Nickandmore!

Oddly, though not as unexpected as you might think, the Hub Network will be airing at least two Nickelodeon Movies in September – the animated Barnyard: The Original Party Animals from 2006 and the 1996 Harriet the Spy.

Barnyard will premiere Monday, September 1 at 5 p.m. and Harriet the Spy will air Saturday, September 6 at 8 p.m. (ET).

The Nickelodeon Movies branded films are distributed by Viacom arm Paramount Pictures, so technically any television network can acquire broadcast rights. This has happened before with Cartoon Network airing the branded movies like Snow Day, A Series of Unfortunate Events and Nacho Libre. Hub Network has even aired the Nickelodeon Movies 2009 pic Hotel for Dogs.

What’s particularly interesting about Hub airing Barnyard is the fact that the movie is related to a Nickelodeon original series (Back at the Barnyard). Thus far, Nickelodeon has kept their animated original movies (like Rugrats, Jimmy Neutron, SpongeBob, etc.) on their own cable networks. Only premium networks like Showtime, or broadcast networks like CBS, have aired them otherwise.

Nickelodeon itself has aired most of their “Nickelodeon Movies” branded films. Again, strangely, Harriet the Spy is one of the movies Nick hasn’t aired – despite the fact that it was the first produced. Other films in the branded library that Nickelodeon hasn’t aired on TV include Snow Day, Clockstoppers, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Yours, Mine and Ours, Nacho Libre, Imagine That and everything since Rango.