Jennifer Holtz is a legend among legends.

The second-year Syracuse University law student may seem like just your run-of-the-mill hard working scholar; yet in reality she withholds a fascinating and, more importantly, televised past.

The Orlando, Fla. native and once aspiring actress became the envy of millions of cable-watching kids when she moonlighted as half of the first team ever to win ‘Legends of the Hidden Temple’ on Nickelodeon – a stunning accomplishment, considering that out of the 120 episodes produced, there were only 32 winners.

‘I won a trip to the Bahamas and a telescope that’s sitting in my back room but has never been used,’ Holtz said. ‘It was a brand-new show, so they hadn’t even started airing it yet. I remember there were technical difficulties as my partner was going through the temple and he was on an elevator and it stopped, and they had to shut it down and fix it and start again, but it was a lot of fun.’

‘Legends’ was just one of the many Nickelodeon shows Holtz is connected to. She tried out for the extreme game show ‘GUTS,’ and made it through two interview rounds involving dirt biking and an obstacle course before failing at the swimming portion. Her Nick stint continued when she participated in a skit on ‘All That,’ where she had to shampoo a foreigner named Ishboo, played by ‘Fat Albert’ star Keenan Thompson, for his birthday.

These shows were just a small portion of the lineup that Nickelodeon provided for kids approximately ages seven to 15 around a decade ago, and have since become an endless source of nostalgia for college students. It’s a common occurrence to hear a group of students talking about how they actually looked forward to staying in on Saturday night to watch the ‘SNICK’ lineup of Nickelodeon shows. For this reason, DVD sales for shows like ‘The Adventures of Pete & Pete’ or ‘Clarissa Explains It All’ have done very well, said Robert Thompson, director of the Center for Popular Television at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

‘You always have a certain affinity to the programming you watch from the age of six,’ Thompson said, ‘where your consciousness is formed, until high school, and anything that comes after that will be positioned in your psyche in a different way.’

Nickelodeon shows do seem to hold a certain place in many college students’ hearts. Whether it’s the amusement from the cartoons the channel produced (commonly referred to as ‘Nicktoons’), like the teen-angst ‘Doug,’ the out-of-control ‘Ren and Stimpy’ or the amazing kid-friendly game shows like ‘Wild and Crazy Kids’ and ‘DoubleDare,’ Nickelodeon offered something for everyone. It might be because of this that the Old School Nickelodeon Club on facebook.com has over 1,400 members, one of the biggest groups on the Web site.

‘I’m happy so many people like old school Nickelodeon because it’s so classic,’ said Hannah Lavon, the club’s founder and a senior advertising and design major. ‘I like to talk about (Nickelodeon), and I felt it had to have a kind of representation on the Facebook, but I had no idea it was going to be over 1,000 people. I guess there are a lot more cool people at Syracuse than I thought.’

Launched in 1979, Nickelodeon has grown to become the most-watched TV network by kids in the United States. It is also basic cable’s No. 1 network overall, according to a Nickelodeon press release. The concept behind Nickelodeon came about because of a radical change in children’s TV. Long before the cable era, there were two types of children’s programming: educational shows and morning programs like ‘Captain Kangaroo’ and ‘Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.’ This all changed with the creation of ‘Sesame Street’ in 1969, which showed that children’s TV could be entertaining as well as educational. Using new techniques such as multiple modes, black and white colors and quick cutting, ‘Sesame Street’ essentially created the MTV style a decade before it existed, Thompson said.

Nickelodeon took the entertaining factor to a new level. Unheeded by the need to be educational, the channel had the freedom to use creative and exciting techniques to draw in viewers.

‘The genius of Nickelodeon is that they figured a couple things out,’ Thompson said. ‘They knew that especially among the very young, it was the parent that chose to turn on the TV, so Nickelodeon came up with a program that would appeal to their targets and the parents. They had shows that were cool enough that even the older sibling would watch.’

Other SU students have had personal encounters with Nickelodeon. Sam Roberts, a Daily Orange staff writer and a senior film major, was on the hidden-talent show ‘Figure It Out.’ After Roberts was taped flipping quarters off his double-jointed ankles, Nickelodeon flew him out to Orlando. Roberts filmed his episode and actually won an electronic drum set, a basketball hoop and the grand prize trip to Vermont, as well as an additional bonus of snuggling up to host Summer Sanders throughout the entire show. The act was nothing to complain about, he said.

‘It was a blast, and it made me a little star in my school when it happened,’ Roberts said. ‘It’s kind of funny and embarrassing now. I certainly don’t go around telling people because it’s silly, but someone who knew from before will tell a new group of friends, and I’ll have to find the tape and play it again.’

While college students may have a fondness for shows of the past, many feel that present-day Nickelodeon doesn’t seem to hold up. What once seemed to be risky and inspired is now juvenile with crude jokes that depend on toilet humor and flashy effects. Nickelodeon is trying to appeal to a younger audience. It’s not that the cartoons are more immature, just that they have become less complex; there’s now only one problem to a plot instead of several like before, said Colin Ferguson, a freshman film drama major.

‘When Nickelodeon first came out it was huge, and now it’s bland,’ Lavon said. ‘I just feel like even when I’m watching old episodes now, I am still entertained, but if I flip through to (the channel), it’s not entertaining, it’s stupid.’

Still, it may be that the former audience’s tastes have matured in time. The jokes of the past may no longer make a lasting impression on the eager college student. It’s also possible that the shows of one’s youth will always remain special to the people who watched them, and that no show will ever be able to replace that, Thompson said.

So whether the Nickelodeon shows were pinnacles of cinematic ingenuity or just entertaining to pre-adolescent minds, they will always have a lasting place in memories and drunken college party discussion.

‘Not that our shows weren’t bad, but there were instances that were very subtle and contained really clever writing that is not on TV, especially in kids’ TV, today,’ Roberts said. ‘Not that our shows were genius, but they were fun to watch.’

Published on September 28, 2005 at 12:00 pm