A comedy about kids that was not made for kids but was not not made for kids, “Square Pegs” premiered on CBS in fall 1982; a quarter of a century later, it has come to DVD in its surprisingly modest, 19-episode entirety. But 9-plus hours is time enough to make a point when you have one.
Starring authentically teen-age Sarah Jessica Parker and Amy Linker as Patty Greene and Lauren Hutchinson, unpopular high school freshmen trying to move from the outside to the in, the series was a precursor to, if not a direct influence on, such teen-weirdo comedies as “Freaks & Geeks” and “Malcolm in the Middle.” Created by Anne Beatts, the first female editor of National Lampoon and an original member of the “Saturday Night Live” writing staff, “Square Pegs” had a bad attitude and a good heart.
Teenage entertainment has always been mainly the product of people who are no longer teenagers. In the early 1960s and before, adolescence was typically portrayed on television as a mildly aberrational phase on the way to a well-integrated adulthood. In the ’50s-obsessed 1970s, the corpse of this fantasy was revived as “Happy Days,” still in its decade-long run when “Square Pegs” went on the air.
By that time, a new wave of teen flicks celebrated the discontent of adolescence, the outcasts and the ones who could not or did not want to go gently into the status quo, such as John Hughes’ “The Breakfast Club” and “Pretty in Pink” on the lighter side, and Francis Ford Coppola’s S.E. Hinton adaptations, “The Outsiders” and “Rumble Fish,” on the darker.
“Square Pegs” is the lively satirical embodiment of that spirit. It sacrifices plausibility for comment; most of what goes on at Weemawee High is improbable, and some of it is illegal, but the jokes still circle back to reality. Grounded in Beatts’ own teenage alienation, the show also looked out at the world: It’s full of topical references, underscored by guest stars such as Don Novello (as Father Guido Sarducci), Devo and the Waitresses (who also wrote and performed the series’ theme song).
It was, unusually, a show dominated by women. Writers included story editor Janis Hirsch (“The Nanny,” “Will & Grace”); Marjorie Gross (“Seinfeld,” “The Larry Sanders Show”); Beatts’ “SNL” writing partner Rosie Shuster; Margaret Oberman, another “SNL” writer; Susan Silver (“Mary Tyler Moore”); and Deanne Stillman (now a busy journalist). (In an accompanying interview, Beatts says that writer and co-story editor Andy Borowitz was hired to balance the scales.) Kim Friedman directed more than half the episodes.
Not surprisingly, the female characters are the richer ones, though they all begin, intentionally, in stereotypes. Patty (Parker) is the smart girl, more sensible than Lauren but also less sure of herself, making her ripe for her friend’s bad advice. Lauren, played by Linker in a fat suit and snap-on braces, lives in a romantic fantasy. There is a certain Lucy and Ethel-ness to their relationship, with Lauren the main author of harebrained schemes that will supposedly increase their popularity.
Their nemeses — and the object of their social climbing — are Jennifer DiNuccio (Tracy Nelson) and her friend LaDonna Fredericks (Claudette Wells), in sassy black girl mode (“Halloween — to me, white people in sheets is not a good time”).
Jami Gertz, the second-best-known actress to emerge from “Square Pegs,” wonderfully plays oratorical, uptight junior varsity pep squad president Muffy B. Tepperman. Muffy is a conservative stalking-horse given lines such as “Too much open debate is bad for a free society.”
The series was not renewed for a second season, leaving Patty and Lauren outsiders into eternity — which is the way you would want it, in any case. We never root for them to succeed in their quest to be popular, because they’re after the wrong thing and courting the wrong people.
