Difference between revisions 107378993 and 107378994 on dewiki

{{Refimprove|date=October 2007}}

{{Infobox TV channel
| name             = Nick at Nite
| logofile         = Nick at nite.png
| logosize         = 200px
| logoalt          = 
| logo2            = 
| launch           = [[July 1]], [[1985]]
| slogan           = It's not just Nick, it's Nick at Nite! 
| {{flagicon|USA}} [[New York City]]<br>[[Burbank, California|Burbank]], [[California]]
| replaced names   = [[A&E Network|ARTS]]
| sister names     = [[Nickelodeon (TV channel)|Nickelodeon]], [[TV Land]], [[Noggin (TV channel)|Noggin]], [[The N]], [[Nicktoons Network]], [[Nick Too]]
| timeshift names  = [[Nick 2|Nick Too]]
| web              = [http://www.nickatnite.com/ NickatNite.com]
| sat serv 1       = [[DirecTV]]|
| sat chan 1       = Channel 299/300
| sat serv 2       = [[Dish Network]]
| sat chan 2       = Channel 170/171
| sat serv 3       = [[SKY Italia]] 
| sat chan 3       = Channel 604 
| cable serv 1     = Available on most cable systems
| cable chan 1     = Check local listings for channels
| sat radio serv 1 = 
| sat radio chan 1 = 
| adsl serv 1      = 
| adsl chan 1      = 
| online serv 1    = 
| online chan 1    = 
}}

'''Nick at Nite''' is the evening programming block broadcast over [[Nickelodeon (TV channel)|Nickelodeon]] Sunday &ndash; Thursdays from 9 [[12-hour clock|p.m]] &ndash; 6 [[12-hour clock|a.m.]] and Friday &ndash; Saturdays from 10 p.m. &ndash; 6 a.m. [[Eastern Standard Time Zone|Eastern]] and [[Pacific Standard Time]]. Nickelodeon is known for its children's shows during the day, while Nick at Nite appeals to adult audiences with a lineup of classic television; largely [[Viacom]]-owned syndicated sitcoms, shown with about a ten-year lag. At the choice of Viacom, and despite being aired on the same channel as Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite is treated in the [[Nielsen Media Research]] as a separate television network, similar to [[Adult Swim]], a programming block on [[Cartoon Network]] and the [[Jetix]] block on [[Toon Disney]].

== History ==
[[Image:Nick-at-Nite.png|120px|thumb|left|Original Nick at Nite logo (1985-1990)]]
Nick at Nite debuted at 8 p.m. on [[July 1]], [[1985 in television|1985]], replacing what was originally the ARTS channel (now [[A&E Network|A&E]]), which had leased the time from Nickelodeon. Its initial programming (running from 8 p.m. - 6 a.m., seven days a week) was a block of classic sitcoms such as ''[[The Donna Reed Show]]'' and ''[[Dennis the Menace (1959 TV series)|Dennis the Menace]]'', and the classic drama ''[[Route 66 (TV series)|Route 66]]''. As Nick at Nite grew, it would add to its library of shows branching out to rerun sketch comedy, such as original ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' episodes as well as the Canadian series ''[[SCTV]]''. It also briefly reran the [[1970s]] mock local talk show ''[[Fernwood 2Night]]''. As the years went by, the channel's sitcom library swelled to over a hundred shows. For the station's 20th birthday celebration, an episode from almost every series that had appeared on Nick at Nite was shown.

=== 10th Anniversary ===
[[Image:NickatNite10th 1.jpg|150px|thumb|left|Nick at Nite 10th Anniversary Logo]]
In [[1995 in television|1995]], Nick at Nite celebrated its 10th Anniversary with a week long event. Throughout the week, the channel aired "hand picked episodes" of every almost every series aired on the network. Each episode was introduced with its history, episode number, and how long it ran on Nick at Nite. The 10th Anniversary on-screen bug was shown at the bottom left corner of the screen for 10 seconds once per half hour show, it was used for the entire year of 1995 as was the 20th Anniversary logo in [[2005 in television|2005]].
[[Image:20logo.gif|20th Anniversary logo|thumb|right]]

=== Today ===

The channel's current lineup mostly consists of [[1990's]]s and [[2000's]]s hits, including ''[[The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air]]'', ''[[The George Lopez Show]]'' and ''[[Home Improvement]]''. ''[[Roseanne (TV series)|Roseanne]]'', ''[[The Cosby Show]]'', and ''[[Full House]]'' air in the marathon rotator every night. Other shows that are scheduled to air on Nick at Night but are rarely seen include, ''[[Mad About You]]'', ''[[Designing Women]]'', ''[[America's Funniest Home Videos]]'', ''[[Murphy Brown]]'', and ''[[News Radio]]''.

