Pete & Pete/Blog Reunion

Me, here, typing and you, there, reading—it’s like a reunion! Anyway, it’s great to see you again. You look amazing! Are you married? How many kids do you have now? Seen any interesting Boy Meets World re-runs lately?

Aaaaahh…it’s exciting to see each other again, right? But let’s just calm ourselves for a moment—we’ll have plenty of time to catch up and high-five later.

Speaking of reunions, though, I went to an Adventures of Pete and Pete reunion in San Francisco in January. It was the culmination of so many years of fandom for me and obviously awesome because of that, but the whole thing was so incredible that my boyfriend, who had never seen an episode of the erstwhile Nickelodeon kids show before that night, loved it.

Instead of a Q&A session, the cast (Artie, both Petes, and Endless Mike) did a reading of a few of the episodes. The dude from Polaris (the band that performed the opening theme “Hey Sandy” as well as the closing theme “Waiting for October”) provided musical accompaniment/big hair.

Mike Maronna (Pete the Elder) and Danny Tamberelli (Pete the Younger) seemed like buddies, which I—a person who likes to think that the actors on all my favorite shows are BFFs in real life and have ice cream socials on the weekends—really appreciated.

 They called two audience members on stage and let them read the roles of Mr. Tastee and Ellen (Alison Fanelli, who was Ellen on the show, is a doctor now and was prob like operating on brains so she couldn’t come).

I was super surprised to see Rick Gomez (who is on Justified, which I LOVE!). I’m probably going to name my first-born, second-born, and third-born sons Endless Mike. Yeah, Endless Mike or Rick Gomez. Haven't decided yet.

Toby Huss told this long-winded story about how he came up with the Artie character—something about sex and some woman he was about to sex up and role-play, I don’t know. It made me uncomfortable.

The biggest surprise of the night was that Colin Hanks, Doug Benson, James Urbaniak, and Paget Brewster showed up (if you don't know who any of these people are, you don't watch enough television...STOP READING SO MANY BOOKS/HAVING AN ACTIVE AND REWARDING SOCIAL LIFE, YOU NERD!) and joined the reading. (This reunion was part of SF Sketchfest, so there were a lot of actors in the city.)

And just when I thought that the night couldn’t be any better, I ate a really good cheeseburger.  

Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Society, I Call This Post, "The Tale of Me Writing about 'Are You Afraid of the Dark?'"

Back in 1991, if you watched Nickelodeon's Are You Afraid of the Dark?, which aired at the witchiest hour of the day (10PM!), after having read a Goosebumps book, you were basically going to die--the human heart can only handle so much unadulterated spookiness.

The intro alone was so horrifying that I don't think anyone would have judged you if you'd decided to go to sleep before the episode even began.


The one thing scarier than ghosts, demons, monsters, and serial killers is an off-centered, attic-dwelling hobo clown. 

The Midnight Society, a super exclusive group of Canadian youths whose parents obviously didn't give a shit about their kids' welfare, met up in the dark woods (at midnight, naturally), sat around a bonfire, and took turns telling chilling tales. The storyteller would sit in a stone chair constructed by ancient Canadian druids...

...but the kids would never just launch into their tales from there, they'd tease them out a little, preface them with some pithy observation about the human condition. Something like "sometimes things look one way, but they're really another. But are they really that way? Or still, yet another way? How many ways can things be?" And then everyone would demonstrate how thought provoking that preamble had been by exchanging stunned looks.

After the group's minds were blown by this introduction, the person sitting in the stone chair would take the bag of "Midnight Dust," say, "Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story 'The Tale of the Spooky Something or Other,'" and then throw dust onto the bonfire, stoking the flames. At the end of the night, they'd put out the bonfire because they were responsible scary storytellers.

Meet the Midnight Society
Members of the group would come and go, their departures usually explained away by Gary, the mature leader, saying, "so-and-so's family moved away" and never "so-and-so has entered puberty and has decided to start making out with people instead of frittering away his/her teen years telling scary stories."

One time it looked like they were all about to get wasted.

But then, that didn't happen.

M. Night Shyamalan isn't afraid of the dark
According to something I read on an IMDB message board (so, a super trustworthy source) the idea for The Sixth Sense was lifted from an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? called "The Tale of the Dreamgirl." (In case you don't live in the world and don't know how The Sixth Sense ends, beware, spoilers follow.)

