Bubble Guppies swims into its sixth season with a brand new Halloween special, "Werewolves of Bubbledon!", premiering Tuesday, October 19, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. ET/PT on Nickelodeon!
In the all new Bubble Guppies Halloween episode "Werewolves of Bubbledon!," on Halloween eve in the foggy town of Bubbledon, everyone is nervous because there’s a werewolf on the loose! Monster Detectives Molly, Gil, and Dr. Pupson are on the case, but will they find the critter before Halloween is cancelled? (#601)
Watch classic episodes of Bubble Guppies on Paramount+! Parents and caregivers can try it FREE at ParamountPlus.com!
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Things will be getting spooky on the high seas this Fall in Nickelodeon's fang-tastic brand new Santiago of the Seas Halloween special!
In "The Mysterious Island," on Halloween night, Santiago and his crew try to retrieve the legendary Treasure Treats from La Isla Misteriosa! Then in "Mystery of the Vam-Pirates," Santiago meets a real-life vampire, and the two must team up to save their crews!
The all new Santiago of the Seas Halloween episode will premiere on Nickelodeon in the U.S. on Thursday, October 21, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. ET/PT, and on Nick Jr. Global on Saturday 30th October 2021 at 12:00 CET.
There's something strange in Blue's neighborhood in the brand new Blue's Clues & You! Halloween special "The Ghost of the Living Room", premiering Monday, October 18, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. ET/PT on Nickelodeon!
In the all new Blue's Clues & You! Halloween episode "The Ghost of the Living Room", Josh and Blue are throwing a Halloween party and all our friends are in costume! Blue’s a unicorn, Magenta’s a mouse, but wait, who’s that mysterious, silly ghost gliding about the Living Room? We’ll look for clues as we go through a haunted house skidoo! (#304)
How ViacomCBS Will Lead the Way Toward More Inclusive Storytelling
By Bob Bakish, President and CEO of ViacomCBS
The Power of Pedro
Twenty-seven years ago, millions of people met Pedro Zamora.
At a time when fewer than 40 percent of Americans personally knew someone with HIV/AIDS, MTV’s The Real World introduced viewers to an openly gay, HIV-positive Cuban American man who was full of joy and willing to open his life to the world.
It was a watershed moment in television. Millions came to know Pedro not as a statistic, but as a partner and friend, wholly real and wholly human. And they mourned when he died from complications of the disease—just hours after the season’s final episode aired.
I’m proud that Pedro found a home on one of our networks. And I’m prouder still of our organization’s legacy of telling stories that reflect the whole human experience and allow people to see themselves in ways they never thought they could—from Nickelodeon’s global phenomenon Dora the Explorer, which brought an English- and Spanish-speaking animated Latina heroine right to kids’ living rooms; to BET’s Being Mary Jane, which illuminated the hopes and challenges of a Black woman building her career as a TV news anchor; to today’s hit broadcast television series, The Equalizer, where the story of a former CIA agent hellbent on delivering justice is delivered through the lens of a Black mom; to Comedy Central’s Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens, whose Asian American protagonist’s coming-of-age struggles and successes make her relatable, beloved—and just the same as so many other young women coming of age. Which is exactly the point.
For decades, we’ve told stories that matter. But we’ve been operating on instinct rather than measuring impact. We could see that Pedro was having a deep effect, for instance, but we never measured that effect, nor did we break down the reasons he resonated so much—at least, not in ways that we could replicate across other programming.
We know that media shapes minds. Now, we need a deeper, more quantifiable understanding of how to harness the power of storytelling to challenge stereotypes, shift perceptions, and create meaningful change.
This starts not just with who is represented but how they are represented. And it requires more than an earnest desire to do better; we must find concrete ways to hold ourselves accountable.
Introducing Content for Change
As we look to come together for our annual Global Inclusion Week, today, I’m excited to announce that we are expanding Content for Change, a bold initiative that seeks to apply scientific research, rigor, and data to transform our entire creative ecosystem—from the content we produce to the creative supply chain that powers it to the culture that underpins everything we do.
BET created Content for Change last year, building on its 40-year history of trailblazing leadership in audience education and celebration of Black excellence. At a moment of national reckoning, the initiative catalyzed efforts to break down the narratives that enable intolerance, hurtful stereotypes, and systemic racism to exist and grow. From groundbreaking news series like Disrupt and Dismantle, to provocative specials like Black x Jewish and State of Our Union with Vice President Kamala Harris, BET’s Content for Change began the work to shift the way we see each other – and ourselves.
Starting today, the entire ViacomCBS organization is joining forces to support and amplify these efforts —while also expanding the initiative’s areas of focus—across the globe.