In [[2004 in television|2004]], ''[[Fatherhood (Show)|Fatherhood]]'', an [[animated series]] based on the book by [[Bill Cosby]], was also added to the line up, but then pulled from the line up upon its cancellation. In [[April]] [[2005 in television|  2005]], Nick at Nite premiered a reality series, ''[[The Search For The Funniest Mom In America]]'', in which mothers from across the country competed to win $50,000 and a chance to develop a show for Nick at Nite. The winner of the competition was Darlene Westgor. In [[August]] [[  2005]], another original series, ''[[Hi-Jinks]]'' premiered, where parents pull pranks on their children. A recent second installment of "Funniest Mom in America", hosted by [[Katey Sagal]] aired, beginning [[April 12]], [[2006 in television|2006]]. Nick at Nite also began broadcasting a new mini-sitcom entitled ''At The Poocharelli's'', in mid 2006. In [[2007 in television|June 2007]], Nick at Nite began airing a game show called ''[[Bet the House]]''.

Nick at Nite has also spun off a niche network, [[TV Land]], which features a variety of rerun programming. The networks were operated together until [[December 17]], [[2006]], when Nickelodeon began overseeing Nick at Nite, and "Nick at Nite's TV Land" became "TV Land".
[[Image:Logo 33.gif|Nick at Nite logo used from 1990 to 2002|thumb|right]]
On [[February 13]], [[2006]], the [[Latin America]]n version of Nickelodeon started broadcasting Nick at Nite for the first time. Since [[January]] [[  2007]], the network has aired shows like ''[[ALF (TV series)|ALF]]'', ''[[Mork & Mindy]]'', ''[[The Addams Family (TV series)|The Addams Family]]'', ''[[The Munsters]]'', ''[[Bewitched]]'', ''[[I Dream of Jeannie]]'', ''[[Growing Pains]]'', ''[[The Facts of Life (TV series)|The Facts of Life]]'','' [[Diff'rent Strokes]]'' and ''[[Perfect Strangers (TV series)|Perfect Strangers]]'', which have been broadcast in Latin American local networks and other cable channels. Although the Latin American Nickelodeon was born in the mid-1990s, it had never carried the Nick at Nite block before.<ref>[http://www.mundonick.com/canal/horarios/ Mundonick.com<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

[[Image:Nick at Nite.gif|thumb|right|Nick at Nite logo used from 2002 to 2007]]
In 2007, the Nick at Nite logo changed the color from blue to orange thus creating a match with Nickelodeon's colors. On September 1st, 2007, a new logo similar to the current Nickelodeon logo but in the shape of a crescent moon, was introduced.

== Programming ==
* {{main|List of programs broadcast by Nick at Nite}}

===Original Programming===
Nick at Nite has also occasionally experimented with creating its own shows, sometimes with bizarre and surrealistic results. In [[1987 in television|1988]]8, the channel had a contest called the ''Do It Yourself Sitcom Special'', where viewers could create their own sitcoms and send them in and the winner would supposedly get their own show.

In [[1988 in television|1988]], the channel aired a 30-minute animated Christmas special, the pilot for what was to be an animated series entitled ''Tattertown'', created by [[Ralph Bakshi]]. The series never emerged, but the special, later renamed ''[[Christmas in Tattertown]]'', was aired every Christmas on Nick at Nite for several years.

In [[1990 in television|1990]], the channel briefly aired a show called ''[[On the Television]]'',<ref>[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0200359/ "On the Television" (1990)<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> a mock TV critic show hosted by [[At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper|Siskel and Ebert]]-type characters and featured bizarre, sometimes disturbing clips from parodied TV shows supposedly beginning that week. 

In the early 1990s, a special made up of old TV commercials was aired only once, but the idea of showing old commercials would be rehashed by the network on several other shows and eventually become a staple of offshoot channel, TV Land. There was one special that was promoted as a TV dad quiz. The host walked through a "typical TV Home", and quizzed the viewers at home with trivia about classic TV dad [[clichés]]. At one point, the host told the viewers to connect pictures of TV dads with their appropriate TV moms displayed on the screen with a magic marker. At the end of this segment he mentions that he forgot to tell the viewers to place a piece of plastic over their screen while doing this and made jokes about the viewers futilely trying to clean the magic marker off their screens for the rest of the show.

In [[1991 in television|1991]], Nick at Nite created its own sitcom based around the rerun genre it had pioneered. The sitcom, named ''[[Hi Honey, I'm Home!]]'' after the cliché phrase used by TV dads addressing their TV wives when returning home in the evenings from work, was about a [[1950s]] sitcom family, the Nielsens. The family's show has been removed from [[Television syndication|syndication]] and they are forced to leave TV Land and move into a real [[1990s]] suburban neighborhood. Once there, the family is repeatedly confronted with culture shock. The show aired on [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] on Fridays during the network's ''[[TGIF (ABC)|TGIF]]'' lineup, and then would "rerun" on Nick at Nite the following Sunday nights.

