Rachael Hughes
Growing up in the early 2000s was blissful – a time when social media was laying dormant and we were ignorant to the world of Instagram. Blissful, aside from the great debate that plagues children of the y2k era. Team Nickelodeon or Team Disney?
Both channels were the pillars of our childhood. Both channels offered great entertainment. Yet, to be a Nickelodeon child AND a Disney child wasn’t an option. It’s a choice that has shaped Gen Z as we know it today.
Let’s dissect the abundance of TV shows and films that each had to offer.
Disney TV
Disney Channel offered us so much; looking back at the archives fills me with nostalgia.
Airing in 2001, Lizzie McGuire became the trailblazer for quintessential Disney Channel. It set the tone for the shows that were to grace our screens and bless our childhoods.
Following on from the triumph of Lizzie McGuire was That’s So Raven. That’s So Raven had a cultural impact on Disney Channel, being the first Disney show to run beyond the 65-episode limit. It followed protagonist and fashion icon Raven Symone, as she navigated teen-hood with psychic abilities. Bringing fashion inspiration and iconic lines, I spent a large part of my childhood wearing purple fur-lined jackets and screaming “Ya Nasty!” through the playground.
In 2002, crime-fighting spy Kim Possible bounced onto Disney Channel, along with her clumsy sidekick Ron Stoppable and his naked mole rat Rufus. Transgressing feminine boundaries for 4 seasons, Kim Possible deserves a place in Disney’s hall of fame.
The Suite Life of Zak & Cody is the epitome of nostalgia for me – at 22, I appreciate the scriptwriting and comedy more than I did at 7. It also gave us the Spouse brothers, Ashley Tisdale and Brenda Song (and Esteban Julio Ricardo Montoya de la Rosa Ramírez) who have had a lasting impact on TV and film.
Wizards of Waverly Place shared many of the archetypal traits of a successful Disney sitcom; a female protagonist accompanied by a female best-friend, with unruly brothers and a high school setting. What made WOWP different was the magical element. Before the Wingardium Leviosa of Hogwarts, it was Commakus Pancakus which conjured up a stack of American pancakes on the spot.
We cannot discuss classic, quintessential Disney Channel without mentioning global superstar-come-high school teen Hannah Montana. When Hannah revealed herself to the world as Miley, my jaw touched the floor and I forced my parents to drive to Toys-R-Us where I could bag myself an itchy, blonde wig, purple netted gloves and microphone. Its success launched Miley Cyrus into stardom, as well as a 2009 movie production.
It’s also necessary to commend Disney Channel on their crossover episodes; entering the multiverse where Raven Symone and Hannah Montana were guests at the Tipton Hotel, and the actual Hips Don’t Lie Shakira guest starred on Wizards of Waverly Place. When the world was celebrating the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, I was celebrating the union of the Disney stars through the Disney Channel Games.
Disney Films
Disney Channel was home to a myriad of original films, which played a pivotal role in my childhood. The Cheetah Girls (2003) and its sequels (2006;2008) starred Raven-Symone, Adrienne Bailon, Sabrina Bryan and Kiely Williams, and followed the four-member girl group from Manhattan as they fought to become a global sensation.
The triumph of the Lizzie McGuire series prompted the release of the Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003), which is now streaming on Netflix.
In 2006, the High School Musical franchise was born. Although guilty for setting unrealistic standards of high school – flash mobbing on the tables of the canteen is actually socially unacceptable, unfortunately – as a naïve 8 year old girl, it was the modern day Romeo and Juliet as we witnessed the romance develop between dreamy jock Troy Bolton and mathlete Gabriella Montez.
As we grieved the graduation of High School Musical, Disney Channel gave us Camp Rock (2008), and Camp Rock: The Final Jam (2010). No longer did we yearn to be students at East High; we yearned to attend summer camp in the American wilderness with the Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato.
Honourable movie mentions include Starstruck (2010), and Jump In (2007) starring High School Musical’s Corbin Bleu.
Nickelodeon TV
On the other side of the spectrum was Nickelodeon. The network of the orange, slime splatter, Nickelodeon also went through a golden age of TV during the early 2000s. From animated-classics to quirky sitcoms, it’s undeniable that Nick was a perfect network for kids.
Going back to 1996, we had Kenan & Kel. The chemistry between Kenan & Kel was contagious; from a young age, we were exposed to real, LOL comedy through Kenan & Kel. It was unlike anything on Disney, giving Nickelodeon a superiority complex.
