Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Old School Lane Casual Chats Episode 76: Nick Arcade

In this episode of Casual Chats, Patricia and special guest Nickelodeon enthusiast and creator of the Nickelodeon Studios: Past, Present, and Future documentary Bilaal Smith discuss about Nick Arcade in honor of its recent 25th anniversary celebration.


Check out Bilaal's links down below
https://bilaalsmith.com
https://www.facebook.com/NickStudiosPastPresentandFuture
https://twitter.com/b_smith5
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz1MdnwY-slHM2ty5h78TGQ

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Old School Lane Casual Chats Episode 75: Interview with Phil Moore

In this episode of Casual Chats, Patricia interviews actor, comedian, and Nick Arcade game show host Phil Moore discussing about how he first got started in his acting career, his experiences of being the host of Nick Arcade and You're On, and what his favorite video games are.



Check out Phil's links down below.
https://m.facebook.com/PHIL-MOORE-1474669936156288/
https://twitter.com/PhilMoore4u

Friday, January 20, 2017

Old School Lane Livestream Chat 1/20/2017

With Inauguration Day over, it's time to bring a lighthearted mood in the form of a livestream chat with Patricia and possibly a few special guests.


Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Old School Lane Casual Chats Episode 74: Interview with Joey Ahlbum

In the first episode of Casual Chats for 2017, Patricia interviews artist, animator, and children's book author Joey Ahlbum as they discuss about his inspirations, appearing as a guest on the 80's Nickelodeon show Standby: Lights! Camera! Action! hosted by Leonard Nemoy, animating for the doo-wop dino interstitial for Nickelodeon, Nick's Thanksgiving Fest, Thunder Lizards, and Elmo's World, and where he got the love for dinosaurs.



Check out Joey's links down below.

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Top 20 Hey Arnold! Episodes

Continuing with Hey Arnold! Month, Patricia looks back on the 100 episodes of the series and discusses about her all time favorites. It was a difficult task since there have been so many great episodes, but she was able to accomplish it. Let us know in the comments on your favorite episodes and why.

Sunday, January 8, 2017

Thank You for 1000 Subscribers + Special Giveaway

It's official! The Old School Lane YouTube channel has hit 1000 subscribers. It's all thanks to you that we were able to hit this huge milestone. As a special thanks, Patricia will giveaway a copy of Slimed! An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age by Mathew Klickstein and a Nicktoons DVD to 4 people.



To get a chance to win, email us at oldschoollane86@gmail.com to let us know your name, how you got introduced to Old School Lane, and what were your favorite podcast, video, and interview.

The names will be drawn in two weeks from now on January 22, 2017 and if your name is drawn, PM your address so that the book and DVD will be sent to you. Good luck.

Friday, January 6, 2017

Old School Lane's Top 10 Videos

We will now conclude our celebration of Old School Lane's 5th anniversary with my favorite videos. I started with my top 20 Nickelodeon shows that needed to be remade video back in 2012 with terrible audio, low quality pictures, and with a two second delay. It's absolutely awful and I haven't really done a lot of videos with the exception of the news update videos with bad audio and pictures only. My friend and PlaysStation Let's Play YouTube channel colleague Nick recommended that I should do videos instead of article blogs because he felt that I could do well with posting videos. I've only been doing full time video content since 2015, but during that time, I've been incredibly proud of most of the videos I've posted. I've made roughly 30 videos, so it was pretty tough to round out my all time favorite videos, but I was able to choose 10 that I felt satisfied with the most.

10. Top 10 Nicktoons That Need Comic Book Adaptations w/Comic Uno


This was the very first video I've ever done that was not only over 10 minutes long, but had video clips, decent audio, and even had a collaboration with my friend and colleague Comic Uno talking about what Nicktoons we wanted to see comic book adaptations on in honor of Invader Zim's comic book series being announced. It was also the first video that had my friend and colleague Taylor "Whyboy" Wyatt from ToonGrin making my title card and would do so for my later videos. It's pretty low on this list because I've done other videos since then that I felt that I've improved on my editing skills and writing. But, nonetheless, it's still a very important piece of content for Old School Lane.

