The iCarly reboot: What's really going on?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/10/entertainment/icarly-reboot-trnd/index.html

This is old news at this point, but yes, iCarly is another show in a long line of shows over the past number of months to get cleared for a reboot. It will begin airing on Paramount+ next year, with Miranda Cosgrove, Nathan Kress, and Jerry Trainor reprising their roles. Jay Kogen (former Simpsons writer, but has since went on to work for a variety of shows) will serve as a producer.

When I first found out about this reboot, I really didn't know what to say. But I can tell you that I wasn't happy or excited or interested. I was confused and irritated more than anything else. I felt like this was another show that didn't need to come back, because I don't know what else you can do with the iCarly characters that the original show didn't touch on. From Kogen's tweet, it looks like the show will be for an older audience, which is the only way that a reboot like this can sustain itself. But considering all the other shows that have been rebooted already, and the shows that are going to return in the months to come, this isn't something I have high expectations for. Or any expectations, really.

Let me put this in perspective: Last month, the Animaniacs reboot began airing on Hulu, and the Saved by the Bell reboot started airing on Peacock. Since the announcement of the iCarly reboot, I've read about a Firefly reboot, a Night Court reboot, and a Behind the Music reboot. There is a remake of Revenge of the Nerds on the slate, it was mentioned by Flex Alexander that he has written a script for a potential One on One reboot, and that doesn't even go into the reboots that have been in the works for a while like Rugrats and Frasier. We're living in an era of entertainment where the current trend is to take something popular from the past, and bring it back in a different form which is almost guaranteed to pale in comparison to the original version. This is the era of the reboot, and it shows no signs of slowing down.

I'm just trying to understand why this trend exploded the way it did. This is really only something that started picking up steam in the late 2010s. Before that, I don't think Hollywood was so eager to bring back existing properties like this. Think about the shows that could have returned years ago, but the pitches were shot down because networks were uninterested in digging up the past. Then an actor from one of those old shows dies, usually an actor that was part of the main cast and an integral part of the show's success. Fast forward a decade or so later, and the show gets a reboot without that particular actor, so you're not even getting the show you remember. You're automatically getting an inferior version before you even see a trailer. Then the show has to learn how to navigate through our current era, despite the fact that a lot of the show's success and quality came from the specific era it came from. It has to modernize itself enough to not alienate new viewers, but also cannot be unrecognizable from the old show because the target audience is people who grew up with the original. It's like that joke in the first episode of the Animaniacs reboot where they have to really think about what their first lines should be, except it's every show that has to think about it now. Over and over and over again.

Back in 2012/2013, I remember hearing about the idea of Girl Meets World. I thought it was really interesting that a show from the past was going to return in a completely new form. Of course, Girl Meets World was an entirely different show, not just Boy Meets World coming back with more episodes. Still, it was one of the shows that was part of the trend in the beginning. Then I remember hearing about Fuller House, which was a huge deal at the time. I grew up watching Full House constantly, and the reboot was something that gained a lot of attention (mostly negative, but still). It definitely felt like Fuller House was a reboot that the world in general was anticipating, not just a niche audience. And it made sense to do it because Full House was doing great numbers on Nick at Nite. This was also around the time of The X-Files returning to Fox as a revival, which I remember being a big deal as well.

Four years later, the novelty's worn off and these reboots no longer have that must-see appeal. Which means that you have to make more, at a time when people are starting to get sick of them so you can run them into the ground and move on to something else, preferably in the late 2020s.

It might sound like I hate the idea of reboots, but I don't. Some of the shows that are part of this trend are shows that I care about, like The Boondocks. I always hated the way season four turned out and I'm genuinely curious to see if the HBO Max reboot can redeem the original show's ending. There are some shows that were mistreated in their first run, and didn't get the opportunity to continue because of low ratings or constantly changing time slots. It makes sense for a show like Firefly to get a reboot, because of its huge cult following. And then there are shows like Girlfriends, which didn't even get a proper series finale because after the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike, CW decided to cut its losses and end the show early, before it could finish its eighth season. If it was announced that Girlfriends was coming back for a one-off finale or even a limited season of episodes, I would have no problem with that.

