The Orange Years: The Nickelodeon Story

This independent documentary, directed by Scott Barber and Adam Sweeney, traces Nickelodeon's move from a small cable channel to the centre of children's television. In its early years the channel had no formula, and the most interesting stretch of the film is exactly that experimental phase. Slime was a stage gag before it became the channel's identity. The film was funded by a crowdfunding campaign in 2016 and screened at DOC NYC in 2018. Faces from the era, among them Kenan Thompson, Kel Mitchell, Melissa Joan Hart and Marc Summers, appear on camera, along with producers and executives who explain how decisions were actually made. Its limit is that it stands too close to its subject. It does not examine nostalgia, it mostly joins in. The problems the channel later faced are left out; the narrative closes at the end of the nineties. Who it's for: anyone who grew up watching Nickelodeon in the nineties, and anyone interested in television history. Who it's not for: viewers wanting a critical examination of the institution; this was made by fans, for fans.