Tina Fey et al to Be Featured on NICK NEWS WITH LINDA ELLERBEE: MY BIG FAT FAILURE, 2/26

The late, legendary basketball coach John Wooden once said, "Failure is never fatal. It's courage that counts." Every one of us has failed - probably more than once. The big question is: What happens next? What do you do with that failure? On Sunday, Feb. 26, at 9:00 p.m. (ET/PT), kids across America and some of the world's most successful people talk about their own failures - and how they overcame them - on the new Nick News with Linda Ellerbee half-hour special, MY BIG FAT FAILURE. Tina Fey, Brian Williams, Richard Branson, Wendy Williams, Russell Simmons, George Lopez, Julie Bowen, Nick Cannon and Melissa Joan Hart are among those to be featured on the show.

"I don't know anyone who hasn't failed," says NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams. "I don't want to know anyone who hasn't failed."

"I was hopeless in school," says billionaire businessman Richard Branson. "It was all mumbo-jumbo to me."

"I wanted to be a comedian since I was 11 years old," says George Lopez. "But when the time came to do it, I'm not sure that I had ever been that nervous, that afraid."

The special also features kids who talk about the fear of failure, what it's like to fail and what they do about it - or wish they'd done about it.

"When you fail, you feel like you're a big loser," says a girl named Valeryee. "But that isn't true, because you've just stumbled upon an obstacle. You're eventually going to find a place where you belong."

"Failure motivates you to succeed," says a girl named Sajita.

"Failure is an event, not a person," says Ellerbee. "You may fail, but YOU'RE not a failure. As for fear of failure, you can be very, very afraid... and still succeed. I have."

"You have to keep going," says hip-hop multi-millionaire Russell Simmons. "You stay on your hustle. And you don't quit."

You may, however, change your aim. "When I started running cross-country and track in high school literally every race was a failure... " says Chad Hurley. "Running helped me learn how to deal with failure and failure is a is a big part of the internet business... but you need to get it out there before anyone else catches on to what you're doing. And that's how we started YouTube."

Nick News, produced by Lucky Duck Productions, is now in its 21st year and is the longest-running kids' news show in television history. It has built its reputation on the respectful and direct way it speaks to kids about the important issues of the day. Over the years, Nick News has received more than 21 Emmy nominations and recently won its ninth Emmy Award for Under the Influence: Kids of Alcoholics in the category of Outstanding Children's Nonfiction Program. Additional Emmy wins for outstanding children's programming include: The Face of Courage: Kids Living with Cancer (2010); Coming Home: When Parents Return from War (2009); The Untouchable Kids of India (2008); Private Worlds: Kids and Autism (2007); Never Again: From the Holocaust to the Sudan (2005); Faces of Hope: The Kids of Afghanistan (2002) and What Are You Staring At? (1998). In addition, in 1995, the entire series won the Emmy. In 2009, Nick News was honored with the Edward R. Murrow Award for best Network News Documentary for Coming Home: When Parents Return from War - the first-ever kids' television program to receive this prestigious award. Nick News has also received three Peabody Awards, including a personal award given to Ellerbee for explaining the impeachment of President Clinton to kids, as well as a Columbia duPont Award and more than a dozen Parents' Choice Awards.

About Nickelodeon

Nickelodeon, now in its 32nd year, is the number-one entertainment brand for kids. It has built a diverse, global business by putting kids first in everything it does. The company includes television programming and production in the United States and around the world, plus consumer products, online, recreation, books and feature films. Nickelodeon's U.S. television network is seen in 100 million households and has been the number-one-rated basic cable network for 16 consecutive years. Nickelodeon and all related titles, characters and logos are trademarks of Viacom Inc. 

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