anymore

1. They use its sister network, NickToons (formerly NickToons Network) as a graveyard for shows that have lower ratings than SpongeBob SquarePants, The Loud House and The Casagrandes, resulting in their unfair cancellation.
   • mh:besttvshows:Back at the Barnyard, Oggy and the co*ckroaches, mh:besttvshows:Robot and Monster, mh:besttvshows:T.U.F.F. Puppy, mh:besttvshows:Harvey Beaks (the most infamous example), mh:besttvshows:Welcome to the Wayne, Rise of the TMNT and It's Pony! are some examples of shows that got this punishment.
   • When it's not moved to NickToons, it might be moved to Netflix like mh:besttvshows:Pinky Malinky and mh:besttvshows:Glitch Techs or it's released exclusively on the Nickelodeon website, like the last episodes of mh:besttvshows:The Legend of Korra.
   • This doesn't make sense because you can't compete with a cultural phenomenon on your own network when it comes to something like SpongeBob, and obviously a show on the schedule will have less ratings than SpongeBob (and currently even The Loud House and The Casagrandes), even when Rugrats (the first cash cow of the network) was still on the schedule.
   • They rejected a cartoon based on a book series called Phoebe and Her Unicorn because they felt that it wouldn't appeal to boys, which is not only sexist, but hypocritical since they still have some shows featuring girls as main characters that are appealing to both boys and girls.
2. They milk their franchises to death, such as SpongeBob SquarePants and The Loud House. Even when it's not SpongeBob or The Loud House, it could be one of the nickcoms.
3. The 2009 Kids' Choice Awards was not well received by fans and some kids (including teens) due to snubs and awards that are well-winning.Template:Clarrify
4. They turned some of their good shows bad:
   1. SpongeBob SquarePants experienced a slight decline in quality starting in season 4, which only got worse in seasons 6 and 7 and continued until the second half of season 9, when the series finally redeemed itself.
   2. Winx Club experienced a downfall due to co-production with Nickelodeon:
      1. They reverted the main characters back to Alfea when they had just graduated in Secret of the Lost Kingdom.[clarification needed]
      2. Important continuity plots were retconned.
      3. Stella and Tecna were flanderized.
      4. Presence of lame villains such as Tritannus.
      5. The abortion of several arcs such as the return of Nabu and the search "seven" in season 5, Bloom's engagement being ignored and forgotten, and having too many Ass Pull instances and having childish plots in season 8. The promotion for the show got worse once the sixth season roll-around and they ended up releasing the final few episodes on the Nick website similar to the Legend of Korra. These got a ton of backlash from the fandom's older audience who grew up watching the original series and they happen to much prefer the classic series, as there is a good reason why the 2011 and 2019 revivals are still hated to this day.
   3. The Fairly OddParents also experienced a downfall since Season 9:
      1. Season 9 introduced mh:loathsomecharacters:Sparky, a completely useless character. He's basically a hard copy of Dukey from Johnny Test and even to a lesser extent, Jake from mh:besttvshows:Adventure Time.
      2. Season 10 was even worse. Sparky received so much hate that he was removed completely with no explanation. His replacement was mh:loathsomecharacters:Chloe Carmichael, an even worse character. She's a flawless Mary Sue, and Timmy has to share with her. It resulted in the show getting canceled after that.
      3. Other criticisms also focus on the Flanderization of the characters, lack of original writers, characters being down to extras, etc.
   4. The Loud House would later go downhill slighty since Season 3 until it got put into effect since Season 4's "A Grave Mistake", and even more with Season 5 and it's premiere "Schooled!". Despite many people from the fandom having said that the show would go on to improve itself over time and in fact, it did improve a bit since season 6, there has not been any major improvement. Also, it went downhill when the show was less than 5 years old.
   5. The 2022 Reboot of Monster High flanderizes their characters and gives them annoying voices and none of the characters are likeable and adds random sound effects.
5. In addition, they also made a lot of bad shows, such as:
   1. Fanboy & Chum Chum, which is essentially a ripoff of SpongeBob SquarePants, also overuses toilet humor and is credited as the show that began the downfall of the network.
   2. mh:terribletvshows:Planet Sheen, which is a bad spin-off of mh:besttvshows:The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.
   3. Sam & Cat, which is a bad spin-off of iCarly and Victorious.
   4. mh:terribletvshows:Breadwinners, which has lazy animation and heavily relies on gross-out and toilet humor.
