Nickelodeon hopes that the next Fairly OddParents special will be as successful as the original – Abra-Catastrophe. © Nickelodeon.

“Speaking of the OddParents, we’re following the huge success of last year’s ‘Abracatastrophe’ special with another one called ‘Channel Changers.’ We’re also doing an hour-long All Grown Up and the first As Told By Ginger TV movie. We run these in the summer because that’s when kids have more energy and more time; there’s more of an appetite for big entertainment with all the blockbuster movies out there in the summer.”

Coleman’s has high hopes for Danny Phantom, Nick’s upcoming new series from Fairly OddParents creator Butch Hartman. “Danny Phantom – or I should say Fenton – is a regular kid who has a little accident in his dad’s lab and now has ghost powers. They’re 22-minute stories, which is a different storytelling format for us. It’s set to premiere in April, right after the “Kids’ Choice Awards,” which is like our post-Super Bowl timeslot.”

Danny Phantom is the only new series on Nick’s 2004 schedule – for the moment. “We’re just finishing production on five pilots that we’re excited about. We’ll be making some decisions and moving onto production; at least one of them should be on the air in the fall and others will follow in ‘05. Deciding which one to go with first is tough - they’re all looking really good. It’s a good problem to have.

Like his competitors, Coleman is tight-lipped as to the new shows’ subject matter, but will allow, “they’re along the spectrum of broad, slapstick comedy. We’re kind of pushing the boundaries a little bit from what we normally do and experimenting with what we call ‘comic adventure:’ shows with strong characters, good humor – but with a little more velocity. We’re heading down that road with Danny Phantom, but they’ll all still be humor-based; that’s why we’re not calling them ‘action adventure.’

Danny Phantom from Fairly OddParents creator Butch Hartman may bring a little action to Nick’s lineup. © Nickelodeon.

“These pilots are all 2D, but we have a pretty full development slate beyond them. We’re working on some 3D stuff as well that will probably see the light of day in ‘05. What’s interesting about this time in animation is that we have the artists catching up with the technology, so it’s not just programmers and technical folk who know how to use the software. Now artists are swearing by it and it’s great to see they know what to do with it.”

Coleman will not confirm – or deny – rumors that one of Nickelodeon’s strangest series will soon be out on DVD, but does say flat out that there are no plans for Invader Zim to resume production of original episodes. Come year end, Nick will be competing with (not to mention cross-promoting) SpongeBob SquarePants’ theatrical feature debut. Like Zim, there are no plans for new SpongeBob TV episodes, but unlike Zim, the thought is never far from Colemean’s mind. “It’s something we’ve been talking about since the day they left to go work on the movie, and it’s something we’ll continue to look into.”

Year-end 2003 marked a major change for Cartoon Network’s Linda Simensky: she became PBS’s Linda Simensky, specifically its senior director of children’s programming. The woman who shepherded The Powerpuff Girls from a handful of shorts to a multi-million dollar franchise series, and who brought Klasky Csupo into Nickelodeon’s orbit began to see things differently once she had a rugrat of her own to look after.

“I have a three year old, and I have a different take now on what kids that age need from TV. I took this job with a mission – to make programming that I’d want my son to watch. He’s seen the Powerpuffs, but there’s also a lot out there that I wouldn’t want him to watch. When you realize how a three year old can learn from TV, you want to figure out how to do shows that are interesting and exciting, but also have an educational element and don’t depend on ‘good versus evil.’ I saw the potential to do things here that you couldn’t do elsewhere.”

Joining PBS meant leaving behind Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon’s anything goes sensibility, but Simensky didn’t see it as that much of a loss. “I’ve only done that wacky kid of programming, so I was really ready to learn something new.”