Nick Mag Highlights

Highlights and retrospectives of Nickelodeon Magazine, a publication based on the titular TV network which ran from 1993 to 2010

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Welcome to Nick Mag Highlights! Your one-stop spot for all the best moments from Nickelodeon Magazine.

Further details on this blog and what to expect can be found in my first post.

Send in a question or comment here!

You can use the tags to filter by content from specific year or decade.

Check out more Nickelodeon Magazine content at @NickMagProject on Twitter.

Theme is Monarchy by stijnvc.

Happy reading!

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2000s Nickelodeon Snacks

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I promise next time I'm unemployed I'm gonna revive this blog

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From Nickelodeon Magazine #55.

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“Got Milk?” ad featuring the Crimson Chin's sidekick, Brandon.

From Nickelodeon Magazine #107.

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NMH Side Issues - Rugrats Comic Adventures

Welcome back to Nick Mag Highlights! And by extension: Welcome back to Nick Mag Highlights Side Issues, the series on this blog where I check out other magazines or comic books that are notably not Nickelodeon Magazine, but still scratch a similar itch. Today we’re taking a look at the very first issue of Rugrats Comic Adventures, based on the iconic Nickelodeon show.

But first, let’s run down the history checklist. This series ran for about three years, from 1997 to 2000, spanning a total of thirty issues housed in three ten-issue volumes. That would put the release of this first issue around the time of the fourth season of the show. In that case, sorry to any Dil fans, as you won’t be seeing him in this issue.

The history and creation of this series is a bit interesting, and although the information available to me disposal is a little scarce, this is my best understanding: you see, Rugrats Comic Adventures was released in America, but it seems like most if not all of its actual content was sourced from an official Rugrats comic book released exclusively for the UK in 1996 (a year earlier than Rugrats Comic Adventures’ release). Said comic was simply titled Rugrats and published by Marvel Comics (yes, that Marvel Comics).

The cover page of issue #1 of Rugrats, published in the UK by Marvel Comics. Credit to Boys Adventure Comics on Blogspot for the image and the information!

As you’ll soon see, the first story in this issue I’m talking about today is the same as the one visible on this cover of UK Rugrats (do all UK comics print the first page on the front cover?) And according to the aforementioned Blogspot source, there were allegedly thirty issues released of this UK comic, which conveniently lines up with the thirty issues released of Rugrats Comic Adventures. A conspiracy? Maybe… 

The only problem is I don’t have a scan of any of the Rugrats UK comics at my disposal, so I can’t confirm if the contents between the issues of the UK and US series are the same, unfortunately. So hey, if we’re lucky, there may be content in store for us that was made specifically for Comic Adventures that those British-types just wish they could have gotten. Maybe.

But I digress. As some of you may know, this wouldn’t be the last time Rugrats would enter the world of comics. In 1998 a daily newspaper strip based on the show was launched, lasting until 2003 and outliving Comic Adventures by three years. The show’s sequel series All Grown Up also had multiple comic outings made specially for Nickelodeon Magazine, and in 2017, Boom! Studios began publishing a new Rugrats comic series which totaled to eight issues and three longer special issues. But how did these characters fare in their first foray into comic stardom? Let’s check it out!

Oh, and before we dive in, I’d like to make one thing clear: I am not a Rugrats superfan. I’ve seen my fair share of episodes of course (with how constantly Nickelodeon played it, how could I not?) But I'm just saying I may not catch specific references if there are any, or like if a comic here reuses a plot from an episode of the show, for instance. Though if anyone reading does catch a cool detail I miss, I'd love to hear about it! 

You can read the full issue here.

So it looks like it’s five comics on the agenda today, along with two extra pages all about Chuckie and Angelica. That’s not a bad deal! It’s more material than I bargained for, that’s for sure.

I’m pretty optimistic going into this one. I mean, check out that art! It looks just like the show. And while I can't find any credits in the book, Think some employees of Klasky Csupo had a hand in the material here?

So the story goes, Angelica sort of gets left in charge of the babies, thanks to Tommy's mom. And naturally Angelica's quick to abuse her miniscule ounce of power and starts running the backyard like a military academy. A fine premise, and a pretty low-stakes story befitting a quick comic (well, lower than the stakes a show about babies can usually have, anyway).

There are two details that kind of throw me off though, namely being: the dialogue and… Angelica, I guess?

Dialogue-wise, everybody's pretty talkative here and that's okay. Angelica's on point, barking orders in her usual bratty way. But all the babies are rather verbose today, aren't they? I think one of the most memorable details of Rugrats personally is the characters' loose grip on language. Pretty much every line from one of the babies in the show has at least one grammatical error or made-up word, and it's charming! Here though, all the dialogue is written in perfect English, and once you notice it, you can’t forget it.

You'd think Tommy's newfound eloquence would have Chuckie trust his plan a bit more.

Now, onto Angelica. Simply put: they made her look insane in this comic! I mean just take a look at the two pages I posted prior and see what I mean. Orrrr… I suppose you could look a this collage I made for the same result:

Yes, these are all from the same comic. Even Tommy’s scared.

This may be my lack of Rugrats knowledge shining through again but I really don’t remember her being portrayed with a huge bulbous overbite like that. Or with that many teeth. Don’t get me wrong though, I can totally get behind some funny off-model art that I bet the artist had fun drawing. That’s what they refer to in the industry as a “win-win”.

But yeah, overall a pretty solid first story, which is either elevated or dishonored by taking certain artistic liberties. Depends on who you ask. I’m on Team Elevated.

Next up is a bio on Chuckie. I didn’t think there was much to share regarding the personal intricacies of a literal two-year-old, and apparently the writers here agreed, seeing as how they had to resort to doxxing the poor kid just to fill their fact quota for this page. 446 “Braintree” Lane? Weird name, but I guess it’s pretty befitting considering Chuckie’s hair looks like his brain sprouted out of his head. 

Another cool thing of note here is that all the Chuckie facts listed here are actually references to episodes of the show. As a kid it was always an awesome feeling whenever I understood a reference. It simultaneously made me feel smart and seemingly validated my choice to engage in a piece of media. Thumbs ups all around! Thanks, Chuckie.

Second comic of the evening, and actually I found myself really enjoying this one! The gripes I had from the previous comic have been ironed out, and the setting of the story is pretty interesting and leads to a lot of fun and creative moments. The short and long of it is Tommy and the other babies accidentally end up riding on the baggage carousel of an airport and getting mixed up with all of the machinery. Naturally, instead of getting smushed and ripped apart by the gears and mechanisms like boring real babies would, the gang ends up having the time of their lives, all the while believing they’re actually at a carnival.

Fun it is, indeed! As I said, my issues with the last comic have been effectively taken care of. All the characters are speaking as they should, dropping some funny misspellings for words like “skelitom” for skeleton and “loudsneaker” for loudspeaker. The art here is way less unhinged as well, probably because there’s no Angelica in it. There’s still some funky shots though, like long-arm Tommy here:

A fine addition to the issue in my opinion, and it even comes with cameos from Tommy’s maternal grandparents, Boris and Minka. Boris doesn’t speak a word, but he is sporting his original design that features small dot-eyes, which is a detail that would be dropped later on in the series.

I guess my only question is: why are Chuckie, Phil and Lil here? The obvious answer is because they’re main characters, but they’re not Stu and Didi’s kids, and none of their parents are to be found. I guess the Pickles got stuck babysitting on top of having to pick up the grandparents from the airport. Poor saps.

Oh god, Angelica’s back. At least she’s seemingly sorted out her inflated lip issue from the first story. No, I won't let it go.

Today’s adventure follows the babies as they’re getting their first ever professional photos done. Angelica is there too. These premises have been fine so far, lots of episodes of Rugrats feature the characters tackling normal everyday places they’ve never seen before and don’t understand. A large aspect about the show I also remember however is the extensive imagination sequences. Y’know, where Tommy and the gang imagine the situation they’re in as being way more fantastical than it really is, and their setting and outfits change accordingly? That was always my favorite part of the show and it’s a little weird to see that concept not having made any appearance thus far. I know not every episode had those though, and maybe those imagination sequences were more common in later seasons of the show? I’m not sure. Regardless, that doesn’t degrade the quality of the material, of course. It’s just a thought that came to mind as I was reading. 

Like the others I found this comic to be a pretty good time, although the story’s a little all over the place. The art’s nice as well. I actually found some of the art of the characters here to look somewhat cute, surprisingly. That’s not exactly the kind of term I’d usually use to describe the show’s visuals. Not sure what the artist here did differently specifically, but I did notice that Phil and Lil’s gross crooked baby teeth don’t make an appearance, so that probably helps their easiness on the eyes.

One highlight of this comic is this small moment of divine intervention where Angelica gets attacked by a bird that comes in through an open window. She didn’t really do anything bad this time to deserve it but, eh.

