“Listen, I’ve got this whole high school thing all psyched out—it all comes down to cliques...” – Patty Greene (Sarah Jessica Parker) on her first day of freshman year at Weemawee High
Square Pegs: The Like, Totally Complete Series...Totally DVD Review
By A.J. Carson
This may be difficult for some of you. Take off your Manolo Blaniks. Shove your designer duds back in the closet. Forget about the Sex and the City hitting the big screen this summer. If you want to see Sarah Jessica Parker giving an inspirational performance that takes on self-fulfillment and female power, then check out Square Pegs: The Like, Totally Complete Series...Totally.
This short-lived but well-remembered sitcom ran on CBS during the 1982-83 season. The series features Parker as Patty Greene, a rail-thin, frizzy-haired freshman at Weemawee High. Patty and her best friend, Lauren Hutchinson (Amy Linker) vow to improve their social strata while at Weemawee.
After deciding that painting Lauren’s braces white probably wouldn’t be a good idea, they decide to make contact with the most popular kids in school. Jennifer DeNuccio (Tracy Nelson) is you know, like, a snobby valley girl, like, you know, whose brains are mostly in her chest. Her boyfriend Vinnie Pasetta (Jon Caliri) is, according to Lauren, “John Travolta, Sylvester Stallone, and the Fonz rolled into slightly less than one.” LaDonna Fredericks (Claudette Wells), Jennifer’s African-American best friend, wants to become a star, no matter what. Patty and Lauren try to sit with the popular kids in the cafeteria, but they quickly realize that painting Lauren’s braces white was probably a better idea.
While waiting for their chance to rise to the top, the duo begin to pal around with Marshall Blechtman (John Femia), a nerdy wannabe comedian, and Jonny Slash (Merritt Butrick), a spaced-out rocker who’s totally, like, New Wave.
In a world all her own is Muffy Tepperman (Jami Gertz), captain of the school’s pep squad and the driving force behind the school’s adoption of a poor Guatemalan girl. Most people would be happy just raising money to let the little girl eat, but Muffy insists that fashionable clothes, her own apartment, and cable are much more important.
As a study in oddball kids versus the “in crowd,” Square Pegs belongs in the pantheon with other classics like My So-Called Life and Freaks and Geeks. It doesn’t mine for drama like My So-Called Life did, nor does it benefit from Freaks and Geeks’s hindsight (which allowed the series to pick and choose what fads and fashions it would focus on). Instead, it goes for instant nostalgia, which, at times, sometimes makes it feel dated. Still, its main theme of geeks versus the popular kids never goes stale.
The episodes are often witty and sweet rather than hilarious, but that’s okay. The drama club puts on an homage to the Broadway smash A Chorus Line, the auditions for which become very A Chorus Line-esque (“A Cafeteria Line”). Marshall becomes addicted to playing Pac-Man, requiring an intervention from a very unlikely source (“Pac-Man Fever”). A stalker menaces the girls when they hold a slumber party (“Halloween XII”). Jonny’s new band (which includes drummer John Denismore from The Doors) is all set to play at the grand opening of the supermarket’s new deli counter, until Jonny learns that he’ll also have to sing a jingle for “Chunks ‘n Franks,” a product made from hotdogs and pineapple chunks (“Open 24 Hours”). When Muffy’s new-wave Bat Mitzvah is nearly ruined after her entertainment choice, Devo, backs out, she enlists Jonny’s new, improved band (now called Open 48 Hours) to play (“Muffy’s Bat Mitzvah”). Jonny discovers that he can knock a ball out of the park every time he gets up to bat...as long as the team is playing a home game (“No Joy in Weemawee”).
Series creator Anne Beatts and many of the other people involved with the show were vets of Saturday Night Live. It comes as no surprise, then, that one of the funniest episodes of the series is “No Substitutions,” in which Bill Murray guests as a substitute teacher who sends the school into havoc. His experiment for the week: separate the students into pretend marriages, mixing the popular kids with the geeks. With a little love and a lot of noogies, everyone learns a lesson. Sort of.
Square Pegs features winning performances from its entire cast. And Butrick, whose life was cut far too short by AIDS, simply lights up the screen whenever he appears.
The nineteen episodes that make up Square Pegs: The Like, Totally Complete Series...Totally are divided onto three discs. The discs are housed in two slim, clear plastic keepcases, one of which holds two discs. The fronts of the cases are adorned with photos of the show’s stars. The backs of the cases include episode titles and brief synopses for each episode. The interiors of the cases include production stills. The keepcases slide into a cardboard outer sleeve which features pictures of the cast.
The DVD menus are simple and easy to navigate. Viewers can play all of the disc's episodes or choose an individual one. The episodes are divided into chapters, but there are no scene selection menus.
