I Wrote A Book About the History of Nickelodeon That No One Has Ever Seen

I Wrote A Book About the History of Nickelodeon That No One Has Ever Seen

September 7th, 2020

Jerry Beck

Five years ago I spent 12 months on a special project that has never seen the light of day.

I wrote a history of Nickelodeon – for Nickelodeon – an elaborate in-house book project that was pure pleasure to research and write. It included tipped-in booklets featuring interviews with Gerry Laybourne, Herb Scannell, Fred Seibert, Vanessa Coffey, Albie Hecht, and Mary Harrington. It had all kinds of fold-outs and pop-outs, mini-comics and original posters. The graphics, the photos and art, were amazing. The actual text is pretty good too.

Don’t ask me where you can get one – I was only given one “author’s copy” (photo above) hot off the press, so I know it was published. The story I heard is that only 1000 copies were created. And outside of the interviewees and few other Nick execs at the time, no one else I know got a copy. It was never on Amazon; It was never for sale.

In fact, as I understand it, it was never intended for sale. It was created as a gift to celebrate the network’s anniversary, and to champion its talent – artists still at Nick and past creatives who contributed to building the channel. It was an effort to help garner goodwill towards Nick at a time when its fortunes were beginning to droop (the company has since bounded back). But apparently those thousand printed copies sat in a storeroom somewhere – and rumor has it they may have been destroyed. I don’t really know.

Initiated by then Nick Animation president Russell Hicks (an 18-year veteran of the company who rose through the ranks by developing the Nick’s Shorts program and who ultimately green lit The Loud House), I was contacted to join the project as a work-for-hire, to pen text that spanned the beginnings of the channel as component of Time-Warners Qube experiment in Columbus Ohio, through its earliest original live and animated programming – and all they way up to its current successes with Spongebob and Dora.

My own involvement with Nickelodeon goes back to 1994 when I was hired by Gerry Laybourne to develop animated features for Nickelodeon Movies. I’d later write two books for the company, Not Just Cartoons: Nicktoons (2007) and The Spongebob Squarepants Experience (2013) – and produced a pilot, Hornswiggle.

The same week I received my author’s copy of this book in 2016, word hit the trades that Russell had resigned his position at Nickelodeon. Management changes were afoot. I wondered if this would affect the book… and it did. Russell had written the book’s foreword and his photo adorned a full page. My guess is they didn’t want to give the book away when the person introducing it was now no longer part of the company.

I’d kept quiet about the project the past few years – but I recently came across two posts about the book (both online since 2016), both from folks involved with its production. Since this thing isn’t a secret anymore, I might as well call attention to it – even if you can’t see it. You can at least see some of the layouts and get an idea of what it looked like.

Both pieces online were posted by Struck, the design firm in Utah who pulled the book together (and from what I gathered, this was the first book this studio ever produced). This first link is by Brent Watts, one of Struck’s founders, and appears on the Medium blog. Brent is a hell of a nice guy and his company is top notch.

The second post is on Behance.net, a platform for designers. Here you’ll see more of the clever designs and layouts Struck created based on information I provided.

You Can’t Do That On Television: The Rebellious History of Nickelodeon has no ISBN number, there are no used copies on eBay, it has no historical footprint. I would assume the trickle of copies that got out to the interviewees and assorted Nick execs will eventually accrue some value, as word of this legendary tome gains more attention. All I can say is it was a joy to assemble.

I want to publicly thank Russell Hicks and Brent Watts for the opportunity to participate in this amazing project. I only wish more people could see it.

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Jerry Beck

Writer, cartoon producer and author of more than 15 books on animation history. A former studio exec with Nickelodeon and Disney; currently on the faculty at both CalArts in Valencia and Woodbury University in Burbank, California.