Nickelodeon announces "Roll Call"

[James Comey]

Let's completely ignore the fact that Nickelodeon has been utter shit since the mid-2000s, and has ruined classics such as Spongebob and killed off plenty of more shows, while replacing it all with utter crap. This actually looks interesting.

Quote:Nickelodeon has announced a brand new TV series titled Roll Call. Check out a description of the single-camera comedy series shot in a mockumentary style:
"Roll Call (working title) follows an eclectic group of kids navigating their way through middle school. Roll Call is executive produced by Sharla Sumpter Bridgett and directed by Ian Pfaff."

No word yet who will star in the show. Do you have any suggestions? Let us know in the comments!

Nickelodeon has also announced new series Talia's Kitchen, Make It Pop! and Game Makers.

Basically, a show about middle school (arguably the WORST part of schooling), a good range of kids from various backgrounds (and hopefully not the extroverted neurotypical selfie-taking ones), but what really sells me here is the mockumentary style. At the very best this could be somewhat similar to Zero Day or Siberia.

While I wouldn't keep my hopes too high (as Nickelodeon is meant to appeal to the masses, sadly), it still sounds interesting.

[Thought Criminal]

Kinda sounds like Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide. Was a decent show I guess. It's Nickelodeon, they try hard as shit to appeal to kids/tweens which lets be honest, is their target audience.
I still enjoy Spongebob occasionally though. Squidward is my favorite. Watching the show as an adult you really feel bad for him even if he is a bit of a curmudgeon.

While it's not a cartoon, if you want a good irreverent/silly comedy show check out Trailer Park Boys. The whole series is on Netflix along with a bunch of their movies. The show is a fucking riot.

[brainiac3397]

I watch Spongebob too. Not frequently but Hulu had a few episodes and when there was nothing to watch, I decided to watch em.

[Chanku]

First thing I thought was, "So it's going to be kind of like Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide?"

[xcriteria]

We need to make our own show! Maybe Roll Call will be interesting, though... we'll see. But as long as they accept "school is school, you just do it," there are limits to what can happen.

That actually gets at a point from Robert McKee. All stories, and especially films/tv, have a specific universe in which they take place in -- a setting. That setting influences what's possible. Whenever shows cover the inside of a school as a big part of young characters' reality, you see familiar tropes in play, even as media increasingly shows how learning and doing beyond school is possible for people of any age.

Hidden stuff:

Watch on YouTube

Take iCarly, for example. The main characters have a whole life beyond school; they run a successful web show; they don't even have parents around, and they manage. But they still have to go to school, and going to school is never questioned (though it's not the focus of the show.)

As for a show that does focus on diverse characters navigating school itself, hmm. What could that look like? I'm thinking of deGrassi as an example, though that's more focused on drama than comedy. Although that's a good show in many ways, it still has limits and shows a world ultimately limited to "going to school" and growing up in that context.

Roll Call may be good, we'll see, but I think we should make our own show. It doesn't need to be a high-end TV show. I think we could produce something interesting in other ways. There are ways to use YouTube and so on to do transmedia storytelling that draws the audience in as participants themselves. That can overlaps with doing actual advocacy and helping people bring about change, rather than the tendency of most TV shows to show canned characters on a screen, while the audience watches passively.



Watch on YouTube

[xcriteria]

Remember this thread? Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide -- I linked that same Audience/Author video there, with the same basic idea.

Since then, we've connected with a lot more people... it'll be interesting to see what's possible.