The greatest shows never to be seen again Joe Dorsey ‘12 The faces of the hit television station Nickelodeon have drastically changed in the last decade. For the later teenage generation, many of the childhood cartoons that they were raised on are now cancelled. Nowadays, most of the shows that air on Nickelodeon are reality shows such as iCarly , Victorious and Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide . Although Nickelodeon has changed, they still continue to play some cartoons. Spongebob Square Pants is now beginning its ninth season and shows no signs of stopping. To me, this feels like a knife to the heart. Because I occasionally still turn on Nickelodeon, only to see some awful episode of iCarly popping up through my television set. Who remembers the good old days? I can vividly remember coming home, sitting on my couch and watching the typical five show line up starting at 3 P.M. Believe it or not, some of these shows played a big role in your early childhood development. Whether you can remember these shows are not, I bet you have seen a couple of these great and timeless pieces of visual literature at some point in your life. This is the complete list of the five greatest shows to ever get cancelled. 1. Rugrats Rugrats was the show that you could always count on. No matter what time of the day or night, Rugrats was guaranteed to be on at some time in the next hour and a half. The show takes place with the protagonist, Tommy, and his struggles to live life as a toddler with his limited group of friends. How I could have possibly ever been entertained by this, I don’t know. The thing is, I still pop on Netflix and watch a couple episodes of Rugrats every now and then. 2.Rocket Power Nothing, and I repeat, nothing was ever a better show than Rocket Power. This show takes place in Southern California, where four kids explore the local shores and streets while doing extreme sports. This show was a nine year olds version of Nitro Circus. It was jammed packed with action, drama and sports. After growing up a little bit, I’m convinced that these kids don’t have parents who care about them at all. The only parent that you really get to see is Reggie and Otto’s father, who is constantly under the influence of something and never really seems to care what his children and friends get involved with. The kids spent most of their time skateboarding, snowboarding and surfing. This show really brought out the extrovert in all kids across America. 3. Hey Arnold This is one of the only shows on Nickelodeon that had subtle humor; it’s either you understood the show and you loved it, or you hated it passionately. The show takes place in a trashy urban neighborhood with the protagonist, Arnold, and his numerous friends and family members that shape the successes and struggles of his early teenage life. Arnold lives in a boarding home with his environment. Hey Arnold was the show that made you really wonder what life would be like if you lived in the ghetto. 4. The Wild Thornberry’s I can safely say that Nickelodeon scored big time with this show. This show began in 1998 and ended in 2004, but came as a huge success to the company and its viewers. The show takes place all over the world with a girl named Eliza, her brother and sister, her parents and her pet monkey, Darwin. How ironic. The family travels all throughout the world taking pictures and filming rare animals. Thanks to a unlikely encounter with a African tribesman, Eliza takes on the ability to speak to animals. She uses this ability every chance that she gets, and her special talent is basically the format of every episode. The Wild Thornberry’s . 5. Jimmy Neutron Jimmy Neutron was an attempt to bring science into the world of cartoons. To their credit, they did a fairly good job out of it. I don’t mean to rip on a children’s cartoon, but the show lacked science in the most basic ways. I mean, the kid owned a mechanical dog named Goddard who looked like a mix between Britney Spears and Avril Lavigne. His mother was always laced with caffeine and his father clearly had an awful drug habit. Overall, this show had some classic episodes and brings back a lot of late childhood memories.