Young contestants on the game show Double Dare compete for prizes by tossing clumps of mashed potatoes at one another, rummaging through huge pizzas and plunging down a sundae slide into a vat of whipped cream. Underage comics on You Can't Do That on Television assault one another with gag lines rather than food, but get drenched with a bucket of green slime every time they utter the phrase "I don't know." The action on Kids' Court is only slightly more decorous. On one show a youngster stood accused of taking his brother's water pistol and hiding it in the oven, where it melted. To help re-create the crime, the TV defendant grabbed a replica of the gun and raced around the studio squirting the audience.
We are a long way from Mr. Rogers' neighborhood here, but antics like these have helped make Nickelodeon the hot address in children's TV. Launched in 1979, the cable channel for children is now seen in 41 million homes, double the number of five years ago. Ratings, among the highest of all basic-cable services, are up 12% from last year. Along with its long-running show for preschoolers, Pinwheel, and a diet of cartoons and vintage reruns (Lassie, Dennis the Menace), the channel is steadily boosting its slate of original programming aimed at older youngsters. The most successful, Double Dare, has become a hit in syndication and has spawned several imitators. Nickelodeon's success with live-action children's fare has even encouraged the networks to try out some new formats this fall in the Saturday-morning cartoon ghetto.
But Nickelodeon has done more than just come up with a winning formula; it has found a distinctive voice. Nickelodeon shows are high-spirited without being silly, intelligent but not patronizing. They respect both kids' sophistication and their sense of fun. "We're not here to change kids or increase their reading scores," says Geraldine Laybourne, a former grade- , school teacher who is Nickelodeon's general manager. "We think it's pretty tough being a kid today. They're growing up in households where most have a single parent or both parents work. We ought to be a place where they can just relax, where kids can just be kids."
What Nickelodeon has recognized, first of all, is that much of what makes kids kids is television. Nearly all the shows Nickelodeon has created are junior versions of adult programs. You Can't Do That on Television is a Laugh- In-like potpourri of sketches, blackouts and one-liners. Nick Rocks is a little-league MTV, and Don't Just Sit There is a talk show geared to and hosted by youngsters. The opening of Kids' Court slyly satirizes TV courtroom shows: two young "litigants" face the camera in dramatic closeup and state their beefs, then whirl and burst into the courtroom-studio to the cheers of an audience. Take that, Judge Wapner.