In the episode, a guy sees a hot girl in his dreams and he tells his sister about it because they apparently have the kind of relationship where it's cool to talk about nocturnal emissions. The sister finds an old newspaper clipping that sheds some light on dream girl's identity.

Before the dude can get too excited, his sister, who likes to dole out information in juicy slivers, unfolds the top portion of the newspaper article.

Dream girl is dead! Later, brother and sister visit Donna Maitland's grave where they discover that half of the grave stone is not-at-all strategically covered in leaves.

They clean off the leaves because they're bored or whatever...

Bah! John Angelli is the brother's name. He's dead too!

The sister begins to unfurl her handy newspaper clipping once again and...

yup! Confirmation! He's been dead the whole time.

You can watch Are You Afraid of the Dark? right now!
Like, a year ago, people were trying to sell the first season DVD on Amazon for more money than a human could ever even have: $219.99.

But now you can download episodes on iTunes at an affordable price, giving you the opportunity to track the transformation of Gary's bangs over the years...

and to see what Jay Baruchel looked like when he was tiny.

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You can watch the Ryan Gosling episode here: The Tale of Station 109.1. But you'd better hurry up before Viacom has it removed!

A Quick, Objective Look at Kenan and Kel

You know that it's objective because there are charts and stuff.

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A (mostly) Comprehensive Guide to 90s Era Nickelodeon Gingers

I grew up in a culturally diverse area but I don't think that I actually conversed with anyone of the red-haired persuasion until I was in the 5th grade. It wasn't that I was some baby bigot, specializing in discrimination against the ginger-born; and I definitely wasn't afraid of them, despite the 90 minutes of parental negligence wherein I saw Child's Play, with its ginger antagonist, at the impressionable age of five years old. 


There just weren't any redheads around. 


Red hair is a recessive trait and only occurs in something like 6% of the American population. So, statistically, it makes sense that, growing up, the only gingers in my life were Lestat--my tabby cat--and his successor Lestat II. (My mom was really into Anne Rice at the time.)


But, if you watched Nickelodeon in the 90s, you probably thought that not having red hair was anomalous. 


The inordinate number of carrot tops on these shows leads me to believe that this particular television network was pushing a ginger agenda--pro-red hair propaganda, was the order of the day. Some might be quick to associate this apparent exaltation of the oft-maligned group with the network's orange logo, while others might chalk it up to coincidence. I, on the other hand, liken it to affirmative action--Nickelodeon deliberately promoted follicle diversity. Because of their efforts, kids like me, living in regions of the country seemingly devoid of gingers, were able to understand that "hey, sometimes people have red hair and that's okay." In those days it was about demystification, it was about integration. They were breaking the hair color barrier, and for that, Nickelodeon, I salute you(r shorts)!

1. Bobby Budnick

Classification: Gingeris salute your shortius

Curly/Straight Locks: Straight, in form of 90s mullet

Freckles: Yes

Pale: Yes

Evil: More or less

His/Her Whole Deal: Chief bully of Camp Anawanna. Though mostly harmless, doles out "Awful Waffles" to the frailer campers and has been known to hoist the underpants of camp n00bs up the flagpole. His BFF/minion is named Donkeylips.

Ginger Stereotypes He/She Reinforces: Gingers are bullies. 

Ginger Stereotypes He/She Breaks: Gingers are undesirable. Was able to woo Dina Alexander, the most popular girl in camp. 

2. Ferguson Darling

Classification: Gingeris clarissa explains it allius

Curly/Straight Locks: Straight, in form of clean-cut, pre-teen Republican  

Freckles: Yes

Pale: Quite

Evil: Fairly

His/Her Whole Deal: Obnoxious younger sibling of fourth-wall-breaking fashion prodigy, Clarissa Darling. Subscribes to the Alex P. Keaton school of "my parents were hippies, so, in defiance of their liberal ideals, I shall become a shallow, preppy, power-hungry, adolescent capitalist." 

Ginger Stereotype He/She Reinforces: Gingers are wicked.

Ginger Stereotype He/She Breaks: Gingers are more libidinous than the rest of us. No libido to speak of.

3. Chuckie Finster

Classification: Gingeris rugrata

Curly/Straight Locks: Both, in form of Yahoo Serious

Freckles: Yes

Pale: It's all relative

Evil: Not at all

His/Her Whole Deal: Timid, nearsighted pal of Tommy Pickles (who was basically the Bear Grylls of babies). Raised by equally timid single father Chaz (also ginger), Chuckie is especially afraid of clowns and "the guy on the oatmeal box."

