How Many Nicks Come Before Nickelodeon in the Jingle, 7 or 8?
This great debate seems to have resurfaced yet again. The variations of the Nickelodeon jingle that played before and during our favorite cartoons back in the day. You've heard it and you are probably singing it in your head right now as you try and figure out how many there are as you read this. I honestly didn't know that this was a debate, but it seems that some of us had varying answers to this question! The music nerd in me had to come out to scientifically prove how many, but then people began to split hairs! For reference, here is the jingle in question that was used in the 80s and 90s.
Technically that's 8 "nicks" but some theorists say it's 7 nicks and a "na". Meaning that one of those lacks the "ck" at the end of it. I hear a "ck", but it could just be my brain wanting to. Singer Eugene Pitt, yes I dove that deep into this, was actually a doo-wop singer from the 50s. He was the founder of The Jive Five and the Genies. Now, I don't know of any doo-wop group that is going to throw you all enunciated words. You just have to go with the feel. So is that one "nick" that lacks a "ck" real or a mistake? Eugene passed away in 2018 before the debate ever happened, so we may never know.
Musically, not worrying about the pronunciation of the word "nick". You have 4 beats in a measure. The whole jingle is 2 measures long. Therefore we have to make all of these words happen in 8 beats. The final Nickelodeon is spread out over the second measure of 4 beats, leaving us only 4 more beats to play with. The first measure is a mixture of 1/8th notes and quarter notes that add us right on up to 4 beats for that measure. Therefore, there are 8 "nick"s in that first measure of 4. Also, you can just count the amount that the hand draws in the jingle's video.
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