pushinghoopswithsticks:

Splitsider featured a fascinating interview with Clarissa creator Mitchell Kriegman yesterday. It really shed light on how such a strong female lead, uninhibited by gender stereotypes, came to be as well as how the culture of Nickelodeon in the 90s led to the engaging shows we fondly remember today. Turns out we haven’t all just been imagining it, there was something genuinely special about the creative vision of 90s Nickelodeon, can you imagine a tv tween today as three dimensional as Clarissa? (or with a wfmu sticker in their locker instead of a mirror?)

Clarissa was the first tween sitcom. Our job wasn’t just to create some shows to make money. They wanted to make money for sure and we had to do it for nothing, but they wanted something that would be the “anti-Disney.” Disney was really boring at the time. Disney was Old Yeller. And the most staid kind of stuff for kids. Really “goody-goody.”

They [Nickelodeon] wanted us to create a new genre of kids’ TV in every area. So, it was really exciting. Your job wasn’t just to create something really good for kids, but something that you loved, too. Read more