Um, you parsed that wrong. I’m the father of a person who played a character mentioned in this thread. (Actually my daughter, I’ve mentioned that enough times.)
Danny and Mike didn’t hang around together a lot, the third season at least. The shows I was at had a lot of kids Danny’s age, and he mostly hung around with them. The guy who played Pit Stain was 19, and he and his girlfriend were kind of like a father figure.
Here’s how the set worked. Pete and Pete was shot on location in Northern New Jersey. Most of the time it was shot in schools that weren’t being used, and the kids’ “dressing rooms” were actually classrooms. One show was shot on railroad tracks that ran behind a bunch of houses (though it was shot to look like in the middle of nowhere.) They rented some houses, and the kids had bedrooms.
Will and Robb didn’t hang around the set when I was there. There were directors, and ADs, and all the other people making things work, and of course craft services. (The caterers.) Kids hung out in their dressing rooms, or went to the tutor who was there, or napped, or sometime hung out together. They got calls to report to the set when it was their turn, then went back.
The only exception to this rule was when they shot Adam West getting sprayed with cream corn, on the April Fools Day show. The kids were not in the shot, but all of them (and their parents!) set on the floor of the lunch room where it was shot watching. It was very high tension, since they didn’t have a lot of chances, and had been working on the machine all day. When the third season DVD comes out, look closely. It didn’t really work, and they did it in slo-mo. Good enough to avoid a retake, though.
The show went over my head a little when I was a kid; I liked Nickelodeon’s other shows like Clarissa Explains It All and Are You Afraid of the Dark? much better. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized how strange and funny it was. I mean, the dad dug up a car from the beach? I didn’t think twice about that.
I’ve seen some episodes up at youtube.com, don’t know if they’re still there.
Actually I did. He came across to me as an asshole. He rented a room in the house across the street. He hung out with the kid who played Johnny Earwax, and wanted nothing to do with the regular cast. My daughter bought his book and brought it for him to autograph. He did, but he seemed to treat it as an imposition. He came across with the attitude that he was much too famous for a show like this.
I never met Iggy, but my wife did, and he is know in our house as “that nice man.” He hung out with the crew. Once he was walking down the hall of the school smoking a cigarette, and some PA noted that there was no smoking inside. This guy, who has done every drug known to man, got flustered and embarassed and apologized. He obviously had a lot of fun doing the show. It was a brilliant bit of casting.
I was not involved with their guest star casting director, but she did a fantastic job getting people like Iggy and the others mentioned to do this weird kids show in New Jersey.
That’s funny about Iggy Pop, for some reason I’m not surprised he was a nice guy.
I just finished watching a lot of the 1 minute shorts on YouTube. Some random thoughts:
Classic stuff, but I think the 30 (ok 20) minute episodes were better. If the 1 minute short didn’t work for you, that was it. But the 20 minute show had plenty of time to throw different things at you.
I noticed they use the same (stock?) sound effects and music snippets from Ren & Stimpy.
Mr. Tastee is apparently played by the same guy as Artie.
On Youtube there’s also an entire later-era episode where Young Pete fakes being sick to get out of school. LL Cool J is his teacher, and Chris Elliot was the meter reader.
Any other good celeb stories from the show? How about Kate Pierson? (oh yea!)
Alas, West was the only celeb I met - though I guess Michelle is a celebrity now. I’m not surprised - she was around 9 or 10 then, and had incredible charisma, and was very focused. At midnight one night outside she was acting like a kid about to lose it, jumping about, you know. But when the camera started to roll, she was right there, totally professional. I was very impressed.
I’ll always think of her as 10 - if she ever poses for sexy pictures, I don’t want to know about it. :eek:
I loved that show. I was just the right age to appreciate it, too. I used to watch that and “Hey Dude” which is actually a horrible show.
I loooove shows that often don’t make sense and “break all the rules” - they just do their own thing. It was like Monty Python for kids.
Artie was by far my favorite character. I met a guy later in life who totally reminds me of him. You guys are jealous that I know a guy like Artie, i bet
Hey, did anyone have any idea what the words to the theme song were? It sounded like a bunch of gibberish to me, but it’s apparently called “Hey Sandy”. The lyrics are on imdb.
As a kid, I never understood the third line of the song. The general consensus is that he’s saying “can you settle to shoot me?” It’s a great song, isn’t it? The band is Polaris, a group from Connecticut.
There’s a whole article on Wikipedia about the song.
It’s been months since I’ve watched a Ren & Stimpy cartoon, so I can’t recall any of the sound effects. As for the music, it is all stock music from the KPM/Associated Production Music Library. Also used in Rocko’s Modern Life, Kablam!, SpongeBob Squarepants, and a bunch of Nickelodeon and Nick @ Nite promos; as well as countless non-Nick programs and advertisements.
Jesus Christ, you know how to make someone who is NOT old feel really old. Kenan & Kel are Nick in its prime?? SHELBY WOO?
Nick’s awesomeness was from around You Can’t Do That on Television and Out of Control* (or Pinwheel for a bit younger age set) and really disappeared after Clarissa Explains it All, Pete & Pete and Are You Afraid of the Dark. Half the shows you mention I never even watched more than once because I thought they sucked.
I guess it just shows that they plan very well for a specific age group.
But do NOT ever try to say you feel “ancient” at watching All That and Keenan & Kell.
I just started watching the season 1 DVDs and was surpised Pete & Pete weren’t as young as they were in this 1-minute short (with a different dad, and mom I think):
Looks like Big Pete was 8 or 9 in the short, and maybe 12 or 13 in the first full-length episode.
I personally find Artie to be fairly annoying. Not a popular opinion, but I insist.
What do I love about the show is what I loved when I was a kid: the show absolutely has a genuine feel and it’s both humorous and very surreaslistic. I see some flaws now that I didn’t then: some of the acting isn’t very good and such. I still ‘feel’ it though.
So many memorable episodes. But for now, I most fondly remember the episode where big Pete ponders the fact that the signal from the first Super Bowl has been beaming out into space and that extraterrestial life may be watching Johnny Unitas. I don’t know about Artie being so annoying. There was that one episode where big Pete was trying for dear life to remember a song from a band he heard only once, and Artie was trying to chase down the sound waves. That’s one reason why I liked Pete & Pete; they always have something esoteric involving TV signals or sound waves. And how can I forget, the big medal plate with radio reception.
