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Boy, Non-original shows broadcast by Nickelodeon is so old, its social security number is 1!
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This page is a list of shows that made their broadcast debut outside of Nickelodeon before eventually appearing in reruns on Nickelodeon and/or its sister channels.
Animated shows[]
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The Adventures of Tintin Produced by: Nelvana Limited and Ellipse Programmé |
| Based on the iconic European comic albums of the same name by Belgian cartoonist Georges "Hergé" Remi, this cartoon followed the adventures of a young reporter named Tintin and his Wire Fox Terrier, Snowy. Originally produced in France, this series made its US debut on HBO before appearing on Nickelodeon.
Over a decade after Nickelodeon stopped airing Tintin, Nickelodeon Movies would co-produce the 2011 motion-capture animated film adaptation. | |
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The Alvin Show Produced by: Bagdasarian Productions |
| The first animated series based on the fictional musical group of Alvin and the Chipmunks, created by Ross Bagdasarian. Each episode consisted of a cartoon starring the Chipmunks, another cartoon about a dim-witted scientist/inventor named Clyde Crashcup, and two musical segments featuring the Chipmunks.
When the show was aired on Nickelodeon in the 1994-95 season, the intro sequence was for some reason altered to have the network's name plastered everywhere, and only one of the musical segments in each episode was shown. Around the time Nickelodeon picked up reruns of the second Alvin and the Chipmunks cartoon (see below), the individual Alvin Show segments were inserted as the cartoon segments in reruns of Weinerville. | |
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Alvin and the Chipmunks Produced by: Bagdasarian Productions |
| The second animated series based on the fictional musical group created by Ross Bagdasarian.
This show's theme song, "We're the Chipmunks", would be reused as the theme song for ALVINNN!!! and the Chipmunks, which itself premiered on Nickelodeon. | |
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Animaniacs Produced by: Warner Bros. Animation and Amblin Entertainment |
| Steven Spielberg Presents Animaniacs, created by Tom Ruegger, was the second collaboration between Warner Bros. Animation and Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, after Tiny Toon Adventures. It was a variety show consisting of short skits featuring a large cast of characters, the most prominent being the Warner Brothers, Yakko and Wakko, and their sister Dot, three cartoon characters of indeterminate species supposedly created in the 1930s.
Infamously, when Nickelodeon had the rights to run the show, many of the show's jokes were often cut for time. Even worse, the show's intro sequence was shortened, with the zoom-in to the Warner Bros. Studio water tower at the beginning replaced by a shot of the show's logo breaking though the Nickelodeon logo, and the variable lines at the end of the song (which always ended in "-aney") all being replaced with "Nickeleeny", despite the obvious fact that it did not rhyme. Furthermore, 19 of the show's 99 episodes were never aired on Nickelodeon for some reason. External links | |
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Beetlejuice Produced by: Nelvana |
| Based very loosely on the 1988 Tim Burton movie of the same name. | |
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Bullwinkle's Moose-a-Rama Produced by: Jay Ward Productions |
| This show, one of the earliest cartoons produced for television, originated on ABC as Rocky and His Friends and was then retitled The Bullwinkle Show when it moved to NBC in its third season. Although Nickelodeon's syndicated reruns of the show also gave Bullwinkle top billing, it is more commonly known as The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show or The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle and Friends. | |
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Danger Mouse Produced by: Cosgrove Hall Films and Thames Television |
| Created by Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall, this British animated series starred a secret agent rodent and parodied British spy fiction, such as the Danger Man series and James Bond. Danger Mouse was notably the first fully-animated series to appear on Nickelodeon. | |
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Garfield and Friends Produced by: Film Roman Productions |
| Garfield and Friends was a Saturday morning cartoon based on the newspaper comic strip Garfield by Jim Davis. Each half-hour episode consisted of two shorts starring Garfield, with the middle short being based on U.S. Acres, Jim Davis' other, shorter-lived comic strip (known internationally as Orson's Farm). Although the show ran for a total of 121 episodes, only 73 of them, all from the show's first five seasons, were syndicated by The Program Exchange.
In August 2019, Nickelodeon's parent company, ViacomCBS, acquired Paws, Inc., the company behind Garfield and U.S. Acres. However, the acquisition did not include this show, which is instead owned by 9 Story Media Group. Garfield's entrance animation and Classy Shtick move in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl were based on the opening to Garfield and Friends. External links | |
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Heathcliff Produced by: DiC Entertainment |
| This was the second and more well-known animated series based on the newspaper comic strip of the same name, unofficially referred to as Heathcliff and the Catillac Cats to distinguish it from both the comic and the previous cartoon. Although the show, like the comic strip, stars the wise-guy orange feline of the show's title, this series was better known for the characters created for its "B" segment, officially named Cats & Co. | |
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Inspector Gadget Produced by: DiC Entertainment |
| Notably the first animated series syndicated by DIC Entertainment, this show revolved around a clumsy, dim-witted cyborg detective inspired by (and voiced by the same actor as) Maxwell Smart from Get Smart, who is sent on missions to thwart the evil plans of the terrorist organization "M.A.D.", all the while unknowingly assisted by his niece Penny and their dog, Brain.
