"Today my heart said meatloaf, but my head said fish sticks
The
Story
Mistakes, points of interest and cross references
Questions from this episode
The people behind Don't Tread on Pete
It's Friday at Wellsville High and as usual Big Pete and his friends are stuck with the difficult choice of meat loaf (in its normal guise) or fish sticks and green and red jelly (it's like they're not even trying). On the advice of the young dinner lady Emma, Big Pete goes for the fish sticks and sits down with Ellen, Teddy, Bill, Magda and eat machine Dan. Before they start eating, Teddy equips himself with his nose plugs, like he has done ever since "The Bath", when Bill made Teddy laugh so much after he'd taken a mouthful of milk, that he covered the rest with a nasal tidal wave. Now Teddy has the nose clips, Bill has the ultimate ambition of making milk come out of Teddy's ears. Every lunch Trader Tim goes round and does more deals than the stock market. One time, he started off with a fluffernutter sandwich, an apple and a snicker doodle and ended up with a fig bar and a 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card worth 67000 dollars. This lunch he's after Teddy's nose clip, but even with the tempting offer of two apple scrumpies, Teddy (or at least Teddy's friends) decide to keep hold of the clips. So everything seems normal then. That is, until in a conversation about this afternoons test, Big Pete utters the two words all kids fear the most. "What test?".
Meanwhile across town, Little Pete is facing a different crisis altogether. Cornwallace and his dodgeball team, the Kings, want to turf Pete and his friends off their gym class so they can practice. As you'd expect, Little Pete isn't going to take this lying down and declares war on them and in doing so, starts an epic battle. Back across town, Big Pete is trying to work out why he hadn't heard about the symbolic Revolutionary War test. As he starts to remember the fateful events of the last history class, it all starts flooding back. After counting the freckles on Wayne Schlegel's neck, he began to look at his history text book, which contained a flick-book of a clock going round and around and around, which was drawn back in 1967. As the spinning clock held Pete in its iron like hypnotic grip, everything was a blur and this must have been when the test was announced, he concludes.
Failing one of Mrs. Beardsley's tests carries the ultimate punishment, as Margaret Klumper is once supposed to have found out: Beardsley has the most sickening varicose veins ever. If you stare at them hard enough, they start to look like a road map of Central Iowa. In fact, Pete says one time, he saw on the news that a new road had been built right through Iowa and the very next day, Beardsley had a new vain in exactly the same place. After failing, Margaret had to touch Beardsley's legs. Another Beardsley failee was Cecil Tucker, school janitor, who now spends all his days waxing the school corridors. They say after failing, the fire in his belly just went out. Pete couldn't fail this test. In a desperate attempt to send his brain into hyper overdrive, Pete eats seventeen ice cream bars on Teddy's (who is fresh from an aural milk eruption courtesy of Bill) advice. But instead, this just fries Pete's brain and makes him hallucinate.
Midway through a stirring rendition of "Blue Moon", Seargent William Jasper from the Revolutionary War shows up to give Pete some advice. Then Pete sees Emma the dinner lady escaping from the school and realises he has to do the same, but on his way out, he runs into Cecil Tucker and Mrs. Beardsley. Pete listens to Tucker's lament (in which he gives Pete a moisty nap and tells him he'll "always see the truth in the shine") and gets a roasting off Beardsley and then goes back to the others, where he decides to write the test information on his hand. Meanwhile, the battle at Little Pete's school is raging and many casualties had been taken. Pete was the last man standing against the mighty Kings, but when faced with the prospect of quitting, we find out the truth, and that is that Pete Wrigley is no quitter. Big Pete discovers this too after seeing himself in "The Shine" on the floor, and he immediately uses Cecil Tuckers moisty nap to wipe the cheat notes off his hand. Having learned an important lesson, Pete takes the test, and becomes the 965th kid to receive a C plus from Beardsley.
Mistakes, Points of Interest and Cross References
- The black and white clip of Pete showing the different names for meatloaf is copied from the Bob Dylan video for "Subterranean Homesick Blues". This video has a man (with similar clothes on) showing the songs lyrics cards in the right hand of the screen, with a tramp stirring a barrel on the left . It is also in black and white.
- While Pete looks at the names of previous owners of his history text book, names that are visible are Michael Spiller - director of photography in Pete and Pete, and Rich Rosser, assistant director for this episode.
- Although it is officially the most expensive baseball card ever, the Honus Wagner card is not worth 67000 dollars like it says in this episode. The world record amount paid for one of these was 18000 dollars. It was also apparently printed in 1910, not 1909. It is so expensive because it was published without Wagner's permission and put in cigarette packages. As a non-smoker, Wagner complained and the cards were withdrawn. Out of the 96 which did get into circulation, only thirty are still believed to be in existence. Honus Wagner was considered one of the greatest ever all round players and was one of the first five men elected to the baseball hall of fame.
- Is that supposed to be Mort Mortenson who is in Pete's gym class? If it is, it's looks like a different actor from the one in "What We Did On Our Summer Vacation".
- One theory concerning the naming of Mrs Beardsley is that someone involved in naming of Pete and Pete characters was a Newcastle United football fan. At the time of this series, Peter Beardsley and Kevin Keegan (as in crossing guard Kenneth Keegan) were the most famous people associated with the club and are now considered Newcastle legends.
- Just something to think about, but did Cecil give Pete the moisty nap for the chocolate on his face, or because he knew that he'd put cheat notes on his hands?
- "If you could have a million dollars a year for the rest of your life, but from now on, your eyes had to be on your butt, would you do it?" - Bill Korn
- "If you could have an ox cart full of silver and enough silk clothing and three cornered hats to last you a life time, but you had to clean the staples with your tongue, would you do it?" - Seargent William Jasper
The People Behind Don't Tread on Pete
| Mike Maronna - Big Pete | Dave Martel - Teddy Foresman |
| Danny Tamberelli - Little Pete | Alison Fanelli - Ellen |
| Rick Barbarette - Bill Korn | Ryan Brown - Dan |
| Mary Rose - Magda | Juliana Hatfield - Emma |
| Written by - Tom Hertz |
"Lick the parquet Cornwallace, this is our gym class"