Season One Shows: Freaks and Geeks

Salutations strange ones! Bow before me!! Oh crap, sorry that was part of my world domination speech. Welcome readers to Day 2 of Season One Shows. Yesterday was put to a grinding halt as I had a house guest over. My brother whom I had not seen in quite a few years and it was a pleasant surprise. Thank God I vacuum and dust on a weekly basis or it would looked wrecked in here. Continuing our week we go to a little story of the madcap life of high school years. The jocks and cheerleaders, the folks that balanced in the middle, the cliques and various outcasts. No matter the new generation this dynamic still holds true. Our story more or less revolves around the Weir family as they have had a death in the family that effected the household but life must go on. This is Freaks and Geeks.

Four beers away from a stomach pump! WOOOOO!

Created from the slightly askew mind of Paul Feig (The TV Wheel, Life Sold Separately, I Am David, Spy and current revamped Ghostbusters script) our show is about high school years, its struggles in social arc and how each of our character fall into a certain quantification. The year is 1980 in William McKinley High School in Chippewa Michigan.

Lindsay Weir (Linda Cardellini of Dead Man on Campus, Guys Like Us, Boy Meets World, Scooby-Doo, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, Brokeback Mountain, ER, Return and Lollipop Chainsaw) a mathlete that has lost her way in view of life and death and hooks up with the down and outers (stoners, rockers and wasteoids) while her brother Sam (John Francis Daley of The Kennedys, Boston Public, The Geena Davis Show, Bones, Horrible Bosses and Dude Bro Party Massacre III) starts his first year of freshman Hell. Alas neither siblings are not alone in this experience as each of them have attached themselves to their fringe groups.

Of the Freaks alumni we have moody but sensitive Daniel Desario (James Franco of James Dean, Spider-Man, Blind Spot, Tristan + Isolde, Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3, Pineapple Express, Date Night, General Hospital, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, This Is the End and The Interview), goofy Ken Miller (Seth Rogen of Donnie Darko, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, The Green Hornet, This Is the End and The Interview), freakishly tall Nick Andopolis (Jason Segal of SLC Punk!, Slackers, Knocked Up, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Despicable Me, Bad Teacher, The Muppets and Sex Tape) and dark, bitchy blonde Kim Kelly (Busy Phillips of Dawson's Creek, Love, Inc., ER, Made of Honor, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Jason Nash Is Married and Cougar Town) Between the fellas rousting the geeks and trying to put together a rock band they are roaming the halls.

Nerd mating dance or seizure? Only you can decide.

A collective of geeks trio consisting of Sam and his buddies Neal Schweiber (Samm Levine of Not Another Teen Movie, After School Special, Club Dread, Inglourious Basterds, Vamped Out, Miss Dial, Do No Harm, Selfie and The Night Is Young) and Bill Havershack (Martin Starr of Roswell, Stealing Harvard, Revelations, Knocked Up, Superbad, The Incredible Hulk, Party Down, Burning Love and NTSF:SD:SUV). With all the popular hurdles in life with underage drinking, student driving, smoking in the boy's room, the existence of VHS pornography, cutting class, the dreaded crushes, fake I.D.s and the constant upheaval of hormones, it is easy to understand how this show had an appeal when the DVD collection came out but I am still baffled to why it didn't click with the 1999-2000 crowd when it was on NBC.

Now a few fun filled bits of trivia, facts and afterthoughts.

With eighteen shows successfully in the can I am confused how the ratings were so bad. Did the viewers have horrific flashbacks to wedgies, swirlies and being cramped in a locker upside down and naked? Amusing how a cult following occurred seven years after its cancellation and is still running strong and several of its child actors have now be shuttled into successful TV as well as film careers.

Still love the fact that their evil coach was none other than Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson of April Fool's Day, Back to the Future, Action Jackson, Back to the Future II, Back to the Future III, High Strung, Batman: The Animated Series, Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger, Born to Be Wild and Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom) and your science teacher is Doctor Forrester (Writer/actor Trace Beaulieu of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, With or Without You, Mr. B's Lost Shorts, Darkstar: The Interactive Movie, America's Funniest Home Videos and Cinematic Titanic) written by a former MST3K alumni J. Elvis Weinstein. One of the Radio Shack salesman played by Joel Hodgeson of MST3K's Joel Robinson and for all you Babylon 5 fans, Bill Haverchuck's mom, Gloria was none other than Claudia Christian. Was this show entertaining for all? Did it simply not connect with the hearts and minds of others? No one can truly answer this question to my satisfaction.

Think my buzz just kicked in.