Remember Nick News ? How the show almost didn't happen — and where it is now.
Source: youtube.com
News is typically the last thing kids wants to see on TV, which is why a channel like Nickelodeon has been so successful as a safe haven from the boring and scary world of grown-up shows. But one of the longest-running programs on the network — a show that predates SpongeBob SquarePants, has outlived Rugrats, and has lasted more than two decades — isn't a cartoon, it's a show about news: Nick News with Linda Ellerbee.
And, yes, it's still on the air. And, yes, Linda Ellerbee still hosts.
"It's stunning to me it's still around," Ellerbee, 68, says. "[Nickelodeon] has understood and stood by us."
The program wasn't supposed to be anything more than a one-off special about the Gulf War, and it almost didn't happen. It was "an accident," Ellerbee says. In 1991, 24-hour cable television was still relatively new and consumer demand for coverage of the Gulf War was high. "The news of that short-lived war was everywhere. You couldn't escape it," Ellerbee says.
Several networks had done Gulf War specials for kids already, and Nickelodeon wanted its own. The network approached Ellerbee, whose résumé included Good Morning America and NBC News Overnight, to host. But she wasn't sure if she wanted to take Nickelodeon up on its offer. That night, however, she watched ABC's attempt at a Gulf War special for kids with Peter Jennings and made up her mind. "I think everybody in the country is aware that going to war has been hard on children, and I think it has confused children," Jennings told the Associated Press at the time.
But Ellerbee thought Jennings was confusing and scaring the kids even more. At one point in the program, he pulled out a gas mask. "He had a gas mask in his hand and he gave it to a kid!" Ellerbee says. "I knew what not to do." The kids of America were scared, and the grown-ups weren't making it any better. Linda Ellerbee had a job to do. She accepted Nickelodeon's offer.
Image by Hulton Archive / Getty Images
Ellerbee grew up during the Cold War, and she remembered what it was like having duck-and-cover bomb drills every Friday in school. "Nobody talked to me about that. All I was left with was this awful fear of something I didn't understand."
Kids Talk About the Middle East aired on Nickelodeon on Jan. 1, 1991. It was filmed in a living-room set filled with kids wearing large name tags. A child psychologist was present. "Hi, I know this isn't what you're used to seeing on Nick, but this is a different kind of show. We're going to talk about the war," Ellerbee began. The program was mostly a discussion. Ellerbee asked the kids what they knew about the war and what they thought about it. And she had the kids point out New York City and Baghdad on a globe. "Rather than try to hide it from them, we should explain the news to kids," she says.
"Saddam Hussein does not have an airplane that can fly from there to here without stopping for refueling," she said during the show. "And the other countries of the world have said, 'We will not allow you to stop and refuel.'" There was no need for alarm, no need to try on gas masks. The kids of America could go to bed feeling safe that night.
