When I was in my early teens I spent tons of time watching TV. One of the channels geared to my age group was Nickelodeon. It had been around for quite awhile, introducing America to the fabulous show You Can’t Do That on Television in the early 80’s and really taking off in the very early 90’s with original animated shows like Ren and Stimpy, Doug, and Rugrats.

Pretty soon Nickelodeon was coming up with tons of live action kid programs. Clarissa Explains It All ,  Are You Afraid of the Dark and The Adventures of Pete & Pete. This last one is the show I want to talk about. It started as one minute shorts during commercial breaks and grew so popular, it was made into a full half-hour program.

Pete & Pete was a show that I tended to overlook because it was about boys, it was a little bizarre, and I guess back then I just didn’t get it. This weekend I rented it for my two boys and got a huge surprise….it is completely hilarious!

The show is about the two red headed Wrigley brothers (both named Pete) living their small town lives in Wellsville.  Other characters are Dad, Mom (also Mom’s plate in her head), best friend Ellen and Artie….the town’s spandex wearing superhero.

The plotlines are funny and refreshingly innocent (little Pete vows to stay up for 11 days straight while protesting his bedtime), the camera work was surprisingly awesome, and the show is filled with fun 90’s music. If you like quirky TV, then you should check this Nickelodeon classic out.

After weeks of questionable shows spewing from my kids’ mouths (lookin at you Seth McFarlane), it was pretty radtastical to have a show that made ALL of us laugh and did not embarrass me in front of my boys.

It was time to change up a couple of shelves on the great Wall O’ Cool, so I began to wander the store and see what movies popped out at me. I hoped that through this process a theme would form.

The first title that caught my eye was Wonder Boys. One of my favorite movies, it stars Michael Douglas as Professor Grady Tripp, a college professor and has-been writer who is having a very bad weekend. His third wife leaves him, his crazy editor wants his long-awaited but still unfinished novel, his married mistress finds out she’s pregnant, and two students with their own issues add into the mix. The movie co-stars Robert Downey, Jr., Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand and Katie Holmes. Brilliant writing.

So I found my first film….what is the theme?

Crazy teachers.

So I grabbed Dead Poet’s Society, with Robin Williams daring to have individual thought at a boy’s prep school in the 1950’s. He is manic, strange and pisses off all the stuffed shirts by teaching everyone to “seize the day.”

Half Nelson stars Ryan Gosling as an inner city high school history teacher who befriends one of his students after she catches him doing drugs. The story is dark and strange, but the acting is excellent.

Since I didn’t want to much seriousness with this crazy teacher bit, I grabbed Art School Confidential with John Malkovich playing Professor Sandiford, a pompous art teacher who starts his class by telling everyone they should have become bankers.

Charlie Bartlett is about a boy who learns to fit in to public school after being booted by a bunch of private schools. His principal is Mr. Gardner (Robert Downey, Jr.), an educator who has lost faith in the system.

Also in the humorous department, we have Orange County, a film that has quite a few psycho educators. Lily Tomlin, Chevy Chase, Harold Ramis, Kevin Kline and my favorite, Mike White, who has some great insight on Shakespeare.

Notes on a Scandal stars Judi Dench as a teacher whose whacked out mind decides she needs to punish the new art teacher (Cate Blanchett) because of a tiny indiscretion involving an affair with a student. Don’t cross the scary old lady…

Lastly is Kinsey, the story of Alfred Kinsey, a biology professor who decides to investigate human sexuality and write the definitive study on it. I can’t decide whether he would be a cool science teacher whose honesty would be refreshing, or just a skeevy old guy who wants to know what’s going on behind closed doors. Good film though!

So that is my theme. I am sure we have a bunch more films that have super bizarre teachers, but 5000 titles is a lot to look through!

We just opened back in September and are still relative newbies to the hood. It is both scary and exciting how many activities Ballard has to offer. Today Market street is being closed off for Syttende Mai or the Norwegian Constitution day. There is gonna be a parade in about 30 minutes and the streets are swarming with bright red flags, native costumed folk, and one very warm looking marching band.

If you are down around the hood you should put away your mobile net device, have grandma save your seat on the parade route and visit our great little store full of film treasure!

You may find that one movie with that one guy you were lookin for last week……

Har en god dag!

(That is “have a good day” in Norwegian….I wasn’t swearing…)