Nickelodeon Slime

As a (sort of) adult, I have to wonder what on earth our parents were thinking as they watched our inexplicable outpouring of glee and good cheer at the sight of one of our contemporaries being doused in a sticky green semi-viscous compound on national television. To us, it made perfect sense. Speak out of turn? Get slimed! Perform poorly on a game show challenge? Get slimed! Fail to Figure it Out? Get slimed! Happen to be standing outside Nickelodeon Studios in Orlando, Florida during the filming of a filler intermission commercial segment?

You get the idea.

As children, we had no questions about the nature, existence, or purpose of slime. The act of sliming was, plain and simple, probably the image we were most frequently exposed to from ages 5-12, and we saw nothing wrong with that. We consumed Nickelodeon like water--only we preferred it greener and oozier. Slime was a fact of our reality and was to be taken at absolute face value as a legitimate icon of our favorite (though at the time, only) children's television network.

The notion of slime originated with the late 80s children's sketch comedy classic, You Can't Do That on Television! Every time an actor on the show uttered the otherwise inocuous phrase, "I don't know," suddenly and unaccountably a significant amount of sticky green goo would rain down from the heavens onto the unsuspecting victim. YCDToT cast members lovingly recalled that the original formulation of slime was deemed highly toxic and that it may have been a poor idea to risk lives for the sake of children's sketch comedy, even if it did star a young Alanis Morisette.

The proposal of the mysterious green glop was apparently so well-received by show producers and executives that it was soon redeveloped to be at best minimally non-lethal. Concocted from an original secret formula of flour and lime-green Jello, slime burst onto the scene, nontoxic and slimy as initially envisioned. God forbid the slime hypothesizer compromise his holy green vision. It should also be noted that it is a well-known fact that everyone thinks green Jello is disgusting, so the blame for its continued and persistent existence on grocery store shelves can be laid squarely on the shoulders of the slime theorists.

As we can deduce from the following clip that we can only assume to be completely serious, it seems that at the time of its inception in the mid-80s slime was highly controversial topic amongst children. As you watch the following Nick Special Report, please take notice that the proportion of feathered hair to head is inversely related to one's support for slime action.



What started as a one-shot gag soon spread (as slimes tend to do) to an ongoing element of the show. After the show's cancellation, Nickelodeon was determined not to let this otherwise non-sequitor lame-excuse-for-a-lack-of-punchline die out quietly. Plus, they had already bought all of that lime Jello. Thankfully they had the foresight to add both oatmeal and shampoo to the slime, apparently adhering to the 1990s Sassy magazine school of food-as-hair-product recipes in their quest to make the slime more wash-outable. The ominpresence of slime tied in nicely to the inherent messiness of pretty much every game show Nick churned out in the mid-90s. Shows like Double Dare, What Would You Do?, and Super Sloppy Double Dare capitalized on the audience's existing emotional ties with slime to capture their hearts and soil their smocks. Did I say yet that the aforementioned mess-based game shows were hosted by a germ-phobic obsessive compulsive? Obviously the slime people weren't the only ones at Nickelodeon with a sadistic sense of humor.

At some point, the demand for slime grew so high that Nick Studios actually erected a green-spewing slime geyser outside their Orlando-based studios. While of course we can only imagine that as a non-naturally occurring substance this geyser was simply for show, what it stood for made up for its lack of purpose.





Imagine for a moment that there were indeed dozens of people employed by the slime industry in the mid-90s; there were scientists and formula-testers, the guys that hung the roof buckets, engineers to build the pouring mechanisms, someone to flip the slime-dumping switch. This had obviously gotten out of hand. Instead of reigning it in, however, Nickelodeon just kept on milking it. Slime was featured heavily in the late-90s Nickelodeon game show Figure It Out, was used liberally and continuously at the Kid's Choice Awards, and squelched into the 2000s with a commercial break feature aptly titled "Slime Time Live." Yes, slime was here to stay, and there was nothing we could have or would possible have wanted to do about it.

See, we all embraced slime (well, as much as is physically executable with a mucilaginous goo) as emblematic of all that we knew and loved of our magical Nickelodeon network. It was idiosyncratic and spoke to us in a way that separated us from our parents; we understood it, they did not. For a magical moment in time, slime represented us, our collective childhood tied together by the universal experience of growing up watching the realization of this running green gag. To our parents it was simply a mess to clean up, but we knew it was our mess and hence deemed it worthy. Nickelodeon slime, if nothing else, stood for a turning point in children's entertainment when kids were (in our eyes) in control to run wild in their self-created world and revel in its distinct non-adultness. Kids had formed a secret club, and the repeated viewing Nickelodeon slimings made you a card-carrying member. Nickelodeon created a world where it was both fun and safe to be a kid, and we welcomed that wholeheartedly. It was the most kid-friendly neon-hued sludge we had ever seen, and we adored it. Well, that is until Gak flatulated onto the scene.

But that, my friends, is a story for another time.

*thanks to Aly S for the topic idea

Check it out:
Nick's Slime Across America

"I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up!"

