Death

From Nickelodeon

This article is intended to address Nickelodeon's treatment of the subject of human or character death in real life and in fiction. For more intensive understanding of death, please consult a general reference encyclopaedia such as Wikipedia.

For many years, story editors and their overseeing executives at Nick were very circumspect in how programs addressed the subject of death. It was okay to mention it in a program that dealt with the real outside world, such as Linda Ellerbee's Nick News, but until fairly recently to even mention someone dying in a cartoon was unthinkable.

[edit] Cartoons

In a cartoon story it was okay, for example, to mention a mature person's role in a significant event in the distant past, hence it could be generally understood that they were "no longer around" in the present. Death as an event was generally limited to such things as kids holding a shoe-box "funeral" for a dead pet.

Invader Zim which dealt frequently with various military accidents, wholesale destruction, and threats of lethal force pretty much avoided use of the "D" or "K" words, and some consider it a tribute to the team's creativity that they were able to do so.

A turning point of sorts may have been the introduction of some Nicktoon series featuring widowed parent characters such as Chaz Finster and Raymundo Rocket, but even so, making clear what had happened before we met them took some time to reveal. One of the effects of the Attack of 9/11/01 was that it forced many people to confront the issue of death. Voice actor Kathleen Freeman (Mrs Gordon on ATBG) had died of cancer rather suddenly only a few weeks before the Attack, and the Klasky-Csupo staff felt that it would be appropriate to have her character's death of some undiscussed natural cause be mentioned in the episode No Hope for Courtney.

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