[July 29, 2011] Teen network blasts back to the '90s Tweet Jul 29, 2011 (Boston Herald - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- The Facebook generation gets what it wants. And if there's one thing Gen Yers love more than anything else, it's 1990s television. Thanks to 20- and 30-somethings clamoring on Facebook and Twitter, Nickelodeon has pulled some of its most beloved Clinton-era shows out of the vaults. "The '90s Are All That," a new late-night block on TeenNick, premiered this week with four shows: "Kenan & Kel," "Doug," "All That" and "Clarissa Explains It All." Viewers can watch more clips and episodes on 90sareallthat.teennick.com, a site that asks, "Remember when your life didn't suck?" Response has been seismic. On Monday, a whopping 555,000 viewers tuned in from midnight to 4 a.m., "Doug" was the top search hit on Google for the day, and the rest of the shows trended on Twitter like nobody's business. Nickelodeon will consider the next round of shows to feature based on online fan demand, including cult favorites like "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" "Salute Your Shorts" and "Double Dare." That these neo-retro reruns are getting so much love from viewers comes as no surprise to Keith Dawkins, senior vice-president of Nickelodeon Programming Partnerships. Between the demand coming in from social media sites and Gen-Yers in the Nick offices, he said it was the perfect moment to re-release the network's '90s classics. "A group of young interns and staffers showed us these numbers and said, 'We'd love to see these back on TV,'" Dawkins said. "It was a bat across the face like, duh, let's do this now." James Zar, 19, a Boston University junior, was among the 15 million people who joined one of the many Facebook groups pushing for the shows' return. "I think everyone likes to remember when they were kids. The humor was simple and good-hearted, and that made the shows funny," he said of the old-school Nick appeal. "We were so little and impressionable, and these shows really stuck in our memories," said Jamaica Plain resident Thom Dunn, 25, whose favorite was quirky comedy "The Adventures of Pete & Pete." Now watching it as an adult, he said, "It's definitely a kid's show, but it's also so bizarre and brilliant." Everyone has a favorite show from the '90s run, whether it's a Nicktoon or a live-action comedy from the station's Saturday-evening Snick lineup. "I probably remember every single episode of 'Rugrats,' my favorite being the Passover special where Angelica was the Pharaoh," said Simmons College grad student Bekah Cline, 24. Though older generations may claim that it's a little too early to wax nostalgic for the '90s, local fan Annie Kozakiewicz, 24, begs to differ. "We're going through a hard time right now," she said. "It's a good escape to go back to these shows from back then. This is the first time we've been able to claim nostalgia that's our own." [email protected], [email protected] To see more of the Boston Herald or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.bostonherald.com. Copyright (c) 2011, Boston Herald Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]