Old School Lane visits the Slimed! and A Christmas Story book events

Hey guys, Patricia here. Just got back from my trip to NYC where Kevin and I went to two book events: the Slimed! book event at 92Y and the A Christmas Story book event at Solas Restaurant. Both events were a lot of fun in different ways. First the Slimed! book event.



When arriving at 92Y, the line was already long. It was crazy because Kevin and I wanted to get there a few hours early to get good seats. Now that's what I call true old school Nickelodeon fans.



Next up, we went inside to see if we could get some VIP tickets, we were so lucky to get the last two. With that, some of the special guests who were appearing at the event were already there talking, mingling with other people, or getting drinks at the small bar. Kevin and I knew who we were going to see first.



Marc Summers, the host of Double Dare and What Would You Do? was going to be the showrunner for the book event. Kevin and I interviewed Marc last year for the Nickelodeon tribute discussing about his years hosting Double Dare, What Would You Do?, and being an executive producer for a couple of Food Network programs. He remembered us interviewing him and we once again thanked him so much for the wonderful thing he did hosting Double Dare. He is one of our childhood heroes and it was amazing meeting him face to face.

The next person we met was Harvey, who was the announcer of Double Dare. Not only was he just the person who would announce the show and tell the contestants what they won, but he also would interact with the audience and tell a bunch of funny jokes alongside with Marc and Double Dare assistant Robin Marella. Robin made it to the event, but unfortunately, we weren't able to have met her. But it was great meeting Harvey nonetheless. Plus we got Harvey's autograph.





Next we met two cast members from one of our all time favorite Nickelodeon sitcoms The Adventures of Pete & Pete, Michael Maronna who played Big Pete, and Hardy Rawls who played the dad. We also got their autographs.





Next we met Vanessa Coffey, who was the vice president of animation for Nickelodeon and was the main forerunner for the original three Nicktoons Doug, Rugrats, and The Ren & Stimpy Show. Not to mention, she was the one who came up with the concept of 11 minute cartoon segments, which is now a staple in cartoons. We didn't recognized her, but she was impressed with Kevin's Doug doll. Since there never was an official Doug doll for Nickelodeon, Disney released Doug merchandise when they bought the rights from Jim Jinkens, the creator of Doug. But speaking of which, Jim Jinkens showed up and Kevin was absolutely floored! As you know, Kevin is a huge Doug fan and he was so excited to finally meet the man who created one of his all time favorite cartoons.

Plus, we also met the voice of Skeeter Valentine, Mr. Dink, and who did the Doug soundtrack, Fred Newman. Fred was also the host of a kids' talk show host from Nickelodeon called Livewire back in 1980 and he's currently the sound effects man for the popular radio show A Praririe Home Companion. He even did the Skeeter voice and honked at us. It was amazing! Plus we gotten Jim and Fred's autograph.




The next following people we met were Jessica Gaynes from Wild & Crazy Kids and Sean O'Neal from Clarissa Explains it All before we were called to take our seats for the main event. Plus, we gotten their autographs as well.





For the next three hours, Kevin and I sat in the front row seats watching the people behind the #1 kids' network. There were a few panels that occured: there was the panel that contained the people who brought Nickelodeon from being almost bankrupt to the #1 network with the first creative director Scott Webb, the director of various Nickelodeon shows Bob Mittenal, the half of the advertising company Fred/Alan Inc. Alan Goodman, and more. The second panel had the co-creator and cast of You Can't Do That on Television, the third panel had the cast of Doug, which included Jim Jinkens, Vanessa Coffey, Doug creative director and creator of Clarissa Explains it All, Fred Newman, the voice actress for Patti Mayonaisse Connie Shulman, and the voice of Doug, Roger, Ren, Stimpy, and hundreds more Billy West. Afterwards, Fred Newman and Doug musician Dan Sawyer played music from Doug which everyone sang out loud. Next, the panel of Clarissa Explains it All, The Adventures of Pete & Pete, and a misc. panel concluded the event with joyous cheers from 900 people on their teens, 20s, and 30s reliving their childhoods. For those who missed the event, watch it right here! You can even see Kevin and I on our seats.

Next was the afterparty where we met Nick Arcade host Phil Moore. Despite Kevin and I making fun of him in Casual Chats episode 1, he was one of the funniest person on the event.


Next, we finally met the man himself, Mathew Klickstein. At the event, we slowly became good friends with him. He also autographed our book.



Next, we met and talked to Nick Arcade creators Karim Miteff and James Bethea, Salute Your Shorts actor Tim "Trevor" Eyster who was Sponge and Are You Afraid of the Dark? actor/meterologist Ross Hull who was Gary. He told us that not only did he remember our interview with him last year, but our interview was his all time favorite. It was a long 4 hour event, but it was worth it and one of the best nights I've ever had.



