What ever happened to Nickelodeon? Still, even if you abandon your nostalgia and your biases of stuff you liked as a kid vs. Simply put, ignoring the arguments over what eras had the "best" shows, Nick doesn't take as many risks as it used to. The channel plays it safe these days, focusing its schedule around one hit that's been running for 19 years SpongeBob SquarePants and increasingly relying on revivals of shows from a more daring time period to attract interest. Risk-taking made Nickelodeon stand out among children's television. The flip-side of risk-taking, however, is controversy, and Nick has courted plenty of that over the years.