And of course, the gang manages to pull themselves together to finally get that one perfect picture. I appreciate they saved two pages to make this ending shot so big. It’s a really nice way to end things. Another quality story done! Honestly at this point, the issue’s fitted out a pretty positive track record. I’ll be surprised if we see any stinkers in the second half.

Oh and before we move on, I just want to bring up this small interaction from the beginning of the comic. It might be just me, but this moment just strikes me as odd. I probably won’t be able to explain this properly, but just hear me out: It’s a little weird to see Tommy and Chuckie acknowledge they’re not really talking, right? Like, yeah it’s always been established in the show that the babies are not actually speaking real language ‘cause the parents never hear them, but it’s not something you ever see them bring up and reference. Acknowledging that their form of communication is basically fake… Also the fact that they comprehend what speech is and are aware that what they’re doing isn’t that? I dunno, I might just be overthinking this. It’s too meta!

And up next, it’s what I think miiiiiiight be my favorite comic of the issue? Not entirely sure, it’s a toss up between either this one or the airport one. 

The story is as follows: The Pickles are having their whole house repainted. As usual, the kids just can’t bear to keep their noses out whatever is currently going on in their immediate area. So, Tommy enlists the help of the gang to use all the excess paint cans to repaint his entire room with an extravagant picture.

Like the airport comic this one has lots of dialogue between the four kids, and everyone gets their fair share of good lines. Chuckie does kind of come across as a little more whiny than usual here if only for the fact he never actually helps at all, outside of helping Phil and Lil save Tommy from smashing his head on the floor with a blanket.

”We- We’ve been… Greened!” might be my favorite line of the whole issue.

And as one could expect, the group made up of 0-to-2-year olds don’t exactly succeed in professionally painting the entire room. However, they instead manage to mess up in just the perfect way to still achieve the result they wanted. Being serious, this is genuinely a pretty wholesome ending and Tommy’s parents also being happy with the result is equally humorous and sweet. 

Yeah, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure this is my favorite story of the issue. Tons of great lines and gags, a sweet ending, and a major appearance of my favorite character from the show, Grandpa Lou. A good show all around!

Well, after my high praise of the previous post, I guess that means this last comic has something to live up to. And yeah, under that lens, this comic isn’t going to be usurping my #1 favorite spot. Viewed on its own, however, and… eh, still doesn’t really do anything for me.

This one has Tommy accidentally getting stuck on top of his dad’s new custom stunt kite as it gets blown away by a gust of wind, flying him through town. Already that plot is kinda off, to me at least. I know it’s a show about talking babies and everything but the show never really got that cartoonish in its logic, at least to my recollection. Tommy must have to be basically hollow on the inside for the kite to get that kind of air with him sitting on top of it.

On the positive side of things: the art is really good! Each panel sports its own unique camera angle which gives the comic some nice visual variety. The coloring and details on all the backgrounds, likewise, are lovely to look at. Overall this presentation makes for a very extravagant ending for the comic, at least in the art department. And to top it all off, it's even got the return of long arm Tommy:

But again, in regards to the story… Even if you’re willing to accept the weird logic of it all, the actual plot isn’t super entertaining. Tommy flies around a bit, some people see him and are surprised, while Angelica’s down below using Stu’s radio trying to order Tommy to land. It’s just a bit lacking in substance compared to the other stories we’ve looked at. If you’re going to do a story like this, you might as well go all in. Like, have all the babies on the kite and pretend they’re a flight crew. Y'know, some real Snoopy-type stuff.

And of course, Tommy makes it back down to the ground just in time before his Dad can notice a thing (although it’s not like he really had control of the kite anyway, I think?)

But that’s about all I’ve got to say on this one. Not the great ending one would have hoped for, but it looks nice at least. Come to think of it, Stu could make a killing off that kite considering the amount of weight it can hold. If only he knew…

And last but… not least? It’s a guide from Angelica on how to play house. I was kind of hoping for another character bio like what Chuckie had, since then we’d at least be able to learn her weaknesses and have a chance of vanquishing her evil once and for all. But alas, this is cool too, and it has a mention of her friend Susie, who had been a character in the show for a couple years now by this point but didn’t manage to make an actual physical appearance in the issue.

Bit of an odd way to end the issue, being honest, but eh, it’s a little funny.

And before we wrap it up I’d like to bring up the little legal disclaimer here on the final page, confirming that all these comics were indeed sourced from the origins Marvel-published UK Rugrats issues.

Well, that was fun, wasn’t it? I was a little skeptical going into it, but I think this turned out to be a pretty good choice for another installment of Side Issues. It had a history lesson opportunity, some great art, and a lot to talk about. Everything you could want, at least if you write blog posts about old Nickelodeon-related publications in your spare time, anyway. 

And hey, there’s more to this series than what I’ve shown you today, too. Did you know the last issue featured a crossover between Rugrats and Rocket Power, another one of Klasky Csupo’s shows?

That’s pretty cool! And also a little odd ‘cause I thought Rocket Power took place in Hawaii. This also means the only Nickelodeon-owned Klasky Csupo show that Rugrats didn’t cross over with is As Told by Ginger, and to be fair I’m not sure how you could’ve made that work, so I’ll let it pass.

But yeah, if I check out this comic series again, I think I’ll take a look at this issue. Well, actually if I do check out this series again it’ll have to be this issue, since it’s the only other issue on the Internet Archive I could find. That’s a bummer! Hopefully people’ll find and scan more copies sooner rather than later. The internet will only be around for so long, after all.

This would be where I end things, but while I was working on this post, Nickelodeon announced a new Rugrats game of all things.

It’s a bit of a shock, but I think what’s more shocking is that it looks pretty good! The NES graphics mode does, anyway. The HD drawn graphics you can optionally switch to leave something to be desired. It seems fun! I’ll be keeping an eye on this one.  And apparently Nickelodeon’s got a couple more retro-styled games in the works, so I’m excited to see where this goes.

That about does it for this episode of Nick Mag Highlights! I’ll see you all next time, where I’ll most certainly be checking out another issue of the actual magazine this blog is named after. Probably. See you later, and have a good one!

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"Got Milk?" ad promoting The Rugrats Movie from Nickelodeon Magazine #46.

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Ad for upcoming Nickelodeon games, from Nickelodeon Magazine #115.

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Nick Mag Highlights - Nick Mag Presents: Danny Phantom (Fall 2005)

Well, well, well, fancy meeting you here. Welcome back to my blog and the words that inhabit it. Today, Halloween comes early this year when we read through another exciting issue of Nickelodeon Magazine Presents, this time all about Danny Phantom. Boo! Trick-or-Treat! Deck the halls!

And not only is this edition of Nick Mag Highlights spooky, it’s also… pretty chill. Y’know? Just takin’ it easy, reading a handful of comics and probably a crossword puzzle or something. As much as I love researching the kind of stuff Nickelodeon Magazine includes in its articles, sometimes it’s nice to sit back and take things at face value and just see what the state of Nickelodeon was like at any given time, and these short-and-sweet issues of Nick Mag Presents are the perfect venue for just that.

But why exactly am I tackling this purportedly Halloween-themed issue in August? Well, mainly it’s because that new Danny Phantom graphic novel just came out… two weeks ago (oops). And I really enjoyed it! So I’ve since been in a big Danny Phantom mood lately. I even ended up re-watching the whole first season and had a blast doing so. This show was a real obsession of mine as a kid, so maybe this blog post is also a way for me to give it its dues.

This issue can be found online here, read along… if you dare!

Another Nick Mag Presents, another humorously wordy introduction. If you’re unfamiliar, basically all these Presents-styled issues have a panel on the first page with a character essentially advertising the book to you and talking about all the comics and activities included inside. This one here features Danny and an understandably perturbed ghost, for example. 

Since these issues were usually sold in stores as opposed to through a mail subscription, I suppose this is the issue’s way of hooking you in and explaining to you why you should buy it. I think a kid would probably be more inclined to just flip through the book and arrive at the same conclusion, but I guess this approach doesn’t hurt anybody.

But anyway, let’s see here… aw, only two wholly new comics? The Fairly Oddparents-themed issue I took a look at previously had five original comics. That’s a bummer, but at least we’ve still got variety… SpongeBob, My Life as a Teenage Robot, and The Wild Thornberrys, oh my! Even Tak makes an appearance here, two years before the premiere of his actual Nickelodeon cartoon, meaning this was an attempt to interest readers in the then-recently released video game: Tak 3: The Great Juju Challenge. Not sure if that worked.

And if you’ll take a look at that yellow, spiky bubble with words on the right there, this September 2005 issue is meant to coincide with the then-upcoming two episode-long Danny Phantom special, “The Ultimate Enemy”, which featured Danny taking on a more powerful version of himself from the future. Seems like the included removable poster is even themed around that very episode! Let’s just hope that poster is still left intact, eh?