Next was the A Christmas Story book event at Solas Restaurant. It was small, informal, and much more quiet. It was much needed since being around over 1000 people for 4 hours was very tiring. I met Caseen Gaines for the first time face to face. As some of you know, he was the first person we've ever interviewed for Old School Lane when he talked about his first book Inside Pee-wee's Playhouse. Surprisingly, Mathew Klickstein and Jessica Gaynes showed up at the event and for the next 3 hours, we were talking about the movie, the book, and their upcoming projects. It didn't feel manipulating, it felt like I was talking with real friends. With that, I truly felt like I made some while I was there.



That's all for now. Tune in next time as Kevin and I discuss about the two books, our experiences with the events, and continue with the Nickelodeon tribute.

Hope to see you around Old School Lane soon. Thanks for reading.

-Patricia

Old School Lane's Nickelodeon Tribute: Wild & Crazy Kids (2002 Reboot)

Due to the critical failure of Double Dare 2000, Nickelodeon hasn't had a game show in a while. Since Slime Time Live, the afternoon time slot that would play games and vote on what shows to see, was hugely popular among the millions of viewers tuning in. However, for the older teens who grew up with Nickelodeon back in the 90's, they weren't impressed with Slime Time Live since it was similar to U to U and Nick in the Afternoon with Stick Stickly and were starting to miss their favorite childhood shows from that time period. The Nickelodeon executives decided to give game shows another chance with another reboot of an older game show. Instead of a Nickelodeon game show from the 80's, they decided to do a reboot a game show from the 90's with Wild & Crazy Kids. The reboot debuted on July 29, 2002.



There were few differences between the original and the reboot. One of them was that instead of three hosts consisting of teenagers, it had one adult host named Mati Moralejo. Another difference was that they constantly changed the colors of the teams from red, blue, orange, green, black, yellow, and purple. The final thing was that they had different games that rarely was rehashed from the original game show. Other than that, it was the exact same thing. Similar to the original, it had the same kids competing, the same rules, and the same setting of taking place mostly outside playing crazy, over-the-top sporting events. Also in the mix were celebrity guests such as Olympic skyer Bode Miller and Spy Kids co-stars Daryl Sabara and Alexa Vega.

The reboot lasted even shorter than Double Dare 2000 as it was cancelled due to low ratings on September 16, 2002, less than two months after it debuted. The reboot of Wild & Crazy Kids currently is the shortest lived Nickelodeon game show in history. Overall, I can understand why it was cancelled and why no one watched it. In my review of the original Wild & Crazy Kids, I said that my main gripes about the show were the three forgettable hosts, the crappy cinematography, and the messy games trying to capture the popularity of Double Dare. While the cinematography is much better and some of the games are pretty cool, it was pretty much unrecognizable. Unlike Double Dare 2000 in which they played it way too safe and didn't bring anything new to the table, the reboot of Wild & Crazy Kids was absolutely nothing like the original. There were no slime, no pies, and no gross moments. It was pretty much all extreme games. Also Mati Moralejo is even more bland and forgettable than the original hosts and that's saying something. I have to say that out of all the Nickelodeon game show reboots, this is probably the worst. This was a pointless and unnecessary reboot. I don't recommend checking it out.

That's all for now. Tune in next time as I take a look at two other forgotten Nickelodeon game shows from 2002: Robot Wars and Scaredy Camp.

Hope to see you around Old School Lane soon. Thanks for reading.

-Patricia

Old School Lane's Nickelodeon Tribute: SK8-TV/Wild and Crazy Kids

Roughly around last week was the 4th of July. When you think about that day, what immediately comes to your mind? Well, a lot of things, but certainly not skateboarding or a group of kids getting into messy games. If you were a Nickelodeon kid in 1990, two shows debuted on that same day that made you go insane. Those two shows were SK8-TV and Wild and Crazy Kids. Let's first talk about SK8-TV.

As you know, skateboarding started roughly around the late 40's or early 50's when surfers from California wanted to "surf" on the streets when the waves were too flat. But it wasn't until the 70's when skateboarding became this popular sport for teens. Amazing skateboarding guys were popping out from out of nowhere doing insanely crazy tricks from empty pools, which eventually became the precursor to vert skateboarding. The most well known were the Z-Boys from California consisting of people like Jay Adams, Hamish Albany, Tony Alva, Jim Muir, Bob Biniak, Peggy Oki, and so much more. There were competitions, magazines, skate parks, and skate shops that focused on skateboarding. It was truly becoming a huge sports phenomenon. Around the 80's, the popularity of skateboarding declined.

