I would almost agree loving this sort of tv is primarily for nostalgia junkies, however…
I happened to catch a Nickelodeon sitcom yesterday, some routine x-mas family tv watching. The contrast is striking.
The “upper middle class” stench of current nickeodeon offerings is really striking compared to the network’s 90s crop. Salute your shorts, Hey Dude!, Pete and Pete, even Clarissa. Not diverse and rather suburban. But you at least every house, character and plot twist didn’t revolve around hiding a banal crisis from the hedge fund manager Dad before he watches it live on his ipad. The older shows at least poked fun at living in “middle America” and the act of being a consumer instead of worshiping it.
I also loved the Rogues’ Gallery of villains in this show. Drawstring, OpenFace, Pit Stain, Paper Cut and the worst of them all, ‘Endless’ Mike Hellstrom.
Apparently ‘Endless’ was either he kept repeating his grade or his hatred for Pete was endless.
They also had one of the greatest product-tie-ins of all time: Sending in two UPC’s from boxes of Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats (not even a token S&H cash requirement!) got you the audio cassingle of the theme song as well as two other Polaris tracks that were also background music (mostly on the episode where younger Pete starts a band, IIRC), “Staggering”, and “Coronado II”.
FYI, the music of ‘Polaris’ is still alive with Mark Mulcahy who still runs the Mezzotint Label. In addition to writing the music for Pete and Pete, he’s also know for Miracle Legion and solo work. Lots of Pete and Pete stuff available for sale, including an album from a live reunion show for Polaris.