9. The Weinerville Chanukah Special Discussion/Review


Whenever online reviewers discuss about Hanukkah specials, they either gush about the Rugrats special or rip a new one on Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights. However, no one had ever talked about Weinerville's Hanukkah special and since it was approaching its 20th anniversary since its debut, I felt like I needed to talk about it in video form. I had already did a blog article on the special back in 2012, but since I had gotten slightly comfortable with posting videos, I decided to revisit it and give a discussion/review on it. Despite me not being very funny, I feel that this video was my funniest because of me pointing out the ridiculous scenes that occurs on this special. It was pretty fun to do.

8. From Pilot to Final Product: The Adventures of Pete & Pete


I have done a total of 6 episodes of From Pilot to Final Product where I would compare TV pilots to their series to see what similarities and changes occurred. While the Rugrats episode is currently has the most views, the Pete & Pete episode is still my favorite. Yes, I'm biased because it is my favorite live action Nickelodeon show. The show's pilot was a Valentine's Day episode and it was nice to do a Valentine's Day video that doesn't really involve with love. Or at least love in a normal way. I had marathoned throughout the whole series and then watched the pilot and saw the noticeable changes that only hardcore Pete & Pete fans would know if they would see it. I really liked pointing out the characters, music, and strange tone that the show would later be known for. Bottom line, anytime I cover anything Pete & Pete, I always have fun with it. I would even like to do a Pete & Pete analysis video in the future. 

7. 5 Reasons on How Hey Arnold! was an Improvement over Doug


During Hey Arnold! Month, I posted a video on listing the reasons on why Hey Arnold! was an improvement over Doug. Doug was a groundbreaking Nicktoon when it first came out in 1991 introducing the slice-of-life genre for a new generation of kids. But 5 years later, Hey Arnold! came along and did everything Doug did, but better. I was a bit hesitant because I thought that Doug fans would thrash me saying that I was wrong. But I've gotten a lot of comments saying that they agree with me, which was a major relief. 

6. How Did Doug Became Influential with its Simplicity?


Speaking of Doug, I did a video on the show during 3 Original Nicktoons Month discussing about that despite Doug is a very simple and basic show by today's standards, back in 1991 it was incredibly influential and relatable by everyone who watched it. The characters, settings, music, and life lessons were done in a way that made people feel like they were real and with that, it became a classic. However, over the years, it was gotten backlash from many reviewers saying that it's a bland show that's nothing more than a time capsule to shows prior to Hey Arnold and The Loud House, but it still has a place in animation that I wanted to bring up in the this video.

5. Why Nickelodeon's Thanksgiving Fest was Historically Significant to the Channel?


When The Splat, TeenNick's newest 90's Nickelodeon timeslot, was announcing that they were going to be airing Nick's Thanksgiving Fest for the first time in over 20 years, I wanted to do a video on it for those who may not know what this Thanksgiving special is. Back in 1989 when Nickelodeon were slowly becoming more mainstream with You Can't Do That on Television and Double Dare, they wanted to expand with doing original animation and the first foray into it was this special. I had already discussed about it back in 2012, but when I first saw it, I thought it was incredibly underwhelming. But since then, it grew on me and I now find it kind of charming. I had revisited the special and talked about the special and its history. A lot of people had never heard of the Thanksgiving special and said that my video was how they first learned about it, which was pretty cool.

4. Top 15 As Told by Ginger Episodes


During As Told by Ginger Month, I had surprisingly gotten a lot of positive feedback from fans who had loved the series and the best example of that was shown in my top 15 list of my favorite episodes. I had done a top 10 list back in 2012 and it's so horrendously outdated that it's not even funny. So I felt redeemed when revisiting As Told by Ginger and writing a newer list of episodes that I still love to watch. I was surprised that no one has done a video on counting down the best As Told by Ginger episodes. I have seen a handful of reviews of the show, but no countdown. So, I worked very hard on doing the best video I could while releasing in time for the show's 15th anniversary. I still get comments from people who liked the video and told me that they loved the show. That makes me happy to see.

3. Should We Say Goodbye to Halcyon Days?

 

This is the only video I've done so far that's a personal story of myself, more specifically my fears and uncertainty of turning 30 years old. I wrote a story about how I had two sides of myself fighting to whether I should still continue to do Old School Lane or if I should quit and focus on being an adult. Everything that was shown about me being scared about my current life situation and my struggles of where my life should be is 100% true. When filming and editing my pessimistic self, I had gotten a little upset because I still felt inferior compared to my old friends from college who had since gotten married, moved away from their parents' house, and even have kids. But then, I felt slightly comforted when I filmed my optimistic self because I have truly grown and progressed as a content creator. The one thing I'm also appreciative of where the cameos from my Manic Expression colleagues, my fans, and even the people who I've interviewed over the past 4 years. I had never expected to get so many people sharing their birthday wishes with me. I was incredibly overwhelmed. There are so many behind the scenes stories about the process of this video that I will save it for a future commentary video on it.

