History ScrewedByTheNetwork / Nicktoons

* Creator/NickRewind, when it came to anything [[WesternAnimation/CatDog besides]] [[WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}} their]] [[WesternAnimation/{{Doug}} most]] [[WesternAnimation/HeyArnold popular]] [[WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife Nicktoons]]. Even ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow'' was aired on and off, and would usually stay off the schedule for months, while ''Series/AllThat'' and ''Series/KenanAndKel'' were usually reserved for a couple episodes every other weekend, usually as some sort of special event (which is probably why the block's name was changed from ''The 90's Are '''All That'''.'') The network's social media posts would even reference shows that the block ''never aired'', not even on [=TeenNick=] itself anymore (such as ''Series/TheAmandaShow'').

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'', which was once AdoredByTheNetwork, suffered this as part of ExecutiveMeddling; Nickelodeon insisted the show would continue after ''WesternAnimation/TheRugratsMovie'' and even [[WesternAnimation/RugratsInParis its sequel]]. This resulted in Dil and Kimi being brought into the show after those films were released. Longtime viewers [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks were annoyed by them]] and tuned out. Then when new management came into Nickelodeon and their contract was about to expire, Nickelodeon and Klasky-Csupo couldn't agree on a price to produce ''Rugrats'' and their other Nicktoons. After this, Nickelodeon had effectively canceled ''Rugrats'' and most of Klasky-Csupo's other shows.

** The [[WesternAnimation/Rugrats2021 2021 reboot]] wasn't safe from this either. It was meant to go on Nickelodeon before becoming a [[Creator/{{ParamountPlus}} Paramount+]] original, the release date was pushed back from 2020 to 2021. While it would air on Nickelodeon linearly in August 2021, the first season wouldn't finish airing until May 2023. The second season released the first 13 episodes in April 2023 with barely any advertisements. In February 2024, it was announced Season 2 would make its cable debut on Nicktoons, including the second half that was originally meant for Paramount+ before being changed at the last minute.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{CatDog}}'' ended up being hit with this late in its run. After the GrandFinale TV movie "The Great Parent Mystery" aired in November 2000, Nickelodeon unceremoniously canceled the show. A fourth season was produced, but it wouldn't air in North America until 2003, three years after the show's initial cancellation. Two of the fourth season's episodes remained unreleased until 2010, when they were put onto digital retailers. To add insult to injury, the post-movie episodes [[ShortRunInPeru aired in various other countries as early as 2001, before airing in the USA]].

** [[PopCultureUrbanLegends Contrary to popular belief]], this was not due to Nickelodeon having to pay royalties for the individual shorts--one of the creators of one short on a now-defunct fansite said that Nickelodeon owns all the rights to the individual shorts (even ''WesternAnimation/AngelaAnaconda'', which got a SpinOff on [[Creator/FoxKids a different, non-affiliated network]]). However, post-2000 reruns and episodes available to stream excise the ''Lava'' shorts, which are not owned by Nickelodeon.

** [[PopCultureUrbanLegends Contrary to popular belief]], this was not due to Nickelodeon having to pay royalties for the individual shorts--one of the creators of one short on a now-defunct fansite said that Nickelodeon owns all the rights to the individual shorts (even ''WesternAnimation/AngelaAnaconda'', which got a SpinOff on [[Creator/FoxKids a different, non-affiliated network]]).

Nickelodeon would go on to favor their highest-rated shows at the expense of everything else. In recent years, this has applied less to their live-action programming and more to their animation slate. While Nick still has many live-action shows in production, every Nicktoon not named ''[=SpongeBob=]'' and (eventually) ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' (formerly "WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents" until being replaced by it) would get screwed over without mercy.

Nickelodeon would go on to favor their highest-rated shows at the expense of everything else. In recent years, this has applied less to their live-action programming and more to their animation slate. While Nick still has many live-action shows in production, every Nicktoon not named ''[=SpongeBob=]'' and (eventually) ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' would get screwed over without mercy.

* ''WesternAnimation/FanboyAndChumChum'' got a case of this for Nickelodeon's main channel. After nearly 3 years of being adored, the show was moved to 7:00 on weekdays before the Nick Jr block in the morning, while the remaining unaired episode, "Brain Freeze", didn't end up airing until 2 years later on Nicktoons, although the episode was already released on DVD 3 years prior. Unfortunately, reruns were practically non-existent, as the show would air only on Sundays at 7:00 am from somewhere around mid 2013 to early 2015, where it was banished permanently.

