Clarissa doesn't want to go to Ancient Greece pageant day at school so she fakes being sick. Her parents don't believe her until she really does become sick. Then the pageant is revamped and suddenly...
Six teams compete through a series of physical and mental challenges as it narrows down to only one team given the privilege to enter a mysterious temple in order to retrieve an artifact ... See full summary »
Stars:
Kirk Fogg,
Dee Bradley Baker,
Jennifer Holtz
A group of kids at a summer camp, run by the heard-but-never-seen Dr. Kahn, form friendships as they spend time harassing buffoonish camp counselor Kevin "Ug" Lee.
Stars:
Trevor Eyster,
Danny Cooksey,
Michael Bower
When a sixteen-year-old high school student finds out she's a witch, her two aunts offer guidance on how to control her newly-discovered magical powers.
Stars:
Melissa Joan Hart,
Caroline Rhea,
Beth Broderick
Sixty-five episodes of this syndicated show were produced in 1990 and 1992. The shows featured children in physical competition using unusual equipment, e.g., go-carts, tennis guns, et ... See full summary »
Three kids dawning the different colors blue, red, and purple compete in relatively cool-looking olympic-style games to achieve as many points as they can. At the end of every episode, they climb a big fake mountain, braving tumbling rocks made out of styrofoam, sparkling glitter, shooting steam, and loud sounds while trying to hit all the "Actuators" along their way to the summit including the ... See full summary »
Stars:
Mike O'Malley,
Moira Quirk,
Kelli Marchewka
Kenan and Kel. Two best friends who live in Chicago are always dragged down by Kenan's get rich quick schemes while orange soda loving buddy Kel is dragged along but tends to mess things up
Clarissa Explains it All may have been modeled on the successes of 1) Ferris Bueler and 2) Blossom. Melissa Joan Hart really got her start on this Nickelodean comedy aimed for younger teen and some pre-teen audiences as Clarissa Darling, a teen girl who often had a few minor dilemmas to work out in each episode. If I were to watch this show now, I'd probably remark how extremely corny it is, but then again, the humor and depth (or lack there of) doesn't have to carry on with me as I get older, since that isn't the point.
Clarissa Explains It All, nonetheless had some great things going for it. For one, it was one of the rare occasions that a show was headlined by a young teen girl, and a rather spunky one at that. Few times do we see this in the early 90s, other than Blossom and later, with another Nickelodean series, The Secret World of Alec Max. Something like Zach Morris and Ferris Beuler were able to do, Clarissa often addressed the audience, usually to reiterate how things are going or to give advice for solving those problems. And they were usually minor things, like dealing with a sneaky older brother, Furgeson, or getting out of some mundane chore. Harmless things like that as rarely did Nickelodeon, if ever, touch upon anything but neutral topics (save the short-lived half-hour news program). She was a likable character and not whiny or obnoxious, although her parents were usually nerds. She had a pet aligator named Elvis, a cool neighbor named Sam, and usually programmed computer games as the ideal way of planning a solution to her problems. It was an amusing show that tried to do things a little differently than the same old, same old. And it seemed to have worked, since the show lasted three years (which is still pretty good, considering).
Nickelodeon did have a quite a few good teen and pre-teen based shows on air in the early 90s. Among them were 'The Adventures of Pete and Pete,' 'The Secret World of Alec Max,' 'Are You Afriad of the Dark?' and of course, 'Clarissa Explains It All.' Check out the show if you can. If American television continues creating garbage shows, then these kinds of shows are truly the last of their kind.
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Clarissa Explains it All may have been modeled on the successes of 1) Ferris Bueler and 2) Blossom. Melissa Joan Hart really got her start on this Nickelodean comedy aimed for younger teen and some pre-teen audiences as Clarissa Darling, a teen girl who often had a few minor dilemmas to work out in each episode. If I were to watch this show now, I'd probably remark how extremely corny it is, but then again, the humor and depth (or lack there of) doesn't have to carry on with me as I get older, since that isn't the point.
Clarissa Explains It All, nonetheless had some great things going for it. For one, it was one of the rare occasions that a show was headlined by a young teen girl, and a rather spunky one at that. Few times do we see this in the early 90s, other than Blossom and later, with another Nickelodean series, The Secret World of Alec Max. Something like Zach Morris and Ferris Beuler were able to do, Clarissa often addressed the audience, usually to reiterate how things are going or to give advice for solving those problems. And they were usually minor things, like dealing with a sneaky older brother, Furgeson, or getting out of some mundane chore. Harmless things like that as rarely did Nickelodeon, if ever, touch upon anything but neutral topics (save the short-lived half-hour news program). She was a likable character and not whiny or obnoxious, although her parents were usually nerds. She had a pet aligator named Elvis, a cool neighbor named Sam, and usually programmed computer games as the ideal way of planning a solution to her problems. It was an amusing show that tried to do things a little differently than the same old, same old. And it seemed to have worked, since the show lasted three years (which is still pretty good, considering).
Nickelodeon did have a quite a few good teen and pre-teen based shows on air in the early 90s. Among them were 'The Adventures of Pete and Pete,' 'The Secret World of Alec Max,' 'Are You Afriad of the Dark?' and of course, 'Clarissa Explains It All.' Check out the show if you can. If American television continues creating garbage shows, then these kinds of shows are truly the last of their kind.