Guided by scientific research and insights, we will embrace our power and our opportunity to portray people of all races, genders, sexualities, faiths, and abilities with humanity and depth—beginning with our current areas of focus: racial equity and mental health.
Three Pillars: Content, Creative Supply Chain, and Culture
You’ll be hearing more about Content for Change in the months to come. But here is our starting point: Content for Change will be centered on three commitments—or pillars—and grounded in data-driven research.
Our first commitment is rooted in our CONTENT: We will evolve and transform the kinds of stories we tell.
This commitment builds off research that ViacomCBS undertook in the last few years to better understand our role and ability to address racism and mental health through our content – across demographics and genres – and even through our consumer products.
BET’s launch of Content for Change was anchored in this work and resulted in the principle that media plays a pivotal role in shaping and driving individuals’ and communities’ values, perceptions and actions, and could positively impact social justice outcomes for Black Americans. In its study, “Shades of Us: A Study of Race, Identity and the American Family,” Nickelodeon also looked at how race and ethnicity inform a child’s identity and learned that media portrayals often reinforce stereotypes, which are internalized by kids and impact their self-esteem. And, most recently, our Consumer Products team conducted a study looking at “Girls and Doll Choice,” which confirmed the need for authentic representation in dolls and the heavy toll it takes on girls when it is not available. This work has been central to how we’ve begun to take action – from the ways Nick is using its content to help parents talk to their kids about race to the launch of CBS News’ Race & Culture Unit and their efforts to remove bias from one of the most relied upon news sources in the U.S.
Sensing misrepresentation and underrepresentation of mental health issues in their programming, MTV also partnered with the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative to study mental health depictions across 29 shows in the ViacomCBS portfolio.
The Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found that while an estimated one in five Americans suffer from mental health issues, fewer than one in ten of our series regulars did—and one in thirty characters overall, many of which perpetuated negative stereotypes.
We used those insights to change our approach: partnering with a mental health nonprofit specializing in young viewers, creating a new guide to help storytellers portray mental health with understanding, holding internal workshops with writers and producers to create a fuller context around mental health struggles—and ultimately, sharing our findings with the broader industry.
Moving forward, we will expand our Annenberg Inclusion Initiative partnership by analyzing 60 series across other key demographics—like race and ethnicity, gender, age, LGBTQ+ identification and disability status. We’ll identify representation gaps among the people behind the camera—including series creators, producers, writers, and directors—initiate new training, and share that information broadly.
We are also partnering with Stanford University to test new hypotheses for how the power of content can be harnessed to shift perspectives. We’ll examine individual bias among all audiences, the impact of longstanding oppression inflicted upon and internalized by audiences of color, and systemic racism across society.
Together, this research will provide the foundation for our work moving forward. We will share the initial findings when available and identify key tenets to guide the advancement of our content efforts by 2023, with the goal that our storytelling does not just drive change, but is more provocative, more interesting, more nuanced, and more engaging as a result.
Our second commitment is rooted in our CREATIVE SUPPLY CHAIN: We will transform our content creation process, ensuring equity at every stage—from talent to production to the writers’ room—while enlisting the participation of our partners, suppliers, and vendors.
We’ll build on our existing work supporting a new generation of creators from underrepresented communities, with a renewed focus on hiring emerging talent and moving to new paradigms that inject equity into our talent pipelines.
This includes new early access, apprentice, and mentorship programs, as well as our longstanding efforts to broaden our creative talent pool with programs such as our ViewFinder Emerging Directors Program, Directing Initiative, and Writers Mentoring Program.
Expanding on this work, today, we are proud to announce the launch of our Content for Change Academy, a new program that aims to remove barriers to entry for new storytellers, build equity, and invest in our next generation of leaders from nontraditional pathways, including individuals from community colleges and certification programs, who are historically marginalized from entry into the entertainment industry. To identify this talent, we are partnering with Reel Works, a Brooklyn-based organization that provides emerging storytellers in underserved communities with mentorship for careers in media, and their MediaMKRS workforce development program. The MediaMKRS program aims to build a talent pool that reflects the diversity of New York City by credentialing young professionals and matching them with on-the-job training opportunities at a number of media organizations, including ViacomCBS. The Content for Change Academy will provide these individuals with paid experience in entry-level creative and production roles – without the need for enrollment in traditional four-year colleges or universities – allowing them to learn the skills for a successful career in entertainment and build their portfolios, with the goal of staff placement upon the program’s completion. Storytellers are joining this inaugural class across BET, CBS Sports, CBS Studios, Nick Jr., Paramount Network, Showtime and Velocity.