* Nickelodeon tried various marketing strategies to boost ''WesternAnimation/BunsenIsABeast'''s popularity, such as [[CrossOver crossing it over]] with ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'', but ''Bunsen'' didn't receive the acclaim that ''The Loud House'' did and only had reruns on Nicktoons, where the final episode aired... [[FridayNightDeathSlot in a late night slot]]. Butch Hartman announced the series would end after one season due to his departure from the network.
* As ''WesternAnimation/TheCasagrandes''' third season progressed, new Friday night episodes moved into later timeslots, and reruns on Nickelodeon became scarcer. The third season turned out to be the show's last, although it still received a Netflix original movie in 2024.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheCasagrandes'' seems to be slowly getting this treatment. Reruns barely air on Nickelodeon anymore, while several marathons air on Nicktoons. The show got cancelled and ended in September 2022. At least it’ll have a movie, set to be released in 2024.

* Despite a small hiatus, ''WesternAnimation/ItsPony'' (once ranked as the fourth best-performing show on Nickelodeon, right behind ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'', ''WesternAnimation/TheCasagrandes'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'') was one of Nickelodeon's favorite shows during 2020, but that all changed when "Bramley Holiday" aired: The show disappeared from the network, and reruns only aired on the less popular Nicktoons Network. When it was finally about to come back in March 2021, Nickelodeon decided at the last minute to replace the premieres with more reruns of ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants''. New episodes eventually moved to the Nicktoons channel in October 2021, practically killing the show.

* At first, ''WesternAnimation/MiddlemostPost'' was a decent success, earned a second season renewal, and got good ratings, even making it onto several top 150 cable shows lists. After Labor Day 2022, however, Nick suddenly paused daily reruns and only did Sunday morning encores. They also stopped doing ads for the show. Come October 2022, John Trabbic III [[http://www.nickalive.net/2022/10/middlemost-post-creator-reveals-no.html announces]] that Nick pulled the plug on the show. At the very least, ''Middlemost Post'' aired its entire run on the main channel and was never moved to Nicktoons.

* ''WesternAnimation/PinkyMalinky'' was originally developed at [[Creator/CartoonNetwork Cartoon Network]]'s European development studio, and was picked up by Nickelodeon in 2015 to be a full series. Other than promotional material and an early second season renewal, it seemed as if Nickelodeon did nothing but sit on the series for ''three years''. As part of parent company Viacom's new strategy of producing content for streaming services, it was announced that the series would instead premiere on Creator/{{Netflix}} in 2018. Even then, the series was supposed to premiere on August 17, 2018, but was delayed to ''January 2019''.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{CatDog}}'' ended up being hit with this late in its run. After the GrandFinale TV movie "The Great Parent Mystery" aired in November 2000, Nickelodeon unceremoniously canceled the show. A fourth season was produced, but it wouldn't air in North America until 2003, three years after the show's initial cancellation. Two of the fourth season’s episodes remained unreleased until 2010, when they were put onto digital retailers. To add insult to injury, the post-movie episodes [[ShortRunInPeru aired in various other countries as early as 2002, before airing in the USA]].

** After being pulled from the schedule after it's massive rebrand in 2016, Nicktoons Global put the show back on their schedule in March 2018 without any prior announcement, but they only aired the post-Kimi episodes and aired the series at 5 AM in the morning, right after a ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' Season 6 or 7 rerun (they didn't show the pre-movie era of SpongeBob at that time), and it was pulled off the schedule again after less than a month.

** Reruns on Nicktoons were handled well until 2019, when it was replaced with ''WesternAnimation/RainbowButterflyUnicornKitty''. After that, the show only aired once in a while on either Nicktoons or Creator/NickRewind. However in April 2020, [[AvertedTrope the show was added back to Nicktoons' schedule]], only to be removed from the network once again in June and replaced with ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' reruns. However it later was added back to Nicktoons again in January 2021, thus averting this trope once again.

