ABSTRACT
Since solidifying its brand in the early 1980s, Nickelodeon has been associated with color: a bright orange logo dominates its station identification, and green slime is a main attraction of its game and award shows. Yet familiar sounds have also come to define the network. Nickelodeon’s penchant for 1950s-style doo-wop singing may seem a strange match for the splattering, slurping, dripping, crunching, and burping noises found in cartoons like SpongeBob SquarePants (1999–) or live-action shows like 100 Things to Do Before High School (2014–) and Big Time Rush (2009–2013), particularly when children must combine the immediacy of these body sounds with the wistfulness required for viewing reruns on Nick at Nite or appreciating classic movie sound effects like Castle Thunder or the Wilhelm scream. Nickelodeon’s particular combination of corporeal and nostalgic sounds influences how viewers interpret the stories it tells and determines what it expects children to learn and do as a result of their engagement with its shows. Ultimately, Nickelodeon’s sound effects reinforce a contradictory view of contemporary childhood as a period that ought to be both highly regulated and free of worry.