2. The History of Hey Arnold: The Jungle Movie


After a long hiatus due to my dad's illness and multiple trips to the hospital, I had buckled down and talked about the long and convoluted history of The Jungle Movie, a canceled Hey Arnold! movie that was suppose to come out around 2002 where it was suppose to answer the question on whether Arnold would ever find his parents. I did a ton of research on the subject as well as what Craig Bartlett did afterwards and the dedicated fans who spread the word on convincing Nickelodeon to release The Jungle Movie. This was the first video I did under the partnership of Channel Frederator and I used the royalty free music to my full advantage. It's also been one of my most viewed videos in a short period of time and has gotten me a slight boost in subscribers, which is just crazy to believe. While I still have 3 more videos to produce for Hey Arnold! Month, this will be one of my favorite videos I've ever produced.

1. What Makes As Told by Ginger a Groundbreaking, yet Overlooked Nicktoon?


This was the last video I did for As Told by Ginger Month and it was the video that I built up to telling everyone on why I loved the show so much and why it needed a lot more attention. I had written a script around early November, but I hated it. So, I deleted the script and rewritten it from scratch. It may have taken 3 months longer than I wanted, but I felt it was very worth it. I divided the sections into two: why the show was groundbreaking and why the show was overlooked. I had gotten a lot of great feedback from both fans and people who had never seen the show. Although I've done more videos since then, I am still proud of this video the most.

It's been great looking back on how far Old School Lane has gone. We started off with a small blog with little to no views to having a blog and YouTube channel with a small, niche audience who look forward to the next video and podcast. Kevin and I are forever grateful on our progression and we will continue to grow and expand our content. We're hoping that you're around to see it.

That's it for now. Hope to see you around Old School Lane soon. Thanks for reading.

-Patricia







Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Old School Lane's Top 10 Podcast Interviews

Day 4 of Old School Lane's 5th year anniversary celebration continues with now discussing about what have been my favorite podcast interviews. Again, this has been very, very difficult because I am grateful for all the people who have taken the time to guest star on the podcast. Back in 2013, we started interviewing people on podcasts starting with the founder of Manic Expression James Walsh and since then, we've interviewed close to 30 people. So, once again with a sad heart, I omitted a lot of great interviews to reduce it to 10. With that said, here we go.

10. Will McRobb


It was not only our 50th Casual Chats episode, but it was the 3rd anniversary of the podcast. Kevin and I had interviewed the co-creator of The Adventures of Pete & Pete Will McRobb and talked about the show as well as KaBlam!, Snow Day, and some unknown information about the canceled Pete & Pete movie. He even told us about being the executive producer of the newest Christmas special Albert months before it was officially announced. It was such an amazing experience since we were talking to someone involved with our favorite live action Nickelodeon show. 

9. Jim Jinkins



It was our 30th episode of Casual Chats and Kevin and I were beyond excited when we had Doug creator Jim Jinkins as a guest. We had met a few months prior over at the Slimed! book event in NYC and had briefly talked while we were there. We talked about his early years working on Pinwheel, both incarnations of Doug, and an idea that he had for Doug involving a school reunion with the rest of the cast and what they were doing in today's time, and the impact that the show left for many people. Kevin was incredibly happy to have Jim on the show because he's a huge fan of Doug. A few years later, we would have him as a guest on our podcast The Legacy of Doug when the classic Nicktoon turned 25 years old.

8. Candi Milo/Gabi Hankins



We originally had interviewed voice actress Candi Milo back in 2012, but 3 years later, we invited her as a guest on Casual Chats to discuss about various things from her career, the diverse, yet controversial casting from Annie and the new Ghostbusters movie, and more. The tone of the podcast was over the place, but it was so much fun having her as a guest. A month later, we had her daughter Gabi as a guest who's an up-and-coming actress who has been in a few TV shows such as State of Affairs. We talked about starting out with acting and the process of finding your footing to get to a stable career. 