So first up, we’ve got a page to get you up to speed on the main cast if you’re new to the show. It’s even got some new factoids for the already familiar superfans! For example: Did you know Sam is into anime? I sure didn’t.

Oh, and if you’re wondering where series villain Vlad Masters is, don’t worry, they go over him later on in the book.

On the right you’ll find an easy if not slightly amusing word puzzle, which tasks you with solving questions where each answer contains the word boo. Simple enough for a kid while still being worth the time, methinks.

Although all the stock ghost art on the page gets me wondering, how come most of the ghosts in the show manifest as typical-looking cartoon ghosts while others manifest in a human form? I guess maybe it comes down to the strength of your spirit. Who’s to say?

You’ve met the characters, now it’s time to meet the voices behind them! I’ll always take a side of interviews with my Nickelodeon Magazine, and this is no exception. The questions are cute, and I had fun reading them. Not much to say.

So we’re finally here at the first comic of the issue, and… not really a fan of this one! Yeah, sorry to start this retrospective off on a sour note but this isn’t really doing it for me. The main villain of this one is Youngblood, who already isn’t exactly one of my favorite villains from the series. But here they’ve got him and all the other characters stuck in a pretty by-the-numbers plot where Danny and co. get stuck babysitting the brat while he tries to maim them, with them of course unable to fight back lest they face the wrath of his parents (who are humongous lizard monsters, for some reason). 

If you’re even a little familiar with cartoons you’ve probably already seen quite a few takes on this formula already. And even if you like Youngblood as a character they don’t have him doing his usual pirate shtick he’s remembered for, so I’m not sure what anyone is getting out of this, really. What's especially not helping is that this goes on for ten pages, further dragging out an already tired concept. 

So there you have it, I guess. Done-to-death story with accordingly done-to-death jokes, a lame villain, and about two pages of action. I will say though, Danny and Tucker’s babysitting poster on page 2 did get a smile out of me, at least.

You’ve met the characters, and you’ve also met the voices behind them, now it’s time to meet… the rest of the characters! The villain ones! These guys really made the show for me, cause the team behind the show really just seemed to understand the assignment and made all of them really unique and memorable.

So we can see they’ve been ranked in terms of how dangerous they all are, which is a fun idea. ‘Course you’ve got Vlad at the top of, but then there’s Technus just behind him? I can’t say I remember him being notably more dangerous than any of the other baddies, I’m fairly certain he gets swept up at the end of his specific episode just like all the rest. I’m pretty sure Valerie gave Danny a bigger run for his money, and she’s down at #3.

Woah now, I’m starting to scrutinize the power levels of cartoon characters. Cartoon characters from a show I haven’t even fully watched all the way through since I was a kid, no less. Better put a stop to that before it gets ugly.

Cool little cartoons on the left there, that one on the top right is properly devious and I’m all for it. All the art is quite lovely too.

The right is… well, it’s Mad Libs, there’s no other way around it. Y’know the Mad Libs website refers to itself as “the world’s greatest word game” but I seriously think they need to take that up with Scrabble, or hell, even Hangman. Yeah I was never a big fan of this kind of fill-in-the-blanks stuff, but I guess it’s a pretty inoffensive activity to include.

Check out Danny’s dad rocking that emo hair.

And now we’ve made it to the second and last new comic for the issue, and unfortunately it’s only a two-pager. But hey, if my thoughts on the previous ten-page comic said anything, it was that I prefer quality over quantity. And this one is… okay. It’s funny enough, does what all it needs to with the concept, and it definitely doesn’t overstay its welcome. I’m again surprised by the lack of action in both of these comics, considering Danny Phantom is an action show, after all, but it’s not like the show wasn’t a comedy either, so it’s not that weird.

I guess while we’re here I could nitpick it a bit. The lineart here courtesy of series creator Butch Hartman* is a bit wonky at times. There’s the aforementioned emo hair Danny’s dad is wearing, but my main gripe is that dog robot just doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the artstyle. It being the only new original character design for this comic as well doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me. I guess the team was fine with whatever Hartman drew because he made the show after all, so surely he knows what he’s doing, right?*

*Insert obligatory comment about how much of a loser Butch Hartman is here.

Just want to give a shoutout to this pretty creative puzzle here. It actually stumped me a little when I first read it! Those monster designs are pretty entertaining too. Solid activity overall.

Next up it’s an installment of Sam Shade, which was a short-lived recurring series in Nickelodeon Magazine. Apparently the series ran from 2002 to 2005, so this may be one of the last times a Sam Shade comic was ever printed in a Nick Magazine. 

These comics mainly consist of the titular Detective Sam Shade trying to solve some mystery, sleuthing around the area in a series of detailed, wordy scenes. Likewise, you as the reader are as well tasked with scouring the pages for clues to help deduce the culprit. Each panel here smoothly moves into the next, making for something like a Where’s Waldo puzzle but with an actual narrative. It’s a really good idea! A shame this series didn’t last longer.

Hey, is that Carl from Jimmy Neutron on the bottom right there?

Pretty nice My Life as a Teenage Robot comic here. Although that’s kind of unfortunate in a way, since that means I haven’t got much to talk about! It’s pretty much a 1-to-1 translation from animation to comic here. The artstyle and writing are both on point, it’s all just in a shorter, more paper-y format.

I wonder why the aliens’ speech bubble has flowers in it. Is that a theater reference, maybe?

The design of these fiery aliens are particularly awesome - simple but effective. I’m surprised they used such a cool design in a comic that was going to be seen by way less people as opposed to using it in the cartoon. Man, this show is so cool, even its supplementary media is stylish!

But anyway, do you want to know how this story ends? Read it yourself!

Ohh man, I distinctly remember this comic. I don’t remember what issue of Nickelodeon Magazine this one is sourced from, but whichever one it was, I had it. The story’s nothing to write home about really, It's another take on the age old tale of “Squidward yells at SpongeBob and Patrick for doing something annoying, so they inadvertently ruin his life”. Squidward must have a really good lawyer for him to be able to bounce back from all the crap SpongeBob and Pat get him into.

This version of the usual story has S. Bob and P. Rick making a cake in Squidward’s image. Mr. Krabs ends up mistaking it for the real Squidward, bringing it to the Krusty Krab, and having it run the cash register, obviously to disastrous results. It’s all pretty par for the course, and there’s some funny lines to be had.

Weirdly though, unless I’m blind, I can’t seem to find any credits for this one. Not in the comic itself or at the back of the book. I’m pretty sure the artist(s) behind this one did more SpongeBob SquarePants comics though, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the same writing team had a hand in them too. I distinctly remember one where all the characters turn into desserts. Or maybe it was an alternate universe where they’re all desserts? Something like that. Maybe I’ll find it and cover it on this blog someday!

And up next, it’s a Wild Thornberrys comic of all things (said with feigned surprise, having read the table of contents moments ago). And I’m just now realizing none of these comics have anything to do with ghosts, or horror, really. Quite the magazine you’ve got just in time for October, Nickelodeon!

But hey, it’s not right to judge a piece of art specifically by the context in which it is presented. Especially when it was originally published in a magazine that likely came out years earlier, probably not even around the month of October. Desperate times call for desperate measures and all that, even when it comes to filling the pages of a magazine.

This comic is especially cool, anyway, as you can no doubt tell from its distinct shakeup in style!

The story has Eliza receiving some gifts from her Japanese friend, Mayumi (who was probably in the show, presumably), one of those gifts being a homemade manga. And while I’m not exactly an expert on the Japanese arts, I certainly find this art convincing and really appreciate the attention to detail. I bet any kids that were fans of manga around this time must have felt pretty seen to have one of their hobbies referenced in a rather unlikely place, and with such attention to detail no less.

One thing I can also appreciate is that this story really isn’t something they could have pulled off in the show itself (unless they studio really wanted to have an anime-themed episode and go through the undertaking of doing an episode in an entirely different, foreign animation style all on their usual budget), so overall this is a really fun idea done quite flawlessly. My only gripe is we don’t get to see a manga-styled Nigel Thornberry, but what can you do?

Oh boy, the Tak comic, cool. Now, I know these games have their fans, but I can’t say I’m one of them. I did watch the show a bit though, but I’ve heard it has nothing to do with the games, so I guess that makes me rather unprepared to tackle this two-page comic on an intellectual, researched level. I will say though that I think the Sam Shade comic from earlier pulled off this style of free-flowing, no-panel storytelling to a much greater effect. The amount of Taks they threw around the page makes it feel really busy and cramped, and they had to essentially remove the second character Tak is traveling with from the story since I guess they were strapped for page space.

But yeah, the colors are nice at least, and Tak media is especially hard to come by nowadays, so I suppose if I were more into the property, I might be more into this.

Last comic of the day, and it’s Jimmy Neutron. At least this one kinda fits the theme, I mean, aliens are almost in the same horror-league as vampires, zombies, ghosts, and all that. This is a pretty quality one to end off the book with, and in regards to Jimmy Neutron, this is one of the better ways these characters have been translated to 2D. Although the incredibly warm colors and harsh shadows throw me for a loop. Pretty good overall!

