taped. Some of the features of the live version of the show  included musical guests, contests, phone ins, scenes with kids on the street  telling jokes, complaining, etc, and other features. By the time Nickelodeon  came into the picture, wanting to air the show, all the episodes from 1979 no  longer existed, but all of the 1981 episodes did, so what happened was,  Nickelodeons editors removed everything but the comedy sketches and the  "kids on the street" segments. This cut the episodes by a half hour, so the  nickelodeon version of the show aired approxamently 28 minutes, while the  originals were an hour long.