Old School Lane's Nickelodeon Tribute: Allegra's Window

As Nick Jr. was slowly gaining in popularity as the block to feature educational programs for preschoolers and kids 2-6, they needed a new mascot. Around 1994, Face came into the network promoting the programs they were going to air.

Face would range in different colors and he would act silly ranging in different voices and counting objects or playing games with the kids. He would always be interacting with the audience even though he was put there only for promotional purposes. Face was voiced by Chris Phillips, who would later on voice Roger Klotz in Brand Spanking New Doug after Jim Jinkens moved the show from Nickelodeon to Disney.



Hey, speaking of Jim Jinkens, around October 24, 1994, he created a kid's show for preschoolers featuring people and puppets. That show was called Allegra's Window.

The show is about a 3-year-old girl named Allegra who loves to learn new things everyday. She goes through her everyday trials and routines of being a kid alongside her parents, her older brother Rondo, her best friend Lindi, Rondo's best friend Riff, and her neighborhood friends. She goes to pre-school where a nice teacer named Miss Melody teaches them about good manners, she sees her friend Mr. Cook and learns about different foods, and she loves to sing and dance.



You might think that it's a little odd that Jim Jinkens would be creating a show for pre-schoolers since he's the guy who created Doug. But as you've been following from the beginning of the Nickelodeon tribute, Jim Jinkens started off in kid's shows for Nickelodeon such as Pinwheel and Hocus Focus back in the late 70's and early 80's. So something like Allegra's Window was going back to his roots on where he first started in his career.  As you can tell with the style, looks, and personalities of the puppets, it's Jinkens' style written all over it. Allegra is an average 3-year-old toddler with an active imagination and has a love of music and learning new things. She's sort of like Doug. Rondo looks sort of like Doug with similar features in his face, but acts sort of like Judy being the older sibling. Riff is kind of like Roger with his tough, yet cool attitude. Mr. Cook looks similar to Al and Moo's dad and Pogo reminds me of Skeeter's brother Dale, both in personality, age, and appearance.


The main theme of the show was music. There were music and dance numbers throughout each episode connecting to the lesson that they were teaching. However there were no 3 minute dancing sequences like Today's Special or anything like that. Even the characters were named after a type of musical instrument or dance.



It continued on in Nick Jr. until May 1, 1998. The show continued on in reruns until 2000. There's really not much to say about this show. It's a really basic kids' show that teaches lessons, has music numbers, and nice characters similar to Sesame Street. Not a bad show, but quite basic. If you want to check it out sometime, you can. It's harmless enough.

That's all for now. Tune in next time as Kevin reviews another Klasky Csupo classic (say that 5 times fast), Aaahh! Real Monsters and I review the 1994 TV series U to U.



Hope to see your around Old School Lane soon.

-Patricia