Before we wrap things up, I would like to mention that advert for The Nicktoons Film Festival on the right. I totally forgot these used to be a thing! From 2004 to 2009 Nickelodeon hosted a film festival and let viewers vote for their favorite animated short, along with letting proper animation people who know what they’re talking about vote on their favorites, too. Lots of great up-and-coming cartoonists took part in these festivals. This one in 2005 actually featured a short by J. G. Quintel that eventually was used as a basis for his own Cartoon Network show, Regular Show! You can check the short out below:

Neat bit of history there, yeah?

Even though I’m still a bit disappointed this issue didn’t include more original content, I still think this ended up being a fairly entertaining walk down memory lane. And hey, I hope you had a good time too. I’m doubly disappointed, however, that the archive of this issue didn’t come with that tear-out poster! Now we’ll never see it in its full hi-def glory.

As always, thanks for stopping by and checking out another bit of Nick history with me. Have yourself a good one, and I’ll see you all next time!

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Meet Nickelodeon's first kid superhero in a brand new Nicktoon.

From Nickelodeon Magazine #102.

[nickmaghighlights]

Nick Mag Highlights - #20 April 1996

Greetings and various apropos felicitations. Once again it’s time for another issue of Nick Mag Highlights! Today we’ll be heading back to the 90’s and taking a trip through issue #20. Ready to see if this “Mega Movie Issue'' is really as mega as it says? Then let’s get on with the show!

Man, that cover is a blast from the past for me, and it might just be the same for some of you. I haven't seen the film adaptation of James and The Giant Peach ever since I was a kid. I forget how I even first experienced it, since I couldn’t have seen it in theaters and I never owned a physical copy. I think a babysitter put it on for me once. 

Whatever the case, despite the time it's been I can still envision a smattering of visuals and emotions from the experience. So it must’ve been good if it’s managed to still stick with me positively all these years later. I guess a grade-a art style and memorable visuals will do that for a film. So as shallow as these behind-the-scenes “previews” tend to be when it comes to Nick Magazine, I’m still excited to go down memory lane and hopefully gleam one or two cool bits of trivia. 

Beyond my nostalgia bias though I’ve gotta say I’m surprised by the lack of promises this cover is making. A preview of James and The Giant Peach and a “Special Flip Book” is all you’ve got to wow the proverbial audience here, Nick? Even issue #1 promised more content on its cover to grab your attention if Ren & Stimpy weren’t enough for you. Let’s hope 20 issues in they weren’t starting to struggle for content.

You can read along too, if that’s what you wanna do. The issue’s right here.

Alright, go ahead and roll your eyes, but I’ve got a thing or two to say about this Cheetos ad. Or rather, “Chee●tos”, as it's called here and would be titled as such until Frito-Lays dropped the hyphen from the name in 1998. Not the worst name change, if I’m being honest.

First off, let’s just bask in the moment for a second. This is a wacky snack from the 90’s, even a “spinoff snack”, if you will, of a still very popular snack brand… that hasn’t been brought back to capitalize on nostalgia! 

Yes, Cheesy Checkers have yet to return to shelves since their discontinuation in ‘98. Suffice to say, I’m stunned. In a world where Ecto-Cooler returned from the grave, Trix Yogurt is still readily available, Boo Berry, Count Chocula and all those other monster-themed cereals manifest themselves every Halloween, and the McRib seems to come back whenever the heck it feels like, Cheetos Cheesy Checkers of all things is barred from re-entry into the mainstream to take advantage of your sorely missed childhood. 

Guess they really just weren’t popular enough? You can’t capitalize on nostalgia if there’s no nostalgia to capitalize on, after all. And yet it seems like a foolproof idea for a snack if you ask me. Waffles and waffle fries have already proven that checkerboard patterns are naturally delicious. And on top of that it even had a rad commercial featuring an awesome Chester Cheetah puppet. What’s not to like? I guess 33% more cheese is crossing the line of “Dangerously Cheesy” into something more like… “Hazardously Cheesy”.

Oh, and by the way. I may have never had a bag of Cheesy Checkers, but I sincerely doubt the snack pieces were that big. You really want me to believe one checker is nearly 1/3rd the size of this magazine page? They don’t even look that big in the commercial.

Just like the cover said, this is indeed a movie-themed issue. And I’ve got good news regarding this: I actually know about movies! Well, I like movies, anyway. Okay, I know more about movies than I do about music, which should mean my dissection of the content at hand will be a little more thoughtful than my retrospective of the music-based issue from last time. Hopefully, anyway.

Can’t help but feel these jokes are trying a little too hard. I guess when you’ve got to come up with twenty and base them all off of movies and TV shows, it can’t be easy. It probably doesn’t help either that there’s only like, three or four good puns in the whole world to begin with.

Anyway, look. Bugs Bunny in Nickelodeon Magazine. Woah.

Well, it’s a little less surprising for those, ahem, in the know. 

Nickelodeon actually aired Looney Tunes shorts for more than ten years, from 1988 to 1999. Once Warner Bros. established their new kids’ entertainment channel, Cartoon Network, they were pretty quick to take back their old school cartoons to bolster their numbers a bit. Although even following the departure of the classic Looney Tunes, Nickelodeon would go on to license other Warner Bros. content for their channel in the following years, airing shows such as Animaniacs and Tiny Toon Adventures in the early 2000s.

Oh, how convenient! Now I can prove my film expertise by trouncing this quiz and- 

Hey! Some kid already answered two of the questions. Well now there’s no point in doing the quiz now. Its sanctity has been compromised.

But yeah, this book’s been written in just a bit. Sorry if that bothers you, but it’s not like I can clean the pages off. I do kinda wish the scan was totally clean just for the sake of archival purposes, but as long as the marks stay minor I’m not too picky. If anything I guess it helps make things a little more interesting. Kinda adds to the whole “time capsule” aspect of it, doesn’t it?

Shouldn’t be an issue so long as it’s not-

Ah, criminy! The kid got me again! Now this is stepping over the line. Answering a quiz question or two is one thing, but completely solving the hidden pictures puzzle promoting the home video release of Babe? That sours my mood. I don’t even feel like watching Babe now.

This a neat activity: a screenplay for two kids to act out and potentially film like a home movie. It actually caught me off guard with its originality, and in hindsight it seems like a no-brainer. Kids love to play pretend after all, and I know I certainly loved shooting little movies with my family’s cheap digital camera. Well, here kids, we came up with the story for you. Go nuts. Not to mention it's a good excuse to whip up a plate of grilled cheese sandwiches.

Here’s a nifty fun fact for you: The writer of this screenplay activity, David Lewman, has basically been on Nickelodeon’s speed dial since the 90’s. He’s written tons of Nickelodeon tie-in books, spanning a bunch of different franchises including SpongeBob SquarePants, Jimmy Neutron, Rugrats, among many others. If you’ve read a SpongeBob book before, I say look him up. There’s a good chance you were reading something of his. 

Kind of nice of them to make a whole game out of their adspace, eh? I mean, I’m guessing the amount of people who played isn’t particularly high, but… uh… The art is cool!

Speaking of the art, you never see these mascots in 2D anymore. Which I find unfortunate because I think they look a lot cuter and tolerable here.  

Also wow, you can see the orange and brown candies before their designs were finalized. Or before their transitions, either or. Very proud of them regardless!

Pretty awesome article here about some of the gimmicks that filmmakers tried out during the black-and-white days of cinema. Love a bit of history alongside my Nickelodeon.

While we’re here, I’d like to contribute my own similar black-and-white movie gimmick factoid that I find amusing:

In 1961, a film called Mr. Sardonicus featured a gimmick called the “Punishment Poll”, where each audience member was given a card to decide the fate of the titular villain, Mr. Sardonicus, by either showing the side of their card with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on it right before the end of the film. Once the total was tallied, the theater was supposed to show the ending with the most votes.

The funny part is that the movie only has one ending. The gimmick was just a total lie and the only ending filmed was the one with the negative outcome for Mr. Sardonicus, so I guess the director was pretty confident that potential audiences would mostly be comprised of sadists that want to see a bad guy get his comeuppance. 

Speaking of the director, Mr. Sardonicus just so happened to be directed by a mister William Castle, who also directed four out of the six films listed in the magazine article here. Guess those gimmicks really were good for profits.

Imagine watching a whole movie while sitting in a pool. Now stop imagining! I don’t like that very much. Your eyelids would prune shut before you could even see the ending. 

Man, all these movie gimmicks and funky types of theaters is making me wish I was around when movies were more of an event. Y’know? The movie theater experience has pretty much been ironed out at this point, so the idea of watching the big screen outside or with the looming possibility of a big plastic skeleton popping out and waving around is particularly alluring. Take note, modern movie theaters, this may be your way of competing with streaming!

