All That

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Lisa Foiles and Jamie Lynn Spears on All That.

All That is a live-action comedy-variety show exclusively on the Nickelodeon TV channel, featuring sketches in a manner somewhat reminiscent of Saturday Night Live and earlier Nick show You Can't Do That on Television. The show has guest actors and musical performances each episode. The theme song for All That is performed by TLC.

The show was first aired on April 16, 1994 featuring young adults, but around the turn of the millennium it made a big switch to feature only children, and currently follows this format.

Some of the former cast members got their own spin-offs including Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell (Kenan & Kel), Amanda Bynes (The Amanda Show), Nick Cannon (The Nick Cannon Show), and Jamie Lynn Spears (Zoey 101).

Contents

1 The Pilot Episode

2 The "100th Episode"

3 Hiatus Period & Relaunch

3.1 The On Air Dare

4 The 10th Anniversary

5 Cast

5.1 Former cast members
5.2 Current cast members

6 See also

7 External links

The Pilot Episode

All That was created by Mike Tolln, Brian Robbins, and Dan Schneider. Robbins & Schneider both starred on ABC's Head of the Class during the 1980s. The pilot episode of All That, which featured musical guest TLC performing the hit song "What About Your Friends", and the first appearances of Baggin' Saggin' Barry, Earboy, Mavis & Clavis, Miss Fingerly among others first aired as a Nickelodeon special (or sneak preview) on April 16, 1994.

It would debut as a weekly series on December 24, 1994. The official series debut featured (besides musical guest Da Brat performing "Fa All Y'all") the first appearances of Randy & Mandy, Vital Information, and Ed from Good Burger. The pilot episode was not reaired on Nickelodeon until the end of the first season and aired as a "lost episode."

The show originally taped at Nickelodeon Studios at Universal Studios Florida in Orlando before moving to the Nickelodeon at Sunset studio in Los Angeles.

On November 26, 1996, an official soundtrack for All That was released. The soundtrack (http://www.soundtrackcollector.com/catalog/soundtrackdetail.php?movieid=58460) featured the likes of Aaliyah, Faith Evans, TLC, Soul For Real, Coolio, Immature, Brandy, Naughty By Nature, and Mokenstef.

The "100th Episode"

On March 13, 1999, All That celebrated its "100th episode (http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/GuidePageServlet/showid-3090/epid-377392/)" (even though in reality, it was the 85th episode to be produced) with a live, one hour special. Reportedly, they did it early because it couldn't clash with dates for the ALL THAT MUSIC AND MORE FESTIVAL. The actual 100th episode came in the fifth episode of the 6th season with Hoku as the musical guest.

The special was essentially, a precursor or companion piece to the 10th Anniversary Reunion Special. Besides a slate of brand new sketches (along with a backstage tour), the live special also featured clips from memorable characters like Randy & Mandy, Coach Kreeton, the Loud Librarian, Leroy & Fuzz, Miss Pidlin, Detective Dan, and Superdude.

Special guest stars on the special included Melissa Joan Hart, who had starred on Nick's Clarissa Explains It All, Larisa Oleynik, who starred on Nick's The Secret World of Alex Mack, and musical guests Lauryn Hill, who performed "Doo-Wop (That Thing)" and Busta Rhymes, who performed "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See" and "Gimme Some Mo'."

Original cast members (all of whom had since left All That) Angelique Bates, Katrina Johnson, Alisa Reyes, and Lori Beth Denberg all appeared. Denberg even reprised her Vital Information role when her successor Danny Tamberelli was unavailable. The running gag of the entire special was Tamberelli's struggle to make it to the special in time.

To date, this was the only time that All That has produced a live episode. Incidentially, Kenan Thompson would eventually become a cast member on Saturday Night Live.

Hiatus Period & Relaunch

After ten episodes of the 6th season, All That went on a production hiatus (in its place, came a string of "Best of.." compilation episodes for the rest of the season). What happened was that for whatever the reasons, several writers and producers, who apparently had originally desired to end it after Season 6, left the show. In addition, a few of the cast members (namely Amanda Bynes, Josh Server, Danny Tamberelli, and Christy Knowings) had reportedly wanted to leave for some time and move on to new things.

