With only 18 episodes (plus commentaries, deleted scenes and such) of Freaks and Geeks, I have recently ventured elsewhere to feed my obsession with the show. I have been reading Paul Feig's book "Superstud: Or How I Became a 24-Year Old Virgin." The book is pretty funny, and some of his stories about his teen years obviously inspired some of the Freaks and Geeks storylines.
Of particular interest to me was a chapter in the book in which Feig talks about getting a job as a tour guide at Universal Studios in Hollywood. (partly to get away from a girl he was dating and afraid to break up with!) Anyway, the subsequent chapter details coming back home to Michigan for his sophomore year of college. In this chapter, Feig talks about how he was keeping a journal for a creative writing class he was taking, and includes a bunch of the journal entries, commenting on them, and what a dork he was in those days. The journal entries are even dated.
The journal entries were dated fall of 1981, meaning Feig's summer in Hollywood working at Universal Studios was that previous summer. Here's where my possible brush with greatness comes in. My dad's brother lives in Huntington Beach, California, and that summer of '81, my family took a vacation to visit my uncle and his family out there. I was 14 at the time and starting high school that coming fall.
One of the tourist activities we participated in was----a trip to Universal Studios!!! Now, that was a long time ago and I don't remember much about the tour. In fact, the most memorable part was when the animatronic shark from "Jaws" suddenly popped out of the water, and my 3-year old brother was so scared he started crying.
I do remember, however, that the tour guide was a guy. Now, there are many people taking those tours every day and there must be quite a few tour guides on the payroll there. But still, there is a legitimate chance that Paul Feig, the future creator of my favorite show of all time, was my tour guide at Universal Studios in that summer of '81. Kind of cool, don't you think?
I've decided to throw out my first attempt at blogging on this site. Of course it's only fitting that the subject is my favorite show, Freaks and Geeks. The superb quality of the show led me to this web site to begin with. Anyway, I don't have a particular theme in this post, just some random thoughts about particular moments of the show. So, here's a few tidbits:
I would love to hear what Fredricks had to say to Sam in his private sex-ed speech to Sam in his office. Maybe there will be an unrated version of the episode where we can hear Ben's words of wisdom; hopefully he wasn't talking about patting boys butts.
I like math jokes as much as anybody else, so it would be great to hear the set-up to the punch line that Lindsay delivers to the mathletes at lunch. You know: ".....So Carl Sagan says, That's not a cosine; you don't know your asymptote from a hole in the ground." I want to hear the whole joke.
At the beginning of the episode Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers, the geeks are playing basketball in gym class. Neil and Bill are in the game, while Sam and Gordon are watching on the sidelines. Gordon comments to Sam about how "sloppy" the style of play being exhibited on the court is. Hilarious; the comment kind of slipped past me the first time I watched the episode, but it makes me laugh every time I see it now. I mean, Gordon has no interest in sports, which is fine, and, quite frankly, as a generously proportioned young man, probably couldn't make it up and down the court one time without stopping and walking. Yet he comments to Sam about the low quality of basketball being played by the guys currently on the court. Outstanding!
Like Sam and Neil, I also received the Atari 2600 game system as a freshman in high school. (A christmas gift in 1981, only one year later than the 1980 school year portrayed in F&G) Anyway, I usually don't like to brag, but I must say, I would have destroyed Neil, Bill, and Sam at Asteroids, Space Invaders, or any other game they would have challenged me at. As a caffeine driven 14-year old freshman, I was the best in the neighborhood with a joystick in hand...........wait a minute, that sounds kind of dirty; I'm referring of course to the Atari video game controller.
In Tricks and Treats, the geeks and their classmates are scolded by the english teacher for their poor choices of material to do book reports on. I believe it was Bill who was made an example of for doing a report on "Al Jaffee's Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions". That book is a compilation of one the features that regularly appeared in Mad magazine back in the day; I know this because I actually owned this book as an adolescent. So, needless to say, I thought it was pretty funny when the book got mentioned in the episode. But wait, it gets better. When I came home for spring break during one of my years in college, my mom and I shared quite a laugh when she showed me a book report my younger brother had done. He didn't receive a very high grade because the teacher wasn't too impressed with the choice of material: "Al Jaffee's Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions". I'm not kidding; that really happened. It was 1987 or 1988 I think. Granted, it wasn't as ridiculous for my brother to do a report on a book like that as it was for Bill, because my brother was only in 5th grade, not high school. Still, the scene in the show brought back a funny memory I had forgotten about.
In the episode where Sam doesn't want to take a shower after gym class, there is a scene where the geeks are in gym class playing with an "earth ball". The whole class is laying down in a circle with their legs raised, knocking this huge ball back and forth with their feet to get a workout. Earth ball? What the hell? I never heard of that in my life. I can't believe something like that was used as a physical education tool in 1980; I certainly never used it. That looks like something that would be used in gym class in the 1930's. Paul and Judd are from my era, so maybe they used it; they probably threw around a medicine ball too!
That's all for today; as much as I love and watch Freaks and Geeks, there will surely be more to come. My obsession with the show is pretty obvious to anyone reading this, but if anyone needs further proof, you can check out the myspace page I recently established. My profile----some of which is serious, some of which is sarcastic----contains several references to the show. An official F&G fan page is one of my myspace "friends".My address is www.myspace.com/mstenz44 ; feel free to ask me to add any of you as a "friend" if you are part of myspace!