What? No, it doesn’t bother me at all that whoever owned this magazine already filled out this Sanrio quiz advertisement. Why would I be ENRAGED and UPSET about that!?!? IT'S NOT EVEN A BIG DEAL!!

… Anyway this ad is weird. I guess they didn't know how to market Sanrio in the west yet*. Cause I'm not exactly the most familiar but I'm pretty confident blaring red and yellow colors and funky multicolor Wow! text isn't exactly befitting of the Sanrio spirit. Also there's not really any point to the quiz. It's not like you can mail in your answers and get a free Hello Kitty lunchbox or something. I guess they just figured that kids love quizzes and will always jump at the opportunity to do them, circling the correct responses in permanent pen ink, and causing them to not consider the possibility that someoNE MIGHT WANT TO READ THE MAGAZINE AD AFTER THEM AND WOULD WANT IT MAINTAINED IN PEAK CLEANLINESS FOR THE SAKE OF THE SANCTITY OF THEIR ONLINE BLOG i must calm myself.

*Which is weird to me, because Hello Kitty feels like one of those characters who’s always been popular. Like Mickey Mouse or Steven Spielburg.

Don’t mind me, just gonna insert this contest page here so that if I ever do the issue that contains the actual responses, I can link back to here and go full circle. Pretty excited to someday see the responses! I wonder what they could be. I also wonder why you had to include a phone number with your response. Maybe Tommy Pickles congratulated you on the phone? 

Okay, so I think this issue might be missing pages. I can’t prove that exactly, considering I don’t have the real thing sitting in front of me, but the way this ad has text that’s oddly cut off on the right side leads me to believe this was a two page spread originally. Maybe not, maybe the magazine was really like this and it's a printing error, maybe they spilled juice on the design document for page two and couldn’t fix it in time for publishing. 

Whatever the case, I really wish I had that Aaahh!!! Real Monsters hat.

A rather understated cover for this edition of The Comic Book, and I can appreciate it. Simple and effective bit of zaniness with a spin on the old “fake-can-with-a-scary-thing-that-pops-out-when-you-open-it” gag. This comes to us from award-winning illustrator Jim Woodring, who’s got probably one of the nicest websites of any artist I’ve mentioned on this blog so far, so kudos. I took a look through his gallery, and it’s a lovely trip, so go take a look if you want some eye candy.

Been a while since we’ve last seen the Southern Fried Fugitives on this blog, one of Nick Magazine’s earliest recurring comic series. Unfortunately they’re not exactly in top form here, I’d say, even as someone who’s not the biggest fan of the comic to begin with. This is essentially a bit of filler so they could make their deadline and finish up the next “all new real adventure” that this episode tells you of at the end. I mean, I get it, this comic usually spanned a full three or four pages, I’m sure they took quite a bit of time. I just don’t really appreciate being shown a gross naked stitched up chicken. 

A great hidden picture puzzle here, I could see kids having a lot of fun with this one and just looking through all the art. I guess my only issue would be that none of the answers are exactly hidden, since almost every figure in the page is related to one of the film titles below. But that’s a small nitpick considering that for just one activity of a much larger publication, it’s still pretty entertaining and eye-catching.

And here we’ve got ourselves what the powers at be call Smudgy and Scribbly. A comic about two inventive robots that I thought were supposed to be pencil erasers at first considering their names. I’m not sure if these abstract little guys ever had more than one or a couple of comics, but I know they didn’t stick around forever, since this is the first time I’m hearing of them. They’re cute! They’re fun! They don’t have a lot of personality per se, but that’s okay, because they eat fruit cocktails. And that’s a lesson for the kids.

I’ve been really impressed with this issue so far! They’ve really been making the most of the movie theme, what with aforementioned stuff like the quality movie gimmick article and the nice hidden picture puzzle. And to top it all off now we’ve even got an interview with Siskel & Ebert, two of the most famous film critics of all time. I’m not even sure how many kids at the time would appreciate this sort of thing, but whoever did must’ve been pretty happy. Said interview was conducted about three years before Siskel’s incredibly unfortunate passing, and three years after being parodied in an episode of Doug.

Anyway, yeah the interview questions are really silly, but that’s pretty par for the course by now. I just think it’s just cool they’re even in an issue of Nickelodeon Magazine at all.

Talking about the calendar included with each issue has become a bit of a tradition for this blog by now, hasn’t it? Although I’m sure I probably forgot to mention it one time. Overall this one’s not bad, it’s chock-full of facts and the little set-up & punchline at the Charlie Chaplin section is a ‘lil funny. And I think it’s sort of themed around artisans, maybe? Well worth being pinned on your bedroom door if you ask me, the only problem is that you’d also be ripping out a page of the Siskel & Ebert interview that’s printed on the back of this. At least the kid who wrote all over the magazine showed some restraint there.

Oh come on… I spoke too soon about showing restraint. The kid ripped out the flip book! What a trick… now I’ll never know what it looks like. At least we have the instructions here, which also could be doubly used for instructions on how to make your own flipbook by following the format, which is cool. Sorry for anyone who clicked on this post because you wanted to see the flipbook specifically. Sorry to you.

Moving past a five page article about the history of movies and movie effects (which is solid but doesn’t have much for me to say about), we now come across the cover story: James and the Giant Peach. And this is an alright interview, but it’s especially good  for Nickelodeon Magazine! The questions for the film’s director, Henry Selick (director of The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline, among others), actually allow for some pretty nice informative detail regarding the process of stop-motion animation and how aspects of it work. For an interview intended for kids, this is great, especially for ones with an interest in the medium.

Interviews, interviews, and more interviews! If you’ve ever wanted to learn all that you could ever want to know Kenan & Kel, these are the pages for you. It’s nice to hear that apparently these guys were good friends off set, I guess. But y’know it’s never really bothered me finding out that seemingly inseparable co-stars actually aren’t best friends in real life like it does for a lot of people, I can still watch MythBusters perfectly fine even if I know Adam and Jamie aren’t going to go get drinks together after they finish dropping a car off a mountain for science. Acting’s still a job and I’m not expecting people to become friends just because they both stand in front of the same camera. 

But hey, if K&K really were as good of friends as this magazine says, that’s really cool for them. Pretty lucky too, since this was just mere months away from the premiere of their own All That spinoff show, Kenan & Kel, which ran for four years, and less than a year before the premiere of their own movie, Good Burger*, so being friendly must’ve helped when they were spending that much time together. Not to mention they’re getting back together for Good Burger 2, so I guess when your legacies are so intrinsically tied together, I guess you’re bound to find some things to like about each other.

*One of my favorite comedies by the way, and no I’m not sorry. There’s very few films that match its vibes.

Feels like I should mention the 9th annual Kids’ Choice Awards was just around the corner, which featured such notable moments like Jim Carrey taking home two awards for Ace Ventura and his performance in Batman Forever, alongside Free Willy winning “Favorite Animal Star” for his(?) performance (?) in Free Willy 2: Willy Goes to Chile*. That category in particular got pretty heated, considering he was up against fierce competition in the form of Babe from… Babe. “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio won best song. Although Brandy would beat out both Coolio and Michael Jackson for winner of “Favorite Singer”, so it wasn’t exactly a Coolio sweep, per se.

But of course, the real big winner of that night was Tim Allen, for winning “Favorite TV Actor” and being enacted into the Nickelodeon Hall of Fame (yes, for real). All while Home Improvement won ”Favorite TV Show”, which I find is an outright snubbing of the also nominated Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Again, just my opinion.

*(Okay, it was actually called Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home, but I like my idea more).

Before we go, I’d just like to draw attention to this winner of a parade float idea contest held in a previous issue, finally presented in all its glory here. No offense to the kid who designed it but I can only imagine the type of child nightmares that could spawn from a giant Elvis making its way down the street, pulled along by his Elvis impersonating minions. Just a thought.

This was a really good issue, I’m actually pretty shocked with how much of it I found interesting and entertaining, even now as an adult. They really put their all into this one and I think the movie theme really paid off.

Some parts I didn’t get to were the aforementioned article on the history of film and film effects, which isn’t a bad read, especially if you’re into the good old days of practical effects. 

There was an interview with at-the-time child star Michelle Trachtenberg, to promote the upcoming release of the Nickelodeon film Harriet the Spy, which featured her in the starring role. I partly didn’t talk about it because I didn’t think there was much to say, and partly out of spite because that movie was pretty bad. Also because I’m running out of available image slots on this post. But mainly the first two reasons! Sort of.

Oh, yeah, and that alien mongrel QZ made another appearance, answering kids’ questions and just looking gross as usual. Avoid page 52 at all costs!

So yeah, that’ll do it! I’m glad I got to tackle another 90’s issue. I’ve also been thinking about branching out a bit, maybe talking about other Nickelodeon books, or heck, maybe even doing retrospectives of some of their shows! If anybody’s interested or has any requests (Nickelodeon Magazine related or otherwise), feel free to let me know. Otherwise I’ll just keep using my little spinner board that I use to make all decisions related to this blog. 