Looking for a surefire way to guarantee that no one will respect the precarious health of the elderly and to diminish the legitimacy of their tenuous medical state? Well, you're in luck! The Life Call corporation has already done it for you and has made it available in convenient late 80s/early 90s daytime television commercial slots. As the Life Call people sat around musing what was the possibly the way to least seriously depict the grave dangers associated with solo-dwelling senior citizens, they stumbled upon a foolproof formula for endless mockery and derision. How could we make light of such a tragic and serious risk? Well, I'll tell you how.

Yes, the Life Call people decided against working the "this is a serious life-saving product and should be presented as such" angle and instead opted to hire the campiest, chintziest elderly actors to produce embarrassingly low-budget dramatizations for their television advertisement. At least at the beginning, the fine print in the lower right-hand corner reads "dramatization". Whew, that was a close one. I was concerned that that woman had actually fallen and couldn't get up, and we were all just sitting around casually observing her in her dire state. At best, it was as if Life Call had raided a retirement home community theater troupe. Obviously, they had already blown their whole legitimate actor budget to hire concerned-looking family members and friends of the injured party. Thankfully, those characters had no lines or maybe we would have taken this thing less lightly.

Here is the ad, in all its glory:




Less widely mocked was the first guy, Mr. Miller, who acts his heart out (possibly, literally, considering his supposed ailment) describing his chest pains. However, our real heroine was Mrs. Fletcher, oh great utterer of redundant and unintentionally humorous phrases. The fictional Mrs. Fletcher croaked out a line that exceeds nearly any quote out of Bartlett's in immediate recognizability.

"I've fallen...and I can't get up!"

It was probably that second part that did in poor Mrs. Fletcher. Laying on the floor of her questionably empty room, walker askew, we could all clearly deduce that she had indeed fallen. Her apparent need for the Life Call system suggested to us that she was also likely unable to get up. Otherwise, she probably would have called up and said, "I've fallen! ...Oh, no, I'm fine, I'll get myself up in a jiffy. I just wanted someone to talk to because I'm lonely and live alone and can only communicate with my children, neighbors, and doctors through third party Life Call employees." But no, Mrs. Fletcher knew better than that. She had to do more than just explain that she had fallen, that part was clearly evident to any impartial observer. She needed to fully elucidate her situation by pointing out that not only had she fallen, but that she was at the same time unable to get up. Well, bless her heart, she certainly sold that line. Unfortunately, to children growing up in the 90s, it was probably the funniest thing that they had ever seen and/or heard.

We had all been told dozens of time to respect our elders. Parents and teaches explained to us that most senior citizens are viable and capable and deserve to be treated as human beings. We all bought that for about ten minutes, or at least the time elapsed between receiving that explanation and our initial viewing of the Life Call commercial. Though the commercial was marketed toward seniors as a tool to encourage their independence, to us it only cemented their status in our eyes as highly dramatic, accident-prone victims.

As if Life Call hadn't hammered the point home enough already with their melodramatic dramatizations, they also relied on the cheery host of the commercial to explain to us what we had just seen. "See?" She prompted condescendingly. "Protect yourself with Life Call and you're never alone!" For those of us unable to understand the complex plot twists and the nuanced acting of her preceding ad castmates, we could always rely on our Life Call pendant-sporting pal to restate the thesis of the commercial. And wasn't she recently "deathly ill"? Why, she looks great! We can only imagine that if it hadn't been for been those dashing pseudo-cop outfitted Life Call operators, her deathly illness would have led to, well, death.

Obviously at some point, Life Call realized their gaffe and sought a new direction with their advertising campaigns. No longer were they going to be victims of endless mockery. They were going to take a hard line with customers and depict true stories of Life Alert's life-saving capabilities:



Wait a minute. Didn't she just say she wasn't an actress? Well, then why is she being played by one in the dramatization? We thought you had seen the error of your ways, Life Call, but this dramatization of supposedly real-life events featured the same catchphrase as the original. Are we really to believe that this real live woman had seen the Life Call commercial so many times that she instinctively uttered their trademarked line to operators? Also, are to we to buy that someone with the foresight to purchase a Life Call Emergency Alert System was engaging in such irresponsible fall-prone behavior as reading a book and walking? At the same time? And another thing! Aren't those the doctor and telephone operator from the first commercial? Are you telling me we're using stock footage because we couldn't even afford to hire some new actors? You can even hear the choppy way they cut off the "Mrs. Fletcher" part of the operator's line to accomodate this allegedly new true story. Way to go, Life Call. You really caught yourself with that one.

Then again, their intention was not to catch themselves; it was to catch poor clumsy Mrs. Fletcher, or this new supposedly real-life non-actress knockoff of Mrs. Fletcher.

After all, they were the ones who had fallen.

Legends of the Hidden Temple

They just don't make Maya and Aztec-based semi-historical adventure children's trivia game shows like they used to. I know what you're thinking, "I could name dozens!" Well, I admire your commitment to progress, but unfortunately none of them hold a temple torch to the original. And when I say original, I mean original. Well, except for that whole Indiana Jones thing, but hey, this show had a big talking stone head. Totally different.

