Customer Reviews

Square Pegs - The Complete Series

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

They took the cheap way out and didn't license most of the great 80s tunes as heard when the show originally aired. In some places it's obvious, like when Marshal introduces a Minor Threat song while DJing at the school radio station and they play some generic dreck. Other times, it's more subtle, like every scene in the diner originally had music playing in the background, and now there's just nothing.

I used to watch this every Monday night, and then the kids at school would all talk about it the next day. Sadly, the show died a premature death, which was a bummer as I always wanted to see Lauren and Patty grow and get over not being part of the in-crowd. Oh well, we can all pretend Patty became a famous New York sex columnist ...

Now to the DVDs. I've seen the set and all I can say is, "Totally New Wave."

Fans of the show will be thrilled to know that all the episodes are here as they were originally presented - crystal clear, with the Waitresses and Devo's appearances intact and the full 24 minute running times. Of course, we have to suffer through the awful canned laughter, there was no option to get rid of it.

This show brings back memories for sure, and it's hard to believe it's been over a quarter of a century. Is that even possible?

A great feature of the DVDs is the cast interviews. The only members missing are Merritt Buttrick, who passed away in 1989, and Jon Caliri who played Vinnie. It's fun to see Tracy Nelson and Claudette Wells together again.

Will a new generation appreciate the show? Who knows, but for a lot of us, this is a great piece of nostalgia and a funny show.

on a much higher level than almost anything ever done about high school . its also funny as hell and done at at a time where most high shool characters were student body president or head cheerleader, now most teen characters are cooly reflective outsiders. This show is long over due but is arguably the best comedy about TEEN life ever

After she starred on Broadway as "Annie" and long before she became Carrie Bradshaw from "Sex and The City," Sarah Jessica Parker portrayed Weemawee High School outcast Patty Greene in the short-lived but fondly remembered 1982-1983 CBS sitcom "Square Pegs." The series struck a major emotional chord with me at the time; for I was also a major "square peg" in high school. Looking at it now after 25 years, I appreciate the show's satirical spin on high school horrors more than ever but, also, I still feel the pain. This proves how very much on the mark "Square Pegs" was and still is.
The series revolved around Patty and Lauren's (Amy Linker) relentless pursuit of "Popularity." The two misfit girls actually DID FIT IN quite well with class comedian Marshall Blechtman (John Femia) and his constantly "zoned out" sidekick Johnny Slash (The late Merrick Butrick, whom the cast recalls fondly on a sweet remembrance in the DVD'S "Weemawee Yearbook Memories" Segments).
Some of "Square Pegs" is dated; particularly the "Pac-Man Fever" episode, in which Father Guido Sarduchi from "Saturday Night Live" cures Marshall of his video game addiction. And snotty Jennifer's (Tracy Nelson) vapid "Valley Girl act"-- "like, gross me out the door!"-- grows old very quickly. But several other episodes, including "Halloween XII," "A Simple Attachment," and "Weemaweegate" skillfully mix humor and genuine charm.
Sarah Jessica Parker, wearing glasses that her character Patty despises, is as luminous, lovely, and talented as ever. I'd take Patty Greene ANY DAY over Carrie Bradshaw in "Sex and The City!" But it's Merrick Butrick and Jami Gertz who really go to the head of the class and steal the show with their inspired comic portrayals of Johnny Slash and Muffy Tepperman, respectively. Johnny and Muffy are even briefly "married" for a school assignment in the episode "No Substitutions" featuring guest star Bill Murray. Other "Square Pegs" guest stars included New Wave music acts Devo ("Muffy's Bat Mitzvah"), The Waitresses (who sing the "Square Pegs" Theme Song and "I Know What Boys Like" in the Pilot Episode), John Densmore (drummer for "The Doors"), Martin Mull (Roseanne"), and Tony Dow (Wally in "Leave It To Beaver"), who appears as Patty's estranged father in the episodes "A Child's Christmas In Weemawee: Parts 1 And 2."
Butrick is obviously much too old to play a high school student-- and too talented not to play one. The series cleverly dealt with his age by saying that Johnny Slash was "held back three times"; thus making him "Weemawee's oldest freshman." Butrick shines in the episodes "Open 24 Hours," "Muffy's Bat Mitzvah" and "No Joy In Weemawee."
As Muffy, the ever peppy preppie who is "drunk with pep", Jami Gertz often looks like she is sucking on a lemon, especially when she sees anything that displeases her. When Marshall's "love detector" throws the school's social order into disorder (in the episode "A Simple Attachment") Muffy exclaims, "I could just barf!" It's a testament to Gertz's talents (she went on to appear in the films "The Lost Boys," "Less Than Zero," "Twister" and the CBS Sitcom "Still Standing") that we laugh at Muffy but we never hate her--even when her actions and behaviors (especially in the episode "To Serve Weemawee All My Days") are horrible!!!!
Clearly, this show was way too hip and way too ahead of its time. Consequently, the school bell rang much too soon for "Square Pegs." The series was shot in California in an abandoned high school, some 40 miles AWAY from CBS. The network probably felt it didn't have enough "control" over the show's content, so it was cancelled. The cast laments in DVD interviews that the party ended much too soon, after only 19 episodes. Well, 20 episodes if you count " A Child's Christmas In Weemawee: Parts 1 and 2" as two episodes-- but on the DVD, they are edited together as one episode.
The main cast members, except for the late Butrick and Jon Caliri, who portrayed Jennifer's "walking gland" boyfriend Vinnie Pasetta, are all present, and seen in the present, in the DVD Extras segments titled "Weemawee Yearbook Memories." The series, like Patty and Lauren, never did achieve "mainstream popularity." And that fact, my dear misfits, makes "Square Pegs" so much more special and endearing.

Have been awaiting the release of this series on DVD for many years now. I remember the show when it was new. Watching the show again, it floods you back with memories of your youth (if your youth was in the 1980s). I don't believe the show to be that great without the nostalgia. Though I do get the feeling that the SJP character does grow up, move to NYC, and becomes Carrie Bradshaw. Appropriate.

With the creative team behind the ORIGINAL Saturday Night Live, this charming often witty show came out. Having to break the network enforced conventions, like a pathetic laugh track through the first 3/4 of the series, not to mention hammy overacting and cliche characters, there are some true genius moments in several of the episodes. The "glasses" speech in the second episode is one of the heaviest darkest things ever on network TV, and the Bill Murray episode is wonderful. The problem with so many writers and so little time, makes it hard to be consistent, and the quality definitely slacked near the end of the series. But I'm holding it against NON Teen shows, and that's really not fair. In the category the show was in, it by FAR outshines the garbage released now for teens. From the 90's on, horribly written, manufactured, unfunny shows with NOTHING to say like Saved By The Bell and California Dreams put Square Pegs on a Citizen Kane level.

So they did strip out the songs, but they couldn't kill Devo and the Waitresses on camera. And the inhabitants of Weemawee High are as funny and moving as always. Check out the glam SJP in the interesting yet sparse DVD extras. Maybe IQ does trump cup size after all!

I remember loving this show every week when I was like 9 years old! Then it disappeared! Now that I got it on DVD I am loving it all over again! I can't beleive it only lasted one noncomplete season. When I was 9 it felt like an eternity! I wish they had been on for many seasons, becuse it was the coolest show the 80's probably ever gave us!

I only watched a part of this DVD series but it was very funny and just goes to show you that times in high school just don't change that much.

When I watched "Square Pegs" on TV Land in 2003, I loved it, and I honestly couldn't remember if I had ever seen if before or not - it just had this amazing familiarity to it. Anyway, I'm glad to have it on DVD.