In 2005, Jamie Lynn-Spears shot to fame in Zoey 101 as title character Zoey Brooks. Zoey 101 was one of the most iconic TV shows of the y2k era. Pacific Coast Academy made boarding school desirable. And the fashion? Undeniably iconic. Zoey and Chase are the friends-to-lovers dream, and scriptwriting was the perfect level of cringe.
Nickelodeon gifted us with comedy sketch show The Amanda Show in 1999, featuring none other than Amanda Bynes, Drake Bell and Josh Peck. Following its success, Drake Bell and Josh Peck landed their own show in 2004: Drake & Josh. We followed the lives of the newfound step brothers as they rivalled each other, with completely opposite personalities.
Actors within the Nickelodeon bubble don’t tend to stray away from said bubble; we were also introduced to Miranda Cosgrove via Drake & Josh as she played the role of Megan, the conniving younger sister. The show concluded in 2007, yet Miranda Cosgrove remained on our screens as Carly Shay in iCarly. Accompanied by her two best friends, Sam and Freddie, the trio created a chaotically addictive online internet show. iCarly tapped into the era of YouTube; the OG influencer. Exploring themes of friendships and adolescent relationships, iCarly had me yearning for a Pear phone… yes, a Pear phone. Was Nickelodeon guilty for fuelling the social media pandemic? Because Victorious, starring Victoria Justice, Ariana Grande and Liz Gillies, also made the Pear phone desirable. iCarly and Victorious were both tapping into the technology era, airing the late noughties to early 2010s. Nevertheless, it attempted to authenticate the role of technology in the lives of teens which isn’t necessarily a negative.
Nickelodeon was home to animations such as The Rugrats, Jimmy Neutron and Fairly Odd Parents. Fairly Odd Parents was an animation centred around Timmy Turner and his two fairy godparents Cosmo and Wanda – aestheticizing the green and pink colour combo – who dissolve Timmy’s everyday problems. The theme to Fairly Odd Parents is ingrained into my brain; it had the aesthetics, the narrative arch and catchy theme so it really hits the nail on the kids TV head.
Nickelodeon Films
Nickelodeon was also a powerhouse within the film industry. Somehow, we’ve gotten this far without mentioning SpongeBob – the face of Nickelodeon. It goes without saying that SpongeBob has had a major cultural impact, fuelled by the release of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie in 2004. I don’t know about anyone else, but I have vivid memories of watching The SpongeBob Movie, with the ‘Goofy Goober’ song being at the forefront of my mind. Is this because I was capitalism’s dream child, investing in the multiple SpongeBob Nintendo games? Absolutely. It feels like a fever dream.
Where Disney had The Jonas Brothers, Nickelodeon had The Naked Brothers Band who featured in their own film in 2005. This was, of course, before the emergence of Big Time Rush, yet another fangirls fantasy.
In typical Drake & Josh fashion, the stepbrothers find themselves tangled in trouble, in the 2006 film Drake & Josh Go to Hollywood. Like the series, Drake & Josh Go to Hollywood (2006) was a sensation, racking up 5.4 million viewers; the highest rated program on cable within that week.
The Kids Choice Awards (KCA’s) is an annual awards ceremony hosted by Nickelodeon, honouring the year’s greatest TV shows, films, music and sport. The KCA’s has been running for 35 years, inviting the industry’s best-known stars onto the orange carpet. It was my childhood dream, sitting in my Groovy Chick bedroom in Liverpool, to attend the KCAs and experience getting slimed by Katy Perry in her California Gurls candyfloss pink wig. No where else would you see Taylor Lautner and Justin Bieber get drowned in a bucket of green slime. Iconic.
The Bottom Line
No adult feeling is comparable to that of coming home from school, grabbing a snack and tuning into Disney Channel or Nickelodeon to watch your favourite childhood TV show. But. personally, I was a Disney Channel girl. Hannah Montana, Raven Symone and Lizzie McGuire were my muse; I catch a glimpse of them as a 22 year-old and my inner child feels seen. That being said, Nickelodeon of the late 2000s also had me in a chokehold and deserves to be remembered with that same nostalgia… I wanted to be Tori Vega. I still want to be Tori Vega.
Featured image courtesy of Ksenia Chernaya on Pexels. No changes were made to this image. Image license found here.
What? No Cartoon Network?