On the Trail of SHELBY WOO: The Case of Missing Classic Nickelodeon

Those sensitive about their relative aged-ness may need to avert their eyes during the following. At some point in recent history, graduating university classes were filled with adult people who were in elementary school when SpongeBob SquarePants debuted (May 1, 1999). Poke around the Internet a bit, and one will discover a sizable population of young people grumbling that the programming of the Nickelodeon cable channel has gone down the tubes since a perceived heyday that began in the early, mid, or late 1990s and lasted until, er, whenever said young people stopped watching Nickelodeon. Gist being that this iCarly (2007 debut) is no The Amanda Show (1999-02) and that it is outrageous that Invader Zim (2001-02) be cancelled and Penguins of Madagascar (2008) exist, I guess. This particular playground hamster wheel has probably turned once, maybe twice before: when I was in supposedly engaged in post-secondary education, hit drinking games centered around participants' knowledge of Hey Dude (1989-91) and strategic placement of a Clarissa Explains It All (1991-94) reference was a surefire flirting tactic. In the short view, one's subjective Golden Age of Nickelodeon, like one's preferred Saturday Night Live cast and personal Point at Which The Simpsons Sucks, clearly corresponds with one's own youth. To which: no doy.

For those whose births significantly pre- or post-date the entire entertainment cycle under discussion, perhaps one needs to exist on that thin cusp between Generations X and Y, where the surfaces are sticky with Wacky WallWalker residue. Or perhaps all I'm getting at is that the view gets awfully strange when looking down the barrel of someone else's nostalgia.

And speaking of, it seems too that very generation must learn for itself the hard lesson that media corporations are not in the business of protecting your precious childhood entertainment memories if and when the market does not support that activity. Even in this age of astonishing availability, there's stuff that, you know, you just can't see and have. And so there is in all this a related lesson about ephemerality, the fading shimmer of halcyon days of yore, the unsoothable ache of lost youth, etc. etc. etc. forever.

There is no nefarious scheme or great mystery, of course, as to why a television network must eventually change its programming lineup. They all do it. Nothing but soap operas can stay in production for a lifetime. Ratings determine sponsorship determines lineups. Furthermore, Big Time Rush may air at the expense of All That, but something — say Fifteen — has to be cancelled to make room for All That in the first place. So petitions and badgering campaigns to the effect of "Bring Back KaBlam!" — as in begging for the return of mouldering reruns for viewers utterly outside the station's target demographic — are pointless, to which: no doy. This is also rather funny in a bent-lens way, as Nickelodeon, more than any network in memory, traditionally ran its skimpy lineup into the ground, rerunning the shows for years after production ended, as anyone who sat through the same six episodes of Ren & Stimpy one hundred times in 1991 can attest.

What such efforts do demonstrate is simply that some kind of vocal audience for vintage Nickelodeon programming exists. That audience might be sizable enough to make lucrative a zero-effort sister station to the current four primary channels (Nicktoons, TeenNick, Nick Jr., and TV Land). Frankly, I doubt it, as revival-based programming blocks have not been successful, and MTV Networks/Viacom tends to not dick around with Boomerang-sized efforts the way that Turner Broadcasting/Time Warner does. Not, naturally, that Boomerang's outstanding efforts in showing Banana Splits reruns and Ruby-Spears garbage are not appreciated. Anyway, begging a corporation for a spin-off channel that rebroadcasts your childhood being a rather unlikely goal, there ought to be some manner of DVD situation, yes? No? Maybe?

Television series on DVD are always a dicey proposition. Some ten years ago, it looked like everything ever filmed or taped was going to be released on DVD, if in no particular sequence of importance (you know, Pink Lady and Jeff being available before Roots and all. Not that I'm not personally more interested in the former, anyway). TV on DVD runs into those weird technical (surely the world would have Buffy the Vampire Slayer and X-Files Blu-rays by now, had they not been edited in SD), legal (musical clearance i.a. The Wonder Years, WKRP) and logistical issues ("do we do the first season of Dark Shadows first?") before it even has a shot at selling poorly. Time was (2002) that even a program as popular and important as The Mary Tyler Moore Show found its season set scheduling stalled for three years due to sluggish sales. If anything is certain it's that you just never know.

Back to the Nick problem, even given peculiarities particular to the network (again: children don't have money or care about season collections, and even children's programs of Boomer vintage are of limited appeal), Nickelodeon's DVD presence looks slight. MTV Networks successfully dipped its toes in the complete-season-set waters in 2003 with an imperfect but still pretty great Ren & Stimpy — Complete First and Second Seasons box. A savvy if obvious choice, as a majority of requests focus on Nicktoons titles, and of the initial 1991 trinity of original Nick animated series (with Doug, Rugrats) Ren & Stimpy has the widest crossover appeal. Indeed, as the show aired almost as frequently on MTV, continues to be widely admired by animation enthusiasts, and is, well, the single best original program Nickelodeon ever aired, the Ren & Stimpy DVDs arrived with no orange blob or Balloon lettering on the packaging to announce it as Nickelodeon product. In other words, the first major retro-Nick DVD package does not particularly rely on association with Nickelodeon, nor should it, nor does it need to do so.

