Square Pegs

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Square Pegs
Format	Comedy
Created by	Anne Beatts
Starring	Sarah Jessica Parker Amy Linker
Theme music composer	The Waitresses
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	20
Production
Camera setup	Single camera
Running time	30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS
Original run	September 27, 1982 – March 7, 1983
External links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Square Pegs was a CBS comedy television series that aired during the 1982-1983 season. The series followed Patty Greene (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Lauren Hutchinson (Amy Linker), two awkward teenage girls desperate to fit in at Weemawee High School.

Contents 1 Overview 2 Main characters 3 Opening dialogue 4 Air times 5 Theme music 6 Other uses 7 Current Airings 8 DVD Release 9 Trivia 10 References 11 External links

[edit] Overview

Created by former Saturday Night Live writer Anne Beatts, the series was much acclaimed by critics at the time for its realistic (if comic) look at teenage life, reflecting a sensibility somewhat similar to the John Hughes teen comedies of a few years later.^[1]

The show lasted one season; the first two episodes had strong ratings, but plummeted shortly after. A TV Guide article dated June 9, 1984 blamed the show's failure on the inexperience of its staff, and drug use on the set; nevertheless, it struck a chord with many Generation X viewers and many of its catchphrases and characters are still fondly remembered by fans.

[edit] Main characters

Lauren and Patty were surrounded by colorful supporting characters. Their friends Marshall Blechtman (John Femia) and Johnny "Slash" Ulasewicz (Merritt Butrick) were a pair of lovable geeks, with Marshall a motormouthed, would-be comedian and Johnny a soft-spoken new wave fan (not punk... "a totally different head... totally.") Patty and Lauren were constantly and strangely hoping to impress the popular kids: Jennifer DiNuccio (Tracy Nelson) was the quintessential Valley Girl, her boyfriend Vinnie Pasetta (Jon Caliri) was a greaser hood and LaDonna Fredericks (Claudette Wells) was Jennifer's sassy friend. Muffy B. Tepperman (Jami Gertz) was the endlessly chipper chairperson of the Weemawee Pep Committee, head of the Morals Club, chairman of the Science Fair Committee and member of the Future Nurses of America. Muffy had a memorably pompous, oratorial speaking style and began many sentences with "It behooves me to tell you..." or "People..." She remembered her 20th century presidents by using the phrase "Rough Toughs Eat Cool Jello!" (For Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson - it is pointed out in the episode that cool doesn't begin with a "k", but Muffy brushes off this inconvenient fact.)

[edit] Opening dialogue

Every episode began with the following dialogue before the credits:

• Lauren: "I've got this whole high school thing psyched out. It all breaks down into cliques."
• Patty: "Cliques?"
• Lauren: "Yeah, you know. Cliques. Little in-groups of different kids. All we have to do is click with the right clique, and we can finally have a social life that's worthy of us."
• Patty: "No way! Not even with cleavage."
• Lauren: "I tell you, this year we're going to be popular."
• Patty: "...Yeah?"
• Lauren: "Yeah. Even if it kills us."

[edit] Air times

Square Pegs debuted on CBS on September 27, 1982, in the 8 p.m. slot on Mondays, which was formerly held by M*A*S*H (which had moved to 9 PM.) In recent years, episodes have been rerun on the USA Network, Nickelodeon, TVLand, and most recently in HDTV on HDNet.

[edit] Theme music

The show's opening and closing themes were performed by The Waitresses. In some episodes "Chopsticks" was the opening theme and "Square Pegs" the closing theme, and in others these were reversed.

[edit] Other uses

• Square Pegs is also the title of a very early pre-World War II television broadcast aired on the BBC in 1939.^[2]

• A Chinese TV series, Life Made Simple, is also sometimes known as Square Pegs.

[edit] Current Airings

• Currently, US subscribers of Comcast digital cable can view selected episodes On Demand, thru the ondemand menu >> TV entertainment >> Tube time >> Square Pegs. Currently the show is on a 4 to 5 episode rotation, with each episode getting about 3 weeks in the rotation.

• Since March 1, 2008, Square Pegs has been airing on Saturday nights at 7:00PM Chicago time on Me-Too Chicago.

• Canadian diginet Deja View airs Square Pegs on the weekends at 10:30AM (ET/PT) and 2:30PM (ET/PT).

[edit] DVD Release

Sony released the entire series on DVD in a 3-disc set on May 20, 2008, to coincide with the theatrical release of Sarah Jessica Parker's film Sex and the City: The Movie. On the DVDs, the episodes have been digitally remastered and include 8 featurettes called "Weemawee Yearbook Memories". Each featurette focuses on a different cast member and has new interviews with the actors and creator Anne Beatts. Noticably absent from the interviews are Jon Caliri and Merritt Butrick. Butrick passed away in 1989 of AIDS but he received his own featurette nonetheless where the cast fondly remember their experiences with him. Also available on the DVD are two minisodes from '80s sitcoms The Facts of Life and Silver Spoons. ^[3]

Packaging for the set states that it includes 19 episodes instead of 20. This is because the two parts that make up "A Child's Christmas in Weemawee" appear together as one episode.

[edit] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• John Densmore, drummer for The Doors, was a member of Johnny Slash's new wave band, Open 24 Hours. He played with them in two episodes: "Open 24 Hours" and "Muffy's Bat Mitzvah".
• The new wave band Devo appeared in one episode of this show, as did The Waitresses, who perform the theme song.

[edit] References