I want to tell you about a little show. One that is slightly off the beaten path of entertainment, but so very worth looking into. That show is called “Freaks and Geeks.”
Long before Judd Apatow was creating uber blockbusters like “The 40 Year Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up,” he and his buddy Paul Feig came up with a show about the ups and downs of growing up not so popular in a small town.
They drew on their own experiences, and the experiences of other cast and crew, to create the hour-long dramedy about two cliques of high school teens in a small town in Michigan in the early 1980s.
The show centers around two siblings, geeky younger brother Sam Weir, and older sister Lindsay, a former good girl who is trying to leave that imagine behind by hanging out with the “freaks”, who are of the stoner/burnout variety of weirdo.
The show gives equal time between the “freak” kids, and Sam’s friends, the “geeks,” who quote “Star Wars” and get mercilessly picked on. And that’s about it. Unlike most “teen” shows, this show doesn’t have big convoluted love triangles, regular pregnancy scares, and long lost relatives popping up every 12 minutes.
It’s just about the average lives of average high school students, all told with absolutely brutal honesty. In fact, I would not really call this a teen drama at all.
It’s not really about romance or dating (though there is plenty) but about issues of passing classes, fights with friends and parents, and figuring out just what the heck you’re going to do with the rest of your life.
You know how in a lot of shows about teenagers, nobody really acts much like a teenager? “Freaks and Geeks” is not that show.
The teenagers look, dress and talk like actual high school students, well high school students in the 80’s. The characters are very multidimensional, and stereotype redefining.
Even characters like the tough gym teacher, the sadistic bully, and the snobby cheerleader are given surprising depth.
And while the show is set in the far away time of 1980, it’s still an utterly realistic look at the high school experience, no matter when you went to high school. In fact, it’s a fun show to actually watch with your parents, because they get so many of the 70s-80s references that fly right over our heads.
Expect them to burst out laughing suddenly, and have to explain to you how they did the exact same thing that the characters are doing when they were in high school.
Then, you can realize that you did or said something similar. The show is both hilariously funny and absolutely heartbreaking, all in the same episode. Take the episode where sweet stoner Nick tires out for a drumming gig in a local band.
I actually have to leave the room sometimes when I’m watching a certain scene, it’s just that painful.
Maybe it’s because the problems faced by the characters aren’t big and melodramatic, but are things that have happened to you or someone you know. Who hasn’t been dumped, embarrassed in front of someone you like, or disappointed by a parent?
Despite all that, the show is also wildly funny, heartwarming, and has a seriously awesome soundtrack, with music by The Who, Van Halen and Styx.
The acting is consistently fantastic, with the actors being a who’s who of future stars, many of whom are familiar to fans of Apatow’s movies. John Francis Daley, Jason Segal, Linda Cardellini, James Franco, and a very young Seth Rogen, are all here, looking very young, as the show came out in 1999.
Tragically, this brilliant show was cancelled after just 18 episodes, because network people are very stupid and would not know quality TV if it came up and smacked them over the head with an Emmy. And even though the show ran for such a short time, it was quick to become an underground favorite.
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