The majority — but not totality — of pre-1990s Nickelodeon programming consisted of shows licensed from other sources. Perhaps the most fascinating era of the network's history, early/mid 1980s Nick was a disjointed, eclectic hodgepodge of UK, Canadian, and Franco-Japanese television, meaning they are not Viacom's to look after. This is often a happy situation; as arbitrary examples, the excellent Mysterious Cities of Gold was granted a lovely box set available in Region 1, the dumbfounding David the Gnome is available on Spanish DVD for those who wish to compare and contrast Swiper the Fox of Dora the Explorer with his ancestor Swift the Fox, and '80s Mr. Wizard's World sets are available from the official site. Sometimes a half-measure — some of the UK serials edited into The Third Eye are available, but the Nick original opening will simply have to haunt your nightmares forever. Etc., and so on, but those desiring access to Out of Control (1984-85) episodes are shit outta luck.

The 2005 launch of the "Nickelodeon Rewind" DVD collections clearly does "brand" the material. That first wave consisted of (such an air of respectability about the phrase, no?) First Season sets for Clarissa Explains it All and The Adventures of Pete & Pete (series proper 1993-96), and a second season Pete & Pete collection mere months later. Another fine choice here, as the wistful, poetic, absurdist hipster sitcom Pete & Pete — somehow wise without lessons per se, and "smart" in that unpinpointable way — was and remains ripe for rediscovery. In terms of situation comedy at full flower in the 1990s, it has the soulfulness of Roseanne, the postmodern bent of Seinfeld, the parodic built universe of The Simpsons and is plain weird in ways that, say, Lynch/Frost's On the Air attempted and failed (Side note — not that I don't appreciate On the Air). If you don't mind all the categorical qualifiers, The Adventures of Pete & Pete is likely the best live-action program Nickelodeon ever produced, and sits comfortably among the best television of the '90s. It ended when most shows are just hitting their stride and blooming — that is, third season — simply as a matter of network policy, theory being that children are as happy to watch endless reruns as new episodes. Theory being frustrating for older viewers, but not necessarily an unsound business model, though it is no longer the case.

The cessation of the Rewind line following these three releases took down with it Pete & Pete season three, the remainder of Clarissa and the dreams Anawanna campers everywhere. While sundry corporate shakeups are rumored to be the culprit behind the Rewind hiatus and its casualties, without being privy to sales figures this is all speculation. Meanwhile, the season set DVDs of animation juggernauts like SpongeBob and Avatar: The Last Airbender, modern teenybopper hits Naked Brothers Band, iCarly, et al., and a steady stream of Nick Jr. electro-babysitter discs continues to issue forth. In 2008, Amazon (of the dot-com) began selling exclusive manufactured-on-demand DVD-Rs of retro-Nicktoons in various Best of and Complete Season sets. While surely heartening for Aaahh!!! Real Monsters fans, the extensive lineup only underlines how few bright spots exist in the dull expanse of Nick animation. Suspicious occurrences such as the Ren & Stimpy disc containing de-censored shorts cobbled together from less-than-stellar sources and an incomplete Season Four of Doug (oh God, the tragedy) indicate that the network did not spend the '90s carefully preserving its assets for future exploitation.

Anyway, far more more interesting (and not less frustrating) than a bunch of goddamn Rugrats DVD-Rs is the appearance of Nickelodeon properties on iTunes and Amazon Video on Demand. The primary issue here is that like any good American I am deeply attached to physical consumer goods and love television sets, therefore hate buying digital files and despise watching art on computer screens. The manifold reasons for this don't need to be elaborated here. The digital download selections span boring/popular Nicktoons, beloved live-action series and, some forgotten obscurities (well, Gullah Gullah Island [1994-97], if you can believe that), all presented with little organizational logic, many with inexplicable new episode titles. This brings us, at long last to the case of The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo, the first six-episode season of which is among those blessed/cursed with digital download availability.

Running four truncated Nick-style "seasons" from 1996 to '98, The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo sees the title character (that's Irene Ng as The Shelb) living with her Grandpa Mike (Pat Morita, natch) at the Easterly Breeze bed and breakfast, interning at the police station, and living a normal high school life... except when solving exciting nonviolent crimes! Shelby Woo is amiable, low-impact teen sleuth stuff, which, for those with a predisposition to teen sleuth stuff, goes down easy and doesn't linger on the palate. The whodunits are a cut well above Encyclopedia Brown juvie nonsense, but less adventure-packed and suspenseful as good Hardy Boys nonsense or, more to the point, Ms. Woo's rhyming namesake. So the Nancy Drew template is followed and modified to lean toward an easygoing, gabby naturalism.

