90s Nickelodeon Plot Descriptions As Written By A Man In The Throes Of An Existential Crisis

Rugrats

Confronted with the deflating knowledge that as adults they will have no memory of their toddler-aged adventures, the gang is forced to wonder, “Did they ever really happen?”

Legends of the Hidden Temple

Things get weird when Olmec starts weeping stalactite tears after realizing that the idiotic children’s inability to put together the statue in the Shrine of the Silver Monkey is the perfect analogy for his inability to construct a cohesive self-identity out of the jumbled pieces that constitute his being. The Purple Parrots win Blow Pops, Casio wristwatches, and 5-day stays at the Orlando Hyatt.

Wild & Crazy Kids

Wild & Crazy Kids has been cancelled. Airing in its place is the pilot episode of Perturbed & Unmedicated Adults.

CatDog

Motivated by a morbid curiosity, CatDog rents the film The Human Centipede. Responding to concerned calls from friends and family over their inability to contact the creature, police enter CatDog’s home and find it hanging from a makeshift noose.

Hey Arnold!

Arnold holds an intervention to convince Stoop Kid to leave his stoop. “Look!” cries Arnold. “There’s an entire world out there for you to experience!”

“There’s an entire world in here…” whispers Stoop Kid, tapping the sloping forehead residing under his mullet. “And it’s more real than yours will ever be…”

Guts

Distraught over the implications of quantifying children to the tenth of a second by their performance in a capitalistic race for goods and products, Moira (“Mo”) Quirk hurls herself from the top of the Aggro Crag. Fortunately, she lands safely in the Elastic Jungle below.

The Secret World of Alex Mack

While on a movie date with her boyfriend Hunter, Alex morphs into her viscous, liquid form out of sheer embarrassment when her parents happen to walk into the same theater and sit down right next to them. Unfortunately, mistaking her for discarded semen, the theater’s janitor mops her up along with some spilt soda and popcorn butter; when she attempts to return to human form, she materializes as a hideously deformed freak. Guest starring Danny Tamberelli as the Hapless Janitor.

Double Dare

In a sure-fire ratings disaster, Marc Summers has demanded that the program’s beloved “Physical Challenges” be converted into decidedly less exciting “Moral Challenges.” Things still get pretty messy, though.

Kenan & Kel

An uncharacteristically disquieting episode opens with Kenan hatching one of his harebrained schemes, Kel responding, “Awww here it goes…” and then 20 minutes of the two characters making pained, contorted facial expressions while the studio audience laughs uproariously.

The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo

Shelby investigates the case of a sadistic serial killer who’s progressed from murdering transient hobos to targeting anyone with fewer than 10 friends on Facebook.

Aaahh!! Real Monsters

Ickis, Oblina, and Krumm are confounded by the realization that their inescapable realness is the very quality that prevents them from ever achieving true monstrosity.

The Ren & Stimpy Show

Pretty much just your standard Ren and Stimpy episode.

My Brother and Me

Driven to insanity obsessing over which is the title’s principal “me” and which merely “my brother,” Alfie and Dee Dee find themselves unable to determine whether they are viewing the program’s various comedic plots through a protagonist’s point-of-view, or merely that of an expendable secondary character. The resulting confusion leads to an episode consisting entirely of both characters lying motionless in bed, while Goo ineffectually yells up to their window, “Hey! Hey! You guys in there?”

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

“Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story…The Tale of the Man Whose Erectile Dysfunction Was in Perfect Concordance with the Nielsen Ratings of 2 Broke Girls.”

Clarissa Explains it All

No; she doesn’t.