   5. mh:terribletvshows:Pig Goat Banana Cricket, which has a failed interwoven stories concept and much like Fanboy & Chum Chum, it overuses toilet humor.
   6. Sanjay and Craig, which has terrible animation that looks like Bob’s Burgers and Family Guy and also overuses toilet humor.
   7. The Thundermans, which is about a family of "superheroes," but they do not really combat crime at all and therefore their presence as "superheroes" is questionable.
   8. The Really Loud House, which is a bad live-action remake of The Loud House, and also for embarrassing kids with its diaper scene, and Nickelodeon did not learn their lesson with A Loud House Christmas
   9. Henry Danger, which is another superhero show that is about a boy who is the sidekick to a superhero named captain man, but as with the Thundermans, neither character combat crime, which also makes there presence as superhero’s questionable.
   10. The Fairly OddParents: Fairly Odder, which is an awful reboot of The Fairly OddParents.
6. Shows like mh:besttvshows:Victorious (despite being good), mh:terribletvshows:Planet Sheen, , mh:terribletvshows:Game Shakers, the 2022 reboot of Monster High, and Side Hustle have either have gotten bad finales or have ended on cliffhangers, which are not good ways to end a show.
7. Due to running for at least 40 years, as previously mentioned, Nickelodeon will often jump the shark, both in the dark age and out of the dark age.
8. Occasionally, the channel produces a show that's good and/or has great potential, only for the show to get screwed over by the network and put into NickToons and canceled before it gets a proper finale or conclusion (with a few exceptions). mh:besttvshows:Victorious and mh:besttvshows:I Am Frankie are two infamous examples of good shows that were canceled in favor of other programming.
9. Lately, Nickelodeon has been milking SpongeBob SquarePants and The Loud House to death without taking a break, due to those shows being the channel's cash cow, as they continue to take up almost the entire timeslot, with other shows getting little to no airtime.
   • Aside from that, the channel is also obsessed with mh:besttvshows:Paw Patrol and mh:terribletvshows:Peppa Pig (via Nick Jr.) as they also air frequently during the Nick Jr. block in the main channel, although at least Nick Jr. still gives a few other shows some airtime in their channel, unlike the main channel.
   • Nickelodeon has also recently been airing mh:besttvshows:Blaze and the Monster Machines constantly, and it is also becoming a cash cow.
10. They try at all times to be cool, modern, and hip for kids, whether it's to get a cheap laugh from the audience or to earn reviews and money with it. This results in moments that let the joke or the episode itself date after years or even months. Here are some examples of this:
    1. Adding references to current affairs and dead memes in shows and episodes such as:
       1. The Loud House episode "Grub Snub" (which is a Grubhub reference)
       2. The Fortnite dances in mh:terribletvshows:Cousins For Life
       3. The walrus dance scene in the mh:terribletvshows:Side Hustle episode "Yard Sale."
       4. The jokes in Season 9 and 10 of The Fairly OddParents.
       5. The cringy K-Pop gag and four episodes of Danger Force featuring Among Us in the title.
    2. Putting celebrities and YouTubers in special roles, using them in various pointless scenes, and then being thrown to sergeant or neglect in the middle of an episode, with that being common in nickcoms such as:
       1. mh:terribletvshows:Game Shakers
       2. mh:terribletvshows:Unfiltered
       3. mh:terribletvshows:Cousins For Life
       4. The Really Loud House
11. The spin-off networks have also gone downhill:
    1. Since 2014, Nick Jr. has become a graveyard for the main network block "Low rating shows", the dependency on CGI toyettitic pre-school shows, mainly from Canada, rip-offs of other preschool shows, the NickMom block (thankfully it ended in 2015), and the Peppa Pig and mh:besttvshows:Paw Patrol's ultra saturation on schedule.
    2. As discussed in WIS #1, NickToons also became a graveyard for "low-rating" NickToons, but it has also became dependent on reruns (loop repeat reruns), in addition to airing live-action shows and NickSports content in 2014. Does it even make sense for the channel to be called NickToons anymore?
    3. TeenNick decayed almost as such as it was released, kind to dependence on Dan Schneider productions, but the decline came in 2021, when shows such as and Zoey 101 left the network, and iCarly, mh:besttvshows:Victorious, and the post-2010 nickcoms gaining more prominence on the schedule. However, this got even worse in 2022 when the network began airing Henry Danger, America's Funniest Home Videos, NFL Slimetime, The Loud House, and The Fairly OddParents non-stop. TeenNick was even called out on Twitter for having a horrible schedule.^[2]It got way worse in April and May 2023 when they started airing Henry Danger and its spinoff Danger Force 24/7 NON-STOP. Even worse, TeenNick´s ratings fell because of it.
