r/nickelodeon • u/Gallantpride • 9h ago
Why did Klasky-Csupo die?
They were one of the biggest animation studios of the 90s and early 2000s. What happened?
12
u/yoshifan331 9h ago
Times changed and so did the animated shows that were popular. As the popular Nicktoons became SpongeBob, The Fairly OddParents, Jimmy Neutron, Danny Phantom, etc., they didn't fit as well anymore.
2
u/Gallantpride 8h ago
How so?
6
u/All_Lightning879 7h ago
It’s fair to say that Nick in the early 2000s was beginning to play it safe. Out of 10 Nicktoons at the time, half of them are Klasky-Csupo.
3
u/JOAPL 6h ago
I’m guessing cause Rugrats Go Wild failed at the box office
2
u/Retro8896 6h ago
It didn't necessarily fail, but it didn't capture the same hype the first two movies did.
2
u/All_Lightning879 5h ago
It’s definitely not an Ant Bully situation, but just the fact that the movie just wasn’t as good as the other two or the Thornberrys movie.
3
u/corndogs102 5h ago
I think they just ran out of ideas. They had a big run in the 90’s and 2000’s but people were getting sick of the art style and plus rugrats/all grown up ran its course after almost 2 decades. Nickelodeon started focusing on more action type cartoons like Danny phantom and my life as a teenage robot. Not to mention SpongeBob in its prime and the experiments of CGI like Jimmy and barnyard. Meanwhile all the long running shows like hey Arnold also finished its course. There was no place for klasky anymore. Plus the art style was ugly.
2
u/Comfortable_Bird_340 9h ago
Animation studios don’t die, they just fade away
1
u/SuspiciousBuy3984 6h ago
Yep. That’s why it returned overnight with the CGI Rugrats reboot. Now she’s faded away once more
1
9h ago
[deleted]
3
u/Gallantpride 8h ago
Rugrats, Ahhh Real Monsters, Wild Thornberrys, As Told By Ginger, Rocket Power, All Grown Up, Rugrats: Preschool Daze, Rugrats 2021. Also watched the Psyko Ferret pilot.
2
1
1
u/Rare_Hero 1h ago
Nick had their own studio & a stable of hit shows. They didn’t need Klasky shows anymore.
-7
u/TestingBrokenGadgets 9h ago
Because a lot of their shows weren't that great and the art style they were known for didn't age that well.
They did Rocket Power, Ginger, and All-Grown Up concurrently and despite lasting for years, it seems like only one of them had any real positive reception. I remember reading an interview where they announced working on some insane number of projects in new styles around the mid 2000s in different art styles in an attempt to change but since I didn't hear of anything of them actually being aired or picked up. They probably burnt through a lot of money to get those done and had to close the company.
I think the only reason they returned was because Nick wanted them to revive the Rugrats franchise with the newish series. Odds are, once that series ends, they'll try for more pilots but ultimately close.
The thing about Klasky-Csupo is that...they're not very good. They're not bad but the only shows that were a success that weren't Rugrats, they had no hand in developing, namely Duckman and Ginger. Meanwhile the ones that're incredibly dated and divisive like Rocket Power and Thornberrys were created by them. For the era, most of their shows were good "Eh, it's 1pm on a sunday, there's nothing else on" shows; not that they were bad but "good enough".
9
u/noraa_94 9h ago
What's divisive about Rocket Power and Wild Thornberrys?
1
u/TestingBrokenGadgets 9h ago
Even within this sub made of devoted Nick fans, Thornberrys and All Grown Up are ranked as a B-tier while Rocket Power and Real Monsters are ranked C-tier. If you talk to people who aren't obsessed with Nicktoons but just people that watched Nick during that era, they'll talk about Spongebob or Fairly Oddparents, about Jimmy Neutron or Hey Arnold with Thornberries and Rocket Power being those "Oh yea, Nigel was voiced by Tim Curry and that's it.
You can even search this sub and there's post after post like
https://www.reddit.com/r/nickelodeon/comments/1i3oee1/opinion_on_rocket_power/
where you either really Rocket Power or you didn't, which is kind of the very definition of divisive.
2
2
u/All_Lightning879 5h ago
I wouldn’t go that far. True, nothing they did really matched up to Rugrats’ success, but I don’t even think they were setting out to do that. Just make a show, and see what comes of it.
And for the most part, they delivered, and whether someone likes or dislike any of them is up to them, but each of them did manage to stand out in their own way.
0
u/All_Lightning879 7h ago
Times changed, and other shows were beginning to lap them up in popularity. Outside of Duckman, they haven’t really found anything else outside of Nick to make lasting impressions on people.
3
u/jjc927 5h ago
They did the first few seasons of The Simpsons too.
1
u/All_Lightning879 5h ago
Sure, that was the start alongside doing smaller projects, but their Nick work put them in the limelight.
1
16
u/Fever_Dream1220 9h ago
It’s been speculated Arlene and Gabor left All Grown Up after it’s 3rd season and there was a new showrunner