Until next time, have a good one, and keep on reading!

[nickmaghighlights]

Variations of an advertisement for Nickelodeon Online (nick.com), both from Nickelodeon Magazine #41.

[nickmaghighlights]

Nick Mag Highlights - #118 February 2006

Welcome back to Nick Mag Highlights! Would you believe it: Two of the greatest Nickelodeon shows crossing over in one half-hour special? For the second time? It’s a kid’s dream come true! Again! So let’s read all about it.

So yeah, sorry for the wait on this one. A couple of IRL setbacks plus taking on a volley of different big personal projects at once resulted in quite a hit towards my motivation. But hey, we’re here now, and I’m happy to get back into it.

Little sneak preview while I’m here: One of the things I’ve been working on is a new NMH Side Issue post! One that’s covering a mag that’s ostensibly part of Nickelodeon history thanks to its connection to a very prolific creative figure at the studio. Very wordy book though, so naturally both reading it and my analysis of it is gonna take longer than normal. And then I gotta do the research and fact-checking and yadda yadda, it’ll be ready when it's ready. In the meantime I’ve always got Nickelodeon Magazine to come back to.

Read along if you’d like, I think it’s the cool thing to do!

Neopets was still Viacom (parent company of Nickelodeon)’s latest big purchase at the time of this mag’s release, with them having bought it eight months earlier back in June of 2005, so it’s not surprising seeing the new blockbuster Neopets thing getting a big ‘ole two page spread right at the beginning of the magazine.

While Neopets is famous for originally being financially supported by scientology, it was Viacom's stint with the brand that actually got me to give the site a try for a short time (thanks to a Burger King promotion of all things, if memory serves me correctly). If they don't delete old, inactive accounts then I hope my T-Rex Neopet has been doing well for itself. They can’t die, right?

I love this ad. I’m not sure what kind of vibe they were going for here but it almost feels kind of dystopian with the polluted-looking air and all the TV screens weirdly protruding out every which way. Adding to that feeling for me was that I initially thought all that shrubbery down below was a huge audience of adoring viewers. Feels like something out of The Running Man. Super cool.

Always important to check out what Nickelodeon itself was doing around the time. I remember being really excited for Drake & Josh Go Hollywood, and seeing how it went on to gross more than 5 million viewers, I guess I wasn’t alone. Really bothers me to find out it’s just called Go Hollywood and not Go To Hollywood like I thought it was all these years, but I guess I’ll live.

And speaking of millions of viewers, this section also mentions the then-upcoming SpongeBob SquarePants special “Dunces & Dragons” (oddly not actually referred to here with an actual title), which grossed more than 8 million viewers.

Oh, and it’s Black History Month. Y’know just kind of a footnote slotted in the middle there. You'd think that'd get an article or interview, I don’t know. I’m sure Kyra appreciates the shoutout at least.

Woah. Imagine living in a pre-High School Musical world. Nowadays High School Musical is the made-for-TV-movie that baby made-for-TV-movies want to grow up to be. Now we’ve got two sequels, a TV spinoff (a TV spinoff that won five Kids’ Choice Awards apparently, funnily enough), and a mountain of films that tried to cash in on that success. Mostly from Disney Channel themselves. Camp Rock, anyone?

Funny to see the not-Jumanji family classic Zathura listed as Josh Hutcherson’s big recognizable role when he’d end up co-starring in the critically lauded cultural touchstone The Hunger Games just a few years later. And now he’s starring in that Five Nights at Freddy’s movie coming out this year. What a career.

There’s gotta be some irony to me sitting here and enjoying what I probably called the “boring parts” of the magazine back when I was a kid. C’mon though, this is pretty neat! I’ll run through all the topics real quick if you’d like to learn more.

Notes From Underground - The Great Stalacpipe Organ

Still standing to this day, the instrument has been refurbished a couple times since it was featured in this magazine. In 2012 a band by the name of Pepe Deluxé composed and played the first ever song exclusively for the Stalacpipe Organ, called “In The Cave” and featured it in their album Queen of the Wave. Give it a listen, it’s a creepy kind of beautiful. Must’ve been hard to record, too!

Playing With Their Food - The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra

The orchestra is still active and has even done a couple of performances this year! I doubt they still make soup from their instruments though. But to be honest even without having to worry about viral diseases I’m not too interested in soup made exclusively of vegetables that have been blown into for several hours.

Talk About Slow Jamz! - Organ²/ASLSP

Miraculously the performance is still on track. They didn’t play a note this year but the next one is scheduled for February 5th. The second slowest performance of the piece lasted 16 hours and took place last year.

World’s Hottest Tunes - Fire Organs

I can’t really find much about this one online, but I guess it speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

Take a look at a performance and try not to think about how hot it must be in that auditorium whenever he plays that thing.

Alright, it’s time for a confession. You ready to hear the horrible truth? …Okay, here goes:

I don’t know very much about music.

I guess it was probably a bad choice for me to write about a magazine themed around music. I got pretty far without having to disclose my lack of knowledge though, right? And in my defense, Nickelodeon lured me in with that Jimmy Timmy Power Hour cover. 

And I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like music. I love a bit of jazz now and then*. But still, none of the names here really ring a bell, so I don't know if any of these answers are ironic or out-of-character or so in-character it’s adorable or whatever. At least I can appreciate they spared no expense, they never usually have this many interviews. There’s even a third page with even more of them if you want to check it out. 

*My top jazz favorites are Kim Scott (Spotify) and Pieces Of A Dream (Spotify). If you were curious.

It’s really cool to see something encouraging kids to make their own mix CDs. I do kinda wish there was more than one cover though. Not everybody wants to chill.

Aw man, come to think of it, is Gen-Z the last generation to do personal mixtapes and CDs? Or is that still a thing? Regardless I kind of wish I had gotten into doing that when I was younger, it seems like a fun thing to do between friends. Plus my knowledge of music would probably be way stronger than it is now. What do kids do nowadays, send each other Spotify playlists? I guess that's a bit more convenient.

I think I've talked about these Pop-Tart ads before. They were in these magazines all the time so they must’ve come up already. I think I even gave them some credit. But as attention grabbing as they were I really still don't understand the intention. What's so appetizing about seeing these little guys just get absolutely destroyed all the time? Are kids supposed to think about how they’re snuffing the life out of their morning Pop-Tarts?

A very awesome and adorable cover we have here, courtesy of Vera Brosgol (author and illustrator of the award-winning Anya’s Ghost, plus Head of Story on Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio). You can check out her website to see more of her work here.

Nice little comic by Greg Cook. And wouldn’t you know that guy’s Wikipedia article has Nickelodeon Magazine mentioned in its first sentence? That’s cool. Also I feel like the man himself might’ve written his own Wikipedia article. The lack of citations and the way it’s written like the “About Me” page for a blog gives me that kind of vibe. If so, thanks for remembering us, Greg!

Now here’s some of that Jimmy-Timmy content I was promised! I was starting to get worried.

I find it interesting how well Jimmy and Timmy bounce off of each other, but I guess now that I think about it their shows weren’t that different really, at least in terms of subject matter, were they? In broad strokes they’re both kids with big egos whose imaginations tend to get them into trouble. And seeing those big egos clash is naturally gonna lend itself to some good comedy.

In regards to the art, I love the warm colors utilized here, it’s very cozy. The art throws me off just a smidge though. Absolutely no disrespect to Scott Roberts of course, writer and penciler behind this comic (and also creator of Patty Cake, a recurring comic for Nickelodeon Magazine that we… haven’t actually encountered yet on this blog unfortunately), he’s got some great work under his belt, and Timmy and his fairies look as to be expected here. But I do think it was a weird choice making Jimmy look like a Rugrat though. That’s not just me, right? The second page in particular has him pulling off some serious Rugrats-faces. Maybe Roberts was just doing what he knows, because he actually did tons of work on a Rugrats newspaper comic strip just a couple years before this.

Aside from that, Jimmy’s lab is a bit weird. It’s not the usual cave, instead being a regular room with windows and a checkerboard floor? And the exterior shows it to be a wooden cabin? Maybe it’s supposed to be the shack that’s built above the lab Jimmy uses as a secret entrance. Doesn’t really matter, I certainly didn’t notice as a kid, but it does make me wonder if the artist wasn’t provided that much reference material.

I love that snail comic so much like you wouldn’t believe.