Inspector Gadget was notable for Nickelodeon's history in that it was the first "big-name" cartoon to appear in reruns on the channel. It is one of the few shows aired on Nickelodeon that would depart to another network and then come back to Nick a few years later; it was aired on the Family Channel from 1992 to 1995 before returning to Nick in late 1996. Interestingly, after Nickelodeon stopped airing Gadget again in 2000, it moved back to the Family Channel, which by that point had become the Fox Family Channel, and ran there from 2001 to 2002. | |
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Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon Produced by: Warner Bros. Animation |
| Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon was the program on which Nickelodeon aired numerous installments of the Warner Bros. theatrical cartoon short series. Broadcasts of it typically spanned from half an hour to a full hour. Nickelodeon's Looney Tunes package consisted primarily of the series' early black-and-white shorts, and most of the color shorts produced after August 1948 (the ones produced beforehand had ended up in the ownership of Turner Broadcasting; this notably makes Looney Tunes the only cartoon series that was airing on both Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network simultaneously). The show also ran on Nick at Nite for a while, with a different intro sequence.
Since the Warner-owned Looney Tunes shorts were, at the time, also being shown in programs aired on ABC, Fox Kids, and Kids' WB!, Nickelodeon's assortment of Looney Tunes shorts tended to change every year or so. After Time Warner merged with Turner Broadcasting in 1996, Nickelodeon's Looney Tunes package gradually shifted over to Cartoon Network before finally disappearing from Nick entirely in September 1999. Looney Tunes holds the record for being on Nickelodeon the longest out of all the non-original animated shows on air on the network. Notably, the Looney Tunes characters would be seen on Nickelodeon again when the network aired reruns of Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs (both of which often featured cameos) in the early 2000s, and Space Jam in 2020. External links | |
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Men in Black: The Series Produced by: Adelaide Productions Inc. and Amblin Television |
| This animated series was loosely spun off from the 1997 science fiction film Men in Black, which itself was originally based on Lowell Cunninghman's comic series The Men in Black. | |
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Muppet Babies Produced by: Jim Henson Productions and Marvel Productions |
| An animated spin-off from The Muppet Show. Inspired by a fantasy sequence in the film The Muppets Take Manhattan, Jim Henson's Muppet Babies stars infant versions of the most prominent Muppet characters having imaginary adventures together in a nursery run by a human woman called Nanny.
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Nickelodeon's Most Wanted: Yogi Bear Produced by: Hanna-Barbera |
| Nickelodeon's Most Wanted: Yogi Bear was the umbrella title used for Nickelodeon's broadcasts of shorts originally aired on The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Yogi Bear Show, and The New Yogi Bear Show. Originally featured as the middle segment on The Huckleberry Hound Show, Yogi is an anthropomorphic bear who resides in Jellystone Park and does not conform to the rules set upon him, as he is "smarter than the average bear."
When Turner Broadcasting bought out Hanna-Barbera in 1991 and used its library as the foundation for Cartoon Network the following year, the remainder of the Yogi Bear package moved straight to the new network following the expiration of its contract with Nickelodeon (Yogi's Treasure Hunt was initially the only Yogi series on Cartoon Network). However, this wasn't the last time the character would be seen on Nickelodeon; Yogi's Great Escape and The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound (two installments of the Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10 movie series) aired on Nick in 1994, and the 2010 live-action film adaptation aired on Nick in 2017. | |
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Pinky and the Brain Produced by: Warner Bros. Animation and Amblin Entertainment |
| Steven Spielberg Presents Pinky and the Brain was a show spun off from one of the most popular segments of Animaniacs. The show focused on the exploits of a pair of genetically-engineered laboratory mice - The Brain and his dim-witted assistant, Pinky - who embark every night on elaborate schemes to take over the world, which never succeed.
Although Nickelodeon's reruns of Pinky and the Brain were generally unedited, the theme song was inexplicably altered to have the network's name literally written all over it, and three of the show's 65 episodes (as well as most of the "filler episodes" that simply compiled shorts originally from Animaniacs, which aired during the show's first season) were never aired on Nickelodeon for some reason. The show's syndication package also included the infamous sequel series, Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain, in which the mice were adopted by Elmyra Duff from Tiny Toon Adventures, but likely due to its negative reception, that series has never aired on any cable network that has aired Pinky and the Brain. External links | |
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Stickin' Around Produced by: Nelvana |
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Tiny Toon Adventures Produced by: Warner Bros. Animation and Amblin Entertainment |
| Steven Spielberg Presents Tiny Toon Adventures was the first animated series produced by Warner Bros. for television, and also their first collaboration with Amblin Entertainment. An indirect spin-off of Warner's Looney Tunes shorts, the show focused on the adventures of a group of young cartoon characters who attend a school named Acme Looniversity, where they are taught by the original Looney Tunes characters they themselves are based on.
