DefunctTV: The History of Gullah Gullah Island
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In this episode of DefunctTV, Kevin explores the history of Nickelodeon’s children’s program, Gullah Gullah Island.
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@ericacaa
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
Wow i didnt even remember this show anymore but as soon as i heard the opening song i immediately sang along. It was stored way deep within my subconscious.
@Tepyr
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
I'm a white guy from Ohio.. and I fully believe this show had the biggest impact on me. So much so, that I 100% thought it was a PBS Kids.
@RomarioZ11
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
Because of this show I was able to win my 2nd grade spelling bee with the word “Island”
@dawakat08
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
Man I loved Gullah Gullah Island as a kid, it came out right before I went into Kindergarten so it was a favorite to watch along with Eureka's Castle and Muppet Babies
@JR-dp1ej
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
I use to love this show as a kid 🥹 Can’t believe it’s been so long! I’m 36 now 😮
@TheQuota2001
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
Knowing now what the leaders at Nickelodeon were doing with those kids, I’m glad all the good people were working on this show.
@TheQuota2001
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
❤❤
@Epck
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
I learned something important from this show and still to this day i refuse to walk any faster when its raining
@landon798123
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
OUT OF THE BOX tv show topic suggestion
@NieroshaiTheSable
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
I know I watched at least a few episodes, but the memories are painfully vague now. I recognize that theme jingle like it was yesterday, though.
@psychobrit2008
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
This theme song loves in head rent free. Both my sister and I can still sing it from memory. 😂
@abbync8427
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
Im from South Carolina
@KanyackaNicoleGillard
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
I Loved That Show
@RoycceeR
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
This reminds me of my childhood
@LadywatchingByrd
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
Thank you Ron and Natalie Daise! 🙏🎶❤🐸
@LadywatchingByrd
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
South Carolina islands are not in the tropics😂❤ and yes Ron and Natalie are as beautiful as we think they are. I am glad for that show. I couldn't wait to "take my foot in my hand". ❤❤🎶
@josephhilton5762
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
What Did Ever!
@cap007fcjb
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
I watched this when it came out originally because my sister and I grew up on Gullah Gullah Island. I now have a daughter that I introduced it too and she mimics the whole theme song and asks to watch it constantly. I rewatched and understood where I learned my values and why I wanted to pass them down to her.
@amberrhoades4247
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
I was a child that watched Gullah Gullah island & I love it. So much that I still have find newbies of the show @36yrs old. I want my bits to watch the show bc it tought me how to love regardless or outward appearance when I lived in a predominantly white area. As of lately we are 50/50 on white vs black/asian/oriental/Mexican/Hindu/Muslim/or anything in between. Idgaf who my boys fall in love with. My oldest has had a mixed gf fir 3yrs. Love is love. Her momma likes us & we like her so I say go for it.
My husband & I are high school sweethearts so we know it's possible to find love in school.
Love is love regardless of age or race!
@GreenWithEvil33
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
if this show came out in today's day and age, the right wing Nazis would be crying that this show is woke
@khiaaltima6152
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
“The parents are too perfect” is such a ridiculous criticism for a preschool show.
@sammy-jaymordi627
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
I watched a lot of cartoon and shows during my childhood. If Gullah Gullah Island wasn’t part of it, my list will be incomplete. That show taught me a lot and put smiles on my face. Watching the inro only brings good old memories.
@Pangloss6413
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
The island this show is based on had a mass shooting today
@ghoststil
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
I literally GASPED when I saw this video in my recommended. I watched this stuff with my older cousins when I was younger so not a lot of people my age recognize/remember this show but I LOVED it.
@SouthwestIllinoisEAS
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
I can definitely say, this show, even though I’m a kid from 2002, that being my birth year, was the one show that kept me from not judging people. Quite frankly, as a kid who is blind, growing up in the 2000s was not fun. I was always being picked on always being judged and always being tossed around like I was some toy. And I started to think that was the normal. Then one morning and it happened to be during a really bad thunderstorm, I was scared of thunderstorms at the time, I turned on the TV and this show came on. I was immediately drawn into it. It was like 2006, and they were doing reruns, of course, and I was again immediately drawn into it. So often times when I couldn’t sleep, I would literally sneak out to the living room and turn this show on, because, it always made me happy inside even as a little four or five year-old. Even to this day, just going back on YouTube for example, and watching some of the VHS reps, of the episodes that have been posted, it brings total nostalgia to my heart. I feel like a kid again. Quite frankly, this is like the one show that I feel like should be remembered, and sadly is not. Everyone talks about shows like paw patrol, and everything else, yet then, when you mention, this shows name somebody, they’re always like,? What show are you talking about? I ain’t never heard of that. Quite frankly. It’s sad. I even remember one day, when I was about five years old, still in preschool at the time, I actually brought a VHS tape of this show into class, Why you might ask. Well, it was because, I knew this show would resonate at least I thought it would at the time, with my class. I was hopeful it would as well, because when I was about five, I was often getting picked on by my classmates, mainly for my blindness, And the fact that I couldn’t read as fast as they could. It took me a long time to get to read, and I remember when my teacher put that VHS tape in, she first asked me which episode I wanted to show them, I chose one on friendship, and when she asked why, I literally told her as a five-year-old would, I hate school because kids are picking on me. I literally remember after the episode aired in the class, the teacher literally asked every student in the class, what did you learn from watching this. And for the students that learned nothing, she made them rewatch it, and then, if they still had learned, nothing, she made them rewatch it a third time, but paused it during certain parts of it, to discuss the importance of that. For example, There’s a scene where a couple of the kids are arguing back-and-forth, about somebody taking something from the other, it was such a common thing in my class, I remember specifically, the teacher, pausing the video at one point, saying that I wanted to watch the episode with them use the restroom, when in reality she actually had plans to discuss it. While I was in the restroom, I overheard her discussing, why I sometimes took things without asking. I couldn’t see that another person was playing with it for example, so that’s why I took things. I didn’t know how to use my words yet and ask, is somebody playing with this? It was those little things that really kind of helped me to grow as a person. Not to mention, just gonna say it right now, this will definitely be a show, if it is still able to be streamed anywhere, even if I have to buy VHS tapes or DVDs off of eBay, that I will definitely be showing my kids in the future.❤
@Alexzander1989
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
Oh man, I haven't seen this show in a long long time, good times
@lydiaraine8363
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
I remember the first time I saw this show I had woken up in the middle of the night while being sick on the couch and was so incredibly confused and no one believed me when I tried to explain it and said I had just dreamed it.
