Childhood?

There have been many questions that have proved unceasingly irksome and labyrinthine for me recently, but one has remained especially pungent in my mind: Have kids' television shows/channels (especially Nickelodeon) gotten that much worse in the past few years, or have we just gotten older? Instead of trying to argue that shows like iCarly, True Jackson, VP, and The Naked Brothers Band would not have appealed to me circa 1996 (or thereabout), I am just going to play the role of Thursday Guy the Raconteur, and remind you of what great programs were at our viewing disposal in the days of decrusted PB & Js and recess.
Now, I'm still just a pup in the grand scheme of things, and, to assure that everybody is on the same page, I'm going to chronologically name the shows that defined my childhood:

Hey Dude and I were born in the same year, 1989. Sadly, it died when I was two years old, in 1991, and, because of this, I didn't experience Hey Dude in all it's novel glory until it came back, rerun style, in the mid-nineties. The synopsis goes a little something like this:
Mr. Ernst, formerly of New York City, decides that the fast and hectic lifestyle isn't for him, and moves out to Arizona with his son, Buddy, on a whim, and founds "Bar None Dude Ranch". Buddy isn't too into arid Tucson, obviously, because he can't skateboard on the ranch. Five interns, all from completely different ethnic and socioeconomic groups (Nickelodeon was big into being as blatantly PC as possible during this time. I mean, there was a snazzy dresser from Gross Pointe, MI, and an oddball Native American both, for whatever reason, working on a newly founded ranch in AZ), come to work for the well-intentioned but pretty incompetent Mr. Ernst and teenage-geared hilarity ensues!

Rugrats. What can I say about it? Evaluating it would be like reconsidering my upbringing; cogitating why I am like I am. Originally aired in 1991, Rugrats technically ran until 2004, when they were "All Growed Up" and sucked.
I kind of wish Rugrats died out in, let's say, 1994; thereby allowing it to gain that Arrested Development or Freaks and Geeks aura and that Jimi Hendrix/Clifford Brown/Sylvia Plath "what if?" mysticism. Hendrix in that it was, by far, the best at what it did; Brown because it would have been so short lived and would have had infinite potential; Plath because even the worse episodes (some of her poetry) would still have been extolled and glorified, even if they didn't deserve the praise. I guess doing that, though, would be equivalent to my being born without my right arm or left leg: I would go through life knowing that I was missing something integral, but would compensate, atone, and adjust, and continue living incompletely.
The idea, for you ignoramuses, or Brendan Fraser bomb shelter kids, was that four friends, Tommy Pickles, Chuckie Finster, and Phil and Lil DeVille, go adventuring, and, unbeknownst to their parents, communicate in adorable malapropisms via some sort of baby speak. Their endeavors usually take place at Tommy's house, and often are antagonized by Tommy's elder cousin Angelica, who is bilingual in English and Toddler. The beginnings always started off with ultra-extreme close-ups of some everyday object and I always tried my hardest to guess what it was before it came completely into focus. Dealing with issues like the struggles of being a lefty and pre-k crushes, Rugrats was perfect.

Doug was the Rugrats for those closing in on the double-digit age mark, and originally ran from 1991-1994. It was an eponymous masterpiece whose reputation was tarnished by the fact that it made a horrendous comeback on One Saturday Morning (and it had so much potential to evoke that aforementioned aura!) near the turn of the millennium.
Douglas Yancey Funnie: average in every way. His turtle-green v-neck sweater vest, baggy white undershirt, cargo shorts, ankle-high socks, and red and white sneakers screamed mediocrity louder than an Adelina Patti aria. He was never quite able to pull in the reins on Patty Mayonnaise (Nickelodeon and Political Correctness? Patty's dad was in a wheelchair), got picked on by Roger Klotz (man was he m-e-a-n!), had a partially anthropomorphic dog Porkchop, and had his one (allegorically Afro-American?) best friend Skeeter Valentine. It seems like a pretty typical teen movie setup, yes, but it had the animation and problem simplification to gear it toward, and make it appeal to, a prepubescent crowd. Doug could never break through the proverbial (social) glass ceiling, but we loved to see the futile attempts of his rubber hammer to do so.

All That, and I'm not talking that Amanda Bynes led shit. I'm talking about Lori Beth Denberg, Josh Server, Kel Mitchell, Danny Tamberelli, and Kenan Thompson. I'm talking about awesome preteen sketch comedy that I watched my two sisters on SNICK (which was subsequently and shittily replaced by TEENick) when my parents were out to dinner on Saturday nights. Remember Good Burger? It was made into a movie (take that, SNL). What about Dullmont Jr. High, where eccentric teaches did zany things and spoke in non sequiturs, and sometimes not in English at all (beat you to it, The Faculty). Coach Kreeton, with Kel Mitchell at his finest, acting as an elderly Phys. Ed. teacher who is always accidentally inflicting pain on himself (sorry, Seann William Scott). The Spice Boys (pf, you wish, 2Gether).
Okay, not to beat you over the head with it, but the seminal All That was, potentially, a pretty influential show.

I don't know, I could just be searching for gold in a coal mine, for meaning or coincidence in nothing, but I want to reminisce with ideas of grander implications; I want to think that the endless hours I spent sprawled across my brown leather couch were not completely spent in vain; that these shows weren't the Zoey 101s or the Drake & Joshes. I want to think that these shows mattered, that they left a footprint, that they did something.

-Thursday