7. Janet Varney


After the Nicktoon The Legend of Korra ended its run, I had gotten a hold of Janet Varney to talk about her career, her podcast The JV Club, and thanking her for her amazing performance as Korra. To end things off, I played a game of M.A.S.H. with her, a game that she usually plays with every guest on her podcast. It was such a surreal experience, but it was one I would never forget. Afterwards, I bought an autograph which is still hanging up on my wall and JV Club t-shirt which I still wear to this day. 


6. Marc Weiner


Back in 2012, Kevin and I interviewed him in our blog discussing about the underrated 90's Nickelodeon show Weinerville. A year later when the show was celebrating its 20th anniversary, we got in contact with Marc again to have him as a guest on our podcast. Little did we know that not only were we going to have Marc as a guest, but also Dottie, Zip, Boney, Pops, and Louie from Weinerville as well as the map and Swiper the fox from Dora the Explorer. It was incredible and Kevin and I had spent more time laughing than asking questions.  

5. Brandon Jones


As mentioned many times before over the years, one of my major influences of doing content creation online were the people behind the video game website GameTrailers. When I heard that it was being shut down almost a year ago, I was beyond devastated and even did a video on what it meant to me. 



I was ecstatic when I heard less than a month after their shutdown that they were coming back as Easy Allies. I had gotten a hold of the founder Brandon Jones and talked about his love of video games, the beginning and end of GameTrailers, the ideas of their shows Pop Fiction, Timeline, and their top 10 lists, and the debut of Easy Allies. This interview meant so much to me since I had followed their work for 10 years and telling Brandon that was so uplifting. 

4. Renae Jacobs


This will be the only entry on our list from our podcast Turtle Talk where we had a total of 4 guests out of the 13 episodes we did. Out of our special guests, Renae was our favorite. Renae was the voice of April O'Neal from the 80's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon and Kevin and I interviewed her about the show. I even did a funny intro at the beginning of the podcast introducing Renae as Lotus Blossom, which was a minor character in the show. It became a fan favorite on our channel.

3. Lindsey Briggs/Derek Alexander


Now we're back on the subject of my major influences of my online content creation. Starting off with Lindsey "Little Miss Gamer" Briggs from PBC Productions, she took time off of her extremely busy schedule talking to me about her years as a puppeteer, doing video game reviews, and what she was doing now being a wife and mother. It's such a shame that this is one of my least viewed podcast interviews because I'm incredibly proud of how it turned out. 

The same wouldn't be said about Derek Alexander a.k.a. The Happy Video Game Nerd. We talked about his love of music and overlooked video games. I was the last person who interviewed him under that persona when he announced less than a month later that he was changing his name to Stop Skeletons from Fighting. 

2. Paul Germain and Joe Ansolabehere


It was Casual Chats' 35th episode and we had gotten the creative duo behind Recess as guests. Kevin, Christina, and I had asked Paul and Joe various questions about Rugrats, Hey Arnold!, and Recess. A little known fact about this episode was that due to Joe's son Hugo crying when he and Paul were together, he had to leave early and we mostly talked to Paul. But then, I interviewed Joe a week later and I edited the two podcasts together. It's pretty noticeable when you listen to it again because of the different audio pitch on my end. But regardless, it's become one of my favorites because of the amazing facts behind the shows and the fact that they rarely got interviewed back then made it even more special.

1. Craig Bartlett


The same way that Kevin was excited of interviewing Jim, I was excited to interview Craig for Casual Chats. It took a year and a half to get a hold of Craig since he was busy with Dinosaur Train, but he was able to give Kevin and I an hour of his time. We talked about Hey Arnold and his upcoming project Sky Rat. This was two years before The Jungle Movie was greenlit, so I told Craig that when I was 17 years old, I sent him a letter on how much I wanted to see the movie. He was really happy about that. Now three years later, I'm doing Hey Arnold Month and giving more detail on why I loved the show so much. 

Those are my top 10 favorite podcast interviews. Tune in next time as we conclude the 5 year anniversary celebration with my top 10 videos. Hope to see you around Old School Lane soon. 

-Patricia














Sunday, January 1, 2017

Old School Lane Update Video: New Years Day 2017

It's the 1st day of 2017 and Patricia gives an update on what's to come for Old School Lane for the new year such as new video and podcast series and more.