I can very easily and proudly say that this was one of my favorite shows growing up. I think it actually had a lot to do with my crazy personality today! We all remember the cast, the characters, the sketches, the funny and memorable moments, and we all love them so much! I find it interesting, though, as I read some of the other comments, reviews, and blogs about this show on this website, a reoccurring line reads, "The old cast was great, but the new cast was just terrible!" And...I'd be lying if I said that weren't true.
Let's start with the premise of the show. If you're familiar with any vaudeville shows or with "Saturday Night Live," then throw kids in there and you'll have an idea what this show is about. It's a show where teenagers and young adults perform reoccurring comedic characters in familiar comedic sketches. They put on a show, after having fun in the Green Room, and at the end of the show a musical guest performs. Some of the best memorable characters include Superdude, Ed from "Good Burger" Ashley from "Ask Ashley," Detective Dan, Ms. Fingerly, Kevin the Stage Manager, and so many others! OK, let's address the elephant in the room: is the old cast really all that bad?...Yes they are. However, I don't think the show's decline is necessarily their fault. Like some of the other Nickelodeon classics, I saw this show all the time when I was a kid, there was a long gap when I didn't see it, and then it reentered my life during my teen/young adult years. When I watched the show again as a young man, I paid more attention to the writing. In all honesty, it wasn't really that great. It was pretty stupid. The sketches included awkward and obvious dialogue and incredibly dumb plots. I really don't think the producers cared that much. "They're only children," they probably said. "We don't have to be smart or anything." Sometimes the lines and the situations would be funny, but most of the time they were really lame. What made them work, however, was the cast! Somehow the cast was talented enough to take the lame words on paper and make them entertaining and funny. In the first several seasons, the show had the right people (and all of them were great) who could make you laugh at the dumbest things! "How is that possible? Why is this supposed to be funny?" Those questions can easily be answered when you're watching Josh Server and Kel Mitchell! I'll always believe that the best season of the show was the fourth season. The show started out pretty good and got better over time, but the fourth season, in my opinion, had the best cast. I wanted to watch all of them and see what type of character each performer would portray next.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about: let's take a favorite and familiar sketch, "Vital Information." Imagine your reaction if you heard any person say: "It's rude to talk with your mouth full. It's even ruder to blow your nose in your sister's pants." It wouldn't be that funny; it'd be rather stupid. However, Lori Beth Denberg knows just how to articulate that phrase to crack a smile on your face. After she left the show, Danny Tamberelli began hosting this sketch in the fifth season. It was...not funny. It wasn't ungodly unbearable, there were some funny moments. However, Danny just didn't have the same charm or sense of humor Lori Beth had to deliver the comedy for this sketch. Lori Beth was obviously the perfect choice to have host "Vital Information." But aside from the performers and the set design, did anything else about the sketch change? No, it still had the same writers. But now you're hearing just how stupid these words really are.
Now while the crew may not have changed (at least that much) from one season to the next, it certainly can change over the course of a long time span. Dan Schnider, who served as one of the show's producers and writers in the beginning, took over "All That" a couple of seasons later. And...it tanked. It was gosh awful. There weren't any talented comedic actors and actresses for the writers and producers to hide behind, everyone from the show's glory days were gone. Now the show's stupidity was out in the open with no place to hide. And, yes, I do put the blame of the show's demise on Dan Schnider. Schnider was responsible for other horrendous Nickelodeon shows, but we'll get to those later. He wasn't that bad in the mid to late '90s, but as time went on he got a lot worse. And nowhere does that show more obviously than the later seasons of "All That!" I don't think the problem is that the new actors and actresses couldn't act. I just don't think they were necessarily talented enough to make the stupid scripts funny. This just wasn't the right show for them to lend their talents.
OK, I did an analysis of the bad; what about the good? Well, like I said, the first group of actors and actresses were really charming and funny. Kenan Thompson, Amanda Bynes, Leon Frierson, Angelique Bates, Katrina Johnson, Alisa Reyes, Christy Knowings, Danny Tamberelli (when he's not giving vital information) - they were gems! They knew how to make us laugh! Their characters were incredibly entertaining and timeless. If you can watch this show and still laugh at these guys and their characters, clearly they did something right! And like I said before, the writing wasn't always bad; it had its moments. But the main reason we came back was to see these great actors and actresses performing these great characters! So long as I get to see them, I will always come back to this show; and that's ALL THAT! BOOYIKA!