It is not terribly old or obscure but Shelby Woo seems to have dropped from the memory screens of ex-youths. It ran for a few years, spawned a longish series of tie-in paperbacks of which I own too many, then disappeared and is fanatically loved by no one. For these reasons, I've sort of used the show as a nostalgia gauging dipstick — "yes, but do you remember Shelby Woo?" — so it is a pleasant surprise that it should turn up in the iTunes store.

When the show debuted in 1996 I was a bit too old for it. Firstly, though ostensibly depicting high school life, most such programs, The Woo included, are better suited to junior high audiences as a gently fantasized version of the years ahead. Secondly, the brief, breathtaking run of My So-Called Life (ABC, 1994/95) had ended the year before, ruining cartoony teen sitcoms for anyone lucky enough to be the exact same age as its characters, and demonstrating that yes, are other ways to do this. After My So-Called Life it is tough to look at this kids stuff with anything but disdain.

Anyhow, affinity for Scooby-Doo tales aside, my adolescent interest in Shelby Woo was pretty well focused on the charms of leading lady Irene Ng. On revisitation, she still has a stilted, overly enthusiastic demeanor; basically she's cute, goofy and earnest. Though more money and attention was being poured into the likes of The Secret World of Alex Mack, what Shelby Woo does have is more '90s time capsule appeal than could be discerned at the time one was soaking in it. Naturally there is a healthy dollop of period hair and fashion (jean jackets, overalls), and you've got a pre-Buffy-villainy Adam Busch drawing the eye of any obsessive fan, if not demonstrating the same promise as Michelle Trachtenberg on Pete & Pete. As Shelby is a modern, tech-literate gal, plenty of breadbox-sized computers are on hand, and in a cute touch, interstitials designed as files being accessed on a PC desktop.

Though there is little point in making a strong case for anything about Shelby Woo, based on my skimpy research it the third American television series focused on an Asian-American protagonist. Discounting Bruce Lee's co-starring-but-starring role on Green Hornet ('66/67), the first in this lineage is five-episode bomb Mr. T and Tina (1976) starring Pat Morita, followed by Margaret Cho's 19-episode All-American Girl ('94/5). So Shelby Woo is likely the first US TV show about an Asian-American teenager, and one of the longest-running — and least offensive — of this handful of Asian-American-centered programs. Its episode count is about to be passed by Nick Jr.'s own cuddle-cational cartoon Ni Hao, Kai-Lan, though to be fair it is not clear where little Kai-Lan lives. That Morita should eventually play Shelby Woo's grandfather seems inevitable, if not meaningful, even if he's playing Chinese.

Speaking of these matters of cultural representation, the technique of those computer transitions, and the angle of approach re: teen life, it seems Shelby Woo is an acceptable specimen to demonstrate the gap separating late-'90s Nickelodeon and the Nick of the past ten years ramping up to Here and Now. Six episodes are probably more than enough to sate anyone's curiosity, so based on that small core sample, my findings are that this is ultimately a matter of interlocking formal and thematic questions, something beyond "my nostalgia is better than yours." On the picture-making end, Shelby Woo does some nondescript Florida location work, which lends elbow-room and breadth to the primary Orlando soundstage sets. The real surprise, the unexpected element nailing Shelby Woo into the '90s, is that the camerawork is of the completely handheld, unsteady, panny-zoomy shaky variety. Long takes meander around rooms, landing on knees and peripheral scenery before grabbing faces for dialogue. Crew shadows intrude during outdoor scenes, even falling across performers as the camera and sound dept circle their prey or jog to keep up. The Husbands and Wives (1992) aesthetic (or maybe just E.R.) is deeply felt in Shelby Woo. This lends the plot proceedings a sliver of urgency, helps the sets look less like sets, but mostly gives the show a funky, lived-in, meandering feel. It's a lazy technique, purely functional, and makes the show look offhand... second-hand. There is no flourish, there is no flash, no second coat of wax. The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo is a grunge teen detective show.

This is the difference between hiring college rock bands to do kid's sitcom soundtracks (Pete & Pete) and manufacturing bubblegum pop bands to center a show around (Naked Brothers). It is programming that speaks to kids, reflects their experience, gives them a vision of the world that they to relate to, versus a the selling of prefab fantasy lives that are so slick they can't be gripped. Truth be told, iCarly is pretty funny, the cast is talented, and it is a glossier affair than the sweat-stained, corn pone Salute Your Shorts. A tween sitcom about a hit web-series, mostly about dealing with fame, this is a hall of mirrors bouncing back the studio lights, three cameras filming themselves into infinity. It's Nickelodeon with the edges sanded, the slime washed off, the VHS tracking adjusted. It is virtually indistinguishable from Disney Channel product. I didn't go looking for anything along these lines, but is that it? The divide between '90s youth culture and the '00s? That sounds suspiciously like Old Man Syndrome talking. Maybe this is just about Nickelodeon.

Our closing theme is Polaris (most of Miracle Legion in disguise), providing music for Pete & Pete. I normally think this song is about the character Ellen from that show, but you may plug Shelby Woo into your mental music video, or indeed, your adolescence shrinking on the horizon has you trudge ahead. Winking smiley face/barfing smiley face.