Tiny Toon Adventures aired in reruns on Nickelodeon following its departure from Fox Kids in 1995. During its first run on Nick, the episodes were always bookended with animated bumpers depicting a group of kids going to a theater to watch the show right before it began, and then cheering after it was finished. Notably, one episode that Fox had refused to run, "Toons from the Crypt", made its broadcast premiere on Nick. After September 1999, the show's reruns then appeared on Cartoon Network for the next three years before returning to Nickelodeon on September 2, 2002. The episodes were presented no differently than before, but the shot of the WB Shield zooming out at the beginning of the intro sequence was replaced with a fade from black straight to the Tiny Toons logo. The show's direct-to-video movie, Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation, which was later split into a 4-part episode of the show itself, was also aired in its original form as an installment of Nick Flicks in 1999. External links | |
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Underdog Produced by: Total Television, Leonardo Television and Gamma Productions |
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You're on Nickelodeon, Charlie Brown Produced by: Lee Mendelson/Bill Melendez Productions |
| You're on Nickelodeon, Charlie Brown was the umbrella title used for Nickelodeon's broadcasts of the animated shows based on the newspaper comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz. The package included the majority of the animated Peanuts specials that originally ran on CBS (though one special, It's Spring Training, Charlie Brown, which had not aired on CBS and had only been released on VHS beforehand, would make its US television debut on Nick), plus the Saturday morning cartoon The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show and the educational mini-series This is America, Charlie Brown. Nickelodeon typically did not run the holiday standards A Charlie Brown Christmas, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and A Charlie Brown Thanskgiving, which remained on CBS before moving to ABC in 2001; however, the first two specials did eventually appear on Nick at Nite as part of a four-hour Peanuts marathon on February 15, 2000, aired as a tribute to Charles Schulz following his death three days earlier. Peanuts episodes and specials also aired on Nick at Nite and Nick Jr. from 1998-1999 under the title Charlie Brown.
Nickelodeon stopped airing You're on Nickelodeon, Charlie Brown in August 2000, several months after the strip's end. However, their contract to air Peanuts cartoons was not set to expire until 2004. Right before the contract ended, the Peanuts cartoons suddenly showed up again on NickToons in the early part of 2004 before disappearing from the airwaves entirely. The Peanuts characters would eventually be seen on Nickelodeon again when they aired the 2015 CGI film The Peanuts Movie throughout 2022. The main story of "Ooze News" section of the June/July 1998 issue of Nickelodeon Magazine involved an interview with Charles Schulz that also promoted You're on Nickelodeon, Charlie Brown. External links | |
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Oggy and the Cockroaches Produced by: Xilam |
| A trio of cockroaches wreck havoc and prevent Oggy, a blue cat, from having peace and tranquility. | |
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Space Goofs Produced by: Xilam |
Live-action shows[]
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Batman Produced by: Greenway Productions; 20th Century Fox |
| This superhero show starring Adam West and Burt Ward, based on the DC Comics series of the same name, was known for taking on a more comedic light than its source material.
Batman briefly aired as part of an event on Nick at Nite. It appeared during Nickelodeon's daytime schedule in its final week on the channel. | |
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Friends Produced by: Warner Bros. Studios |
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Full House Produced by: Jeff Franklin Productions, Miller-Boyett Productions, Lorimar-Telepictures (Season 1), Lorimar Television (Seasons 2-6), Warner Bros. Television (Seasons 7-8) |
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Knuckles Produced by: Paramount Pictures, Sega Sammy Group, Original Film |
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Mike & Molly Produced by: Chuck Lorre Productions and Warner Bros. Television |
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Mom Produced by: Chuck Lorre Productions and Warner Bros. Television Studios |
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The Muppet Show Produced by: Jim Henson Productions and ITC Entertainment |
| A comedy television series created by Jim Henson and starring his iconic characters, the Muppets, presented as a variety show.
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Seinfeld Produced by: Giggling Goose Productions (1989), Fred Barron Productions (1990, Season 1), West/Shapiro Productions, Castle Rock Entertainment |
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Young Sheldon Produced by: Chuck Lorre Productions and Warner Bros. Television Studios |
Preschool shows[]
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The Busy World of Richard Scarry Produced by: CINAR Films, France Animation, and Paramount Television |
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Cappelli & Company Original network: WTAE-TV |
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Franklin Produced by: Nelvana |
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Franklin and Friends Produced by: Infinite Frameworks and Nelvana |
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Kipper Produced by: Grand Slamm Children's Films and HIT Entertainment |
See also[]
- Non-original shows broadcast by NickToons
- Non-original shows broadcast by TeenNick
- Non-original shows broadcast by the Nick Jr. Channel