The issue I have is with the abundance of reboots. At this point, it's hard to even know which ones are genuine creative attempts and which ones are just encouraged by executives to make money. It's almost like your show is really unappealing if it hasn't been green-lit for a reboot yet. There must be something wrong with the people behind that show if they haven't gotten the call to come back for another run. 

That's why I can at least respect the creators and cast of Friends because they have no interest in making a reboot, at least at this current point in time. It's simply because they don't see the need to come back. The original show was about six young adults going through life, and a reboot would go against that idea of what the show was about. The pressure and expectations for a Friends reboot would be massive, and the people behind the show know that whatever they make will be scrutinized and picked apart for years to come. A lot of money will be invested into the project, and the cast would likely be paid at least $2 million just for one episode. As much hype as a Friends reboot would generate, everybody involved knows that it's not worth doing something that won't warrant that kind of hype.

I've said all that without even getting to my feelings about the iCarly reboot specifically. Is it going to work in 2021? I honestly don't know. My view is that the original show ended perfectly, and by 2012, it had already said everything it needed to say. You can even see it in the actors' performances that they were ready to move on. It won't even feel like the original show since Jennette McCurdy won't be a part of it. I understand that she's not in a place mentally where she can even consider doing the reboot, but that's the reason this is automatically going to be a lesser version of the iCarly we grew up with. Sam was a very important part of the dynamic, and without her, you need someone that can pick up her slack comedically. I don't know if this reboot will have anyone like that.

Regardless, I hope the reboot turns out well and doesn't affect the legacy of the original series. I may or may not watch it, but I will say this: I never thought I would be living in a world full of remakes of shows I grew up with. Makes me feel like I need some adult diapers and a cup of applesauce. 

Shows of the decade: 2011-2014 (the slow decline)

What good is a dynasty if it doesn't fall?

Seeing as how Ray had an interesting concept with his post about shows from 2009-2011, I wanted to carry it on and see where else I could go with it. Although, this will be from my personal perspective more because that's the only way it will be any fun for me. Plus, this actually gives me the opportunity to talk about something I've been putting off for a long time now. But we'll get to that later.

2011 was an interesting time for Nickelodeon and Disney Channel. Both networks were going strong with entertaining shows, and I was still a fan of both at the time, but there was a notable difference from the previous era. The elements that made up that time period were slowly disappearing or being erased entirely. This is more on the Disney Channel side of things, because Nickelodeon was still running on the same engine as before. By this time, a new generation of shows were being introduced to Disney. In just that one year, A.N.T. Farm, Jessie, and Austin & Ally all made their debuts, and they all ran for multiple seasons. Hannah Montana and The Suite Life on Deck both ended their runs, closing out a six-year period of episodes if you count The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. Demi Lovato decided not to return for the third season of Sonny with a Chance, which led to the show being retooled as So Random! and getting a 26-episode run before being cancelled. Wizards of Waverly Place was on its way out as well, with the series finale airing in early 2012.

Disney Channel was making a lot of moves during this period. It was getting rid of the past and preparing for the future by going for an almost entirely new lineup. For a while, the network was defined by its stars. Demi, Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers. By the beginning of 2012, they were all gone from the network, and Disney Channel no longer had crossover appeal. The kind of appeal that meant that shows like Family Guy and South Park were taking notice of them. Slowly but surely, the network started to decay, because some of these new shows were decent, but not as entertaining as previous shows. The acting across the board became less charming, the writing became more simplified, brighter colors were emphasized more. By the end of this period, Good Luck Charlie was the only show with any genuine humanity, and it was closing its doors also. Disney Channel was smart enough to know when to change their brand and eliminate the "superstar" mentality it had from 2009-2011, but their new mentality meant their new stars (and by extension, their new shows) wouldn't get as much traction.

