The Adventures of Pete & Pete, or simply Pete & Pete, is an American television sitcom created by Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi for Nickelodeon. It focuses on two brothers, both named Pete Wrigley, and their humorous and surreal adventures in suburbia among their equally eccentric friends, enemies, and neighbors.
The Adventures of Pete & Pete began on Nickelodeon in 1989 as minute-long and 30-second shorts that aired as interstitials. Because of the popularity of the shorts, five half-hour specials were made, followed by a regular half-hour series that ran for three seasons from 1993 to 1996. On October 5, 2015, reruns of the shorts began airing on TeenNick as part of the NickSplat block. The full-length episodes reran on the block in June 2017.
The series received critical acclaim throughout its run. Jason Ankeny of AllMusic called the series "the greatest children's show ever", while IGN called it "one of the most well-written kids shows ever". The first two seasons were released on DVD in 2005; the third was planned for 2006 but was indefinitely postponed.
Plans for a film based on the show fell through and the script was reworked into the Nickelodeon movie Snow Day, released on February 11, 2000. That film in turn, got a musical remake in 2022 as well.
Setting Pete & Pete is set in Wellsville, a fictitious town in the United States whose exact geography is never specified. License plates in the show refer to "The Sideburn State", and according to the series' canon, the Wrigley house is set miles from the Canadian border, 500 miles from Hoover Dam and "not far from the beach". The name of the town is also a nod to The Embarrassment's song "Wellsville". Certain locations were fictionalized for the purposes of the show; Glurt County, mentioned in "Yellow Fever" and "The Good, the Bad and the Lucky", does not exist in any state.
The show was filmed largely in Leonia, New Jersey, with location shots done in a variety of other spots around northern New Jersey, including the Willowbrook Mall in Wayne, New Jersey, and the Wrigley House in Cranford, New Jersey. The exteriors of Pete & Pete's house (as seen in the credit sequence and other shots) were filmed on Vreeland Avenue in Leonia. The football field used for various episodes is that of Bayonne High School in Bayonne, New Jersey. The fictional Wellsville High School's mascot is a squid.
Episodes
Characters
Family
"Big" Pete Wrigley (Michael Maronna) The show's narrator, Big Pete often acts as a voice of reason in contrast to the strange occurrences and people around him. However, he also grapples with the problem of growing up and thus losing sight of the simple happiness of childhood, often to the disappointment of Little Pete. Aside from typical sibling rivalry, he and his brother are best friends. Big Pete plays trombone in the school marching band. Big Pete's nemeses are "Endless" Mike Hellstrom and Open Face. He and Little Pete shared enemies in both Hat Head and Lifeguard Matt "The Urinator" Uplinger. "Little" Pete Wrigley (Danny Tamberelli) Four years younger than his brother, Little Pete is often engaged in struggles against adults and other authority figures. He is also known to make irrational decisions in response to problems, like selling the house because his brother hung out with a girl instead of him, without taking responsibility for it (the only exception was in 'Grounded for Life'). Little Pete has various enemies, including Papercut (who was originally Artie's main enemy, besides John McFlemp). He showed defiance in throwing scissors, instead of rock, which angered Papercut to swear revenge on him and destroy him in the rematch. Little Pete's primary nemeses are Pit Stain (for insulting his glandular disorder) and Principal Ken Schwinger (the principal at his school). He and Big Pete share enemies in Hat Head and Lifeguard Matt "The Urinator" Uplinger. "Petunia" A tattoo on Little Pete's forearm depicting a prone woman in a red dress, Petunia receives her own credit in the show's opening sequence. Little Pete likes to make Petunia "dance" by flexing his forearm. In the series, Petunia's origins are a mystery and a cause of bafflement for Big Pete, though in an early Pete & Pete short, it is explained that Little Pete originally got the tattoo as a Mother's Day gift, infuriating his father and causing his mother to faint. Little Pete has a second tattoo of a sailing ship on his back, although the origins of this tattoo are never explained. Joyce Wrigley (Judy Grafe) The Petes' mother, usually just called "Mom". She tends to be the more stern, conventional parent, but also tends to be more reasonable than her husband, agreeing to compromise with her sons when the need arises. She also tends to intervene when her husband goes too far. Mom's Plate The plate in Joyce's head, which, like Petunia, gets its own opening credit via an X-ray. It can pick up radio stations, and, in the case of Little Pete's radio station WART, can also broadcast them. Though it is stated that Joyce got the plate due to a childhood accident, the nature of the accident is never explained. Donald "Don" Wrigley (Hardy Rawls) Usually known as "Dad", Don is the Petes' father. He and Joyce met when the metal detector he was using on a beach led him to the metal plate in her head. He is extremely competitive against practically everyone, including his own sons (particularly Little Pete, who seems to have gotten his own stubborn streak from his father), his neighbors, and other local parents. His hobbies include obsessive lawn care, bowling, and fishing, particularly for "Old Bob", a legendary striped bass.
Friends
Ellen Josephine Hickle (Alison Fanelli) Ellen is Big Pete's best friend; though romance develops between the two on rare occasions, Pete generally sees Ellen as "a girl and a friend, but not a girlfriend". Over the course of the show, she demonstrates some obsessive tendencies. In the pre-season 1 short "The Dot",Adventures of Pete & Pete, The – Short 15 – "The Dot" as well as the season one episode "Day of the Dot" she is assigned the position of the letter "I" in "Squids" as part of the school marching band and attempts to hypnotize herself into "perfect dot-ness". She played French horn in the band. Ellen is also a huge fan of Greco-Roman wrestling and has vast knowledge on the subject, as seen in the episode "Pinned" where she tries to coach Big Pete.
