Overview
Introduction
This article is all about the American cable television network Nickelodeon and a variety of topics associated with it.In this article, Nickelodeon's programming takes on a variety of ideas, many of which already exist, and these ideas are expanded greatly in comparison with current history, resulting in a vast entertainment and pop culture empire for Nickelodeon. Such an empire will be bigger and greater than the one existing in the current version of history.
Biography of Tony Marini
Introduction
Tony Marini is an invention of mine who in this revised history is a key figure in helping Nickelodeon to develop into a phenomenon with a solid legacy lasting to this day.Biography
Tony Marini is an American television executive, and the husband of Patricia “Patty” Massi Marini, daughter of Nick Massi, bass guitarist for Italian-American rock band the Four Seasons.
Anthony Francis Marini was born on April 13, 1954 in Newark, New Jersey to Joseph Anthony Marini (born September 30, 1926) and Susan Florence Marini (nee Gabrieli) (born March 16, 1928), an Italian-American family.
Baseball was an early interest for Tony, and he first met his future wife, Patty Massi, at a local amateur kids’ baseball game his parents brought him to in April 1964. Patty was playing on a team consisting mostly of boys, which she had joined in May 1959 soon after turning 4 due to her reputation as a roughed-up tomboy. Later that year, her father Nick permanently joined the band that would become known as the Four Seasons.
Since they first met, Tony and Patty had become frequent companions, growing increasingly in love. They were engaged on May 12, 1968, when Tony was 14 and Patty had just turned 13. They both got permission from their parents to get married, in part because both sets of parents had married as teenagers. They were married on March 2, 1969, and went on to have four children.
Meanwhile, Tony still managed to graduate from high school and college. He was a bright student and graduated from high school in 1970 at 16. He graduated from college summa cum laude in 1974. Tony and Patty were very rich, so they could very easily afford to have Patty tutored at home, and to have a babysitter look after their kids while they were not home.
After graduating from college, Tony moved with his family to New York, New York in June 1974. During the fall of that year, he started working for PBS through its Manhattan branch. He initially had hands-on experience with PBS through numerous internships he took throughout his college career. (During these internships, Tony was very influential in helping PBS make decisions in television production of the network’s children’s television series, as well as in other areas, and his input was taken seriously every time.) While at PBS, he was partially responsible for the idea to produce a 1980 documentary film celebrating 20 years of high success for the Four Seasons. This television film, which premiered on PBS on Friday night, May 2, 1980, featured, among other media, footage and interviews from the members of the Four Seasons (Frankie Valli, Tommy DeVito, Bob Gaudio, Nick Massi, and Joe Russo) and people associated with them (including Herbie Mandel and Bob Crewe); this covered chronological biographies of the key people in the Four Seasons, a chronological history of the band, and highlighted how the Four Seasons became one of the most popular and successful rock bands in history. The TV film was so successful that it was released to VHS on June 24, 1980. Following the VHS release, noteworthy nonfiction books were beginning to be published about the rock band, starting with Four-ever, which was first released into retail stores across America in August 1980. Four-ever chronicles biographical information about the Four Seasons, as well as data about their albums and singles and other nostalgia spotlighting the rock band. This movement, continuing into the present day, culminated in the establishment of the Four Seasons Museum at the band’s home turf of Newark in 1985. Thus, Marini had played a major role in immortalizing the Four Seasons as a pop culture and rock band phenomenon, with the band’s legacy rivaling those of other rock music icons such as Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones.
Despite his success with working for PBS, Tony Marini quit PBS on October 2, 1981 and transferred over to the cable network Nickelodeon three days later. Tony announced such a decision the previous month and joined Nickelodeon in honor of his father-in-law, as well as being on a mission to become famous in his own right.
From his arrival at Nickelodeon in 1981 on, Tony has been very influential in many decisions made by Nickelodeon’s chief personnel. He played a large role in popularizing the network and its innovative, original television programs during the early 1980s. Nickelodeon’s original programs of the 1980s were live action and consisted of game shows and other programs of non-animated genres.
