Hey smilin’ strange
You’re lookin’ happily deranged
Can you settle to shoot me?
Or have you picked your target yet?
Hey Sandy

If your reaction to the above song lyrics is that they’re bizarre, a little creepy, and borderline incomprehensible, congratulations — you’re in the right frame of mind for us to talk about season 1 of The Adventures of Pete & Pete. Quite possibly the most surreal non-animated kids’ show ever, Pete chronicled the trials and tribulations of two redheaded brothers, each named Pete, growing up in the Anytown, USA suburb of Wellsville. And if your immediate question is “Why are they both named Pete?”, stop right there, because it’s time for you and those pesky roadblocks called “common sense” and “reality” to part ways. This is, after all, a town where a pay phone can ring for 27 years because everyone is afraid to answer it; where local superhero “Artie — the strongest man… in the world!” wears 40% cotton/60% titanium longjohns and lives in a porta-potty; and where a hellspawned bowling ball can nearly tear a family apart. In other words, you ain’t in Kansas anymore.

“C’mon Pete, we gotta kill Bob while he’s still alive!” (Dad)

The brainchild of Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi, Pete debuted in 1990 as a series of 1-minute shorts designed to kill time on children’s network Nickelodeon during commercial breaks. Positive reaction soon led to 5 half-hour specials, after which the brothers spun off into their own show airing from 1993-1996. The format of the series can best be described as a warped version of The Wonder Years: Big Pete (Michael Maronna), our rock of comparative normalcy in a sea of weirdness, narrates each episode’s events, which at first glance center around run-of-the-mill, stereotypical sitcom fare. There’s the family vacation, the baseball episode, the crappy summer job… pretty standard stuff. Where P & P breaks the mold is in taking the ordinary and shifting it wildly off-center, to where a baseball team falls prey to performance-enhancing slushee Orange Lazarus, or the fate of a marching band rests on possession of sacred school mascot Edna the Fighting Squid. Yet for all the oddity taking place around him, things always appear to be just business as usual for Big Pete.

But if the elder of the two brothers seems fairly grounded, Little Pete (Danny Tamberelli) is anything but, diving into his world’s absurdity with reckless abandon. I can’t possibly do justice to the character except to say he embodies everything you wish you could’ve gotten away with as a kid, whether it’s having a tattoo of a dancing lady (Petunia), making completely nonsensical insults work (“Wax my nose hair!”), or gaining x-ray vision by staring directly into a solar eclipse. None of which may sound overly amusing by my description, but in context, trust me- it works, and works well. I don’t know who taught Tamberelli that disdainful sneer, but they should be commended; the kid makes great use of it.

“Read it and weep, fungus lick!” (Little Pete)

Of course, no show can do without a supporting cast, and surrounding the brothers Pete were an array of ostensibly normal people with just enough eccentricity to amuse without venturing into totally cartoonish territory. There’s Mom and Dad, and the plate in Mom’s head that picks up police frequencies; there’s Big Pete’s best friend Ellen, who turns her photo booth (remember those?) into a nerve center to locate missing ice cream man Mr. Tastee; there’s your classic collection of rogues and ne’er-do-wells, from Endless Mike and Papercut to Hathead and Mr. Slurm; and of course the most unforgettable of them all, Little Pete’s personal superhero Artie, the strongest man… in the world! (Toby Huss) For my money, any show that can feature a mentally unstable man who wears pajamas and hangs around children all day, and do so in a manner that’s inexplicably not creepy, is a work of sheer genius and that’s all there is to say about that. (Unfortunately, the show stumbled a bit when Artie departed mid-season 2. On the plus side, replacement character Nona Mecklenberg was played by young actress Michelle Trachtenberg, who went on to star in EuroTrip, as well as apparently some show about killing vampires or somesuch.)

“Soon you will be like cheese, boy — melty, melty, melty!” (Artie)

It’s a cliché, but I think a big part of what made Pete successful is that the writers really got into the minds of kids and treated their feelings and problems as serious stuff, rather than pandering to what adults mistakenly remember childhood as being like. When Little Pete is frustrated by his early bedtime, he doesn’t come to realize why he needs his sleep in a touching, very special half hour; he declares all-out war by vowing to stay up for 11 days straight to break the world record. Sure, lessons were occasionally learned, but they were never saccharine and never interfered with the show’s ability to understand kids on a comedic level. Time and again it would tap into ideas you might never have consciously thought of, but that were always lurking somewhere in the back of your mind. Case in point: the International Adult Conspiracy, a secret society of grown-ups dedicated to keeping kids down and parents in charge. (Remember, they’re just buying 2% and telling you it’s whole milk. Fight the power!)