=== Marathons ===

Programming marathons were an innovation that began with Nick at Nite in 1985. Working together in college radio at [[WKCR|WKCR-FM]] ([[Columbia University]], [[New York]]) Fred/Alan's [[Alan Goodman]] & Fred Seibert saw the ratings success of radio marathons featuring [[Ludwig van Beethoven]], [[John Coltrane]], and [[Charles Mingus]]. As the Nick at Nite "oldies" format was adapted from radio, they suggested the multi-hour (sometimes multi-day) marathon might also work with television programming. The marathon format proved successful and marathons became a ratings boosting staple of cable television networks for over two decades.

During the week of [[Halloween]] [[1990]], the network held a special contest, hosted by game show host [[Wink Martindale]], in which a marathon of the show ''[[Alfred Hitchcock Presents]]'' was shown. The at home viewers were supposed to keep a running total of the total number of deaths on the show. At the end of the marathon the persons who had gotten the total number right were entered into a drawing to win a prize. As Martindale said "It's kind of like guessing the number of jellybeans in a jellybean jar, but instead of jellybeans, you're using cadavers!"{{Fact|date=October 2007}}

When new shows are added to the line-up, they are usually accompanied by some kind of marathon complete with logo and sometimes hosted by a star from the show. For instance, when ''[[Newhart]]'' was added, the channel also acquired [[Bob Newhart]]'s short-lived third sitcom ''[[Bob (TV series)|Bob]]'', and showed a programming block entitled "Bob's Bob, Bob Newhart, Newhart Marathon" and showed the two shows and ''[[The Bob Newhart Show]]'' which it already had the rights to, in a programing block hosted by Bob Newhart. When ''[[I Love Lucy]]'' joined Nick-at-Nite in 1994, "Nick-at-Nite Loves Lucy" marathon aired all week which showed every Lucille Ball series (''[[I Love Lucy]]'', ''[[The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour]]'', ''[[The Lucy Show]]'', ''[[Here's Lucy]]'', and ''[[Life With Lucy]]''). When some older shows were retired they would also frequently have a marathon send-off. For instance, when a long rerunning show on the channel ''[[Mister Ed]]'' (from the channel's inception in [[1985 in television|1985]] to [[1993 in television|1993]]to 1993) was finally retired, there was an all-weekend marathon of the show called "Au Revoir Mister Ed!" as well as a similar send-off for ''[[The Donna Reed Show]]'', which ran on the channel even longer (1985-[[1994 in television|1994]]).

During the summer months of the late 1990s the station for a while created a programing block called "Vertivision" (later, "Block Party Summer") during which a different series was shown in a three-hour block each night of the week. In the first year, commercials referred to the nights as "Mary Mondays, Lucy Tuesdays, ''Bewitched'' Be-Wednesdays, Jeannie Thursdays, and Sgt. Joe Fridays" (for ''[[The Mary Tyler Moore Show]]'', ''[[I Love Lucy]]'', ''[[Bewitched]]'', ''[[I Dream of Jeannie]]'', and ''[[Dragnet (drama)|Dragnet]]'', respectively). With the passing years, the summer blocks shifted to include series newly in the Nick at Nite repertoire.

Other seasonal scheduling blocks were also not uncommon such as Christmas-themed blocks during late December, Thanksgiving-themed blocks in November, and Valentine's themed episodes in February. From 1989 until 1998 on [[New Year's Eve]], the channel would host "Nick at Nite's (year) Rerun/Classic TV/TV Hits Countdown" hosted by longtime countdown radio DJ, [[Casey Kasem]]. Kasem would spend noon until 12:30 a.m. on New Year's Eve Day counting down the 25 "most classic" episodes of the TV shows currently airing on Nick at Nite determined by viewers at home, revealing the #1 episode at midnight. 

=== Commercials ===
Nick at Nite has used a myriad of unusual and unorthodox commercials, logos and, promotions. Alan Goodman & Fred Seibert assembled a team of highly imaginative writer/producers, modeled on their original 1981 creative team that had launched sister channel MTV: Music Television. Including Scott Webb, Jim Levi, Dave Potorti, Jay Newell, Will McRobb, and [[Tom Hill]], the group was guided towards created a series of internal campaigns to emphasize the seeming paradox of a contemporary network setting that programmed reruns from the 1960s. A series of five "promises" were organized into four 30 second spots each hour, each emphasizing an attribute of the innovative programming format.

