Marcel Winatschek

Nickelodeon’s Back

Nickelodeon’s back on German TV. The news was probably circulating a while, but it’s happening now—MTV2POP is getting displaced, Nickelodeon’s taking its place, and they’re stripping Super RTL of a bunch of shows in the process. They’ve timed it perfectly for the school year, which is exactly the kind of calculated nostalgia move the channel would make.

What’s strange is watching something you grew up with suddenly return. You’re not the same person anymore, and the world it broadcast into doesn’t exist in any meaningful way. But the specific textures are still there—the green slime, those ridiculous host bits that felt hilarious at the time, that particular feeling of being in on something that was exclusively for kids. Saturday mornings stretched out forever.

I’m not sure what Nickelodeon will actually be in this version. It might just be a logo over something completely different, or it might genuinely try to recapture what it was. Either way, there’s something to be said for a channel mattering enough to come back. Even if I’ve changed, even if everything’s changed. The fact that it returns at all says something about what it was.