Development Brian Robbins and
Michael Tollin created the show, and the
head writer was
Dan Schneider who also became the
showrunner of the series in the third season.
All That marked the beginning of Schneider's prolific career in creating and writing hit television series for young audiences.
The New York Times, in separate articles, referred to Schneider as "the
Norman Lear of children's television" and "the master of a television genre". In 1986, Robbins and Schneider met when they were cast in the
ABC sitcom
Head of the Class, where they co-starred as Eric Mardian and Dennis Blunden, members of an honors program for
gifted high school students. Becoming close friends, the two performers both shared a mutual interest in writing, eventually coming together to write and then pitch an episode to the show's producers just to see if they could do it. Although they were unaware of the fledgling
Nickelodeon cable channel, the two agreed to participate. The award ceremony that year was produced by
Albie Hecht, with whom Robbins and Schneider quickly struck up a friendship. The company originally produced several small-budget sports documentaries. Hecht, now Head of Development for Nickelodeon, contacted them and asked them to tape a project for the network. The half-hour documentary they made featured two of the network's
game show hosts,
Phil Moore (
Nick Arcade) and
Mike O'Malley (
Get the Picture and
Nickelodeon GUTS), as co-hosts of a comedy tour as they drove around to different cities to perform. At the end of the third season, Johnson and Reyes left the show. In 1997, Nickelodeon purchased the Sunset Boulevard property (formerly The Earl Carrol Theater) and rechristened it as
Nickelodeon on Sunset. Production for the series would remain there until the end of the
tenth season in 2005. The
fourth season began with the additions of
Leon Frierson,
Christy Knowings, and
Danny Tamberelli to the cast. Knowings and Tamberelli were known to Nickelodeon producers having both participated in other projects for the network; Knowings was discovered while taping a pilot for a show called
And Now This; Tamberelli was the star of
The Adventures of Pete & Pete, and guest starred on the Nickelodeon game show
Figure It Out where he befriended fellow guest star Kopelow. For the
fifth season, Kopelow and Seifert took over Schneider's responsibilities as head writers and co-executive producers; Tamberelli succeeded Denberg as the new
Vital Information anchor; added to the cast were
Nick Cannon and
Mark Saul. Although a teenager at the time, Cannon previously worked as the audience warm up and writer for the show before joining the cast. The 100th episode featured several celebrity guests:
Melissa Joan Hart (
Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Nickelodeon's
Clarissa Explains It All),
Larisa Oleynik (Nickelodeon's
The Secret World of Alex Mack),
Robert Ri'chard (Nickelodeon's
Cousin Skeeter), and
Britney Spears (in a taped video appearance; Spears was originally supposed to perform in person but had to back out due to a knee injury and
Lauryn Hill took her place) all made appearances; with Bates, Denberg, Johnson and Reyes appearing as well. The fifth season ended with the departures of Mitchell and Thompson. Stand-up comedian
Gabriel Iglesias (who, at 24, was much older than the otherwise preteen-to-late-teenage cast) was hired to replace the two for the following season. The first episode of the "new"
All That featured special guests
Frankie Muniz and
Aaron Carter and debuted on January 19, 2002. The
eighth season opened with the addition of Britney Spears' younger sister,
Jamie Lynn Spears, to the cast. In addition,
All That cast members were also included in a new wraparound segment during the
SNICK lineup, the
SNICK On-Air Dare, in which they attempted various dares (such as a now-infamous segment, later recalled in the 2024
Investigation Discovery documentary
Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, in which Hearne was painted with
peanut butter that would be licked off him by a pack of dogs); occasionally,
On-Air Dares featured special guests from other Nickelodeon shows. Hearne left the series just as Nickelodeon was promoting a new competition series, ''
R U All That?: Nickelodeon's Search for the Funniest Kid in America, in which the grand prize winner would be given an opportunity to become a cast member on All That
. After this contest ended in 2003, the finals aired on the network on July 26, 2003. The contest picked five finalists, all of whom would perform a sketch with the current cast. The winner of R U All That?'' was
Christina Kirkman, who would officially join the cast in
ninth season; the competition's runner-up,
Ryan Coleman, would join the cast later that year. At the end of the ninth season, Lyons, Samuels and Spears departed the series. Spears left to focus on a new Nickelodeon sitcom that Schneider had created,
Zoey 101. In 2005, the
tenth season began with a celebration of the show's tenth anniversary. As part of the event, Nickelodeon aired episodes from the first six seasons of
All That in the week leading up to a "reunion special" on April 23, 2005, hosted by Muniz and featuring
Ashanti and
Bow Wow as the musical guests. The special featured cast members from both the original and relaunch series performing in sketches together. And, after a hiatus, the
Vital Information sketch was brought back with
Lil' JJ, winner of sister channel
BET's
Coming to the Stage competition, as the anchor. The special also introduced Kianna Underwood and
Denzel Whitaker as new cast members. Approximately 6.2 million total viewers watched the special on both its April 23 and 24 airings, making it the top
cable or
broadcast program for the 2–11, 6–11, and 9–14 age
demographics, and
TV.com gave it a rating of 8.7/10. Now in charge of the company's programming unit, Robbins expressed interest in a revival of the show, saying, in an interview with
The Hollywood Reporter, that: The show's revival was announced as part of Nickelodeon's 2019 content slate on February 14, 2019. On May 14, 2019, it was announced that the show would premiere on June 15, 2019, with Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell serving as executive producers; Kevin Kopelow and Heath Seifert returning as consulting producers; and the involvement of former cast members in sketches. However, Dan Schneider, former executive producer of the series, would not be involved with the second relaunch as Nickelodeon had cut ties with Schneider in 2018. By 2017, Nickelodeon had ceased all operations at the Nickelodeon on Sunset lot and the property was later sold. Production for the revival series was done at
The Burbank Studios (formerly known as NBC Studios) in Burbank, California. The new cast was officially revealed on
Today with Hoda & Jenna on May 29, 2019. The cast included Ryan Alessi, Reece Caddell, Kate Godfrey, Gabrielle Green, Nathan Janak, Lex Lumpkin, and Chinguun Sergelen. An additional ten episodes were ordered in February 2020, with eight of them being completed before production was suspended due to the
COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. However, despite the postponement, production did not resume, and Green would confirm in 2024 on an
Instagram post that
All That was indeed cancelled by
ViacomCBS in 2021, around the time that she was set to begin work as a co-star on the Nickelodeon show,
That Girl Lay Lay, without having a reason for the cancellation. The format of the series remained roughly the same as the original era and the relaunch era. Minor changes to the format included the traditional cold open (which featured the cast in a green room or around the studio before the show started) occasionally appearing later in an episode rather than at the beginning;
Vital Information, now sporadically appearing, was kept on with Caddell as anchor; and
Know Your Stars was dropped for the revival. The revival series featured the involvement of former cast members appearing regularly with the new cast in sketches. Numerous classic characters from the previous eras were revived as well. Besides Mitchell and Thompson; Lori Beth Denberg, Lisa Foiles, Alisa Reyes, Mark Saul, Josh Server, and Jamie Lynn Spears all returned to cameo. In celebration of the show's return to Nickelodeon, a Good Burger pop-up location opened to fans in Santa Monica, California. With the purchase of a ticket, guests have access to a menu inspired by the sketch and film, a small arcade, and memorabilia and set pieces. ==Cast==