The '90s were, in a way, the perfect
decade to be a kid who loved Halloween. The Satanic Panic of the '80s
was dying down, and taking with it some of the former backlash
against the holiday, and the Mean World Syndrome paranoia that made
parents in the 2000s hesitant to let their kids run around and
celebrate it hadn't really kicked in yet. It was a time when
Halloween was just... fun, and pretty much the unanimous favorite
holiday of kids everywhere.
We also had the totality of the great 1980s wave of horror films playing around the clock on cable, and readily available to rent on VHS for some seasonal viewing, and video store clerks who generally didn't care if kids were renting R-rated movies. The '90s were also an exceptionally good time for very clever, smart, not-just-for-kids kids' television, particularly in the first half of the decade, with the golden age of Nickelodeon. So it should be no surprise that these two attributes of this decade combined to give us possibly THE quintessential 1990s kids' Halloween special, the brilliant installment in The Adventures of Pete and Pete called Halloweenie.
We also had the totality of the great 1980s wave of horror films playing around the clock on cable, and readily available to rent on VHS for some seasonal viewing, and video store clerks who generally didn't care if kids were renting R-rated movies. The '90s were also an exceptionally good time for very clever, smart, not-just-for-kids kids' television, particularly in the first half of the decade, with the golden age of Nickelodeon. So it should be no surprise that these two attributes of this decade combined to give us possibly THE quintessential 1990s kids' Halloween special, the brilliant installment in The Adventures of Pete and Pete called Halloweenie.
While
it may not always be the most immediately remembered among them (that
distinction surely goes to Ren and Stimpy),
The Adventures of Pete and Pete
is almost certainly the greatest of the original batch of classic
Nickelodeon shows. Its particular brand of surreal humor is both
hilarious in its own right, and intelligent beyond the years of its
ostensible target audience. It feels like a show that was written
substantially for 90s kids when they grow up, to watch as adults and
look back on with fresh eyes: its humor isn't “adult” like Ren
and Stimpy's, but has a maturity
and thoughtfulness to it which its viewers can appreciate a bit more
once they hit adulthood, not to mention a whole lot of pop-cultural
references and guest-starring actors who kids could have never
appreciated. What kid in 1994 realized how awesome it was that Nona's
dad was played by Iggy Pop, that Ellen's dad was Steve Buscemi, or
that other supporting characters included Janeane Garofalo, JK
Simmons, Chris Elliott, Adam West, Debbie Harry, Michael Stipe, and
LL Cool J? Even the framing device of each episode – Big Pete
(Michael Maronna) narrating the events from some undisclosed time in
the future – makes the show extremely conducive to nostalgia,
giving it a looking-back-on-your-childhood sensibility not unlike The
Wonder Years. Factor in the
show's uniquely bizarre, casually surreal humor, odd inside jokes
(why is everything in Wellsville Kreb brand?), and truly excellent
'90s alternative rock soundtrack, and you have a show that has not
only aged really well, but has become even better as it has turned
into a perfect time-capsule of its decade filtered through the eyes
of youth.
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| The '90s - a simpler time when kids playing with dangerous power tools was totally acceptable, and the chroma key didn't have to be perfect. |
There
are a lot of brilliant episodes of The Adventures of Pete
and Pete, but the finest episode
of them all has to be Halloweenie.
In just 25 minutes, the show manages to capture everything that makes
Halloween the ultimate holiday for kids everywhere, in a way which is
all at once very universal yet also very particular to what made
1990s Halloweens the best Halloweens of them all. This combination of
universality and an uncanny ability to define its decade in a totally
authentic, yet non-stereotypical and very off-center way is Pete
and Pete at its finest. That it
uses this style to capture the soul of a holiday just as whimsical
and eccentric as the show itself is the icing on the cake. The
episode follows the brothers Pete as they gear up for the big day:
little Pete (Danny Tamberelli) with profound excitement, as Halloween
is his favorite day of the year, and big Pete with dread, as he has
grown to hate the holiday in his older teen years. In classic Pete
fashion things quickly escalate
to an absurd degree, as the brothers and their best friends Nona and
Ellen are thrown into conflict with a gang of decoration-destroying
teenage punks in jack-o-lantern masks, and the fate the holiday hangs
in the balance.
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| Great moments in punk rock history. |
And
then there's a matter of the show's extremely distinctive soundscape:
Pete and Pete probably
made better use of music than any other Nick show, with an excellent
soundtrack of then-contemporary alternative rock tunes, including a
bunch of originals. One of the show's producers had previously worked
in music videos, and had a large network of rock star friends and
colleagues. That's how Michael Stipe, Debbie Harry, Iggy Pop, and LL
Cool-J wound up guest-starring on the show, how Luscious Jackson
wound up playing little Pete's school dance in season 3, and how the
show got such a brilliant time-capsule soundtrack which captures its
decade flawlessly. Songs from at least a dozen indie and alternative
bands show up in various episodes (some, like Flowers
by Chug, will forever sound like childhood to early-90s kids because
of their prominence in the show), and a whole album's worth of
original songs were written for the series by most of the musicians
from Miracle Legion, recording as a side-project called Polaris.
Halloweenie prominently
features possibly the best Polaris song of the bunch (aside from, of
course, their iconic theme song, Hey Sandy):
the excellent Waiting for October,
which likewise will forever sound like fall for those who grew up
with this. Personally, I feel obligated to listen to the song and
share it on Facebook towards the end of every September, as a welcome
to autumn and Halloween. Of course, in keeping with this era of '90s
alternative, the mumbly, hard-to-understand lyrics weren't considered
all that important by the network, who just heard it as music,
allowing Polaris to write a song for a kids show that, if you really
listen, appears to be about the religious right bringing about the
end of the world by nuclear war. But musically it is a perfect fit
for the episode, the season, and the show at large, and having such a
memorably poppy song with such subversive lyrics just adds to the
only-in-the-90s awesomeness of the whole series.
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| Remember these jack-o-lantern designs when '90s nostalgia comes around soon. |
If
you're in the mood for something a little different this Halloween,
to take a break from the horror and venture into the realm of comedy
and nostalgia, taking half an hour for Halloweenie is
a must. Not only is it the quintessential reminder of why The
Adventures of Pete and Pete is
something truly special in the pantheon of classic-era Nickelodeon
shows, it is also a fantastic time-capsule of the over-the-top joys
of childhood Halloween, '90s style. Teenage punk troublemakers in
jack-o-lantern helmets, trick-or-treating montages set to early-90s
alt-rock, great original music with lyrics that probably aren't
appropriate for a kids' show, Iggy Pop playing the best awkward
suburban dad ever... a perfect recipe of audiovisual Halloween candy.
Especially if you grew up any time around its era, this episode will definitely resonate. But even if you didn't, Pete and Pete is a series that genuinely does stand the test of time with its cleverness, wit, wild cast of guest-stars, and sly surrealism. Either way, this is one
Halloween episode that absolutely belongs in your annual rotation.
Score:
-
Christopher S. Jordan
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