About Big Pete

Pete is the older of the Wrigley brothers by four years. He narrates nearly every adventure, giving unique facts and opinions about the goings on in Wellsville.  Big Pete is often shown as the more normal one of the two Wrigley brothers (being that he doesn't have a tattoo, super hero or radio station), trying to get to grips with a not so normal world.

Pete's best friends are Little Pete, Ellen Hickle, Teddy Foresman and Bill Korn. He has also had his fair share of enemies, ranging from the terminally badly haired Hathead, to Endless Mike. In between, their have been confrontations with many others. Open Face, Matt Uplinger, Coach Narens and his own brother Pete, have also provided epic struggles for him, as have many of his teachers. Mrs. Beardsley with her disgustingly sized, road map shaped varicose veins, Mr Porchman an ear gouger with  a neat range in evil science projects and hypnotic chest hair, and Mr Slurm with his prosthetic hands and alternative ways of motivating Pete, have been a few of them. Although his strength of character and determination are not as evident as his younger brother, Pete always comes out on top.

Along the years Pete has also had many jobs. He has cut grass by the highway (which also gave him the opportunity to practice his telepathic powers), rode around a driving range in a bear costume collecting balls, helped out at the Ringing Phone Crisis Centre, learnt to suck at the Wellsville Municipal Pool and driven Stu's school bus for career week. Pete is part of the Squidettes marching band, where he plays the trombone, the Prosthetics baseball team and the school wrestling team. Here, not only did he get his varsity letter, but he managed to beat Endless Mike, the Doctor of Death, in the process. Other invaluable information about Big Pete is that his shoe size is 8 and his favourite season is Winter (I guess he's never ridden in the slushy snow before, huh?). In the first series we are told Pete is fourteen so by series three, he is supposed to be eighteen.

Throughout the duration of the show, Big Pete's friendship with Ellen has been a talking point. To him, she's just a girl and a friend but not a girlfriend. She has helped him in nearly all his adventures and they've even been on an official date, although this went horribly wrong. They have had their differences but they remained best of friends the whole time. Pete has had many other female interests and has gone to great lengths to get a date with many of them: Margie Corsel, Penelope Ghiruto, the daughter of the perfect family and Diane Sinsky to name but a few. More often than not though, something inevitably goes wrong for Pete. Ellen is the only one who ever remains friends with him for more than one episode. But will they ever be more than  just friends? I guess now we'll never know.

Throughout the years, the world surrounding Pete has changed. Pete has had different enemies, different jobs and different problems, but one thing has always remained the same: Pete's greatness. He's more restrained than Little Pete but he still often ends up the unlikely hero of many situations - no matter what crazy things go on in Wellsville Pete always rises above them. He's a good contrast to the more temperamental Little Pete and this goes some way as to explaining their effectiveness as a double act. Although we'll never see Mike Maronna as Big Pete again, fans of the show will never forget his great performances, from the early shorts, all the way up to his misfortune at the hands of Barber Dan in the very final episode, "Saturday".