Throughout the years I always managed to miss out on LEGO’s constant edgier reinventions of itself, y’know like Bionicle or that one about the ninjas. I guess it helps that I was never really into the toy itself. Unlike those previous examples though, Exo-Force here isn’t ringing any bells for me, but I do find it noteworthy how they were trying to go for a more anime/gundam vibe with this one, what with the Japanese affixed to the bottom of the logo and the faux-anime designs of all the main characters. Surprised to see this one didn’t even warrant its own cartoon, instead having its epic storyline played out through a series of commercials. And while I may like an overarching commercial narrative as much as the next guy (anyone remember those Goldfish Cracker commercials that did the same thing?), I bet you any fans of this line were sore it never got the whole TV show package like Bionicle did.

Oh right, Valentine’s Day is in February, isn’t that right? How many more years do you think that holiday has, you reckon? Nobody likes it. It’s just a reason to buy more greeting cards and do nice things for people that you probably should just be doing anyway and not need a holiday to tell you to do. Eh, still though I guess if you were in a small class at school this would be a pretty useful sheet of cards.

Skyland, huh? Can’t say it rings a bell, but it certainly looks cool. How did this slip by me? I even had this issue as a kid and watched Nicktoons, so I must have just completely tuned it out. I wonder why?

Oh, that’s interesting, it seems like it's all done with motion captured 3D animation. That’s fine, I guess, but that illustration in the magazine had me thinking it’d look a bit more like The Last Airbender. I’m impressed that they spared no expense on the story at least. This intro here can barely keep down its exposition to forty seconds!

So, does anyone remember this one? Apparently it was a French production that was licensed to different channels across the world, airing on Teletoon in Canada and CITV in the UK. I’d love to know if it was any good!

Pretty good smorgasbord of facts in this month’s calendar. And I guess a blanket theme is good as any other theme. Ooh, National Pancake Day! What a great month.

The Jimmy-Timmy quiz is fun, but I wish we could’ve gotten an interview with someone a part of the production of the episode or something. Obviously they’re not going to just interview some random part of the staff (although I’d find that interesting personally), but a voice actor would’ve been cool. I like how Jimmy’s answer considers Sheen a responsibility. Maybe all of Jimmy’s town-threatening inventions were just to distract Sheen from causing any real damage. We all know what kind of terror he’s capable of.

Wow, Bill Clinton! BC himself! Pretty impressive guest for an issue of Nickelodeon Magazine, I must say. ‘Course they got him talking about eating vegetables and exercising instead of something cool, though. It is good to know that being on the receiving end of the most widely-reported-on gobbling in the United States wasn’t enough to get you disqualified from having a spot in Nick Mag.

Another neato guest in theory, Tommy Tallarico is a pretty big name in the video game music space. He’s known for having a hand in loads of different soundtracks over the years and also allegedly being a pathological liar and taking credits for lots of other peoples’ work, which isn’t as nice as the former thing I listed. If you’re interested you can check out more info on the topic in this video here by hbomberguy, which basically runs through a lot of the lies Tallarico has told throughout the years, made as a response to him using legal pressure to get a sound effect he claims to have made removed from the online game Roblox. Oof.

But yeah, to give him some credit, this interview is better than ‘ole Clint’s was. At least Tallarico’s talking about the thing he gets paid for instead of vegetables and dieting. And that “What’s on Mario’s iPod” section is pretty good, but considering Tallirco’s track record it makes me question the legitimacy of his answers… I always thought Crash Bandicoot was more of a Dead Or Alive fan.

Oh god, not QZ again. I did not miss seeing this freak, I’ll tell you that. Why was anyone encouraging this guy with any more questions? He was getting kids names and addresses and we all sat idly by! I like how he sidesteps half the questions too, only giving a direct answer when it concerns protecting a kid from bullies. Maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all…

…Nah. Screw him.

If you remember these guys, you qualify for an Apple Jack’s discount!

I’m willing to admit as a kid I was more than willing to buy into whatever brands wound up on my TV as long as they had a funky mascot and even funkier commercials (and having a website that sported a suite of Flash games and cartoons certainly helped), but the hijinx of this Rastafarian cinnamon stick and goblin-looking apple particularly stick out to me as some rather memorable marketing. I’d say chalk it up to the distinct claymation style the commercials sported (which I’m pretty sure got replaced with 3D animation at some point, which kinda stinks). I found it funny how the character known as “Bad Apple” here eventually got redeemed and just became a friendly competitor that races Cinnamon to the bowl as opposed to the villain he’s presented as here. Did the marketing team really not see from the get-go that people might have a problem with a commercial depicting cinnamon and sugar as the good guy and apples as, well, “bad”?

Still, as much as I loved the commercials, I never actually had a single bowl of Apple Jacks as a kid. Shocking, I know, but my friends told me they sucked and I remember reading one particularly nasty long-winded online review that basically said the cereal is garbage, so I stayed away. I eventually did have a bowl or two of the stuff many years later, and… they’re alright. I will agree with this comic on one thing, Apple Jacks definitely do not “taste like apples”. In fact, they don’t really taste like anything.

And that’ll do it for this edition of Nick Mag HIghlights! Thanks for sticking around, and I hope you had a fun time going through this issue with me. It had tons of fun stuff (that article on the strange and interesting instruments and that Jimmy-Timmy Power Hour comic were my personal highlights) and hopefully some of you can get more entertainment out of all those musical interviews than I did. We even got a Billy C cameo! It doesn’t get more engaging than an old president, does it?

As well, I’d like to reiterate my apology for the time it took to bring this to you all, and I’m hopeful I can pick the pace back up and rebuild my motivation now that I’ve gotten this finished. I’m looking forward to finalizing my aforementioned new Nick Mag Side Issues post, I think that’ll be pretty interesting and add a little spice of variety to the page. Guess we’ll see!

Keep on reading, and maybe listen to your favorite song while you’re at it. I’ll catch you next time!

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From Nickelodeon Magazine #118.

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Don't miss the mess when Ben Stiller hosts 2005's Kids' Choice Awards.

From Nickelodeon Magazine #110.

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Hey Arnold! comic from Nickelodeon Magazine #26.

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Nick Mag Highlights - #124 September 2006

Happy Mother’s Day everyone, and welcome back to another edition of Nick Mag Highlights! Today, we'll be checking out Issue #124, and its behind-the-scenes look at Barnyard. If you're looking for all the information you could want on the #1 animated movie of 2006, I'm afraid you're out of luck, because Cars is not mentioned anywhere in this issue.

(For the record, I’d watch Barnyard over Cars any day. Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius is better than both of them, though.)

Excuse the lack of pretense, but I’m ready to just dive right into this one! I think whatever I’ve got to say about the movie Barnyard is best left for when we get to the actual section about it. Most I can say for now is I certainly have more experience with its sequel series, Back at the Barnyard, which I remember Nicktoons had a downright obsession with playing at all hours of the day. Guess it was popular!

Feeling like Wild Mike tonight? You can read the full magazine here.

So the theme of the issue is print, huh? I guess they’re right: if it weren’t for print, we’d never have Nickelodeon Magazine! Not to mention I would be out of a blog!

If the war on drugs is ever revitalized and you are ever in charge of marketing material similar to this, I recommend keeping any fill-in-the blanks on your ads to a minimum. I’m certain that this box was met with more phallic doodles and Cool S’s than it was heartfelt proclamations against drugs. But since I’m a little more mature than that, I’ll play along.

There. I don’t drink because I know if the Aaahh!!! Real Monsters characters were real they’d be disappointed in me for it. Krumm told me that in a dream once.

Man, big things were happening in the world of Nickelodeon this year! Avatar: The Last Airbender was still riding high, Barnyard and Nacho Libre were in theaters, and we saw the premiere of Mr. Meaty (plus The Jimmy-Timmy Power Hour 2 and 3, but those aren’t in this issue)! All equally powerful stuff, and no, that’s not up for debate. 

Feel free to also note the fanmail, featuring all of the grave errors Nickelodeon Magazine got caught perpetuating in their previous issues, just like every other issue’s fanmail. Yep, nothing gets by these kids! I appreciate the crew was always willing to own up to their mistakes, but did they never get, y’know, drawings in the mail instead? Something like that? Younger me would’ve preferred those instead of reminding me the team behind Nickelodeon Magazine was only human, susceptible to making errors like anyone else. These guys made SpongeBob*! How could they ever be wrong!?

*Incorrect.

A nice surprise to see Yin Yang Yo!. I remember being obsessed with this show for a short time back when it was new on Toon Disney. Couldn’t tell you why since I don’t remember a lick of it now. I’m only mentioning it because of that little leaflet you might have noticed that’s very obviously obscuring the page…

Yeah! Turns out there’s a whole 6 page comic in here, just for this ad. That’s genuinely a really cool idea, and I can’t imagine it was cheap to print something like this. Still doesn’t exactly remind me why I like the show, per se (this writing is not for me), but I can respect some cool marketing when I see it.

Pretty star-studded Celeb Page this time around, I actually recognize everyone here! And the rather delicately generic questions being asked have just reminded me that this is a back-to-school issue. It was September after all, so I guess the “print” theme is a little more appropriate than I thought. 