Marini made a stunning political prediction during the summer of 1984, during a time when Nickelodeon was a fledgling cable TV network. He predicted that President Reagan would be reelected by a landslide even greater than the one in his initial election in 1980, in which Reagan beat President Carter badly, carrying 49 out of 50 states and receiving over 66.7% of the popular vote. In addition to this, Marini predicted that Reagan would win all 62 counties of New York State; five of these counties make up the five boroughs of New York City, including Manhattan, the headquarters of Nickelodeon and Marini’s residence. Carter had won Manhattan as well as the Bronx in 1980, both by under a 4-percentage-point margin. To add to this, Marini predicted Reagan would win all 50 states, a feat never accomplished before by any US presidential candidate. (President Carter won Rhode Island by a very narrow margin in 1980, largely by winning Providence county by a 6-point margin.) In the last part of his prediction, Marini claimed that the President’s opponent, Democrat Walter Mondale, would only win a handful of divisions in the entire United States, including the District of Columbia, which had 3 electoral votes.
In the aftermath of the 1984 election, Marini’s general predictions were determined to be true. Reagan won over 73.2% of the popular vote, and all 50 states, winning 535 out of the total of 538 electoral votes. The divisions Mondale (who won close to 25.6% of the popular vote overall) won included the District of Columbia (and the three remaining electoral votes), four counties in Minnesota, three in Kentucky, two in Alabama, and one each in Montana, New Mexico, South Dakota, Texas, and Virginia. All boroughs in Alaska, all parishes in Louisiana, and all counties in each of the remaining 40 states (including New York) were won by President Reagan. The results of the 1984 election had come out almost exactly like Tony Marini had predicted, and as a result, his reputation as a well-trusted Nickelodeon staff member was solidified even more, and he quickly became the most respected of the entire Nickelodeon personnel.
Marini further advanced the network’s growth and expansion through his help in promoting original game shows, starting with Double Dare (1986), and later, original animated series (“Nicktoons”). In 1988, upon Marini’s suggestion, Nickelodeon teamed up with Paramount Pictures and formed Nickelodeon Movies. The studios partnered to produce numerous films based on Nickelodeon properties. These included You Can’t Do That on Film, released on July 4, 1990, and based on the popular comedy television series You Can’t Do That on Television; as well as Hey Dude: The Movie (released July 3, 1991) and Are You Afraid of the Dark?: The Movie (released October 23, 1992), based on the popular series Hey Dude and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, respectively. The success of these films led to more hits, including All That: The Movie (released July 2, 1997) and Kenan & Kel: The Movie (released July 1, 1998), based on the popular series All That and Kenan & Kel, respectively.
The Simpsons made its television debut at the end of 1989, quickly advancing to great popularity and critical acclaim, and the following year, Nickelodeon decided to create animated series of their own. Tony Marini helped along the way with the organization of these series, starting with the first three, Doug, Rugrats, and The Ren & Stimpy Show; all three of these premiered on the same day, August 11, 1991.
Although Nickelodeon had a reputation of co-producing several films with Paramount Pictures by the time the first batch of Nicktoons were hugely popular, the Paramount/Nickelodeon Movies partnership did not yield an animated film until the release of the first Rugrats movie in July 1993. This movie was a blockbuster, and was followed by many other animated blockbusters, including the first Ren & Stimpy movie, released in November 1993, and the first Doug movie, released in July 1994.
Marini was instrumental not only in getting these films based on Nicktoons produced and released, but also in suggesting a new, innovative style that was very far-removed from styles, methods, and techniques that were used by (and characteristic of) Disney. This style, which comprised of elements that captured the spirit of the Nicktoon it was based on, instead of implementing the Disneyesque genre of animated musical, was first used in the 1993 Rugrats film and appealed to adults as well as children. This movie style helped these animated films perform exponentially better at the box office than many other non-Disney animated films of the era, and was a standard utilized in virtually every Nicktoon movie, the two exceptions being the third and fourth Rugrats films, released in November 1998 and November 2000, respectively. These two films were produced and released after Paul Germain departed, with several other key writers, from Rugrats, and were treated with a Disneyesque influence (especially the third). Whereas the third film was nevertheless a massive box-office success (though not as huge as the first and second films), the fourth film was a relatively minor hit. Thereafter, the executives at Nickelodeon, including Tony Marini, made a quiet, unofficial pledge not to make another film like the third and fourth Rugrats films.
