''Kids' Court'' is a children's television/ nontraditional court show aired by

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (nicknamed Nick) is an American pay television channel and the flagship property of the Nickelodeon Group, a sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on April 1, 1979, as the first ca ...

. First airing on September 10, 1988 and ending in 1989, it was hosted by actor

Paul Provenza Paul Provenza (born July 31, 1957) is an American television presenter, actor, radio panelist, stand-up comedian, filmmaker, and skeptic based in Los Angeles. He has appeared on several podcasts and in recent years has interviewed other stand-up c ...

. It was created and executive produced by

Alan Goodman Alan Eliot Goodman is an American actor and media marketer. He is one of the founders of TESTD Inc, a health and data management products company. He was formerly a television writer and producer who has worked in media since 1981. Early life an ...

Albie Hecht Albie Hecht is an American film and television producer and media executive. In 1997, Hecht was the president of film and TV entertainment for Nickelodeon before becoming president of the television channel Spike TV in 2003. In 2005, he founded ...

, and

Fred Seibert Frederick G. Seibert is an American television producer and media proprietor. Seibert began his professional career as a jazz and blues record producer and audio engineer in the 1970s. He co-founded the record label Oblivion Records by 1972 an ...

; produced by Chauncey Street Productions, a division of Fred/Alan, Inc., in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

Background

The show premise utilized grievances made by children mailed to the studio, with each side of a grievance represented by a child in the audience, and at the end of their argument, children in the audience would cheer. The "Judge-o-meter", a cardboard rendering of an English

judge A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...

(with wig) with peak meters for "eyes", would measure the

decibels The decibel (symbol: dB) is a relative unit of measurement equal to one tenth of a bel (B). It expresses the ratio of two values of a power or root-power quantity on a logarithmic scale. Two signals whose levels differ by one decibel have a ...

of the screaming, cheering children, and the side that generated the most screaming and cheering would win the argument. The "Judge-o-meter" system would also be used to sentence the guilty party. Sentences would be suggested by children in the audience. The show sometimes featured expert witnesses testifying for the child; Sandra Hodge appeared in one episode on behalf of a girl whose school wouldn't let her join the wrestling team. The show also had two courtroom sketch artists during the course of the show (1 appearing at a time), Nobi Nakanishi and Asha Canalos. During commercial breaks, the show would have quick quiz questions for children, about the legal system. ''Kids' Court'' was part of Nickelodeon's "

Cable in the Classroom Cable in the Classroom was an American division of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association that assisted the cable television industry in providing educational content to schools. The organization was founded in 1989. A Canadian orga ...

" promotion. At the closing credits, host Provenza would ask the child audience to "sound off" about what they thought was unfair. He would ask the audience "Fair or Unfair?", wherein the audience would almost always shout "Unfair!" in unison. Though the series only aired first-run episodes for a year, it continued on Nickelodeon in reruns through 1993.

References

External links

* 1988 American television series debuts 1989 American television series endings 1980s Nickelodeon original programming 1980s American children's television series American children's education television series Court shows Television series about children {{US-child-tv-prog-stub