These days, so many forms of children's entertainment are all too grounded in some realm of reality. Children's television network executives just aren't going out on a limb any more for completely nonsensical show premises. This show was not only immensely complex in its structure and execution, but was also featured incredible details in is design. Sure, its educational value was convoluted at best, but where else where we supposed to learn about such pertinent artifacts as The Mysterious Manuscript of Mary Shelley or The Jewel-Encrusted Egg of Catherine the Great?

Legends of the Hidden Temple featured six boy-girl teams with names that are instantly recognizable to any former enthusiast: Red Jaguars, Orange Iguanas, Purple Parrots, Green Monkeys, Blue Barracudas, and Silver Snakes. Sure, the animals and the colors didn't necessarily match up, but we needed to identify these kids at a distance by colored t-shirt alone. Looking enviably cool in their bright yellow helmets and mouthguards, the teams began their challenge by crossing the mighty Moat. Alright, so it was a long narrow swimming pool with lane dividers, but they used cool things like rafts and swinging ropes. Plus, they got to bang a big gong at the end. We were mixing cultures a bit, but that's nothing in comparison to the legends that were to come.

The four teams who were first to finish the Moat challenge went on to the Steps of Knowledge. Finally, they get to hang with Olmec! Olmec was...well, an Olmec, but as kids we didn't know too much about the cultures of Precolumbian Mesoamerica, so it was all good. Our revered Olmec was a giant animatronic talking stone head who shared with us the wisdom of legends that we can only assume were somehow associated with this Hidden Temple we kept hearing about. The legends were generally historically based, but almost never were tied to the general Aztec/Mayan theme the show had going. For years I thought The Golden Pepperoni of Catherine de' Medici and The Levitating Dog Leash of Nostradamus were in some way associated with preclassical Central American cultures.


Olmec would share the legend, always with a catchy all-caps title generally verging on the ridiculous and irrelevant. His stone-faced (sorry, I had to) seriousness made us all believe in the power of The Golden Cricket Cage of Khan or The Very Tall Turban of Ahmed Baba. Following the brief storytelling, Olmec would ask questions from the preceding tale and teams would buzz in to respond and subsequently progress down the Steps of Knowledge with each correct answer. The first two teams to the bottom were the winners! Hooray! Onto the Temple Games!

The Temple Games were played for the coveted Pendants of Life. Obviously whoever was on the LoHT naming committee deserves several gold stars for both creativity and liberal use of capitalization. The Temple Games were sort of like GUTS physical challenges, only temple-themed. The team with the most Pendants of Life advanced to the ultimate and indubitably coolest round, the Temple Run.

Distinctly less cool for the contestants who did not reach the final round was the truly deplorable state of the consolation prizes. If you thought the Carmen Sandiego parting gifts were mildly questionable, you would be begging for a basketball globe once you realized the best thing a non-final round LoHT contestant could take home was a pair of Skechers sneakers, a Looney Tunes Watch (valued at $9.99!), or a VHS copy of a made-for-television movie. Yes, really.

Only slightly less lamentable were the prizes available for those who actually made it to the Temple. For those who made it through the first Temple round, they could win something in the range of a tennis racket or skateboard. There was usually some form of decently desirable electronic prize for second-rounders; we're talking something like a Casio My Magic Secret Diary here. For those who made it out of the temple unscathed, artifact in hand, they could win a trip to New York City or NASA Space Camp. However, it should be noted that kids who willingly participate in this type of thing would probably love NASA Space Camp, so it's probably not a bad deal.

The Temple Run was by far the most impressive and tension-filled portion of the show. Would they encounter a flamboyantly dressed sentinel temple guard? Those guys always scared the bejeezus out of me. What sort of desperate out-of-work actor brings his headshots to a casting call with the description, "Tall, dark, frightening; experience with child-grabbing preferred"? If you were lucky enough to still have some Pendants of Life, you could buy them off and escape unharmed; there's nothing like teaching children the values of bribery to get their way.

The Temple was a fairly complicated labyrinth composed of a dozen or so rooms, some locked, many of which included some task for the contestant to complete to continue on. The contestants would dodge temple guards, whiz through The Shrine of the Silver Monkey, haphazardly assemble the monkey statue to open the Temple doors, grab the artifact from Olmec's legend and find their way to freedom/space camp.



The show was immensely popular in its heyday and continues to maintain a 90s cult following. We appreciated the show in its quirkiness; where as children we accepted at face value that this was just the way the show worked, as adults we have the perspective to see that this show was outlandishly complicated in design and creativity.

So for those of us still yearning for our run at Space Camp or at least a Skechers-sponsored savings bond, strap on those helmets, bite down on those mouthguards, cue up the youtube, and let yourself be swept up in the mystery of why locating The Walking Stick of Harriet Tubman is your ticket to the NASA non-gravity simulator.