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Exclusive Infographic: Which ’90s Nickelodeon Character Are You?

By Jennifer Lewis on

If we’ve learned anything from the Internet, it’s that a lot of us share a mutual longing for the beloved ’90s Nickelodeon of our childhood. They just don’t make kids’ TV shows like they used to, eh? Well, we already brought you illustrated flowcharts revealing your secret inner one-hit wonder and your summer 2012 superhero alter ego, and now it’s time to answer to another crucial question: Which ’90s Nickelodeon character are you? We know you’ve just been dying to figure it out for the past couple decades. Go ahead and discover your kids’ show doppelgänger after the jump, or else you’re in for an awful waffle. … Read More

Television

What Our Favorite Kids TV Show Characters Taught Us About Fashion

By Heba Hasan on

Mister Rogers was so influential to many of us in childhood that we weren’t the least bit shocked when we discovered that one of Fred Rogers’ signature cardigans is now included in the Smithsonian Institution’s permanent collection. But an interesting post on the Smithsonian’s website about what Mister Rogers taught us about fashion made us think about how our favorite childhood TV characters influenced our sartorial outlook. After the jump, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite stars from our youth to take a look at the way their style lessons live on today.     … Read More

Television

The Best Male/Female Friendships on TV

By Victoria McNally on

Is anyone else totally sick of the Harry Met Sally lameness that rears its ugly head in every single television show where heterosexual characters of the opposite gender hang out together? The New York Times certainly is, judging by their recent op-ed about platonic relationships in pop culture, but that hasn’t stopped the entertainment industry from constantly turning friends into lovers. In fact, they’re so common that they’re starting to make us long for more tension-free guy-on-girl friendships. These relationships are few and far between, but they’re out there, and we’ve got a list of our favorite examples on TV. Tell us yours in the comments. … Read More

Television

Matchmaking for TV Teens: 9 Fictional Couples We’d Like to See

By Jennifer Lewis on

Is your boyfriend in love with his cousin? Are you in love with your neighbor? Is your neighbor in love with a jerk? Are you a cartoon? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you might be a lovelorn teenage character on a TV series. When we brought you our favorite ’90s teen power couples, we neglected to mention the best friends, classmates, ex-lovers, and siblings of these perfect couples — the characters who, more often than not, are majorly lacking in the love department. This phenomenon is typically blamed on awkwardness, fickleness, or ugly duckling syndrome, but what if these misfits’ true TV match is just on another series? With Valentine’s Day less than a month away, we’re pairing lonely teenage TV characters with other lonely TV characters. Some are from current shows, others are from yesteryear, but all deserve a little more love than they receive. Check out the matches we’ve made after the jump, then hit the comments to recommend others. It’s pretty fun. … Read More

Pop Culture

FlavMD: Diagnosing 10 Quirky Kids’ Characters

By Jennifer Lewis on

Have you ever wondered if The Count’s extreme affinity for counting stems from a numeral-based neurological condition? Or if Belle from Beauty and the Beast really just had Stockholm Syndrome? Sometimes, kids’ film and TV characters are just plain diagnosable.  Not in a bad way — just in a way that, if these characters existed in real life, their quirkiest qualities might be explained by a few fascinating syndromes and conditions that most of us never knew existed. We decided to channel our inner Lucy van Pelt, check out a few quirky characters’ symptoms, and lightheartedly diagnose them with some of the world’s most peculiar conditions. Read on for some foreign accents, sun-sneezes, and blue people; the doctor is in. … Read More

News

The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

By Caroline Stanley on

1. The Washington Monument — along with the 100-foot radius around it — has been shut down indefinitely after yesterday’s earthquake caused structural damage “at the very, very top” of the structure. [via Gizmodo]

2. A soul singer named Syl Johnson is planning to take legal action against Kanye West and Jay-Z for… Read More

Television

The Best Besties in Sitcom History

By Christine Jordan on

Sitcoms aren’t shy about their underlying formula: take a protagonist who’s thoroughly average in every way, give her a colorful best friend, and set their pun-laden exchanges to a laugh track. Not all shows sink to those depths of formulaic cheesiness, but even the greatest ones know it’s hard to misstep with the one-two punch of a pair of strong characters made even better by the depth of their friendship. After the jump, check out our favorite sitcom besties and be sure to chime in with the the ones we missed in the comments. … Read More

Television

Why Resurrecting ’90s Nickelodeon Is a Bad Idea: A Polemic

By Christine Jordan on

There are some opinions that are so unpopular to express that they’re essentially one-way tickets to social exile. Hating baby animals, for one. Wishing cookies were never invented. Thinking Gigli is a good movie. Today, though, I bite my tongue no longer on one of the big ones.

After the announcement that Nickelodeon is resurrecting All That, The Amanda Show, and a few other classics for late-night reruns, I’m coming out with my true feelings: the celebratory orgy for this revival is misguided. Nineties Nickelodeon shows were good fun and all, but bringing them back could destroy the value they have left for the current, 20-something generation of couch potatoes. After the jump, check out three key reasons why resurrecting ’90s Nick is a bad idea, and feel free to relieve your daily tomato-pelting urges in the comments. … Read More

Television

‘Clarissa Explains It All’ Characters: Where Are They Now?

By Judy Berman on

For a show that’s been off the air for over 15 years, Clarissa Explains It All has sure been in the news a lot this past week. First, the pilot for the long-lost spin-off Clarissa Now surfaced. Then, TeenNick announced that it will begin rerunning old favorites, including Clarissa, in a new late-night block called The ’90s Are All That. All the nostalgia got us wondering: What ever happened to Clarissa Darling, her friends, and her family? Well, readers, we did some good, old-fashioned reporting, and the results of our investigation are after the jump. … Read More

News

The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

By Caroline Stanley on

1. This is the most exciting news we’ve read in a while: Starting this fall Nickelodeon will air old episodes of shows like Rugrats, Kenan & Kel, Pete & Pete, The Amanda Bynes Show, All That, and Clarissa Explains It All in a new midnight-to-2 am programming block dubbed “The ’90s Are All That.” [via… Read More