* ''WesternAnimation/AllGrownUp'' is an interesting example that, while wasn't as mistreated as the others, was still pretty mistreated. Episodes would air out of order for some reason, and only one episode aired in 2006 (most likely for the second ''Tales from the Crib'' movie). Although the show made a comeback a year later, to add insult to injury, premieres would only air at 6:30 AM, which pretty much meant that people who either didn't have a working DVR or weren't willing enough to wake up early were out of luck. The show then went on another half-year-long hiatus and then aired the final three episodes out of the blue. Reruns continued to air, but only at 7:00 am on the weekends, which wasn't as early when ''WesternAnimation/ChalkZone'' aired, but was still kinda unfair. The show occasionally popped up on Creator/NickRewind every now and then.

** Nickelodeon Greece last aired a new episode in ''2021''. Episodes 264 and on were never even dubbed in Greek.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheXs'' was one of the most mistreated Nicktoons that ever aired on the main network. Not only did the series suffer from InvisibleAdvertising and was constantly preempted by [[WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants other]] [[WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents shows]], but reruns were almost nonexistent. The network dropped the show a year later and reruns were dumped on Nicktoons Network, who would often preempt it to air [[WesternAnimation/InvaderZim another]] [[WesternAnimation/MyLifeAsATeenageRobot show]] in its place. One episode never aired on either network, and the series is considered one of the most obscure Nicktoons, with [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes very few places to watch it nowadays, you cannot find it on iTunes or Google Play]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TheCasagrandes'' seems to be slowly getting this treatment. Reruns barely air on Nickelodeon anymore, while several marathons air on Nicktoons. The show got cancelled and ended in September 2022.

* Nelvana produced a Dutch dub of the series in 2002, but for a while failed to find a place to air it due to a lack of a local Disney Channel at the time and FOX Netherlands and the NPO refusing the series. In the end, their only option was Nickelodeon Netherlands, and the series finally went live on September 29, 2003 to major success.

** ''WesternAnimation/RugratsPreSchoolDaze'' was basically screwed over directly from the beginning. It spent a lengthy period in DevelopmentHell and was ultimately capped at four episodes (Nick called them specials). Slated to air between 2003 and 2004, they wound up never making it to Nick's schedule and were buried as "bonus features" onto the equally short-lived ''Rugrats: Tales from the Crib'' direct-to-video series. Eventually, Nick finally aired the show's episodes towards the end of ''2008''... at 5:00 AM, where no kid would be awake to see it, without any sort of promotion (or sometimes, even ''TV listings'') whatsoever.

* Unlike Nickelodeon UK, which aired the show ''[[AdoredByTheNetwork twice daily]]'' up through 2020, Nickelodeon US had many hiatuses for ''WesternAnimation/WinxClub'' (which became a Nickelodeon production in 2011). America was among the last to finish airing Season 5. Season 6 took over a year after most of the international Nick feeds had already finished it. Season 7 was aired much more consistently, but the show was moved to the Nick Jr. channel, which was understandable as the show itself had [[AudienceShift become]] more preschool-targeted by then.

* ''WesternAnimation/ChalkZone'' got some pretty horrific treatment by Nickelodeon throughout its run from the beginning. The first season was planned to air throughout fall 2000. It was delayed all the way to '''March 2002''' (even though the theme song was included in the 2001 CD ''The Newest Nicktoons''). The "official" premiere in 2002 was the highest-rated premiere for Nickelodeon, until ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius'' premiered. Consequently, Nickelodeon chose to devote its promotion towards the latter show.

* Nickelodeon managed to screw three shows (''WesternAnimation/ThePenguinsOfMadagascar'', ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPandaLegendsOfAwesomeness'' and ''[[WesternAnimation/MonstersVsAliens2013 Monsters Vs. Aliens]]'') all at once. Their crime? Being based on Creator/DreamWorksAnimation films. According to Bob Schooley, executive producer of ''Penguins'' and ''Monsters vs. Aliens'', Nickelodeon was getting tired of having to pay licensing fees to [=DreamWorks=] in order to keep the shows going. [=DreamWorks=] owns the characters and other elements in the shows, while Nick retains half the shows' copyrights. Therefore, the shows were canceled so that Nick could focus more on investing in their own original programming. This prompted [=DreamWorks=] to jump ship to Creator/{{Netflix}}, where they found much better success. [=DreamWorks=] did (temporarily) give Nickelodeon permission to continue broadcasting the series on sister network Nicktoons, where ''The Penguins of Madagascar'' and ''Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness'' would finish their run. The sale of [=DreamWorks=] to [=NBCUniversal=], with the latter explicitly forbidding Nickelodeon from broadcasting the shows again, led to Nicktoons doing a quick run of the final five episodes of ''Legends of Awesomeness'' throughout June of 2016 before all three series disappeared.

