Klickstein clearly spent a great deal of time interviewing actors, producers, network executives, directors, writers, the whole lot, from the "golden age" of Nickelodeon. He took these interviews, found the nuggets of gold from each one, and organized them by general topic. Topics like "Growing up on Nickelodeon" and "The music/sound design of Nickelodeon shows" and "Diversity on Nickelodeon." And at that point he was done working and published the book.
This book is nothing but snippets of interviews from various people involved with Nickelodeon. No through line, no context, not even an idea of what question was asked for any of them. The topic of conversation jumps around constantly as you go from 3 or 4 snippets about the sound design of Pete and Pete to whether or not Roundhouse was ever offered a record deal, with no connecting thread or hint that we're talking about something else now. Just quote after quote after quote with little rhyme or reason to speak of.
To make the whole thing worse, though, is that each quote is provided with only the name of the person who gave it. No explanation as to who they are, or what shows or departments within Nickelodeon they worked with. So unless you know off-hand that Syd Straw played Ms Fingerwood on Pete and Pete, or that David Stenstrom was Waldo on Out Of Control, you'll be flipping back and forth to the reference in the back of the book constantly.
This is not a book, or an oral history. This is the note someone who wanted to compile that oral history proper would have taken, published as if it were a complete product. Someone could take the information in this book, and the interviews form which this book is clipped, and create a fantastic oral history of Nickelodeon. Unfortunately Matthew Klickstein seemingly had no interest in doing that
This book is nothing but snippets of interviews from various people involved with Nickelodeon. No through line, no context, not even an idea of what question was asked for any of them. The topic of conversation jumps around constantly as you go from 3 or 4 snippets about the sound design of Pete and Pete to whether or not Roundhouse was ever offered a record deal, with no connecting thread or hint that we're talking about something else now. Just quote after quote after quote with little rhyme or reason to speak of.
To make the whole thing worse, though, is that each quote is provided with only the name of the person who gave it. No explanation as to who they are, or what shows or departments within Nickelodeon they worked with. So unless you know off-hand that Syd Straw played Ms Fingerwood on Pete and Pete, or that David Stenstrom was Waldo on Out Of Control, you'll be flipping back and forth to the reference in the back of the book constantly.
This is not a book, or an oral history. This is the note someone who wanted to compile that oral history proper would have taken, published as if it were a complete product. Someone could take the information in this book, and the interviews form which this book is clipped, and create a fantastic oral history of Nickelodeon. Unfortunately Matthew Klickstein seemingly had no interest in doing that