“Why is it that when you miss somebody so much your heart is ready to disintegrate, you always hear the saddest song ever on the radio?” (Big Pete)

Looking at the DVD collection itself, it’s a very good package with a couple of minor quibbles. Don’t get me wrong — most fans (myself included) were so astonished the show was actually coming to DVD that they couldn’t have cared less about the quality. And yes, the important stuff is there: all 8 episodes from the show’s first season, plus 4 of the half-hour specials and 2 of the shorts. There’s also commentary by the show’s co-creators and director on 3 episodes, another nice touch. (Sadly, Maronna and Tambarelli aren’t involved, but they do contribute commentaries on season 2.) But then we come to the biggest problem: picture quality. Supposedly the master tapes for the show weren’t stored safely, and as a result, the picture on the DVD is often grainy and sometimes worse. I’m no picture snob, but even I notice when there’s a distinct red bar running through the top of the screen for almost 5 minutes during “Day of the Dot.” That’s the only real issue, though; almost all of the original music is intact, and there’s even a cool extra feature that allows you to listen to several songs by Polaris, the band that contributed most of the music used in P & P. Keen!

“Now begins the Age of Pete!” (Little Pete)

So that’s the scoop, kids — this is one fine collection of the stuff that cult fans’ dreams are made of, providing a firsthand look at how the show developed from filler shorts to an ongoing series. (It’s hilarious to realize how much Big Pete’s voice changed between the specials and the first season… apparently puberty struck hard.) One of the most original, entertaining, and bizarre children’s shows of all time, Pete is much missed by those who grew up in the early 90s, so here’s your chance to prove to yourself that for once, your nostalgia is merited. No, it isn’t perfect — some of the jokes fall flat, and due to the show’s shifting formats, certain plot threads are repeated endlessly. (How many times did Big Pete and Ellen briefly date, but then decide to just be friends? Like 11?) But the good far, far outweighs the bad, so whether you’re looking to recapture your youth or discover new cult fodder for the first time, this is most definitely the place to start. Godspeed, my little vikings!

Fun Facts:

• One sign of a good cult show is cult guest stars, and Pete had them in spades, including Adam West, Iggy Pop, Steve Buscemi, Janeane Garofalo, LL Cool J, Michael Stipe of R.E.M., Kate Pierson of the B-52’s, and Selma Blair.
• Like Springfield on The Simpsons, the state Wellsville resides in is never named; all we know for sure is that it’s “The Sideburn State.” That being said, the show was filmed in various suburbs of (natch) New Jersey, bastion of all weirdness. After making a huge mess filming the episode “Halloweenies,” the Pete crew was asked by the township of South Orange not to return, forcing a relocation to Cranford.
• Nearly every product used in Wellsville is manufactured by KrebStar, from Kreb of the Loom underwear to Kreb Full O’ Nuts coffee. Also, Little Pete’s friend Monica is a Kreb Scout.
• At one point there were plans for a Pete movie; it’s rumored that it never came about because both leads were getting too old to continue portraying their characters. Instead, the basic template of the P & P movie was used for the Nickelodeon film Snow Day.
• The show’s theme song (“Hey Sandy” by Polaris, an offshoot of Miracle Legion) has been the subject of much speculation thanks to its odd and mumbled lyrics. It’s actually a remake of a folk song about Sandra Schauer, one of four students killed in the Kent State riots of 1970. However, despite releasing most of the lyrics, none of Polaris’s members will say what the disputed third line of the song is, fueling theories that it’s drug related (“Could you sell me a ‘shroom, babe?”) or was considered too violent (“Can you settle to shoot me?”) by Nickelodeon, and thus the band was asked not to confirm it. Alternately, some believe the “mystery lyric” is nothing more than a publicity stunt or a joke by the band.
• Speaking of Polaris, they can be seen jamming on the Wrigleys’ front lawn in the opening credits. They also guest star in the episode “A Hard Day’s Pete” as the garage band playing Little Pete’s song.
• The intro music originally used in the Pete specials (and many of the shorts) was R.E.M.’s version of “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers.” When the specials went into rotation as part of the regular show, this was replaced by the standard theme song, which is unfortunately how it is on the DVD. Likewise, the special “What We Did On Our Summer Vacation” contained additional music that was later replaced by Polaris songs.