Meanwhile, things looked like they were never going to get any better for Nick. iCarly, Victorious, and Big Time Rush were all huge successes, and the anchors of the network during this period. Unlike Disney Channel, which embraced change as soon as the 2010s hit, Nickelodeon didn't have the same urgency. The only new scripted shows that came out in 2011 were Bucket & Skinner's Epic Adventures, House of Anubis, and Supah Ninjas. Only House of Anubis really had much of a run worth talking about, and if you asked people who grew up with 2010s Nickelodeon what the other two shows were, they would most likely tell you they didn't even know they existed.

For a long time, Nickelodeon never had to worry about the future in terms of live-action programming. Whenever an old, long-running show closed its doors, a new show took its place. This is the same network that once had Drake & Josh, Zoey 101, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, and Unfabulous all running at the same time, all of which became successes. 2011 was another year where Nickelodeon was riding high off the strength of three shows that were not only ratings hits, but instantly memorable and entertaining in their own ways. Big Time Rush never got anywhere near the success of the Jonas Brothers or other Disney acts, but they were Nickelodeon's first real attempt to make a musical sensation, and they did a respectable job. Also, as quiet as it's kept, their music was really damn good. You don't realize it until you play back Elevate one day and you're wondering why you never cared about songs like "Show Me" and "Invisible" until now.

The point is, Nickelodeon was embracing the art of having crossover appeal when Disney Channel was beginning to abandon it, whether it was by design or not. It really seemed like the network was just going to continue having more success as the 2010s rolled on.

But then 2012 happened.

That was the year iCarly ended its run and Victorious was unceremoniously cancelled. Honestly, I don't think Nickelodeon ever recovered from losing both shows like that. While iCarly was growing stale and needed to end at some point, Victorious most likely had one or two more seasons left in it. The reasons for the show ending are still unclear. While it was Nick's decision, many theories have been put forth since 2012. The show reached the end of its required run and was never going to get more episodes to begin with. The show was appealing to teenagers and adults, but the key demographic (children) wasn't tuning in enough. Victoria Justice was trying to branch out and in the process, put the cast and crew of Victorious in a bad spot. The show was becoming more expensive to produce. I don't know the reason Nickelodeon decided to pull the plug, but they're paying for it to this day because Victorious has gained a second life on Netflix. People are watching the show like it's still running today, and it's being hailed as one of Nick's best programs.

I don't subscribe to that belief. While I've always been a fan of Victorious, and still think the first season is fantastic, the show fell off as soon as season two. There were some legitimately bad episodes in that season ("Tori Gets Stuck," "Prom Wrecker," "Tori Tortures Teacher") which makes them stick out even worse when you compare them to the good episodes ("Ice Cream for Ke$ha," "Jade Gets Crushed," "Terror on Cupcake Street," "Blooptorious"). As the show went on, it kept fluctuating between really good and really bad, and with the way season four turned out, it makes me wonder how much worse Victorious would have gotten if Nickelodeon let it continue.

Victorious was the last Dan Schneider show that was capable of being good. Before that, his track record was flawless. iCarly was a legitimately funny show for a while, which is something even I forget about. But the fact that Schneider was working on both shows at the same time led to neither of them getting the attention they really needed. It worked in the mid-2000s, but lightning didn't strike twice. The humor became broader and more shallow, scenes started dragging on, the acting performances became more exaggerated, and stories began descending into nonsensical territory. Could you imagine an episode like "Josh is Done" even being attempted in 2013? It wouldn't have, and if it had been, it would have been slowed down by corny, awkward jokes that killed the mood.

