04 December 2013

Review: Slimed!: An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age


Slimed!: An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age
Slimed!: An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age by Mathew Klickstein

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



In terms of my television consumption, I pretty much grew up on Nickelodeon. I loved Pinwheel when I was really little, ate up Rugrats and Doug and Hey Dude and Clarissa Explains It All and You Can't Do That on Television and Danger Mouse and...I could go on and on.

I was a big Nickelodeon fan.

Slimed is a book chock-full of interviews with pretty much everyone alive who was involved with the creation of the network as well as the actors and showrunners involved with all the classic shows. It's rather epic and exhaustive in its ability to find people involved, and it's a pretty solid oral history up there with the Live From New York oral history of Saturday Night Live from a few years back.

In terms of insider information, there's plenty there for everyone. Discussion of growing up on television, how people got paid, how Double Dare worked, the slime, the awards...one could go on and on and on with how much information is in this book, which is pretty great as a first-hand account.

The downside is that the book doesn't detail who does what until the end, which makes following the narrative a pain. Chances are you know who Melissa Joan Hart played. But do you really know the name of the actor who played Donkey Lips on Salute Your Shorts? Or even the showrunners for some of these programs? I didn't, and having to flip around constantly was frustrating.

Overall, a pretty great read. Definitely perfect for television buffs and nostalgia lovers alike.



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2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the review! Please also check us out at: www.SlimedTheBook.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the review! Please also check us out at: www.SlimedTheBook.com

    ReplyDelete