Let's start with the premise of the show. If you're familiar with any vaudeville shows or with "Saturday Night Live," then throw kids in there and you'll have an idea what this show is about. It's a show where teenagers and young adults perform reoccurring comedic characters in familiar comedic sketches. They put on a show, after having fun in the Green Room, and at the end of the show a musical guest performs. Some of the best memorable characters include Superdude, Ed from "Good Burger" Ashley from "Ask Ashley," Detective Dan, Ms. Fingerly, Kevin the Stage Manager, and so many others! OK, let's address the elephant in the room: is the old cast really all that bad?...Yes they are. However, I don't think the show's decline is necessarily their fault. Like some of the other Nickelodeon classics, I saw this show all the time when I was a kid, there was a long gap when I didn't see it, and then it reentered my life during my teen/young adult years. When I watched the show again as a young man, I paid more attention to the writing. In all honesty, it wasn't really that great. It was pretty stupid. The sketches included awkward and obvious dialogue and incredibly dumb plots. I really don't think the producers cared that much. "They're only children," they probably said. "We don't have to be smart or anything." Sometimes the lines and the situations would be funny, but most of the time they were really lame. What made them work, however, was the cast! Somehow the cast was talented enough to take the lame words on paper and make them entertaining and funny. In the first several seasons, the show had the right people (and all of them were great) who could make you laugh at the dumbest things! "How is that possible? Why is this supposed to be funny?" Those questions can easily be answered when you're watching Josh Server and Kel Mitchell! I'll always believe that the best season of the show was the fourth season. The show started out pretty good and got better over time, but the fourth season, in my opinion, had the best cast. I wanted to watch all of them and see what type of character each performer would portray next.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about: let's take a favorite and familiar sketch, "Vital Information." Imagine your reaction if you heard any person say: "It's rude to talk with your mouth full. It's even ruder to blow your nose in your sister's pants." It wouldn't be that funny; it'd be rather stupid. However, Lori Beth Denberg knows just how to articulate that phrase to crack a smile on your face. After she left the show, Danny Tamberelli began hosting this sketch in the fifth season. It was...not funny. It wasn't ungodly unbearable, there were some funny moments. However, Danny just didn't have the same charm or sense of humor Lori Beth had to deliver the comedy for this sketch. Lori Beth was obviously the perfect choice to have host "Vital Information." But aside from the performers and the set design, did anything else about the sketch change? No, it still had the same writers. But now you're hearing just how stupid these words really are.
Now while the crew may not have changed (at least that much) from one season to the next, it certainly can change over the course of a long time span. Dan Schnider, who served as one of the show's producers and writers in the beginning, took over "All That" a couple of seasons later. And...it tanked. It was gosh awful. There weren't any talented comedic actors and actresses for the writers and producers to hide behind, everyone from the show's glory days were gone. Now the show's stupidity was out in the open with no place to hide. And, yes, I do put the blame of the show's demise on Dan Schnider. Schnider was responsible for other horrendous Nickelodeon shows, but we'll get to those later. He wasn't that bad in the mid to late '90s, but as time went on he got a lot worse. And nowhere does that show more obviously than the later seasons of "All That!" I don't think the problem is that the new actors and actresses couldn't act. I just don't think they were necessarily talented enough to make the stupid scripts funny. This just wasn't the right show for them to lend their talents.
OK, I did an analysis of the bad; what about the good? Well, like I said, the first group of actors and actresses were really charming and funny. Kenan Thompson, Amanda Bynes, Leon Frierson, Angelique Bates, Katrina Johnson, Alisa Reyes, Christy Knowings, Danny Tamberelli (when he's not giving vital information) - they were gems! They knew how to make us laugh! Their characters were incredibly entertaining and timeless. If you can watch this show and still laugh at these guys and their characters, clearly they did something right! And like I said before, the writing wasn't always bad; it had its moments. But the main reason we came back was to see these great actors and actresses performing these great characters! So long as I get to see them, I will always come back to this show; and that's ALL THAT! BOOYIKA!