In 2013, not only did Victorious air its last episode, but so did Big Time Rush. At least that show got a proper finale. How to Rock began airing in 2012 and ended that same year, which is a shame because that show was at least decent and never got the chance to become better. Marvin Marvin had a short run also, and since Victorious was a consistent disappointment at the time, that show stood out as being infinitely better. Not even joking, I genuinely liked Marvin Marvin. I know everybody hated it, but it was nothing but ridiculous fuckery every week and I lived for it. Would I watch it now? I don't really know, but at least it gave Lucas Cruikshank something to do besides scream everything he says in a high-pitched voice.

Disney Channel wasn't in a great place in 2013, but at least it knew what it was trying to do and had an actual direction. Nickelodeon had the direction of a broken compass being used by a crack addict. I believe Ray has referred to this as the Kidocalypse. I remember shows being cancelled left and right, whether it was deserved or not. Nickelodeon was hitting the panic button more times than necessary, constantly transitioning and rebuilding. The perfect structure from 2010/2011 had crumbled completely, and in less than three years, the crossover appeal was gone completely. Nickelodeon and Disney Channel were no longer cool. They were just there for background noise.

By the end of 2013, Nick had three live-action shows holding things down: Sam & Cat, which put two characters with no chemistry together and carried none of the elements that made the original shows good. The Haunted Hathaways, which was a respectable show and at least had somewhat of a run before it got cancelled. And lastly, The Thundermans, which lasted much longer than the other two shows and was actually decent, having a little bit of that old Nickelodeon charm. A new generation was forced to come to Nick, but you have to wonder what that generation would have looked like if some of the shows were allowed to crawl before they could walk.

In 2014, Disney Channel introduced one of its most memorable shows in the last decade, and the one show that constantly tested my patience as a fan and a reviewer: Girl Meets World. As much as I talked about the many problems this show had, it was usually interesting and gave me a consistent source of material, good and bad. But I don't want to get ahead of myself here. This is for the next write-up. That same year, Nickelodeon introduced the newest member of the Schneider's Bakery family, Henry Danger. This show was interesting because it represented many things. First of all, it was a superhero show, not just a sitcom. So at least it had some unique element to it. Second, it was made entirely from scratch. What I mean is the show starred people that had never worked with Dan Schneider before. iCarly and Victorious weren't spinoffs, but they starred actresses who had already been on other Schneider shows. Even Drake & Josh had the built-in Schneider connection. So, for the first time ever, Henry Danger was a Schneider's Bakery show with no lineage to anything that came before it. Sam & Cat also ended this year (coming up short of its 40-episode order), bringing an official end to an era that had started seven years ago with iCarly.

2014 also brought us the debut of Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, & Dawn. It's okay if you don't remember that this show existed, or that it ran for four years. Sometimes, I have trouble remembering too.

The question now is, what happens in the next couple years for Nickelodeon and Disney Channel? I don't know if I want to find out, maybe Ray can do it for me.

And yeah, I know this blog literally started in 2015, but even then, I wasn't paying nearly as much attention to Nick and Disney as I did five years ago.

Are we just all stories? (and what are stories anyway?)

Happy The Year of Barbara Walters 2020s! The Year of Coronavirus and the Death of Decency, any Reason, Justification and Will to Even be Bothered to Keep on Living and the Human Race Itself Anyway so Why Bother?

This wasn't exactly the "first post of the decade" that I really had in mind. Really, I just wanted to continue with evaluating the shows of the past decade (which if I really wanted to get off my ass would've been done before the year was over) but Mike is actually working on the 2011-14 section and, spoiler alert, what he's done is brilliant and I really want him to finish up with that because he's really spot-on with that. I've also wanted to move into more Netflix reviews, since Netflix is (was?) a hotbed of tween/teen entertainment right now, not to mention Insatiable and (me completely dead set on binging) Bojack Horseman, but I didn't just want to open up a whole new decade on just another review, especially since we just got done closing out arguably the most important decade in all of human history as far as tween and teen entertainment is concerned.

Then again since I had intended to finish my lookback at the 2010s last year I guess I really don't know what kind of post I had been intending in the first place. I guess I'll go with yet another post on why this type of storytelling matters, and a general look at least as far as why the last decade wasn't just so important but the most important (beyond just television, since the lookback series is covering that in more detail).