As noted on [[ScrewedByTheNetwork/Nickelodeon Nickelodeon's page]], Nickelodeon would go on to favor their highest-rated shows at the expense of everything else. In recent years, this has applied less to their live-action programming and more to their animation slate. While Nick still has many live-action shows in production, every Nicktoon not named ''[=SpongeBob=]'' and (eventually) ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' would get screwed over without mercy.

Nickelodeon would go on to favor their highest-rated shows at the expense of everything else. In recent years, this has applied less to their live-action programming and more to their animation slate. While Nick still has many live-action shows in production, every Nicktoon not named ''[=SpongeBob=]'' and (eventually) ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' would get screwed over without mercy.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' has suffered this treatment so harshly that it has [[ScrewedByTheNetwork/TheLegendOfKorra its own page.]]

* Whether it was intentional or not, Nickelodeon dropped the ball with Book 2 of ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra''. It received less advertising than Book 1 and was also placed firmly in the FridayNightDeathSlot. Ratings for the Book 2 premiere were about half of the Book 1 premiere. Then they moved the show to a later time, again with minimal advertising, and the ratings dropped by half again. [[http://dongbufeng.net/site1/content/view/775/188/ See the numbers here.]]
** It also advertised a "marathon" that would begin a half-hour before its new time slot at 8:30. The "marathon" was only one hour long and consisted of two new episodes, parts 1 and 2 of [=''Beginnings''=]. Immediately after those two episodes aired, ''the show was changed to yet another timeslot'', 8:00 pm. Amazingly, [[http://dongbufeng.tumblr.com/post/66028653225/the-guide-gets-2-473-million-viewers it worked!]]
** After Book 2, there was almost no news about the show, except a few teases from the creators. Book 3 didn't take nearly as long as Book 2 to be released... but that was probably because Nick's foreign affiliates kept leaking parts of the show, which were then quickly disseminated online. Finally, Nick's Mexican affiliate, [=MundoNick=], leaked ''four episodes'' of the show online. The episodes were quickly taken down, but the huge leak resulted in Nickelodeon releasing the first ''three episodes'' of Book 3 (the leaked episodes were 3-6) within a week and with almost no advertising. The premiere had even worse ratings than much of Book 2.
*** A decision was originally made to only air the episodes on Nickelodeon and have ''[[DenialOfDigitalDistribution zero]]'' [[DenialOfDigitalDistribution digital options]] during the season. The lack of advertising meant that many fans of the show didn't even know it was back on the air until several episodes had already been broadcast and then had no (legal) options to see the ones they had missed.
** After the premiere, the schedule for Book 3 became two new episodes a week. Then it looked as though after episode 8, they'd be pulling the series off the air and showing the rest of the series online instead. WordOfGod explained at a Comic-Con panel that apparently Nickelodeon had always been planning to move Korra to an online-only format, based on the record amount of views their site received when they streamed Book 2, as well as the fact that [[NetworkRedHeadedStepchild the show doesn't really fit in with the rest of Nick's programming]]. Indeed, several episodes contained very adult themes such as revolution and anarchism, a very graphic on-screen death, and a finale that made a popular LesYay couple 100% canon (backed by WordOfGod). There are rumors that Nickelodeon moved the show online to avoid having to air that sort of content on TV (though the remaining episodes did air uncut on Nicktoons). Though justifiable, it still doesn't excuse the network for not telling '''anybody''' (including the show staff) about the move until the last minute.
** Most incredibly of all, Book 4 ended up premiering on October 3rd, 2014--less than ''two months'' after the conclusion of Book 3. This was because the budget [[http://bryankonietzko.tumblr.com/post/103173899927/a-few-preemptive-words-about-episode-408 was cut]] in the middle of production, forcing the creators to make a RecapEpisode in order to prevent a large chunk of their staff from being let go early.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheXs'' was one of the most mistreated Nicktoons that ever aired on the main network. Not only did the series suffer from InvisibleAdvertising and was constantly preempted by other shows, but reruns were almost nonexistent. The network dropped the show a year later and reruns were dumped on Nicktoons Network, who would often preempt it to air [[WesternAnimation/InvaderZim another]] [[WesternAnimation/MyLifeAsATeenageRobot show]] in its place. One episode never aired on either network, and the series is considered one of the most obscure Nicktoons.