Shocking new revelations have just come to light about one of the 20th century’s greatest mysteries, and they are providing answers historians have been seeking for decades: Nickelodeon has finally claimed responsibility for the infamous attempted 1961 sliming of Cuba.
This is huge. While nothing can take back this sliming attempt, it’s a step toward justice that Nickelodeon has decided at last to confess its role in the terrible event.
On May 3, 1961, a fleet of war planes carrying over 6,000 tons of neon green slime appeared in Cuban airspace over Havana. The Cuban air force, with military assistance from the Soviet Union, was able to repel the attempted sliming, but for over 60 years no nation or organization claimed responsibility for the foiled attack. That all changed this morning, when Nickelodeon executives confirmed in an official statement that the children’s television network unilaterally conceived, planned, and carried out the attempted 1961 sliming campaign.
According to Nickelodeon’s statement, the company made the decision to slime Cuba in 1959 after the island nation committed the secret slime action of carrying out a communist revolution. The network stated that after their sliming attempt in Cuba was thwarted, they settled for dumping all 6,000 tons of the slime intended for Havana and its surroundings on Lori-Beth Denberg.
While some historians had previously suggested that Nickelodeon might have played a role in the event, citing the network’s massive escalation in slime production in the decades after World War II, nobody had ever been able to provide conclusive evidence linking Nickelodeon to the aborted attack. Competing theories have suggested that the United States, West Germany, or North Korea might have been responsible, since all three of those nations underwent a similar increase in slime production and aerial slimings of international targets during that time.
Other notable historians, most notably Howard Zinn in his 1983 book “Emerald Deluge: The Failed Sliming Of Cuba And Its Bloody Aftermath,” had also put forward the hypothesis that Cuba itself was behind the attempted sliming. Supporters of this theory frequently cited a letter that Fidel Castro, Cuba’s president at the time of the failed sliming, sent to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in which he claimed, “I want to get slimed” and “I’d surrender Havana to the imperialists tomorrow if they’d just blast me with slime. It looks so fun and a kid I know who got slimed said that the slime tastes good. I want to taste the slime.”
However, Nickelodeon’s confession today puts all of these competing theories to rest. There is now certainty about who was responsible for the attempted sliming, and a true reckoning with history can begin. Kudos to Nickelodeon for finally coming clean and owning up to their role in this infamous event. Here’s hoping they find a way to make amends.