But as to why this particular decade is the most important...let's look back at the very beginning of tween/teen entertainment....

...which is more recent than you think.

The concept of tweens/teens didn't even exist until last century at the latest, and really "tween" as a concept wasn't invented until this one, more as a response to describe just what the hell Disney Channel and Nickelodeon were marketing in the first place, incidentally. The concept of a "teenager" really grew out of a rapidly growing middle class at the beginning of the 20th century and even then, really referred to a particularly privileged type of teenager (the concept of a middle class itself was pretty brand-new and...it's hard to really define within strictly the cultural context of that particular time period and divorced from its context now. Basically, it meant your kids were actually going to school instead of demonstrating why this era also gave birth to child labor laws). Many of the things we associate as being teen and even tween entertainment - fairy tales; Dickens, Twain, Alcott and the Bronte sisters; hell even cartoons - were strictly for adults up to that time. Hell literacy among the adult population was still in at best a plurality, let alone for teens. The "Downton Abbey era" was the first where you actually did have books published specifically for teens and tweens and...well, it's more of a fucked-up era than you realize because these books were the direct immediate ancestor for the "Tijuana Bibles" of the 20s and 30s (yes the back-then equivalent of 50 Shades of Grey actually was one of the first books intended specifically for tweens. We're very literally talking about tween smut here. True story, folks). Needless to say these operations tended to be quite underground. 

And tween and teen entertainment would for the large part continue to be underground and...shockingly smutty...until the late 30s and really the end of WWII. Sure, you did have a few books written for literate (and highly privileged) teens, and yes you had children's books, but for the most part entertainment and culture as a whole existed almost exclusively in an adult world. Between child and adult, again that really wasn't a concept. Television made for an explosion of children's programming (which was still live-action - cartoons at best or worst depending on how you look at it were still about a 50/50 split adult/kid) but still, nothing tween or teen-specific. Yes, you still had adult-specific shows - I don't think The Honeymooners can really be called "family entertainment" under any real context regardless what decade it is and I think we've all seen Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble hock cigarettes by now. Really at best you had "family shows" that tweens and teens can watch along with the rest of the family.

You really have to go all the way to the 1980s to find teens (or tweens, although they really weren't marketed to as such) as an actual demo, and even then it would be a pretty slow trickle for years. In the 60s you started to have some entertainment marketed towards teens including a few books (well, one book - The Outsiders - and arguably to the close of that decade S.E. Hinton would be one of the few authors writing to teens, with her mixing it up with a good number of very much adult-demo books in the process - and really not until the mid 70s with Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War which, trust me, is way way more cynical than The Outsiders) and especially movies (Bonnie and Clyde being almost the ur-example with "New Hollywood," up to and very much including everything pre-Star Wars George Lucas did, especially American Graffiti which if anything one-upped The Outsiders). 

But nope, other than that not really anything. Aside from movies which, again, really were the vanguard of defining teens as a demo on their own - The Outsiders and The Chocolate War being adapted into movies, The Wave on TV and really an entire artistic movement, that aforementioned "New Hollywood" which again includes at least very early George Lucas. But most books were, well...pretty kiddie, to put it one way, and TV was dominated by family sitcoms and dramas outside of Saturday morning and afterschool. Even The Wonder Years...well, that was as much feeding off adult nostalgia as it was appealing to viewers the actual age of the characters (trust me I know a thing or two about adult nostalgia). In 1985 racist homophobic asshole Orson Scott Card (yes I will keep referring to him quite specifically as this until something comes along to show me he's changed) came out with Ender's Game - today it would be so totally a YA novel and even its movie adaptation(s) have been marketed as such, but back then it was just another pulp sci-fi book. 

And then Britney and N*SYNC happened.