Ginger Stereotype He/She Reinforces: Gingers are nerdy, weak, and nasally.

Ginger Stereotype He/She Breaks: Gingers have tempers as fiery as their hair. Chuckie is rather sweet.

4. Judy Funnie

Classification: Gingeris douglus

Curly/Straight Locks: Straight, in form of proto-hipster

Freckles: No

Pale: No

Evil: More pretentious than evil

His/Her Whole Deal: Beret-loving older sister of Doug Funnie. Goes to art school. Wears sunglasses indoors. Is this because she's a stoner or because she's trying to hide her lack of eyeballs? The world may never know.

Ginger Stereotype He/She Reinforces: Ginger females are sexy.

Ginger Stereotype He/She Breaks: Gingers are pale. (Of course, there's no way of knowing, since so much about Judy is shrouded in mystery, but I have a feeling that when it comes to her hair, the carpet doesn't match the Venetian blinds, if you catch my drift.)

5. Eugene Horowitz

Classification: Gingeris hey arnoldae

Curly/Straight Locks: Curly, in form of Jewish Afro

Freckles: Yes. In fact, has freckles on the back of his head.

Pale: Not really.

Evil: Except for the day that he "went bad," he is exceptionally good.

His/Her Whole Deal: Arnold's nerdy buddy. Aside from just generally being unlucky, Eugene also had the misfortune to be born with the most obscenely phallic head ever.

Ginger Stereotype He/She Reinforces: Gingers wear socks with flip-flops.

Ginger Stereotype He/She Breaks: Gingers don't have phallic heads.

6. Roger Klotz

Classification: Gingeris douglus

Curly/Straight Locks: Curly, in form of bacon

Freckles: Since I don't believe that anyone would shave their hair in such a ridiculous fashion, I'm assuming that those dots above his ears are sideburn freckles.

Pale: Yellow

Evil: Yes

His/Her Whole Deal: Bluffington's resident juvenile delinquent, Roger torments Doug Funnie and his crew. Has a crush on fellow ginger, Judy Funnie. Also, has flat butt and weird shoes.

Ginger Stereotype He/She Reinforces: Gingers are bullies.

Ginger Stereotype He/She Breaks: Gingers are insecure about their hair. With those shoes, Roger is obviously more insecure about his height.

7. Robyn Russo

Classification: Gingeris alex mackias

Curly/Straight Locks: Straight, in form of quintessential 90s girl

Freckles: Yup

Pale: Yep

Evil: Nope

His/Her Whole Deal: Alex Mack's sarcastic friend. Insecure despite being a paragon of 90s beauty--perfect, over-tweezed eyebrows, dark lip liner, choker, etc.

Ginger Stereotypes He/She Reinforces: Gingers are outcasts. Somehow even more awkward than gangly Alex Mack.

Ginger Stereotype He/She Breaks: Gingers are soulless. May actually have too much soul, which might explain why she's so down on herself. 

8. Big Pete Wrigley

Classification: Gingeris adventurus peteris

Curly/Straight Locks: Straight, in form of wholesome suburban boy

Freckles: Indeed

Pale: Yeah

Evil: No

His/Her Whole Deal: Perceptive junior high school student who shares his name with his younger brother. In spite of his mellow demeanor, has a remarkable number of enemies, including "Endless" Mike Hellstrom, Hat Head, and Open-Face. Plays the trombone in the marching band. Prone to narration. 

Ginger Stereotypes He/She Reinforces: Gingers are eerily omniscient with the ability to describe everything that happens to everyone around town.

Ginger Stereotypes He/She Breaks: Gingers aren't cute. He's adorable. Just ask Ellen Hickle.

9. Little Pete Wrigley

Classification: Gingeris adventurus peteris

Curly/Straight Locks: Straight, in form of little creep

Freckles: So many that face is practically one giant freckle.

Pale: Perhaps under the freckles.

Evil: Has his moments

His/Her Whole Deal: Grimy younger brother of Big Pete Wrigley. Has his own personal superhero. Also probably has his own personal hair lice. While his older brother is grounded and rational, little Pete is mentally unbalanced. Sticks cereal up his nose.

Ginger Stereotypes He/She Reinforces: Gingers are mischievous/have things in common with Satan. 

Ginger Stereotypes He/She Breaks: N/A. Little Pete is part of the reason why gingers have such a bad rep.