On Nickelodeon, '90s nostalgia

For a contingent of Americans born between 1970 and 1992, Monday night is going to be a childhood fantasy fulfilled. Starting at midnight, Nickelodeon is digging into the archives and airing four classic shows in a block of neatly packaged programming: The '90s Are All That.

Go ahead and watch a promo, the one with Kenan Thompson sitting on that bright, orange sofa. Yes, he is on the Snick couch. The SNICK couch.

"The good old Snick couch!" Thompson is as excited as you are. "That brought back so many memories for me, immediately."

The sitcom Kenan and Kel will air alongside sketch comedy show All That, Clarissa Explains It All, Nick's first live action comedy, and the animated series Doug, four of Nickelodeon's most iconic shows from the 1990s. Obsessives can also sign on to The90sAreAllThat.com to connect with other fans, access exclusive content and lobby for beloved shows they want to see on air.

The block began to take shape last summer, when a bunch of young Nickelodeon interns did a presentation for Nick executives in which they said: "bringing back classic Nickelodeon is a real digital opportunity."

"When the numbers went from 9 million Facebook fans to 15 million fans, we said, 'This is more than a digital opportunity. This is a TV opportunity," said Cyma Zarghami, president of Nickelodeon, citing the multiple sites viewers created demanding the return of these old shows. "We're hoping to make it very interactive. . . . Part of the goal is letting people tell us what they want."

Fans love '90s Nick more than Kel loves orange soda. But why?

Nickelodeon started out as the kind of weird, wacky channel kids would have dreamed up for themselves, right down to the orange SPLAT of a logo. Kids don't want squeaky clean. Kids want to be slimed. Kids want pies to the face. Kids want to see other kids being kids. And Nickelodeon was the place that provided it.

Brian Robbins was the writer and creator of All That, a Saturday Night Live-style show that launched the careers of Thompson, Amanda Bynes and Nick Cannon. "There was really nothing like it on television," said Robbins. "The show had a really urban, pop flavor. Everything up to that point was very soft, nice and sweet - very cookie cutter. This was a very irreverent show.

But those kids who spent Saturday nights watching Snick are in their 20s and 30s now; isn't it time to put away childish things? What is a devoted Friday Night Lights fan going to get out of Double Dare?

It is exactly because these fans are "too old" for these shows that this programming is so popular. This is television that's not really about television. Turn on TeenNick and you get to do the time warp back to a carefree childhood.

Shawn Robare, a 34-year-old from Atlanta launched his site, Brandedinthe80s.com, in 2000, when he was in his early 20s. The site revisits all the pop culture from Robare's childhood: the songs, the comics, the television shows. "I had just married my wife. I was giving up a lot of stuff about being a teenager," Robare said. "As soon as I started having those responsibilities, I wanted to become a kid again."

Hillary Buckholtz, a 31-year-old D.C. area native, produces a tumblr blog called "I'm Remembering," an online nostalgia-fest for the toys, games and movies she loved growing up. The blog was sparked by her way of coping with stress at work, which was to Google image things from her childhood.

"It made me feel soothed." she said. "Becoming an adult is stressful. Having a job is stressful. Being reminded of something sublime, it lowered my blood pressure."