Artie, the Strongest Man in the World (Toby Huss) Little Pete's personal superhero and one of the few adults for whom he holds any respect. His catchphrase is "I am Artie – the strongest man ... in the world!" He wears a costume of a tight-fitting red-white-and-blue striped shirt, red long johns, and black running shoes without socks (claiming the lack of socks allows him to run at super-speeds, with the drawback of blisters). Artie claims an array of eccentric but apparently legitimate superpowers: he can skip stones on Neptune, move an entire house by an inch, turn Hat Head into a jack-o'-lantern, and hit a golf ball 300,003 yards, among other feats. In the two-parter "Farewell, My Little Viking" the villainous John McFlemp, wanting to allow the International Adult Conspiracy to take charge of Wellsville, decided to run Artie out of town and manipulated Don into persuading him to leave. Don did this despite misgivings, but finally saw sense when Joyce made him see how miserable Little Pete was without him. Upon returning, Artie saw Little Pete standing up to his personal nemesis, Paper Cut, on his own and realized he was no longer needed. He bid farewell to Little Pete and left Wellsville to find another little boy in need of a superhero. His spot in the opening credits would later be replaced in the third season with Nona.
Theodore "Teddy" L. Forzman (David Martel) Teddy is one of Big Pete's three friends (the others being Ellen and Bill). Teddy is a perpetually cheerful dork who is also in marching band and is known for bringing up odd trivia, then remarking "what, you guys didn't know that?" He also loves to exclaim "Excelente!" while raising his finger and give "soul shakes" (an elaborate handshake punctuated by hissing "Soul!") to friends. Teddy's cheerful personality once drove Endless Mike to a complete emotional breakdown.
Bill Korn (Rick Barbarette) Bill is Big Pete's friend, who has a knack for practical jokes and sarcasm. He was renowned for getting Teddy to shoot milk out of his ears and getting Bus Driver Stu accused of kidnapping a busload of kids. He also admitted to once eating snot in the episode "Field of Pete". Bill did not appear after the second season.
Nona F. Mecklenberg (Michelle Trachtenberg) Little Pete's best friend. Her middle initial "F" stands for Frances, but she wants to change it to Frank, Fahrvergnügen, or Forklift. She wears a cast, not because she has a broken arm but because it causes an annoying, itchy feeling on her arm which she enjoys scratching. She had a brief crush on Little Pete once or twice in the series.
Natasha (Heather Matarazzo) A neighborhood kid and Little Pete's friend. She was a member of the Nightcrawlers, who forced herself to stay awake by pulling her pigtails.
Monica Perling (Maris Hudson) One of Little Pete's friends, Monica is the resident Kreb Scout. Her unfortunate luck with pets has given her a reputation as the "Girl Scout of Death", and she even has a graveyard for them. She has excellent hearing, supposedly because one of her ancestors married a bloodhound.
Wayne Pardue (Justin Restivo) Also known as "Wayne the Pain". First appearing in the third season, Wayne tended to tag along with Little Pete and his friends, but as his nickname implied, Little Pete found him annoying due to his cluelessness and his tendency to spout phrases like "geez louise!" Wayne had an unrequited crush on Monica, who found him as irritating as everyone else.
Clem LaNelle (Aaron Schwartz) He was in several episodes as a friend of Little Pete. He served as the drummer of Little Pete's band, The Blowholes, and was a member of the Nightcrawlers, staying awake longer than anyone other than Little Pete and Artie. Tamberelli and Schwartz appeared together in the film The Mighty Ducks, but neither appeared in the sequels.
Libby Hurley (Winnie Zhang) Appeared in the "Nightcrawlers" and "The Call" episodes as a friend of Little Pete. Libby was adopted by the Hurley family. She stays awake via solar-powered sneezes, but flagged once the sun went down.
Enemies "Endless" Mike Hellstrom (Rick Gomez) Endless Mike is the mortal enemy of Big Pete. The origins of his nickname are unknown, though it is speculated it was due to his perpetually repeating the same year of high school; it has also been stated that his nickname comes from the fact that "his hatred of Big Pete is endless". Endless Mike reigns over shop class and loves Neapolitan ice cream. Although his relationship with Big Pete is largely antagonistic, the two have joined forces on rare occasions. The neighborhood kids hate and despise Endless Mike, but also envy him because he owns his own car. He hates Little Pete in "Time Tunnel" for humiliating him at the drive-in theater by showing everyone their home movies of him as a toddler and making him a laughingstock. In "Halloweenie" he foils Endless Mike's attempt to make Big Pete hate the holiday like him by putting a jack-o'-lantern over his head.
"Hat Head" (Chris Leveille) Hat Head draws his name from the fact that his hair perpetually looks as if it has been flattened by a hat, even though he is almost never actually seen wearing a hat. (The only exception being in the short "Hathead".) He originally appeared on several of the original shorts, making him the first bully in the Pete & Pete world. He is frequently defeated by Artie, who protects both Petes from him and even made him into a man-made jack-o'-lantern with his proton push.