SpongeBob SquarePants

[Daxdiv]

Saw John Cena mention it on Twitter as well. Man, can't wait to see the man, the myth, the legend voicing a character on Spongebob.

[Peanutbutter]

SpongeBob is getting spin-offs. Wasn't that what ended up killing Rugrats, Nick's previous cash cow?


At least Robbins acknowledged that they got themselves in the mess they're in by concentrating too much on SpongeBob and not having enough variety. Some of the other shows sound interesting at least. What will really be the test is which shows stay a while and which ones get canceled.

[Dr. Insomniac]

As to why it took this long to make Spongebob spinoffs, I came across the grim speculation that Nick was waiting for Stephen Hillenburg to die so he wouldn't be around to complain about such a decision.

[Avaitor]

Who's even going to watch them?

[Dr. Insomniac]

Who's even going to watch them?

More kids watched some random Nickelodeon movie than the Steven Universe finale, so somebody's going to. I notice there are so many Nick shows that do better in the ratings than Disney and CN's despite having tiny footprints on social media. So I just assume more kids choose Nickelodeon as their background noise while doing something else.

[Daikun]

R.I.P. Tim Conway

[Daikun]

It's getting a CG-animated prequel.

[Dr. Insomniac]

And a former Spongebob showrunner is pissed.

[Peanutbutter]

Of course once Hillenburg kicked the bucket the new heads of Nick would see it as a greenlight to use every trick in the book to keep Spongebob as their main cash cow. Too bad for them, others at Nick pulled this with their previous one Rugrats and we all saw how well that turned out! 

[Dr. Insomniac]

Nick's current approach makes no sense. They clearly want to appeal to both the nostalgia market and the kids market, but they're doing it in a way that alienates both. Stuff like the Hey Arnold movie or that Legends of the Hidden Temple movie didn't make big splashes in the ratings because it required the kid demographic to care about shows that aired before they were born. The Jungle Movie especially expects you to have recently seen episodes of Hey Arnold for the plot to make sense. Meanwhile, any teenagers/adults who turn on Nick because they found out their favorite shows came back will probably roll their eyes at a CGI Spongebob prequel, a show dedicated to that Baby Shark song, and a toddler unboxing show. Both moves cancel out the other. You're just making shows that adults will like, but will confuse kids. And shows that kids will like, but will annoy adults. All while airing them at the same time (that unboxing show airs on regular Nick times instead of just Nick Jr). I looked at Nickelodeon's Twitter the other day, and almost all of it is nostalgia baiting. "Do you remember this show? Do you remember that show?" But when they tweet about one of their current shows like Henry Danger, the mentions they get are so apathetic because the nostalgia audience they're pandering to doesn't give a shit about Nick shows they didn't grow up on. I don't get their business strategy.

And I don't think the execs get it either. Brian Robbins confusingly said Spongebob was Nick's Marvel Cinematic Universe. When has Spongebob ever been a show with hundreds of main characters that you can make any story out of? It's not a flexible enough universe that you can make dozens of spin-offs for.

[LumRanmaYasha]

Making Spongebob spinoffs makes me particularly salty because Hillenburg was flat out opposed to them and they didn't even wait half a year past his death to greenlight one. That's so disrespectful and heartless. But yeah, they need to come up with a more cohesive programming and marketing strategy and figure out how to package their shows in ways that reach their intended audiences more successfully, because the current approach of trying to have it both ways muddles what Nick's identity as a network is. While I'm never ever going to watch the Baby Shark or Toddler unboxing show, I think it'd be a better investment for them to focus on new projects like those than trying to live in the past and win back an audience that has outgrown them.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I don't think either of those are better investments because they're not new IPs Nick came up with, but shit they found online that happened to be popular with children. And we all know how that worked out when they last tried that with Fred. That seems to be another problem with Nick. All of the new series they've announced recently are either revivals of old IPs or digging up shit they found on youtube, while brand new shows like Glitch Techs are utterly neglected.

[Avaitor]

Yeah, I'd rather have Nick at least make more original content than pick up crap they didn't make. Back in the day, they were against toy-pandering shows like TMNT and Power Rangers, but focusing on those and Jojo Siwa are taking away their identity, and are continuing to make Nickelodeon seem like any other channel.

While I'm happy about the movies for Arnold, Rocko, and Zim, I'd rather that they try to make shows of their kind instead, and not abandon them after a few months if they're not beating SpongeBob. I'd definitely rather get a new Avatar-like than another Avatarverse show.

But at the same time, I don't think that reviving some of their properties is a bad idea, either. Besides Disney's success with Girl Meets World and NuTales, apparently the new Double Dare is a hit, for instance, and I can see the new Blue's Clues also catch on. And while they're focusing heavily on promoting Kel, Lori Beth, and Josh on the new All That, I think the show could work with today's kids when the new crop get their time to shine. But these should be the exception, not the rule.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I remember Poparena said something about this on his Nick Knacks series. How shows like Mr. Wizard's World were made because people like Mr. Wizard were popular when the network executives were kids, and they assumed what they liked/watched as kids would appeal to kids during the 80s. But for every Mr. Wizard's World that made the pass, there were several Nick acquisitions that have so little impact that Pop had to speculate on what the shows were like due to little to no existing footage. But from the stuff he could gather of Nick's early programming, it feels so similar to what we're getting now. Like Nick airing Flash Gordon serials because the Flash Gordon movie had just come out. Or airing Tomorrow People because PBS was airing Doctor Who at the time. Then look at today, where Nick is giving shows to Youtubers and making series adaptations of Paddington and Star Trek. Doomed to repeat your history.

[LumRanmaYasha]

I should've clarified that I'd much prefer if they made high-quality original IPs along the lines of what Avaitor suggests than the shows based on internet memes. 

I also don't mind a revival special here and there, but making a new Rugrats show and a live-action movie with the babies as CG characters are the kind of misguided projects I'm wouldn't want to see more of...