The green slime doused over heads on “You Can’t Do That on Television” was not as gross as you may have thought.
It was mostly just oatmeal, green food coloring and Johnson’s Baby Shampoo. An earlier version included green Jell-O.
That’s just one of the fun facts in a new book out Tuesday, “Slimed! An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age,” by upper West Sider Mathew Klickstein.
Launched in 1979, before niche broadcasting was popular, Nickelodeon became known as the cable channel where kids ruled. And fans now in their 30s and late 20s will remember shows from the network’s early years like “Clarissa Explains It All,” “Salute Your Shorts,” “Ren & Stimpy,” “The Adventures of Pete & Pete,” “Hey Dude,” “All That” and "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" It’s those years that Klickstein focused on, talking to more than 250 subjects to compile Nick’s history.
“I first started concentrating on the early days for a very simple reason — that was the era that I watched,” says Klickstein, 31. “When I started investigating, I found there was indeed this golden era that existed from about 1983 to about 1995, solely because of the people who were running the channel at that time.”
The network was doing most of its own original productions. With limited oversight at the scrappy channel, creativity bloomed. “They were really doing this DIY, fun thing,” Klickstein says. The result was shows like “You Can’t Do That on Television,” “Roundhouse,” “Rugrats” and “Welcome Freshmen.”
Madcap activities, romances and creative dustups ensued between the kid actors, writers and producers, and animators. Klickstein captures their back-and-forth accounts in his book.
There’s also plenty of gossip with so many precocious personalities — and their parents. Joe O’Connor, who played the father on “Clarissa Explains It All,” calls the mother of the sitcom’s star, Melissa Joan Hart, a “show mom.” And David Rhoden, who played Merv on “Welcome Freshmen,” reveals his “total crush” on Hart. Of their two dates, he says, “She was a sweetheart and a little shyer than people might think.”
Adam Reid of “You Can’t Do That on Television” reveals that he and a castmate were “vying for [fellow castmember] Alanis Morissette’s attention.”
Morissette, who went on to pop-star fame, was a jagged little pill even back then. “She was prematurely mature for her age,” as “You Can’t Do That on Television” actor Justin Cammy told Klickstein. “In a scary way: ‘I’m going to be a star.’ Not just in the way she carried herself, but physically, sexually.”
In fact, the casting of “kid next door” actors was “one of the things that made Nick special,” says Klickstein. “Ninety percent of these people were not actors before they were on Nick, and they were not actors after they were on Nick. These were regular kids. They were fat, braces, cross-eyed, screwy hair, a lot of them wearing their own clothes. … These were not Disney kids.”
Bucking the tragic-child-actor trend, most of them turned out fine. As Klickstein tracked them down to interview, he found lawyers, doctors, teachers and college professors. “A couple are still trying to act or do some directing or filmmaking,” he says. But mostly, they weren’t.
Besides Morrissette, another exception is Michelle Trachtenberg, who was Nona in “The Adventures of Pete & Pete,” and can still regularly be found walking the red carpet.
Jason Zimbler, who played Clarissa’s brother in “Clarissa Explains It All” from age 13 to 16, has happy memories of working on the show. About the book, he tells The News, only half-jokingly, “I secretly have hoped for years there’d be renewed interest in the show.”
For Zimbler, a child actor starting at age 6, “Clarissa” was just another audition he hbooked. Once they started shooting, however, it was unlike any other acting job he’d had.
“This project was intensely, intensely fun,” recalls Zimbler, now 36. “It was wonderfully gratifying. I was cognizant of that in the moment. I was grateful for it then and am now. I feel lucky.”
The show also paid for Zimbler’s college tuition, which is where he went directly after the series ended during his senior year of high school. There, he discovered his love of directing for theater, a field in which he later got an MBA. Today, Zimbler works as a software developer/designer at HBO and directs whenever he can.
With the spotlight back on Nickelodeon’s golden age and “Clarissa,” Zimbler says, “I’m really happy it still matters.”
smcclear@nydailynews.com
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