If summer vacation is still relevant to the life of anyone reading this, do take a second to appreciate that the season has only just begun. Because, truly, there is no greater feeling I know than experiencing the advent of a breathtakingly liberating summer vacatio- hey! Bruce Willis is wearing an Over The Hedge hat in that picture! Cool!

Confusing little bit of cross-promotion here, if only due to the fact this Avatar: The Last Airbender-themed ad doesn’t actually use any Avatar terminology, or mention anything from the show really. Not willing to catch flying french fries with your mouth? Then sorry, you’re definitely a fire… kind of… guy. Legally we cannot call you a bender.

Other notable points about this Burger King ad: - Isn’t the name “The Extinguisher” way more fitting for a water-user than a fire-user? I think they may have mixed up the arrows there. - For some reason this 2006 ad is using a pristine hand puppet of their King mascot from the 1970’s. - Doesn’t have any picture of the advertised toys. Wonder if they were any good.

Bet you’ve never seen a full-page ad for one flash game before, huh? And neither have I, I think! I’m pretty sure this was still while Nickelodeon was trying to sell games through their “Nick Cash” system, where you could purchase computer games and digital items (for games like Neopets, when Viacom still owned it) via their online storefront Nick Arcade (not to be confused with the ‘90s game show of the same name). So yeah, if they were planning on making sales off of this, I guess I understand the big-time marketing.

I really like that you’re supposed to clip out the three tips they give you. Do the editors really think it’s that cumbersome to open up a magazine when you want to read something?

Awesome two-page spread of art from James “Jimmy” Yamasaki, who’s done tons of great freelance art for a wide variety of different magazines. If you want to take a look, he’s posted lots of his work on his Instagram.

Even if the activity is a little shallow, it’s nice to see something here that’s giving books a shoutout. With all the aggressive marketing these issues had for all the latest movies and TV shows, it’s still good to remind kids that literature is worth your time too.

Am I reading a little too deep into this? Maybe, but I think that means the activity is working.

Hey, this is pretty cool! And fairly educational at that. I could see this genuinely being useful for any kid looking to make their own comics, and font choice is a pretty important aspect you may not think about at first, especially when you’re younger. A fair bit of kids probably skipped this section, but hopefully it was helpful for someone. 

For some reason, Disney’s best idea for advertising their upcoming DVD releases was door hangers. I distinctly remember there being Lilo & Stitch 2 and Tarzan II-themed ads with the same gimmick, and I don’t get it. I guess it’s a way to increase the ad’s lifespan? Kids get to cut it out, and keep it hanging on their door knob for a couple days before their parents throw it away, so I guess everyone wins right? Well sorry Disney, my childhood bedroom didn’t even have a door knob. And guess who didn’t watch Brother Bear 2 either?

Another issue, another Comic Book. This time with an awesomely done cover by artist Souther Salazar (they’ve got tons of other colorful and creative work on their official website). Nice to see Impy make the front page in the top left there, too.

Alright before we get into it, I quickly want to talk about this. Did you know that some of the style guides (official documents that outline how a design should be represented) for different pieces of SpongeBob merchandise are available on the Internet Archive? 

I’ll give an example: see that yellow shirt on the top right, with the punk-looking SpongeBob and electric guitars? That shirt was just one part of a series of punk-themed SpongeBob SquarePants merch, and the people designing that series had to refer back to this style guide to make sure everything in the series looked consistent. It’s really cool because those guides often include all of the official illustrations that were used in the merchandise in high quality, alongside stuff like official logos and fonts.

Here’s a list of all the SpongeBob-themed style guides I could find on the archive:

Punk Art Guide

Icon Art Guide (Has anyone seen this art used for any merch? I haven’t and I’m really curious.)

SketchBob Art Guide

St. Patrick’s Day Art Supplement

Fall 2004 Apparel Guide

Bedtime Style Guide

The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie Style Guide

10th Anniversary Style Guide (The longest one, containing tons of official art, designs, and backgrounds)

The SpongeBob SquarePants Toolkit 2002

Bonus:

The SpongeBob SquarePants Sculpting Guide (contains 2D and 3D turnarounds of most of the main characters)

The Ren & Stimpy Show Style Guide

The Fairly OddParents Illustrator Guidelines

I could totally be alone in finding these so interesting, but hey, if you’re a fan of these characters, they might be nice to hold onto.

I may not have been much of an Avatar: The Last Airbender fan growing up, but I’ll be the first one to admit it’s one of Nickelodeon’s best-looking and well-animated shows. Seriously, some of those action scenes in particular were near movie-quality. 

This comic definitely keeps up the trend of great visuals, which shouldn’t come as a surprise considering the team behind it. Pencils and inks were done by Joaquim Dos Santos, who did storyboards and directing duties for seasons two and three of the show, and is currently co-directing Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and its sequel(!). Similarly, the colors were done by a long-time crewmember of the show, Hye-Jung Kim. Great stuff all around.

Well, this is unexpected! I know the Moomin series is popular with a lot of people, so it’s really cool to see it featured in the magazine here. I’m not really familiar myself, but I might have to check out more! This is as pleasant as it is funny.

Now, I don’t usually bring up the “Gag Station” pages in these retrospectives. It’s not on purpose, I just haven’t usually got much to say, but this time I actually wanted to point out the… oh… uh, what is that down there, is that another…?

Oh, it’s another one of these pull-out mini comics, like the YinYangYo! thing from earlier. Except this time with, y’know, Walmart mascots. Yeah, it’s a little less impressive when it’s done a second time, and with Walmart mascots I’ve never heard of before, and when it’s mostly just made up of pictures of clothes.

Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah.

The guy who made this, Johnny Ryan, went on to co-create Pig Goat Banana Cricket for Nickelodeon in 2015. Do with that what you will.

Here’s an odd piece of early 2000’s trivia: the ESRB had ads for itself! And not just in print either, but full on TV commercials. Those black-and-white letters were no longer content to sit idly by on the bottom left corners of the game cases; they were ready to make themselves known. In regards to print ads, there’s way more than just this one, and they all had their own characters and stories informing you why content ratings are just the bee’s knees. What I find most interesting about them is that they were made in collaboration with the artists behind Penny Arcade, a video game-themed webcomic that’s been running since 1998. Apparently in 2018, the ESRB and the Penny Arcade team worked together again to update the ads, but I’ve never seen one of these new ones in the wild. Hopefully we can get these revitalized before the next Mortal Kombat game. Don't want to risk another fiasco.

I think this section on unique books is pretty cool, I only wish the magazine team felt the same! Seriously, are we filling the story’s extra space with ads, or the other way around?

But yeah, pretty cool seeing both the smallest and largest books on Earth, even if those titles have probably been usurped by now. I was also quite curious about Shelley Jackson’s “Skin” project mentioned in the bottom right, and if you're just as curious, it was indeed finished in 2011 with a video featuring the full story and all its participants here.

Oh, and if you get a chance, that Voynich Manuscript thing they mention is available on Yale’s website. Those historians dudes are still looking for someone to make heads or tails of that thing. I think they might just be lazy, if you ask me.

Yep, I still love these calendars. I have to ask though, what’s so “pear” about September? I thought August was the start of pear season.

Also, wow, there’s a whole Wizard of Oz-themed festival in Chesterton, Indiana? I wonder what that’s like…

…

Only took us the whole issue, but we’re finally here at Barnyard! Or, what I’m just now realizing it should have been called, Funny Farm. Interestingly, the film had already been out for a month by the time they did this promotion, but maybe Kevin James was sick last month, I dunno. They’re really stretching for the questions here too, I mean c’mon, who cares if Kevin James likes the sounds of cowbells? I want to hear more about his… udder?

Good lord, they showed this to children…

Anyway, I personally didn’t see the movie when it came out, but like I said, they played Back at the Barnyard damn near constantly. I thought that show must’ve had a million episodes with how often Nickelodeon showed it off. 

I did eventually get around to watching the film, and I’m at least glad to know I wasn’t missing out on much. It’s not a particularly good film, and while it may have come from many of the same people that brought us Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (including having the same creator, Steve Oedekerk), Barnyard lacks much of the imagination and charm that made that film so compelling. I wanted all of Jimmy’s inventions as a kid, but I can’t say I ever wanted to be a cow. 

Honestly, the most value Barnyard holds for me now is that it comes from that era of 3D animation I hold a fair bit of nostalgia for, where it was competent, but still ugly. Right next to films like Jimmy Neutron and Ice Age.

Lego Star Wars II! Clear off your calendars everyone, because I guarantee there’s nothing more important going on the day this game releases in the US. Nope, nothing. C’mon, you can make a sexy slave Yoda!

Well that sure was a Mother’s Day Edition of Nick Mag Highlights, was it not? Maybe I’ll think of a way to connect the holiday and Barnyard while I’m writing this outro*.

Thank you all for joining me, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Until next time, keep on reading.

*…Nope! Better luck next year.