Together, these efforts will strengthen our career development programs, which have helped hundreds of people from historically excluded communities launch their careers and begin to change the face of content creation, both in front of and behind the camera. We are also working to develop a cross-company framework to leverage partners and vendors in this work, including unions, guilds, and industry partners spanning negotiations, hiring practices, opportunities, commitments, and more. And, in honoring the kickoff of this commitment, ViacomCBS is awarding $1 million over the next few months to community-based organizations on the front lines of enabling and celebrating more inclusive storytelling, with a broader commitment that the guiding principles of Content for Change will steer the company’s giving going forward.
Our third commitment is rooted in our CULTURE: We will continue to evolve our corporate culture, expanding opportunities for advancement and access at all levels of the company and across our entire content creation ecosystem.
We will hold a mirror up to ourselves, building on our foundation of inclusion and belonging that touches all 20,000+ people across ViacomCBS. From our annual Global Inclusion Week and Employee Resource Groups to Listening Tours and Engagement Surveys, we will continue to engage our employees with programs that promote belonging and create an environment where everyone is empowered to succeed. We will also measure our internal impact with the same rigor we apply to our external efforts. By the end of 2021, we are targeting a global hire and promotion rate of 55% for female senior vice presidents and a U.S. hire and promotion rate of 40% for ethnically diverse vice presidents. We are tracking ahead of this goal and, by the end of 2022, we will share an update to achieve longer-term targets.
In addition, we will scale MTVE’s Culture Code, bringing the training’s emphasis on respect and mutual understanding to our entire creative community. Our shared values will inform how we as inclusive storytellers address pressing issues of race and social justice. We will continue to partner with community organizations and subject matter experts to inform this work, to create ripple effects across the entire entertainment industry.
Finally, we will require our creative partners to be trained in our standards and we will hold them accountable for results—starting with MTVE productions, 100 percent of which will be trained by the end of 2022.
Together, our investments in these three pillars will help us marshal our resources and insights to write the next chapter of inclusive storytelling. It’s the right thing to do, of course, but it’s also the smart thing to do. It will enable us to continue to attract the best possible talent to the best possible workplace, while further building ViacomCBS’ legacy as a global content powerhouse. And I’m grateful for the many colleagues across our brands and businesses who have already done so much to further this important work, including our Content for Change Executive Sponsors – Scott Mills, Chris McCarthy, Brian Robbins, George Cheeks, Marva Smalls and Julia Phelps – for their partnership and unwavering commitment to leading the way.
The Good We Can Do Together
We readily acknowledge that, as a company, we aren’t perfect. We don’t have all the answers and we will undoubtedly stumble and fall short from time to time. The goal isn’t to be perfect.
The goal is to keep getting better, to keep learning, and to have a foundation and an approach to self-correct in ways that are measurable and concrete.
This will be some of the most important work we do as a company. But I also believe that it will be the most meaningful. My sincere hope is that the work we begin today creates an entirely new ecosystem for content creation.
Just think of the characters we’ll never meet as long as only two percent of speaking characters have any kind of disability. Just think of the perspectives we’ll miss as long as just thirteen percent of directors are people of color.
When diversity becomes a box to check rather than a core value, it shows. A stove-piped, piecemeal approach will no longer cut it; this moment demands nothing less than systemic transformation.
That’s why this company-wide commitment is reaching toward a high purpose: to transform the way the world sees people and how people see themselves—just as Pedro Zamora did 27 years ago.
In 1994, the 22-year-old Pedro testified before Congress. He told lawmakers, “If you want to reach me as a young gay man, and especially a young gay man of color, then you need to give me information in a vocabulary I can understand and relate to.” During his time on The Real World, Pedro embodied that charge. His humanity was palpable, and his story inspired not just empathy, but education.
As a company, and eventually as an industry, we can lift up people, tell their stories, and elevate the programming that will change the ways we see ourselves and one another.
In the process, we can transform the world for the better—one person, one story, and one program at a time.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - For generations of kids, Nickelodeon has been the channel to watch, and one of the network's biggest draws is its beloved animated series, such as the long-running, mega-hit SpongeBob SquarePants, which has managed to go beyond the small screen to social media in the form of countless memes.
Darian Johnson’s SpongeBob SquarePants, part of In the Flesh at VaultArt Studio. Photo: Darian Johnson/Courtesy of VaultArt Studio
One local artist has turned Nickelodeon nostalgia into a series of fascinatingly bizarre paintings, now on view at VaultArt Studio.
Darian Johnson, a local painter, sculptor, and illustrator, is part of In the Flesh, the studio’s annual Halloween group exhibition described as featuring "all the ghosts and goblins you know and loathe, along with a selection of avant-garde works that map the intersections of the supernatural, the weird, and the grotesque.”
