Slimed!: An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age by Mathew Klickstein Page B

so over our heads.
    DAVE RHODEN: There was no animosity about that at all. I was actually really excited for the people who got to stay. The worst thing was missing hanging out with Chris Lobban, my buddy. But at the same time, I hadn’t seen any of my high school friends in basically two and a half years. I literally went on one more audition for something else and then never went to another audition again.
    VANESSA LINDORES: Personally, the turnover was
very
hard for me. I would become friends with girls on the show, and then before I would know it, they’d be gone. Marjorie and Alanis are examples. We would have sleepovers and hang out on the set, then . . . gone. I was ready to go when it was my turn to pass the baton.
    BOB BLACK: It was obvious that kids grow up—that’s what they do. It’s no different from being in school. When you’re in middle school, you have eighth graders, and the next year comes along, and the eighth graders aren’t there anymore. I don’t think it was that big a deal, simply because this was just one more aspect of how life is when you’re a kid.
    JUSTIN CAMMY: I don’t think that was ever really communicated in a way that would have helped people. You should probably be told that—especially as a child—at the very beginning: “We like you, you’re important. But this is a one- or two-year gig and then we’re going to be done with you.” It’s never good to reach your peak in high school. That’s not a healthy way to exist.
    ROGER PRICE: It was my nightmare. It gave me about the same degree of personal agony as the moment when you give the vet the nod to go ahead with the lethal needle for an old and much-loved dog. If one thing finally drove me from working with children, it was having to do this over and over. Whichever way you slice it, I was interfering hugely and irreversibly in their childhood experience.
    DANNY TAMBERELLI: I feel like
Pete & Pete
definitely influenced my life in a lot of ways. I’m a musician. That’s what I do. I was into it right when we were getting into the show. And that “Hard Day’s Pete” episode with me finding the song, I personally related to that. I got my first bass during the shooting of that. And haven’t stopped playing bass since.
    ALISON FANELLI: Like my character on the show, I started becoming interested in science and medicine—which is what I’m doing now—and in a way, Katherine thought that life was imitating art or the other way around. Ellen was very much in the science world and always asking questions. I don’t think there’s anything bad about a character like that influencing a kid.
    MEGAN BERWICK: My natural personality is actually quite close to ZZ. Twenty-something years later, I’m working in Haiti doing economic development and financial inclusion. I basically am the woman ZZ would have become. In fact, before I moved to Haiti, I saw Steve Slavkin and he said, “I’m very proud of you, ZZ. I wrote you, created you, and look how far you’ve gone!” Totally joking, but very sweet.
    STEVE SLAVKIN: I don’t think it’s strange that Megan would become ZZ. She was a really special kid, and it’s great to see that she’s utilizing her skills to make the world a better place.
    JASON ZIMBLER: They wrote for me, they pushed me, they accounted for me. That’s the effect of me on Ferguson. The effect of Ferguson on me? Well, he was cerebral, and I liked that they gave me this strong mind, this strong intellectual figure to be a model. He was articulate and well-spoken and his mind fired all over the place and he was ambitious. I wasn’t watching Buckley and I wasn’t as politically aware, but I was beginning to be. I don’t think I chased a lot of teenagers into hardcore Republicanism. I’m more mainstream. I would consider myself independent. Socially liberal, fiscally conservative.
    MICHAEL MARONNA: We all still look like ourselves. My image has been close to a similar thing for a long time. But that