Weema-what,now?

Not long ago, I found a used copy of the box set of the entire series of 80s teen sitcom, Square Pegs.

I bought it, of course, but I hadn’t got ’round to watching it until last night.  Oh. My. Gawd.  Where do I start?

First, I should start with confession: forgive me readers, for I watched all 20 episodes during their initial run in 1982-83. I was 13 and I completely identified with Amy Linker’s character, Lauren, who was overweight and had braces (just like my 13-year-old self). Opposite her was the plain-ish Patty, played by Sarah Jessica Parker whom most of you probably know as Carrie in Sex and the City.

If you didn’t watch it (and why would you?) it was basically Laverne & Shirley in high school in the 80s (except that the Laverne and Shirley counterparts had low self-esteem) — they even had their Lenny and Squiggy counterparts in Slash* and Marshall. Unfortunately it also had a theme song by The Waitresses (you might remember them for their hit, “I know what boys like“), characters with amazingly bad accents (notably, Tracy Nelson as “Valley Girl”  Jennifer), two ridiculously stereotypical token black characters (the cornrowed, ghetto-fabulous singer and the basketball player), and it took place in Weemawee High whose mascot was a guy wearing a full feather-headdress doing war-whoops.

Hoo-boy.

And did I mention the laugh track? Ouch. I watched an episode and a half last night, cringing the whole time, wondering whether it would get better and also getting increasingly alarmed at how much of the dialog I was anticipating because I remembered it.

The show was created by Anne Beatts who earned her chops writing for Saturday Night Live in its heyday and as a result, Don Novello and Bill Murray appear as guest stars (hmm, blackmail perhaps?) — I am guessing that, had it survived for future seasons, other SNL alum may have done the same.

I’m almost afraid to watch the other episodes but I will. I make no promises that I will keep the DVDs when I’m done though. Maybe I’ll send them to whomever set up this Square Pegs Shrine.

*Geek moment. The guy who played Slash looked really familiar but I couldn’t place him… but when I looked it up in IMDB, I smacked my forehead. Merritt Butrick should be familiar to Trek fans; he also played Kirk’s son in Wrath of Khan.