In 1990, skateboarding had a huge comeback. A brand new generation of talented skateboarders came out of nowhere and performed new tricks never seen before. Also there was a huge craze of doing insane tricks on sidewalks, street hills, and walkways doing kickflips, ollies, and grinding on rails. This was known as street skating. With the huge upcoming popularity of skateboarding, Nickelodeon decided to dedicate a show to those skateboard loving kids. It was a show by skateboard lovers for skateboard lovers.

The show was hosted by Skatemaster Tate and Matthew Lynn. They would interview many teenagers and talk about how their love of skateboarding came about and show off their crazy tricks. Many of these teens would eventually become famous skaters such as Jeremy Klein, Mike McGill, Jim Thiebaud, and Tony Hawk.

They also would discuss about other skateboarding topics such as different types of boards, different types of wheels, board rails, the skateboarding museum, and skateboarding graffiti artists. 

The show didn't last very long. It was cancelled in only a few months after it aired. It's a real shame in my opinion because later on, skateboarding would become a even bigger phenomenon when a huge sporting event called the X-Games would debut a few years later. Those teens that SK8-TV interviewed would become even more well-known to millions of people. Maybe the show was released at the wrong time. 

 

The people who were involved with SK8-TV went on to do different things: Stacy Perelta, a famous California surfer and skateboarder who directed SK8-TV, went on to direct a documentary about the infamous Z-Boys called Dogtown and Z-Boys. He also did another documentary about surfers called Riding Giants.

Matthew Lynn, whose real name was Matthew Lillard, became a more well known actor with roles such as Scream, SLC Punk, Scooby-Doo, and The Descendants.

Overall, if you were a huge skateboarding fan in the 90's, then this show was for you. However, it was completely overshadowed by our next show: Wild and Crazy Kids.

The show was about three teenage hosts named Annette Chavez, Omar Gooding, and Donnie Jeffcoat who would emcee a game consisting of teams playing against each other in a crazy sport or a messy obstacle. The sports games would be mostly tweaked to not only give it a new twist to the teams playing them, but it would also create a bigger challenge for them to accomplish. If these teams wanted to win the game, they needed to rely on quick thinking, teamwork, and strategy. 

Or better yet, screw the strategy and give us the games that involve with getting messy. Due to the success of Double Dare, the messier the games, the better. In fact, in one episode, they even decided to put them together by having them go against each other. It was a kid's dream come true!

Eventually around the second season, Annette Chavez was replaced by another female host named Jessica Gaynes. She stuck around until the end. She became better known for Wild and Crazy Kids than Annette was: a lot more memorable to the people who grew up with the show. The second season was when the popularity of the show grew.

The show even had celebrity guest appearances competing with the kids such as Lark Voorhies from Saved By The Bell, Jonathan Taylor Thomas from Home Improvement, Alfonso Ribero from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and Michael Bower, Venus DeMilo, and Danny Cooksey from Salute Your Shorts.

The show lasted for two seasons ending its run on December 1, 1992. After that, the hosts went on to do different things.

Omar Gooding, the younger brother of Cuba Gooding Jr. became a more famous actor and rapper. He had a few TV and movie roles over the years such as Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, Smart Guy, Ghost Dad, Baby Boy, Deadwood, Barbershop: The Series, One on One, and Miami Medical.



Donnie (now Don) Jeffcoat became a well known actor having TV and movie roles such as One Life to Live, 7th Heaven, CSI: NY, Bones, Shark, and Desperate Housewives. 



Overall, looking back at this show, it's okay. Sure, it was one of my favorite shows as a kid, but there are a few things about it that just make it okay. The way it was shot makes it look like it was done by a home video camera instead of a high quality camera in other game shows at the time. Double Dare looked sharper and cleaner than Wild and Crazy Kids and that show was on for 4 years before. You might argue that the show mostly took place outside, but even in the indoor games like the ones at the mall or the theater, it still looked a little blurry and homemade. You could tell that it hasn't aged well when it comes to the cinematography. We've come a long way when it comes to video cameras. There are even better qualities on cameras on people's cell phones.



Also, the hosts were okay, not as truly memorable as say Marc Summers from Double Dare. The games look like they were trying to cash in on Double Dare's popularity. The most well known aspects of Wild and Crazy Kids were the slimy, messy games. The games that Double Dare did. It was trying to present itself like "Hey, we're just like Double Dare, except we're bigger and messier." I did like that it mostly takes place outside and that more than two kids per team can compete against more teams, but every time I saw them play a messy game, it just made me think of Double Dare. I don't know why, but I think that Double Dare achieved it a whole lot better. I think that the show is okay. Nothing too special about it, just okay. It hasn't aged very well. It's not a classic, but it's enjoyable. Truly not as memorable as Double Dare.



That's all for now. Hope to see you around Old School Lane. Thanks for reading.

-Patricia