Unlike many who commented on this show, I didn't grow up watching Pete and Pete. You see, I'm nearly 60 years old.
I discovered it by accident, or I should say that my stepdaughter discovered it by accident, then I walked by and got hooked like Bob the bass. I ended being the show's biggest fan. As I re-watch it on DVD, I love it more than ever. Today I got season two and was going to watch one episode to pass the time. That had a prayer. As soon as I saw the episode names, I knew I had to watch them again: The Time Tunnel, Inspector 34, The Phone Call.
Those three episodes alone will demonstrate to you that this series is good in ways that no other series has ever touched. It says as much about America as any Ken Burns documentary, it makes me laugh as much as the best episodes of Seinfeld, and it's cooler than anything which ever sprang from the mind of Slushmaster Bob. Its narrative flow is deeply cynical, yet there is a strong undercurrent of warmth and hope, as if it despairs of what people are, without forgetting what they yet might be. It never forgets that we, like the Petes when they time-travel, may yet find a way to do it over, and get it right. Even without Riboflavin.
I have been a major league TV addict for 50 years, and if you ask me to name the best show I have ever watched ... well, I don't know if I could name just one ... but this obscure Nickelodeon show would be one that would come to mind - alongside I, Claudius and The Civil War and The Simpsons and all the other greats. It's sheer genius, with more than a touch of poetry.
In the words of Inspector 34, it's so much better than underpants.
