Talk:Seddie/@comment-24139638-20141210045619

Did anyone here ever watch Clarissa Explains It All? The creator did an interview recently about some of the roadblocks he ran into working with Nickelodeon on the show and I thought it was kind of interesting (and likely similar to what Dan faced with iCarly & Co.)

''While Kriegman had no desire to turn Clarissa into a racy teenage drama, he did want to add some slightly more adult complexity. Eventually, however, he reached a roadblock. “Network-wise, they definitely wanted to not shake up their franchise,” Kriegman said. “I felt like we had to do things. I took their ‘explode kids’ TV’ mandate to heart, maybe more than they wanted to at different points.”''

''Kriegman had big plans for Clarissa as she entered adulthood, but similar to the debate over the gender segregation in kids’ programming, common wisdom at the time suggested that Clarissa had to, more or less, stay 14. She aged on the show and eventually graduated high school, but her growth was deliberately stunted.''

''“I didn’t find it to be a problem except for near the end when I wanted her to grow up,” Kriegman said. “The show was dying to get older, and I wanted it to grow older, and I was ready to do that. I felt we had done 65 episodes of her younger. Why wouldn’t we do it?”''

''There are storylines Kriegman still regrets not exploring. One memorable episode of Clarissa Explains It All had Clarissa going on a date and kissing her seemingly platonic best friend Sam (Sean O’Neal). If he’d had his way, Kriegman might have developed that further, but his hands were tied by network constraints. Conventional wisdom at the time suggested that a more adult Clarissa would be too old for Nickelodeon: Nick represented one age group, and MTV, another. The two could never cross.''

Oh and he's also releasing a book called "Things I Can't Explain", which is a novel about Clarissa in her 20's and it deals with adult themes and stuff that Nickelodeon shows obviously don't. Interesting idea.