CITV at Gas Street

'Old Skool Weekend' in January 2013 was a resounding success on social media, surprised it wasn't brought back in the form of a weekly junction.

So many Children's ITV gems from the 70s, 80s and 90s...

This has always been my suggestion in regards to CBBC. Although not 24 hours, just air some retro shows for 3 or 4 hours after 9PM, get some of the old presenters in to film a few links (they recreated some of the sets and graphics for the 30th anniversary so use those). I did email them the suggestion last year but got the response that for it to work they'd need some of the old acquired programmes again but "it was something we're looking into".

We were talking in the Top of the Pops thread about rerunning the old Saturday morning shows, well, that would be good place for them.

I remember a continuity link in the late 90s before Rosie and Jim where the presenter accidently drops a Peanuts birthday cake to coincide with the R&J episode.

The Old Skool Weekend was probably only ever a one-off event, unless they do the same again in 2023 for their 40th and its ratings were if truth be told, primarily nostalgic based - some of what they aired hadn't been seen outside of mushy YouTube captures for many years.

It may just be that the market for all kinds of archive stuff just isn't there, I mean Nick at Nite in the States has progressively moved towards airing newer stuff. Our Nick at Nite is just the same regular Nickelodeon programming in different packaging with the odd variation. Over here what used to be the Paramount Channel ultimately dropped most of what it used to air in favour of more recent material and even Gold which used to be a good outlet for archive stuff dropped a large chunk of that too. So I dare say ITV couldn't see the gap in the market for anything past the Old SKool Weekend.

And of course, one man's CITV gem is another's trash so to speak.

Anyone remember Nick Jnr running a retro kids slot in the evening from 8-10pm. It mainly featured Thames kids archive with the likes of Rainbow and Button Moon.

Ah yes, Nick Jr Classics. I remember watching The Wombles and Paddington on there. Also, Bob the Builder was also on it as well. Here is some continuity:

It has been tried. For example, this is the listings for a typical 1992 Saturday morning on UK Gold:

6.00 Rentaghost
6.15 Button Moon
6.30 Michael Bentine's Potty Time
7.00 Lassie
7.30 Owl TV
8.00 Hot Dog
8.30 Rentaghost

As late is 1997 they were starting the day with Record Breakers, believe it or not.

I wonder if some of the observations made in the TOTP thread recently are relevant here? Are old programmes expensive to show because contracts were not designed with repeats in mind? Is that why so much of the stuff shown on archive channels like Gold and ITV3 are relatively new with very little real archive stuff, because newer stuff is made with contracts and paperwork that makes showing it easier and cheaper?

And there are likely to be people who are embarrassed by their early work on kids TV and may not be prepared to allow it to be shown?

Funnily enough there is (or at least was) a "Splat" sub-site on the UK Nickelodon website, they used to promote it when Nicktoons were repeating Rocko's Modern Life a year or two back.

Also quite annoying how those old Nickelodeon shows (and Cartoon Network and various other 90s stuff) never seem to have seen a DVD release in the UK (bar a couple of iffy poundland-only releases a few years back) when they've been released in numerous other countries. Annoying how the UK seems to miss out. Admittedly it's not just Nickelodeon shows, lots of shows from elsewhere have been released elsewhere but not here, and it's annoying because most of those shows were just as popular over here. You can get some of them hugely overpriced on Amazon video, but I don't see paying over the odds for DRM'd digital copies as being the same as a proper DVD.

And those awful Funko Pop models you seem to get everywhere now, I actually saw Angry Beavers, Rocko's Modern Life and Hey Arnold ones in a branch of Smyths a couple of months back, so they've made it over here even if the DVD releases of the shows haven't.

I also remember Rocko's Modern Life in the 90s being early evening (same slot you'll find The Simpsons and Hollyoaks in now) Channel 4 rather than part of their kids programming, BBC2 did the same around the same time with Ren & Stimpy. There is a new Rocko's Modern Life TV movie due out in the US soon, I presume it will make it to the UK Nickelodeon eventually.

Nick Jr. Classics was called 'Noggin' when it first launched, a brand Nickelodeon use in America (though it used a different logo ISTR). I guess they thought it needed to appear more like a strand on Nick Jr. rather than a separate brand on the same channel.

In 2004 Nicktoons TV launched an evening strand called Toonz2Nite which repeated a lot of older Nicktoons, and was really my first proper exposure to Ren & Stimpy, and also repeated Rocko's Modern Life (watch 'Wacky Delly' if you've never seen an episode). I think it was an extension of their broadcasting hours as it had previously closed down at 6 or 7pm.

I have a load of continuity from Toonz2Nite from 2004. When I painstakingly taped every episode of Rocko's Modern Life and The Angry Beavers (across 16 VHS tapes... which I still have in a cupboard). Was a good slot to tape them in as there were no IPPs or credit squeezes or announcements (whereas the Nick channels rarely even show the credits at all these days).



They were still showing Spongebob constantly back then too. Though they did the same with Rugrats too... so much that it's strange to think they don't even show that any more and haven't for years.

Interestingly Matt Berry seems to be doing the voiceover on the Rocket Power trailer too. I imagine you wouldn't hear him on Nick these days.

Yep, SpongeBob at peak saturation point there. So big they even showed it on TMF, which was otherwise showing music all day (presumably put on there because it was on Freeview?).

There was a Nickelodeon store in London not too long back on Piccadilly Circus- in the same place the short lived MTV studios were- did Viacom still own it from then?

It was quite big, but was disapointing, it was like 95% Spongebob, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Paw Patrol stuff. It closed after a couple of years. I think I only saw about 2 products with any retro characters on.

I have seen a retro Nick poster in HMV recently though, with pretty much every 90s cartoon character on it.