The multi-artist show will feature the debut of Johnson's master series Gross Up Close Up. VaultArt states that the Halloween show takes inspiration from Gross Up Close Up, a collection of what’s described as “photoreal paintings of Nickelodeon characters,” serving as an ode to the infamous "Gross-Up Close-Up" animation technique.
What’s been dubbed the Gross-Up Close-Up became prominent on Nickelodeon shows, and refers to moments when an episode cuts suddenly to jarring close-ups of characters, during which the cartoony aesthetic is replaced with more realistic, body horror-esque details like throbbing veins, rotting teeth, or infected eyes. The effect, normally accompanied by someone shrieking, was featured on The Ren & Stimpy Show, and has been used on SpongeBob and other shows.
Darian Johnson’s Hey Arnold!, part of In the Flesh at VaultArt Studio. Photo: Darian Johnson/Courtesy of VaultArt Studio
The theme comes through in Johnson’s work, with acrylic paintings putting sometimes uncanny, sometimes captivatingly creepy spins on beloved Nickelodeon characters from the past few decades. Familiar smiles are warped into menacing grins, and eyes are bloodshot or lifeless. In one, SpongeBob brandishes the iconic spatula from his job at the Krusty Krab. In another, Krumm, the comical Aaahh!!! Real Monsters creature defined by his stench and disembodied eyes, looks truly monstrous, his mouth bloody and full of jagged teeth.
In the Flesh — which debuted during the October Penn Avenue First Friday gallery crawl — fits in with the mission of VaultArt. The Garfield-based space is a project of Achieva, a Southwestern Pennsylvania nonprofit organization that “advocates for, empowers, and supports people with disabilities and their families throughout their lives.”
In the Flesh curator Benjy Blanco, who, along with coworkers Sam Berner and Steph Neary, runs operations at VaultArt Studio, and says the space functions like an artist collective, where the “artists working at the studio determine our programming — in this case, we're big Halloween fans out here.”
Gross Up Close Up hangs along with works from other VaultArt artists, including animation by Kahyll Holyfield, drawings by Wendy Davis, and sculptures by Maggie Kambic. Similar to Johnson, fellow painter Lee Kennedy also draws on pop culture, including with a portrait of midnight movie icon Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.
Like other VaultArt artists, Johnson faces certain obstacles to getting his art into the community. Blanco says Johnson “expresses himself through atypical verbal communication, mostly nouns and titles,” but says the “shocking quality of his work often speaks for itself.” Even so, Blanco provided a statement from Johnson, which reads:
“Nick.
Gross.
Doug.
Wild.
Arnold.
Real Monster.
Real.
Ha!
Yeah!”
The services offered by VaultArt helps to empower and introduce to the scene artists who may otherwise be overlooked. The VaultArt website states that artists are given access to professional-level arts instruction, exhibition space, and career coaching in order to “transform their creativity into the calling of their choice.”
The support VaultArt offers goes beyond the creative. The studio website says 100% of any artwork purchases goes back to the artists. Currently, various works by VaultArt artists are available to buy on the studio’s website, with prices ranging anywhere from $15 up to $1,000.
It’s here that Johnson’s obvious penchant for reimagining pop culture becomes more clear, with paintings dedicated to Karate Kid, professional wrestler-turned-actor and Nickelodeon host John Cena, and various comic book characters. Some even have a Pittsburgh flavor, with images of late baseball great Roberto Clemente and the famous view of the Incline and Downtown’s Point State Park. One stand-out depicts local documentary filmmaker Rick Sebak meeting controversial rapper/producer Kanye West at Wholey’s Fish Market.
Darian Johnson’s Rocko’s Modern Life, part of In the Flesh at VaultArt Studio. Photo: Darian Johnson/Courtesy of VaultArt Studio
Along with In the Flesh, which showcases all the artists working at VaultArt Studio, audiences can expect to see works from the show uploaded and made available for sale on the vaultartstudio.org online shop throughout October.
Blanco calls Johnson's new painting series “extraordinary,” adding, “We've been thrilled to build up to his showcase for several months.” He adds that Johnson is “one of the most skilled artists” he knows in the region, and speaks to the wide appeal of his art.
“His work, which often intersects pop culture and the grotesque, dazzles with its technical flourishes while finding room for personal connections,” says Blanco. “Why do we love this stuff? By devoting such remarkable talent to pop art, Johnson invites us to consider the discrepancies of artistic merit versus what we really value and deeply need."
Gross Up Close Up and In the Flesh. Through October. VaultArt Studio. 5100 Penn Ave., Garfield. Works will also be uploaded to the gallery website. vaultartstudio.org
Stream all your favorite Nickelodeon shows old and new on Paramount+! Try it FREE at ParamountPlus.com!
