#lstn

Totalqt13 posted this comment on ChannelFrederator’s 107 Jimmy Neutron facts video a few days ago and I wanted to share it with everyone here in the community because it touched upon some of the same things I have been stating and advocating for a long, long time.

I absolutely adored this show as a kid, (cough and still binge watch it occasionally cough), now that we're finally getting a Hey Arnold movie revival, a revival of this show doesn't seem all that far-fetched. One thing that always bugged me about the last episode of JN was Jimmy and Cindy's first kiss. It was really kind of an underwhelming pay off for two previous seasons worth of build-up. And, before you accuse me of implying anything inappropriate - it took place within the last 10 seconds of the episode, and wasn't even placed center-screen. If you blinked - and quite a few of my friends did - you would've missed it.

A BRIEF ANALYSIS

How many other fans were disappointed with the kiss in LSTN? I was just as disappointed with the kiss on the cheek in “League of Villains” probably even moreso because personally, that would have been the perfect opportunity to have the kind of meaningful, long-lasting first kiss that fans like myself were absolutely DYING to see. Plus this final TV-movie was a foreshadowing of things to come had there been a 4th season, which was, according to the 107 facts video, supposed to take a much darker turn. 

The kiss would have made sense if it had happened in a more serious situation like “League of Villains” instead of just randomly thrown in at the end of a regular season episode just because, which was the case with LSTN. There was no rhyme or reason to it because the entire episode of LSTN was way too random, almost to the point where it was like watching an episode of Ed, Edd, ‘n Eddy or Animaniacs. I loved both of these shows like crazy, by the way, but romance was something that didn’t exactly fit in those shows because of how fast-paced and zany a majority of the episodes were. If you were looking for a silly fast-paced episode, LSTN was most certainly that.

The producers and everyone behind the show knew that Jimmy was ending. This episode was thrown together rather quickly because they were uncertain of the show’s future and wanted to try to do something for the fans to give them some kind of an ending should it not return for another season. But even the people behind the show knew it wasn’t going to be the kind of sendoff we truly wanted.

All-in-all, LSTN was not the episode most fans wanted. We got it because it was not likely that Jimmy Neutron was going to get a 4th season. Nickelodeon did not renew the show. And sadder still, DNA Productions shut down in 2007 because the film, The Ant Bully, was not very successful at the box office which cost the company money and ultimately resulted in laying everyone off. WHY NICKELODEON ALMOST DIDN’T ALLOW THE (SHORT) KISS TO HAPPEN

It was actually Nickelodeon who felt that any kind of long-winded kiss between Jimmy and Cindy was too inappropriate and asked the animators to trim the kiss back, hence why it was only 10 seconds long. Nick really didn’t want the kiss to happen, period and it took a lot of convincing from show staff (mainly the producer) to allow even a short kiss to happen. While the show staff complied with their request to keep the kiss short, they knew it was not going to make fans very happy. Everyone got the short end of the stick.

I have seen kisses on other Nick shows in the past. As Told by Ginger is probably a good example of where I’ve seen a longer kiss. The titular character had a boyfriend at some point on the show - one she was serious about. I saw part of one episode many years ago where she and him shared a kiss - and it was not some 10-second thing. It was the long, meaningful kiss that was the talk of the fandom back then. This was the kind of kiss we wanted to see with Jimmy and Cindy. For the network to say it was okay for a kiss like this to happen in one show but not another is ridiculous and in a lot of ways, unfair.

Another random fact - “How to Sink a Sub/LSTN”, “King of Mars” and at least one or two other episodes only aired on Nickelodeon once in 2006 and have not aired since on their sister network, Nicktoons. Another mind-boggling thing that has never made sense. So the only way you can even watch some of these is if you buy them on Amazon or iTunes individually. 

MY TAKE - WHAT REALLY SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED

One of two things should have happened.

POSSIBLE OUTCOME #1: This really goes back to Nickelodeon here - the show staff should have been warned in advance that season 3 was going to be it if season 4 was not something the network wanted to do. At the time everyone was working on season 3, no one knew what the show’s future was. Not even the producer or director. They had not been given any word on season 4, which left them feeling very concerned as so many of us fans were over a decade ago.

Had Nickelodeon given the staff proper notification about the show’s future, the last few episodes of the season, and especially the series finale, would have turned out a lot better. We would have gotten the ending we wanted. We would have maybe even gotten the kiss we wanted. And I’m sure the producer of the show would have fought his hardest to be sure that we got the kiss that would have made several seasons worth of tension and buildup all worth the wait in the end.

POSSIBLE OUTCOME #2: Despite DNA Productions closing down, Omation studios in California was still up and running and doing well. Nickelodeon should have taken a serious look at the ratings which would have been quite clear that Neutron had a fanbase, and a strong one at that. Season 4 still could have been done at Omation the way Planet Sheen was. Now granted, the animation would have been somewhat different, and more bright and vivid. But at the end of the day, the animation on PS wasn’t really all that bad. It would have been fine. And besides that, if you’re really hooked into an episode, do you really care if Omation or DNA is behind the animation as long as it still looks decent? 

A darker, more serious season like the show creators had been thinking about doing would have given us a chance to explore Jimmy and Cindy’s relationship a lot more than we did in the previous seasons. Not only that, but some of the more dangerous situations the gang might have been in would have brought all of them closer as friends.

It’s also pretty easy to admit you’re in love with someone if you’re in a difficult situation you might not make it out of. As I type this, I actually just pictured a rough situation Jimmy and Cindy were in, and a fairly decent kiss between them to boot.

The possibilities are endless, really, but the darker season is something I’m already on-board with and if the show were to come back I’d love to see something a little darker and more serious with Jimmy and Cindy and his friends.