Zero in condotta

I was an extra on this show...for one episode. The one with the quiz show. It was filmed at a closed high school in the LA area. You were supposed to be 18 to be an extra, but they didn't check...just asked "are you over 18?" Of course I said yes. We sat around on the set for hours, then were herded into the auditorium where we sat for hours. The cast finally came in and were seated in the front row. I just remember the one actress saying her line "It's OTIS" over and over again. We sat there for hours. It was extremely boring. But I was in love with the blond guy on the show, so it was all good.

So, this isn't a helpful post at all! But a fun memory of the 80s.

One episode featured the drummer from The Doors. I've said it before and I'll say it again, there are never enough TV shows with drummers on them. Square Pegs also made a comical visual reference to Citizen Kane. No wonder it only lasted one season. The biggest weakness of the show was the premise. Every week Patty and Lauren aspired to join the popular crowd. It should have been apparent after their first attempt that a). The popular kids would never accept them, and that, b). Hanging out with Johnny Slash was way more cooler because he knew the drummer from The Doors. One final note: I thought SJP did well at finding her inner nerd.

Patty Greene (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Lauren Hutchinson (Amy Linker) are high school freshmen best friends. They are desperate to be popular. Jennifer DiNuccio (Tracy Nelson) and Vinnie Pasetta (Jon Caliri) are the hot couple. With LaDonna Fredericks (Claudette Wells), they are the popular crowd. Muffy Tepperman (Jami Gertz) is the type A student leader. Instead of any of them, Patty and Lauren make friends with weird outsiders, Johnny Slash (Merritt Butrick) and Marshall Blechtman (John Femia).

The pilot suggests something closer to Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It turns more towards a broad 80's teen show with some big issues sprinkled in. The laugh track gets used more. The characters become more broad. I still really like this group. The best moment is the hot janitor not recognizing Lauren. That is a pure universal teenager moment. There is some great music starting with The Waitresses. Bill Murray tries to gin up one episode late in the season. He's probably a friend of creator Anne Beatts. The last minute effort didn't work and the show was canceled after one season.

SQUARE PEGS was the hippest teen show of the time. Great writing, funny characters, tubular new-wave music and fashions--what was not to like? Something, because the show vanished after one or two seasons. An early vehicle for Sarah Jessica Parker that seems to have garnered a cult following and much acclaim at the time(ROLLING STONE did an article on the show and creator Ann Beatts), it has since slipped into oblivion. Historically, TV shows about teen and high school life have short runs, but why couldn't Nick At Nite do a Teen Weekend or something, run SQUARE PEGS and all the other great teen shows like JAMES AT 15, THE BRONX ZOO, THE MARSHALL CHRONICLES AND FREAKS AND GEEKS, along with old school shows like ROOM 222 and DOBIE GILLIS.

This quirky high school comedy was very popular with the handful who saw it.

Oddly, I always found Jami Gertz to be strangely attractive here as Muffy Tepperman, the quintessential self-centred, bitchy, asinine, somewhat vacuous prima donna of a Jewish princess.

Merritt Butrick played Johnny Slash, the non-conformist anti-hero. We were all very much surprised to see him pop up as Captain Kirk's clean-cut son in "The Wrath of Khan". An incredible transformation that was.

This one always had a good ensemble feel. All of the characters had an appealing screwiness to them which, subjectively, made this show the most realistic high school programme of its day, in its own peculiar way.

Sort of a "Northern Exposure" for the misfit adolescent crowd.