Pete and Pete, Pumpkin Eaters, and Pictures

Captures from the The Adventures of Pete and Pete Season 2 episode “Halloweenie”

A good way to measure how much older you are than someone you meet is to calculate how many years ago the debut of Nickelodeon is from the year they were born. I grew up with the golden age of Nick and so many of my younger friends have a difficult time relating to that era because they weren’t born until later. They started watching Nick in the mid to late ’90s. Nowadays you can just dial up any show old or new on the Internet, but looking back at some ancient Pinwheel episode doesn’t do it justice. Comparing it to shows today is unfair. I’m not exaggerating when I say this, but when shows like Pinwheel and You Can’t Do That On Television were popular they were mind blowing to kids, and especially to stoned adults. I would never say Nick’s lineup throughout the ’90s was any less great, but it’s in a different way because times were a-changin’.

One of the many beloved shows that aired on Nick in the ’90s was The Adventures of Pete and Pete which premiered on Nick in November of 1993. I’d say by 1992 I was pretty much phased out of Nickelodeon for the sole reason that I stopped watching TV so often and getting more into activities that required actual movement rather than vegetating on the couch. Although the ’90s were definitely not my Nick time, I really wish I hadn’t missed out on The Adventures of Pete and Pete, a show that was set in Wellsville, NY, but predominantly filmed in New Jersey.

Recently I asked my friend Steve, resident Pete and Pete expert, if there was ever a Pete and Pete Halloween episode, and he rapidly replied “YES.” I was pretty excited to hear this because I was looking forward to checking out the old Nick show that I never got a chance to watch when I was younger. I recently got a hold of it and my first reaction to the episode “Halloweenie,” which aired in October 1994, was jackpot. Here’s the synopsis taken from Nickipedia:

“Younger Pete decides to enter the annals of history by breaking the record for most houses visited on Halloween and tries to enlist the help of Older Pete. Older Pete is torn between his loyalty to his brother and the coming of age and abandonment of the childhood ritual of Trick-Or-Treating. He must decide whether to face the ridicule of his peers and go Trick-Or-Treating or to join the notorious “Pumpkin Eaters”, a group of vandals who terrorize neighborhood “Halloweenies.”

I’m a kid at heart so little Pete’s love for Halloween and desire to break the trick or treating record appeals to me, but I can totally relate to big Pete’s fear of becoming a Halloweenie. As a fellow suburban kid, there was a definitive point where I stopped trick or treating because I felt that the ritual needed to be reserved exclusively for the kids and I never went back, but I remain a mega-fan of Halloween.

The amount of nostalgic Halloween images contained in this episode was an unexpected surprise. The story was fun, albeit not as horrific as I was hoping for, but it was on Nickelodeon after all. The Pumpkin Eaters looked cool, but they weren’t very formidable, they just made a mess of everything. The episode evokes an awesome Halloween vibe and as the credits rolled I sat wishing it lasted another half hour.

“Halloweenie” Facts:

*Production of the show was moved to Cranford after the show made such a mess of the town during the filming of “Halloweenie.” They did make quite a mess. There’s hundreds of smashed pumpkins and streamers, etc. It looked like a thousand kids who mainlined Ghoul-Aid were let loose on mischief night.

*Iggy Pop appears as, Mr. Mecklenberg, a recurring character who is little Pete’s best friend Nona’s (Michelle Trachtenberg) father. In this episode Iggy Pop calls someone a “Stooge.”