    4. NickRewind (formerly known as the 90's Are All That, the Splat, and NickSplat) was a block that focused on airing classic Nickelodeon content, alternating between old live action shows and old NickToons. However, NickToons, along with Doug, Rugrats, Rocko's Modern Life, Aaahh!!! Real Monsters and CatDog practically dominated the block.
       • In the last days of its run, the block was reduced to iCarly and Rugrats, and the block was discontinued on January 31, 2022.
       • Some Nicktoons such as Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt The X's and Catscratch either didn't get a block display or when they did it didn't last for very long, usually for less than 1 or 2 months.
    5. Nick at Nite started out as a block of old series such as mh:besttvshows:I Love Lucy and Bewitched however it lately has been a rerun farm for more modern/contemporaneous sitcoms like mh:besttvshows:Young Sheldon, Mom, mh:besttvshows:Friends, mh:besttvshows:The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The George Lopez Show and Mike & Molly.
12. During recent years, they've also been the suspects for unauthorized uses of fan content being used in their ads without the permission of/nor crediting the original creators, most infamously the SpongeBob SquarePants + LEGO City Adventures promo where it uses a copyrighted background from a fan-artist named Matt S. (a.k.a Lolwutburger), but with his name cropped out!^[3]
13. The female leads in the sitcoms are all stereotypical and cliché. This is a huge step down as Nickelodeon in the past used to have a handful of influential and rememberable female protagonists in sitcoms.
14. They have recently been airing films constantly, as they are airing a film or two every single day, and even airing the same film in one week. Heck, even competitors like Cartoon Network and Disney Channel can air movies several times a week and not get backlash. The film marathons have gotten so bad, that in August 2022, airings of The Loud House and the current live-action shows were temporarily removed from the schedule in favor of films.
15. Several programming blocks were unfairly removed, such as:
    1. SNICK
    2. Games and Sports for Kids
    3. Noggin
    4. TeeNick
    5. SLAM!
16. Some of their international feeds have been rebranded and merged with the CEE feed, which has ugly-looking bumpers and bad shows, such as Side Hustle, The Thundermans, etc.
17. They abandoned the famous splat logo, which had been used since 1984. While the 2009 version is decent, it is fairly generic. While they did introduce a similar splat logo in 2023, It's still not the same as the original splat logo.
18. They also embarrass kids! An example is in The Really Loud House where they added a scene of Wolfgang in a diaper! This is more concerning when you realize Nickelodeon got called out for this! AND NO, WE ARE NOT JOKING! WATCH CARTOONSHI'S VIDEO ON THE REALLY LOUD HOUSE FOR PROOF

Redeeming Qualities

1. It used to be good before 2009.
2. There are still a handful of good shows in the dark age, such as:
   1. The 2012 reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
   2. The first three seasons of The Loud House and its spin-off mh:besttvshows:The Casagrandes
   3. The 2021 reboot of The Smurfs
   4. Big Nate
   5. mh:besttvshows:Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
   6. Victorious
   7. mh:besttvshows:Harvey Beaks
   8. mh:besttvshows:T.U.F.F. Puppy
   9. mh:besttvshows:Glitch Techs
   10. mh:besttvshows:I Am Frankie
   11. SpongeBob SquarePants improved in the second half of season 9.
   12. Fanboy & Chum Chum also started to improve in season 2, although it wasn't enough.
   13. It's Pony
   14. Middlemost Post
   15. Transformers: EarthSpark
3. By 2019, Nickelodeon's parent company, Paramount, acquired Paws, Inc. Besides that, mh:besttvshows:Nickelodeon Animation Studio is currently developing a new Garfield series, alongside Paws, Inc.
4. The nickcoms were good before 2011.
5. Their international versions are still good, with some exceptions such as Nickelodeon India.
6. Their in-house animation studio, the one mentioned in RQ#4, is still great and has spawned a title referring to shows that were produced by them, the Nicktoons (not to be confused with the TV channel).
7. The bumpers are still nice to watch.
8. The 2023 logo and rebrand are pretty cool and it reintroduces the splat that made the logo so recognizable and iconic (though still not as good the original 1984-2009 splat logo).

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