Remember the 90s? Remember when you’d come home from a long day at school and you were able to escape into your favorite fictional towns with your favorite fictional characters? Maybe you loved hanging ten in Bikini Bottom, or maybe the fast-paced O-Town was more your speed. Maybe you wanted to be in someone else’s home, like the Pickles’ or the big house that was made out of both a bone and a dead fish. Wherever it was, you knew it was your place and you felt happy to be there.
If you were a fan of 90s Nicktoons, then you probably know some of those references above. After struggling to find its identity as a children’s programming channel, which was a totally new concept at the time, Nickelodeon ordered three cartoons for its fall slate in 1991. They were Rugrats, Doug, and The Ren & Stimpy Show. To Nickelodeon’s delight, all three were massive hits, and to the fans delights, the channel kept ordering knock-out shows. From Hey Arnold! to Angry Beavers, Nickelodeon’s slate of Nicktoons dominated the children’s programming landscape through the entirety of the 1990s.
Of course, Nicktoons didn’t stop in the 1990s. Butch Hartman’s brilliant The Fairly Oddparents and the computer animated classic Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius were both released early in the 2000s, and they’re just the start of the robust 21st century slate of Nicktoons. But there was something special about those 90s Nicktoons. They were silly but sophisticated; they treated their audience like human beings. They were good TV, whether you were a kid or not.
While we’d love to cover all Nicktoons, the reality is that 1) there are so many and 2) we grew up in the 90s! And like all good millennials, we haven’t had cable in a decade. So we stuck with what we knew for this tournament, and that’s 90s Nicktoons. The competition is SMASHING, and there are sure to be some big victories and big upsets. The only way to find out is to vote and then listen. Good luck!
Voting Schedule:
Play-In Round: Monday 6/27 & Tuesday 6/28 (until 2 pm PST)
Elite Eight: Tuesday 6/28 & Wednesday 6/29 (until 10 pm PST)
Final Four: Thursday 6/30 & Friday 7/1 (until 2 pm PST)
Championship: Friday 7/1 & Saturday 7/2 (until 10 pm PST)
Winner Reveal: Monday 7/4 on a brand new episode of the podcast!
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