Really, even moreso than movies, it was the music industry that was rapidly defining the teen marketing demo. Families were now giving their children, particularly tweens and teens, enough allowance to let them make regular purchases, or even just giving into their purchasing demands outright. Now all of a sudden kids 11-17 were a group that was worth bothering to market too. And I'd be remiss to forget video games, which largely pushed tweens and teens as a demo for boys. 

But I'd be equally remiss in not mentioning Nickelodeon's and Disney Channel's direct role in all this. After all, Nickelodeon started pushing kids TV "upmarket" back in the 90s and even 80s with Clarissa Explains it All, Salute Your Shorts and Hey Dude for live action and Ren and Stimpy and Rocko's Modern Life in animation. And as I mentioned, it was Disney Channel that practically invented the concept of "tween" in the first place with their blatantly obvious Clarissa Explains it All ripoff except way more boring with Lizzie McGuire and later That's So Raven and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.

But the tween and teen demos really blew up last decade, and we have the rest of media and the industry trying to inevitably play catch-up with Nickelodeon and especially Disney Channel to thank for that. Well, and Twilight and Hunger Games but not quite to the degree I think people give credit for (remember, I went to graduate school for this so I'm an expert!) Those books gave greater attention to an already defined demo and showed that it wasn't all just what had been narrowly defined up to that point (although ironically coming to dominate so thoroughly it merely changed what that narrow definition was instead of expanding upon it) but from a wider cultural standpoint it really was Nickelodeon and Disney Channel that did the heavy lifting in the 2000s, and it just leaking more into the wider culture in the 2010s.

I guess this kinda contradicts my point about the 2010s being the most important decade in tween and teen entertainment, but there is a huge distinction between doing the heavy lifting and when the fruits of that heavy lifting actually bear out, especially when much of that fruit is just a lot of people playing catch-up or just trying to join in on the cashing in. Towards the very beginning of the 2010s (or the very end of the 2000s, when Twilight and Hunger Games came out) the young adult genre really exploded as a major, dominant genre - if not the major dominant book genre. YA/teen and tween movies weren't just a niche thing that existed or even pushed for but, again, was a pretty dominant genre filling the whole spectrum of budgets and studios aside from the absolute stratosphere a superhero or major franchise sci-fi movie dictates (and even then, you can argue the MCU Spider-Man movies are pretty dang YA-ish, to say nothing of Into the Spider-Verse. Hell you had what's basically a half-assed attempt at a YA Star Wars movie with Solo). You had everything from major studios to independents pumping out YA/teen movies - some being more successful than others (to put it one way, a whole bunch just come off like the directors and/or producers were listening to Nirvana desperately trying to recapture their own teen years way too hard, way too many times). And of course Nickelodeon and Disney Channel were at their height - sure, Hannah Montana hung up her mic for the last time and High School Musical may have been so 2000s but their influence was still a major presence through the 2010s.

And that is why, through volume and numbers if nothing else, the 2010s were the most important decade for teen and tween entertainment.

Other Thoughts

 - I know I promised I'd talk about why stories matter and, umm...I definitely dropped the ball on that. I've just been watching a lot of Bojack Horseman (a lot of Bojack Horseman) and I'm just struck by what Princess Caroline says about people being just a collection of stories, or something more. But moreover, I think stories are important for conveying and capturing something that's hard to do in a single sentence, paragraph, or even entire conversation, and the show itself does a great job doing that.

And umm...I've got nothing beyond that. Which is why it's just being shoved into a paragraph in what's essentially the afterthought section.

 - speaking of which, Bojack Horseman is pretty freakin' incredible and probably the best show on Netflix period so far. I'll be writing a review of it soon but...it's not exactly perfect either God I hate Todd but it's absolutely fantastic in the exact messages and emotions it wants to convey.

 - I've also been watching Insatiable which got recently canceled and...Good God this might be the worst show on Netflix so far. Ugh. Just...wall-to-wall awful. Considering this and Sing It! I just really don't think Debby has what it takes to stay on television post-Jessie, sorry.