Between 1982 and 1992, in large part due to Tony’s efforts, Nickelodeon developed into one of the top-ranked cable networks on television. Nickelodeon experienced another ratings boost after Sesame Street experienced a major ratings drop on PBS late in 1992. Tony Marini had been appointed the general manager of the network during the previous year. During the 1992-1993 television season, the Cartoon Network, which made its first broadcast October 1, 1992, quickly rose to become hugely popular among television viewers. In January 1993, by decision of Nickelodeon executives under Tony’s guidance, Nickelodeon sold the rights to many of their non-original animated series in their programming to the Cartoon Network. These included most notably the Looney Tunes, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Underdog, and Tiny Toon Adventures. Such series got higher ratings on the Cartoon Network than on Nickelodeon, and they gradually got completely removed from Nickelodeon’s programming schedules (i.e. Rocky and Bullwinkle and Underdog were dropped in 1994, the Looney Tunes in 1995, and Tiny Toon Adventures in 1998). In 1997, due to his extended services to Nickelodeon, Tony was promoted to executive vice president of the network.
On January 10, 2003, Nickelodeon president Herb Scannell resigned from his position, making Tony Marini the new president. In 2009, a suggestion developed that the network should change its signature splat logo. Tony and his son Joey (who had also joined Nickelodeon) were strongly opposed to such a change, calling it completely unnecessary, especially because the network was still enormously popular. They also warned other executives that longtime Nickelodeon fans would indeed harshly criticize such a change if it were implemented. After long discussion and debate, the suggestion of a logo change was discarded.
Tony Marini stepped down from being president of Nickelodeon on January 16, 2016, and was succeeded by Cyma Zarghami, who learned a lot from him and his experiences working at the network. Although no longer the Nickelodeon president, Marini still has a high-ranking position with the network as a chairman.
Notes on Nickelodeon Movies
- Some of Nickelodeon's live-action films, such as You Can't Do That on Film (1990) and All That: The Movie (1997), naturally lack a core plot, being based on TV sketch comedies. Instead, films of this nature have a greater-than-normal variety of sketches, a variety large enough to constitute a feature-length film. Compare this to the Jackass film series of the current version of history, the films of which are like extended versions of the Jackass TV series. In contrast to the Jackass franchise's adult reality slapstick comedy genre, Nick films such as You Can't Do That on Film and All That: The Movie serve as pioneers in the sketch comedy film genre.
- A vast majority of Nickelodeon's animated films based on Nicktoons will by no means be musicals. Instead, they will be drawn out through extended plots, humorous scenes appealing to both children and adults, hit recordings of popular bands and recording artists (sort of in the vein of current-history DreamWorks movies such as Minions and the Shrek film franchise), and other elements that are in line with the network's innovative programming. After all, as I remember from the preview of a documentary on Nickelodeon, the network was founded as the antithesis of Disney among other core elements such as being primarily a children's cable TV network. Since Disney is well-known for its animated musicals, it is naturally only fair that Nickelodeon consistently goes against the Disney animated musical formula when producing animated films of its own.
- There are only two exceptions to this rule: the third and fourth (somewhat an exception) Rugrats films, released in 1998 and 2000, respectively. Nickelodeon executives, including Tony Marini, let such things slide due partially to the widespread idea that Rugrats was "old-hat" by 1998, having been a massive hit since its debut in 1991. But it was especially due to the departure of Paul Germain and much of Rugrats' original writing staff in 1997. After these departures, Rugrats would become a "kiddie" show, and the show's ratings would drop and be in a state of slow decline, which would only speed up in the aftermath of the third and fourth films, where Dil Pickles and Kimi Finster were introduced, respectively.
- Rugrats would regularly reign as the most-watched show on Nick for nearly a decade, from October 1991 (surpassing Family Double Dare) to December 1999 (being surpassed by SpongeBob SquarePants). In between this period, Rugrats would only have one brief hiatus during its eight years of being #1 on Nick: during three consecutive weeks in March 1993, Rugrats is surpassed in ratings by The Ren & Stimpy Show; this is during a time when all three Nicktoons existing on-air were fiercely competing with each other.
- There are only two exceptions to this rule: the third and fourth (somewhat an exception) Rugrats films, released in 1998 and 2000, respectively. Nickelodeon executives, including Tony Marini, let such things slide due partially to the widespread idea that Rugrats was "old-hat" by 1998, having been a massive hit since its debut in 1991. But it was especially due to the departure of Paul Germain and much of Rugrats' original writing staff in 1997. After these departures, Rugrats would become a "kiddie" show, and the show's ratings would drop and be in a state of slow decline, which would only speed up in the aftermath of the third and fourth films, where Dil Pickles and Kimi Finster were introduced, respectively.
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