In the late 1980s, the channel began running a few different animated 10 minute channel identifications with a similar premise that all had vastly different endings, produced by Eli Noyes & Kit Laybourne, and the Fred/Alan agency. One of them was of a couple who would bring objects for a living room onto the screen including a couch and a television then sit down in front of the TV. The male would click the remote and something bizarre would happen, such as a gorilla appearing. Before the commercial was over the Nick at Nite logo would appear somehow tied to the premise of the commercial.

During the early 1990s, Nick at Nite started running a wide variety of commercials. These were made with almost every imaginable technique from limited animation, to [[Clay animation|claymation]] and [[stop motion]], to original live action and [[stock footage]]. Almost every commercial had a different jingle professing Nick at Nite as being "A TV Viewers Dream" for "the TV generation" and as coming from a place called TV Land ("Hello Out there, from TV Land!"), and promoting "Better Living Through Television" and proclaimed itself curator of "Our Television Heritage", although these claims were always somewhat [[tongue in cheek]]. They would also create sarcastic commercials for shows on their network: an announcer's voice would discuss the series, accompanied by clips and music, sometimes the show's theme song. The commercials would use an actor's line or expression and take it out of context to create a new subversive meaning. The channel still uses this technique today, although often in a more hybrid way. 

The early '90s also saw the addition of Nick at Nite's mascot, Trixie the TV Land Pixie. For a time, the network would also play a short [[Commercial bumper|bumper]] called "Milkman", about a milkman who would distribute wholesome advice to customers on his milk delivery route. In 1995, on the occasion of the network's 10th anniversary, a tribute to the commercials throughout the network's existence was aired and hosted by former network President Rich Cronin.

The channel also had a unique way of telling viewers what shows were about to play next. Beginning as only an announcer reading off that evening's block of shows and the times they would be on while the list was displayed and music was played, this simple concept would be revised and re-revised many times over. At one point a television with objects and people from the show scrolling by (for instance, for ''[[Get Smart]]'' a shoe phone, gun, and Max and 99) would appear on the screen while the announcer read off the show and time. The time that the show was on would be displayed in another box. This continues to be changed and updated.

[[Image:NickatNite2007.JPG|100px|thumb|right|Nick at Nite logo used from January to September 2007]]
The station also had a wide variety of "[[digital on-screen graphic|bugs]]" or logos displayed in the corner of the screen during a show.

== International ==
===Australia===
In Australia, Nick at Nite aired from [[October 1995]] until early [[2001]]. It shared the same channel as [[Nickelodeon Australia|Nickelodeon]] broadcasting from 8 p.m. until 6 a.m. on weeknights and 10 p.m. until 6 a.m. Shows included ''[[Gilligan's Island]]'', ''[[Get Smart]]'', ''[[Sanford and Son]]'', ''[[The Courtship of Eddie's Father]]'', ''[[The Fugitive (TV series)|The Fugitive]]'', ''[[Bonanza]]'', ''[[The Prisoner]]'', ''[[The Saint (TV series)|The Saint]]'', ''[[Thunderbirds (TV series)|Thunderbirds]]'', ''[[The Mary Tyler Moore Show]]'', ''[[The Flying Nun]]'', and ''[[The Bob Newhart Show]]''.<ref>[http://www.rugratonline.com/rrau.htm Nick AU]</ref>

===UK===
Nick at Nite was one of the planned, and advertised, stations as part of [[BSkyB|Sky's]] new Multichannels package, but was never launched.<ref>[www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-44481183.html Nick at Nite For UK Now in Doubt]</ref><ref>[http://www.variety.com/article/VR110130.html?categoryid=19&cs=1 Sat trio in U.K. debut - Entertainment News, International News, Media - Variety<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref><ref>ftp.funet.fi/pub/dx/text/sfnet.harrastus.dx-kuuntelu/1700-1799/1724</ref>

===Germany===
In Germany, Nick Nach Acht (Nick After Eight) airs on [[Nickelodeon Germany]] after 8:15 p.m. [[CET]]. It airs documentaries, drama series, movies and sitcoms. It uses an adapted logo of its American counterpart. <ref>[http://www.viacombrandsolutions.de/de/sender_programme/nick/programm.html NICK Programm<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

== See also ==
* [[List of programs broadcast by Nick at Nite]]
* [[Nickelodeon (TV channel)|Nickelodeon]]
* [[TV Land]]
* [[Adult Swim]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://www.nickatnite.com Nick at Nite Official Site]

{{Nickelodeon}}
{{MTV Networks}}
{{Viacom}}

[[Category:MTV Networks]]
[[Category:Nickelodeon]]
[[Category:Viacom subsidiaries]]
[[Category:Television channels and stations established in 1985]]
[[Category:Television programming blocks]]

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