Thanks to YouTube I had found it and watched it with my little sister when I was in middle school and absolutely loved this show and so did she
@EchoEcho-q4r
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
Man I love watching this shown when I was sick and couldn’t go to school during my elementary days.
@RainbowDashFan364
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
It actually had a 5th season with 2 episodes and it ended in 2000.
@JayPumabomb56
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
Will never forgive my kid self for not caring for this show very much when I saw reruns of it
if only I had known it’s background back then, it would’ve made me appreciate it so much more at the time, but at least I can do that as much now, because I’m not gonna lie this has gotta be the sweetest backstory ever 😭
@teanmace
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
Jealous I didn't grow up with this. I feel like this show was a void in my gaping library.
@NotTheWheel
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
I loved Gullah Gullah Island such a good show 🙂
@deet_64
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
i was a white girl in UTAH and this was my favorite show!! It's audience was everywhere. I loved it so much.
@patchschannel4059
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
When I was seven, I would try my hardest to stay up til 3:00 and 3:30 AM to watch this, but I'd end up crying every time because I went past my bedtime.
One night at that age, I stayed awake and made it through the first Gullah Gullah Island episode and I was very proud of myself for doing so, and by 3:26, I ended up crying hysterically in front of the TV and ran to the bathroom to cry. My mom walked into the bathroom and saw me crying, and I was hiding my face behind a Look-and-Find book (remember those?) so my mom wouldn't see me crying and I was saying "I'm crying about the sunscreen!" (because I always gibbered stupid and silly things when I was upset and still do) through tears and missed half of the episode "Gullah Gullah Island Day" and when I got off the toilet, I felt small as I walked to bed.
The next time, I stayed up with my mom in my dad's king sized bed and I ended up crying halfway through the second Gullah Gullah Island episode at 3:30 because I stayed up past my bedtime. I began gibbering silly nonsense about something to my mom while crying and she said "You got your little pillow wet!" because I had soaked my pillow with my tears and I eventually cried myself to sleep.
Another time, I stayed up until nearly 2:30 AM and didn't get to watch Gullah Gullah Island because I ended up crying after an episode of Little Bear and went to my dad's closet to cry.
Yet another time, I stayed up until 3:30 and had a mini meltdown because I stayed up past my bedtime. I went downstairs during my meltdown and my dad had some strange DVD playing on TV and the DVD player menu was on. I was really confused.
Soon, one night when I went to my grandmother's overnight, I suggested my mom would record a repeat of one of my favorite Little Bill episodes at 12:00 AM on my Sony cassette recorder (since I already saw that episode at 2:00 PM that day) and she did. She stayed up until 3:00 and guess what? She taped the episode "Here Come the Hatchlings" for me on a SONY CASSETTE RECORDER and when I woke up the next morning, I was thrilled when she presented me the tape! I thought that idea up myself and my mom continued to do this for me. My mom recorded episodes of Oobi, Maggie and the Ferocious Beast, Little Bear, Franklin, and Little Bill, heck even The Banana Splits on Boomerang and even Rubbadubbers, Barney, and Angelina Ballerina once on PBS Kids Sprout on blank cassette tapes. Sadly, I ended up taping over those cassette tapes later, but the Franklin/Angelina Ballerina half of one of the cassette tapes still exists to this day.
When I saw the bootleg DVD set was finally available for sale on Amazon, I was so excited. I asked my aunt to buy me all three seasons for Christmas, But lo and behold something outrageous happened. Discs 1, 2, and 3 of Season 1 SHEARED IN HALF and so did Season 2's discs and even Season 3! Those discs were created by Amazon's Createspace program and they were MOD (Made on Demand) discs! I later got Season 4 the following year by my aunt from Amazon, but the first disc sheared in half two years later. Strangely enough, when I used my dad's credit card with his permission to buy the first season again on Amazon, this time the bottom of the discs weren't magenta (the typical color for blank DVDs), but they were OFFICIAL looking like regular DVDs. I still have the replacement to this day.
When we discovered the streaming app, NOGGIN (which is defunct by now) on our Roku player, we saw that this show was available and I was very excited when we got a subscription to NOGGIN so I could watch the episodes all over again!
And that is my story behind this show.
@BigHK14
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
I remember being 6 sneaking to get my aunties phone in the middle of the night just to watch this on youtube while they slept 😭❤️
@eliblanks9388
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
You know you did a great job talking about gullah gullah island and oobi i hope you can talk about the history of dora the explorer,go diego go,franklin,little bear,and allegra's window,the same goes for peppa pig and many nick jr shows
@Buttersnarwhal
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
Who’s here after someone from the show on TikTok is posting there about how it came to exist?
@estevanclementi230
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
This was one of my favorite shows as a kid ❤
@cooperbaldwin
April 2, 2026 at 11:42 pm
Gullah Gullah Island and its spinoff Binyah Binyah! was taped and recorded at Nickelodeon Studios in Orlando, at Universal Studios Florida.
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