The year is 1999 and you’re plopping down in front of your family’s television set with a bowl of cereal in hand to watch your favorite Saturday morning cartoons. Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, Kid’s WB, and Cartoon Network were probably among some of your favorites.
As a child, you probably cared more about mindlessly watching what was on screen than you cared about facts surrounding the development of the show. With that in mind, here are some interesting facts you may not have known about a few of your usual Saturday morning cartoons.
1. The creator of SpongeBob is an actual marine biologist
Stephen Hillenburg, Spongebob’s creator, can do a lot more than draw a talking yellow sponge. In fact, along with taking up an interest in art at a young age, he also had a strong love for the ocean and the creatures that inhabited it.
His love for both drawing and the sea lead to him attending Humboldt State University in California, where he earned his degree in marine biology, while also minoring in art. Some of his teachers even advised him that he should, “just draw fish,” so that he could have the best of both worlds. Well, it looks like they may have been right — because now Hillenburg’s aquatic creation is one of the longest running cartoons in television history.
2. Helga Pataki almost had her own television show
“Move it football head!” may have been one of Helga’s most famous lines from the hit Nickelodeon cartoon Hey Arnold! But did you know that Arnold’s classmate nearly had a show of her own? Following the end of Hey Arnold in 2004, the creator, Craig Bartlett, expressed interest in making a show focused on Helga and her family, titled, The Patakis.
The main concept of the show was that it would revolve around a now 15-year-old Helga as she struggled with an ended romantic relationship with Arnold, as well as her less-than-ideal family life.
The show was meant to be geared towards older audiences, but when it was presented to Nickelodeon they deemed it as being too dark for their demographic. The show was then brought to the attention of MTV but was declined due to similarities shared with another show they currently had airing called Daria.
However, just because The Patakis never saw the light of day didn't mean Helga was gone forever, as she recently appeared as a lead character in the Hey Arnold television special titled, The Jungle Movie, in November of 2016.
3. Ren & Stimpy’s “Adult Party Cartoon”
Speaking of spin-off series, Hey Arnold wasn’t the only cartoon to potentially have one — The Ren & Stimpy Show actually did have a spin-off. While on Nickelodeon, Ren & Stimpy was certainly met with a fair amount of controversy for some of its mature themes and black humor. So if The Pataki’s was too dark for Nickelodeon, then you can be sure that the Ren & Stimpy spin-off, Adult Cartoon Party, certainly was as well.
The show aired on Spike TV and only ran for 6 episodes before ultimately being canceled. The spin-off included alcohol, sex, abuse, and other themes that certainly were not meant for children.
If Ren & Stimpy was a staple cartoon of your childhood, then maybe don’t check this spin-off out unless you want your sense of nostalgia to be ruined.
4. The Pokémon animation is over 20 years old, and still going!
The Pokémon television animation series first aired in Japan on April 1st, 1997 when Ash Ketchum left Pallet Town for the very first time alongside Pikachu to become a Pokémon Master. Since then, Pokémon has had around 20 seasons and 1000 episodes as it continues to air weekly in both Japan and the United States.
Not only that, but the Japanese voice actress, Rica Matsumotto, has been serving as the only voice of Ash for over 20 years.
In the time since the series first aired, Ash has traveled across seven different regions, collected 48 badges, had 16 different traveling companions, but has only managed to catch 80 species of Pokémon and still remains stuck at 10-years-old somehow.
But despite that, Ash and Pikachu must have a charm about them that keeps audiences tied in as the series quickly approaches its 21st anniversary!
Which cartoons were your favorite as a child? Why not go back and watch a couple of episodes for nostalgia's sake? Who knows what interesting facts you may learn when you do!
