Nicholas Elodeon Did Not Create the Nickelodeon Channel
The Claim
Nickelodeon was named after its creator and CEO, Nicholas Elodeon, who started the company back in 1977.
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Emerging story
The claim went viral in summer 2021.
Misbar’s Analysis
We concluded that Nickelodeon was not named after a CEO named Nicholas Elodeon. When the television channel launched in 1977, it was called Pinwheel. At this time it focused on commercial-free educational content. The name was changed to Nickelodeon in 1977. The network was founded by a woman named Vivian Horner, not a man named Nicholas Elodeon.
According to Dictionary.com, the word Nickelodeon refers to “an early movie theater where a film or a variety show could be seen, usually for the admission price of a nickel.” The first nickelodeon opened in 1905 and they were quite popular until large modern theaters replaced them in 1910. The network was named after this early type of movie theater.
The photo that is shared with the claim features Nick Cannon, who was never the company’s CEO. However, Cannon has worked on a number of Nickelodeon programs, including All That and The Nick Cannon Show. We ran a reverse image search on the photo of Cannon and it appears to originate from The Boys & Girls Clubs Alumni Hall of Fame webpage.
