[Neil Jones]

Must be noted the chicken test card was primarily Paramount, not Nickelodeon, as per:
www.youtube.com 

This only appeared after Paramount had packed up for the night and until Nick started.

The chicken test card IIRC came in two versions, the one I've added here and another with car horn noises (presumably because there's a massive chicken in the middle of the road).

[James2001]

Nickelodeon did have their own test card as well though! I have a recording of it somewhere from 1999 (also went out with tone, like that recording of the Paramount one does), I think it only appeared at weekends at that point as Nick started an hour later than it did during the week.

I definitely remember the car horn version of the Paramount test card, shame there doesn't seem to be any recordings of it online though.

Edit: found a picture of the Nickelodon one, this has to date from 1998 at the earliest because of the characters that are in it, I guess it's possible they had earlier variations, but this is the only one I ever saw

[Neil Jones]

I didn't say Nickelodeon didn't have their own test card. But the chicken wasn't a replacement for a Nickelodeon test card was the overarching point I was trying to get at. The chicken was Paramount's test card. Not sure when they introduced that, but it was one of the more interesting test cards.

[Tola]

I believe that slide was introduced in November 1995 to coincide with the launch of the channel; I believe before that, Nick UK had the space balloon slide from launch, but other than the video I linked earlier, there's no other examples of it online.

[nwtv2003]

I believe the Nickelodeon testcard was only introduced after it went digital and no longer timeshared with Paramount. I was the one who uploaded the Paramount testcard, and that was always on during the gap between Paramount ending and Nickelodeon starting, which was at 7:00am on a weekend, which was when that clip was recorded. I don’t recall seeing the Nickelodeon testcard in the analogue days.

[James2001]

My recording of the Nickelodeon test card is from late 1999, and was recorded from analogue, on the shared Nickelodeon/Paramount channel, so it definitely went out on analogue at certain times. The Paramount test card went off at 6, then the Nickelodeon test card came on for the next hour.

Another Nickelodeon thing I remember, which was on digital, was around 2002 after closedown, they ran a load of random footage (with lots of spooling tapes back and forth, credit squeeze graphics and the likes), including old in-vision continuity- the continuity started off being recent, then gradually got older. The more recent continuity was recorded "as broadcast", so you got snatches of the programmes and trailers either side, but once it got to clips from around 1997 it was raw studio footage, so you saw things like the presenter talking to the caller who was about to go on air, and walking off the set at the end. Was fascinating to watch.

[Neil Jones]

I'm pretty sure Nickelodeon time shared with some other service or two before Paramount came along, and IIRC that was right up to the back end of Nick's hours either side, so in other words there wouldn't be any time for test cards even if they did have one to use in the analogue days.

[Kojak]

I'm pretty sure Nickelodeon time shared with some other service or two before Paramount came along, and IIRC that was right up to the back end of Nick's hours either side, so in other words there wouldn't be any time for test cards even if they did have one to use in the analogue days.

Did they not share with the Performance Channel at one point? At least on some systems.

[nwtv2003]

I'm pretty sure Nickelodeon time shared with some other service or two before Paramount came along, and IIRC that was right up to the back end of Nick's hours either side, so in other words there wouldn't be any time for test cards even if they did have one to use in the analogue days.

Did they not share with the Performance Channel at one point? At least on some systems.

They did on my local cable, when it was Nynex, but I think it was more the fact they didn’t have an agreement to carry Paramount until September 1997. Essentially the final minute of Nickelodeon were promos for Paramount, before switching the feee to Performance. This stopped when Paramount became available, and in their wisdom Performance Channel started to timeshare with TV5: 

youtu.be 

They had other crazy cable only timeshares such as God Channel with Eurosport, Granada Breeze and National Geographic, before switching to share with MUTV. I think it was just a cable thing to maximise space. 

I don’t recall seeing a Nickelodeon testcard when they shared with Performance, more than likely they would have used the Channel Guide to fill the downtime like they did with a lot channels.

[Tola]

The pilot to Harry Hill's TV Burp:
youtu.be