Things I miss: The Adventures of Pete and Pete

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/12/26/things-i-miss-the-adventures.html

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Pipe!!

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Petunia!

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ARTIE! The strongest man, in the world!

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The plate in Mom’s head!

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Nona Mecklenberg!

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People always wonder why I refer to my daughter as my “little Viking.”

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Teddy Forzman! “EXCELLENTE!”

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The good people will know.

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“We need somebody to play Nona’s Dad in this episode. Do you think we can get Iggy Pop?”

Pete & Pete was the best.

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Still cheesed that the third season never came out on DVD.

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Wow! Talk about a memory explosion! I was married and in my 20s when this show aired, but my wife and I loved it. I forgot how much the bass player (at 0:20 in the video) resembles a Bruce McColloch character, with the hair and the flannel shirt and, yes, the bass guitar. We still have a couple of catch phrases from the show: when attempting the impossible, we say we’re going to go beat up the ocean. And when someone is acting like the world owes them something, we call them the King of Frod.

And Debbie Harry as someone in the neighborhood.
“Gophers can really ruin your day, ma’am…”
“No, I think you’re doing that.”

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Member Artie?

I was one of two set teachers on season two and three of The Adventures of Pete and Pete (that is to say, I taught actual school to the kids who were on set.) The show was shot on location, in the actual houses in New Jersey – often, holding school in the actual on-camera bedrooms. I was a somewhat befuddled graduate student working for an “on-set education” service, and I had a BLAST teaching the bright, motivated cast.

The set was an enormously creative place to be, the production crew was intelligent and funny, and at the end of the day catch a ride back to Manhattan in a crew car where Toby Huss (Artie) would leap out anywhere in the middle of the East Village, and people on the street would go “TOBY!!!” and swarm over to him because he was the mayor of downtown.

Petunia (Little Pete’s tattoo) was painted on by hand, and carefully retouched every day.

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I love that Pete and Pete understood that childhood from a kids eyes was generally a whole mess of weirdness, when it was more common at the time to write about it from a nostalgic adult’s perspective as a series of awkward events (looking at you Wonder Years).

And yeah, serious contender for best theme song ever (Stephin Merrit’s background music was awesome too).

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I somehow missed this. Looks like I’d have liked it.

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Oh god, I loved that show so much.

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I don’t know what this is but I already miss it.

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