Before I begin, please note that I am not personally attacking anyone's site or saying that this is not a good idea in theory. I admire the initiative that all the petition circulators are taking, and I admire that they love the show enough to actively campaign for it online and in real life. And if this is a cause you believe in, there is no reason why you shouldn't add your name to one of the Roundhouse petitions. However, this site can't advertise the petition as an effective means of getting the show back on the air. At least, not with a clear conscience. Here are several of the reasons why.
1) Historically, grassroots Internet campaigns have not been effective. Remember "My So-Called Life?" The media went on for weeks about the online efforts to bring it back for a second season. For awhile it looked like they were winning. But when it came down to it, cancelled was cancelled. MTV aired reruns for awhile, but when you only make 10 episodes of something, you can only see it so many times. Dozens of fan pages still exist for this show, but unfortunately, there is no sign of its ever returning to network or cable TV. This is just one example of many online campaigns that, while appearing to be successful in their attempts to bring a series or movie back to TV, ultimately failed. Just ask yourself how many online petitions you've gotten in your email, telling you to add your name to the list and pass it on to as many people as you can. If you believe that those work, you're probably also watching your mailbox for that $1000 check from Bill Gates. And I've got a bridge I want to sell you.
2) Nickelodeon no longer owns the rights to Roundhouse- and furthermore, we aren't even sure who does. I'm no business major, but I do know something about how television shows are created and run. A production company (in this case, Rebel Entertainment- Remember the crumpled yellow paper and "That's good enough."? That's the production company.) develops a show and films a pilot. The pilot is shown to various networks, and if a network likes it, they will pay the company to make more episodes and air their program. Remember that while Roundhouse was a Nickelodeon show, it was not developed by Nickelodeon- they only aired it, and after the first season, filmed it at their studio. After Roundhouse stopped airing on Nickelodeon, BET bought the rights to air it, and apparently owned them through 1996. After that, who knows what happened? Rebel Entertainment has since dissolved, though Benny Hester and his partners are still very much active in the entertainment field. But Roundhouse stopped having anything to do with Nickelodeon a very long time ago. My point? Nick doesn't simply have stacks and stacks of old Roundhouse master tapes in their attic, sandwiched between old tapes of Count Duckula and Don't Just Sit There, that they're hiding from the public and could pull out at any time. That's just not how it works. Furthermore, typically, most shows don't even get considered for syndication unless a certain number of episodes were made. 52 seems like a lot to us, but especially as a children's show that aired only on cable, it really isn't much.
3) Roundhouse was never a very successful show- and what's more, it's now practically obsolete. Roundhouse had its moment in the sun, but it was all too brief. It was cancelled for much the same reason all shows eventually get cancelled- it just didn't have enough viewers. The target audience for Roundhouse was older children, preteens, and teenagers. If it were to be shown again, it would probably be shown with the same demographic in mind. These are people that were between the ages of 5 and 11 when the last episode of Roundhouse aired, people who are only peripherally aware of people like Dan Quayle, around whom some of Roundhouse's finest moments revolved. As much as I'd like to say that Roundhouse is a timeless show, the truth of the matter is that it simply isn't. Most of the jokes seem dated now, and I don't believe Roundhouse's target audience would be as affected by it today as those of us who remember it were when we were 10-16 years old.
So, what does this mean for the various online Roundhouse petitions? Well, I don't want to discourage you from signing them if you were going to before. I just want to make you all aware of the reasons the Triumvirate is not signing or linking to them, in case you were curious about our lack of links to such sites, and their absence from the webring.
Please direct all comments, questions, and flames to jsliese@mtholyoke.edu. These opinions are my own. Please don't harass our guestbook or the other two Triumvirate members.