Top Things Thursday

Snick.

 If you grew up in the 90s, you should know what Snick is. Snick stands for "Saturday Night Nickelodeon". It had every show that you remember from Nickelodeon:

• Clarissa Explains It All
• The Adventures of Pete and Pete
• The Ren and Stimpy Show
• Are You Afraid of The Dark
• The Secret World of Alex Mack
• All That
• Kenan and Kel
• Kablam!
• Rugrats

 Chances are as you read through that list you're missing your childhood more and more. Snick aired on Saturdays, and back in the 90s, none of us had anything to do on Saturdays except play Super Nintendo and blow things up.

 One of my favorite shows on that list is "Are You Afraid of The Dark". I remember watching it and wishing I had that sand they throw on the fire that make it get all smokey and blow up. The one episode I remember that has stuck with me all these years is the one episode about a brother and sister duo in an abandoned "haunted" shopping mall. The sister is looking for her little brother and she's having to go through all the shops. Close to the end of the episode after she's found him, they're about to leave but the door is locked, and all of a sudden a gigantic pinball starts to roll down the escalators and starts bouncing around and they have to run around and dodge it. When they find out there's no way out, the
roof comes off the ceiling and a huge guy is playing it like a pinball machine and laughing. Then the camera zooms out and they're in a pinball machine that's in an arcade that's in a mall. One of the best aspects about Are You Afraid of The Dark is that not all the stories had happy endings.. sometimes, like the example above.. the people are just screwed. As kids watching these shows, that idea would stick in our heads.

 Snick, and Nickelodeon in general was a breeding ground for child actors that didn't end up running from the law and snorting coke off their alcohol detector bracelets. The always-hot Amanda Bynes has been in tons of movies, and has her own shows. Kenan is on Saturday Night Live and starred in one of my all-time favorite movies - "Goodburger".