Fans had already seen the writing on the wall after popular cast members like Lori Beth Denberg and subsequently, Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell left. It has also been suggested that the vastly maturing young stars' (especially Amanda Bynes) hearts were longer fully into performing. By the time the 6th season rolled around, Bynes was so busy working on another show for Nick, that she only made very sporadic appearances (thus, leaving the load to fellow female cast member Christy Knowings) in the already appreviated season.

At the time the 6th season for All That had begun, there were a lot of new Nick shows that were starting (most of them are now defunct) and they wanted to make room for them in the budget. Rumor has it that Nick briefly canceled All That before having a last minute change of heart. Nick then paid Dan Schneider (the only original producer who agreed to stay with the show) a lot of money to overhaul and relaunch All That. During this period, a search was made to find a completely new cast in time for the 7th season. Because of this, many fans of All That often consider seasons 1-6 and seasons 7 onward to be almost completely separate entities. The first episode of the "new" All That (with special guests Frankie Muniz and Aaron Carter) was the 115th overall airing on January 19, 2002.

The On Air Dare

One trademark to come from the new cast was the weekly On Air Dare segments. The On Air Dare segments were not a part of the official All That episodes. They instead, served as bumpers during Nickelodeon's SNICK Saturday night block. The premise of the On Air Dare was that three cast members (each placed in a glass cylinder) would be forced to play a game of chance. The loser, whose name would be selected via a specially designed slot machine, would then be forced to perform a disgusting activity (a la Fear Factor).

The 10th Anniversary

In 2005, Nickelodeon celebrated the 10th anniversary of All That debuting by airing "classic episodes" in the week leading up to a "reunion special (http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/GuidePageServlet/showid-3090/epid-418156/)" hosted by Frankie Muniz on April 23. Fans often consider the latter episodes (i.e. beginning in Season 7) of All That to be greatly inferior in quality to most of the earlier seasons, with the exception of the reunion special, which is considered as good as the originals by fans.

The theory is that the Golden Age of All That was more risky, edgy, cohesive, and innovative with its humor. While the latter episodes are often too juvenile, crude, boring, or even derivative of older, better executed All That sketches.

Some fans were also uncomfortable with the idea of having Jamie Lynn Spears, who was previously better known for being the younger sister of pop star Britney Spears, become a cast member. Reportedly, Jamie Lynn got the job after publicly stating her desire to be on All That. This gave some people the suspicion that she got the part largely through the benefits of nepotism.

Even though popular past cast members like Kel Mitchell, Kenan Thompson, Josh Server, and Danny Tamberelli reprised some of their most memorable characters on the special, many older fans were disappointed that past cast members like Katrina Johnson, Alisa Reyes, Mark Saul, Angelique Bates, and Leon Frierson were in attendance but had no speaking parts. In addition, Nick Cannon appeared on the special but only via satellite and promos for the special said that Amanda Bynes was going to be there only to prove to be a no show; Bynes only appeared via archive footage of her playing her Ask Ashley character. Older viewers were also outraged that a sketch from the new cast (i.e. The Unreal World) was voted the funniest moment in All That history.

In conjunction to the start of the 10th season, a rumor began floating around that original cast members Lori Beth Denberg and Josh Server would return in the form of writers. This rumor would prove to be false by the time of the 10th season premiere on April 30.

In addition, after rapper Bow Wow performed the All That theme with cast members Chelsea Brummet, Lisa Foiles, and Kianna Underwood backing him up, many fans were quick to assume that the long running TLC rendition of the theme song was going to be replaced. TLC's version of the theme was kept intact by the time the first episode of the 10th season aired.

After a three season hiatus, All That decided to bring back the Vital Information segment with BET's Coming to the Stage winner Lil' JJ succeededing Lori Beth Denberg and Danny Tamberelli respectively. Unfortunately, Lil' JJ quickly came under fire by many fans, who feel that his demeanor isn't calm or serious enough for Vital Information.