Square Pegs - The Complete Series

Square Pegs - The Complete Series

Square Pegs - The Complete Series
List Price: $29.95
Our Price: $24.99
You Save: $4.96 (17%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $16.95 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases


(Click here)
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada

DVD Cover Information

Actor: Amy Linker, Jami Gertz, Sarah Jessica Parker
Brand: Sony
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Original Language); French (Subtitled)
Format: Box set, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 491 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-05-20
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Sony Pictures

Movie Reviews of Square Pegs - The Complete Series

Movie Review: Yikes...
Summary: 1 Stars

You ever remember a movie or TV show from your youth as being really good, but then you watch it as an adult and say, "What the #@$% was I thinking?"

This is one of those.

A cast you know (Sarah Jessica Parker, Jami Gertz, Capt. Kirk's son in Star Trek 2), overacting in every scene. Each and every "joke" is delivered with the subtlety of freight train. But the scripts are so inane, you can't blame them.

Pick up a copy of Breakfast Club for your 80s fix, instead.

Summary of Square Pegs - The Complete Series

Square Pegs follows the hilarious misadventures of Patty (Sarah Jessica Parker, TV's Sex and the City) and Lauren (Amy Linker), two freshmen girls desperate to fit in at Weemawee High School. Befriended by oddball characters Marshall (John Femia), a budding comedian, and Johnny Slash (Merritt Butrick), a wacky new-waver, Patty and Lauren still hope to impress the popular kids: valley girl Jennifer (Tracy Nelson), her tough boyfriend Vinnie (Jon Caliri), and their sassy friend LaDonna (Claudette Wells). And it would "behoove us" to not forget Muffy (Jami Gertz), the ever-peppy preppie!
Square Pegs was in a class by itself, but much like brainy, bespectacled Patty (Sarah Jessica Parker) and pushy, overweight Lauren (Amy Linker), popularity eluded this late, lamented series, which was expelled from prime time after one season. Rarely seen in syndication, its cult cachet has only increased with time (enhanced by Parker's extreme makeover into Sex and the City's trend-setting Carrie Bradshaw). In the words of peppy, preppy Muffy Tepperman (a spirited Jami Gertz in her own career-launching role), it behooves us to report that the series lives up to its rep as a smart and hip alternative to what creator Anne Beatts (in one of the newly filmed interviews with the show's creators and cast included on each disc) calls "processed cheese television" of the day. Square Pegs was a totally different head; totally. Anticipating 16 Candles and Freaks and Geeks, Square Pegs viewed high school from the perspective of the bottom of the high-school social food chain. Patty and Lauren are freshmen at Weemawee High School. Lauren has it "all psyched out": If the girls can click with the right clique, they will at last have "a social life that's worthy of us." Alas, it is not to be. The girls instantly run afoul of the school's reigning Mean Girl, Jennifer (Tracy Nelson), her bad boy boyfriend, Vinnie (Jon Caliri), and her sassy best friend, LaDonna (Claudette Welles). "La Donna doesn't like anything I do," Patty wails, "and I don't do anything." They are also treated with disdain by Muffy, who seems to have the run of the school to rally students around sponsoring a "Guatemalan child" (they need swimwear, too). Patty and Lauren reluctantly bond with fellow square peggers Marshall Blechtman (John Fernia), an aspiring comedian always ready with a <>Saturday Night Live or Monty Python reference, and the "laid back and left back" Johnny Slash (the late Merritt Butrick), who's New Wave, and not punk. (New Wave, he explains, is "a totally different head; totally").

Each episode brings some new fresh hell for Patty and Lauren, but also some hope that their fortunes will somehow change and their stock will rise (in the pilot episode, Patty impresses a "stone fox" upperclassman, and in another, she's Vinnie's leading lady in the Chorus Line-inspired school musical, "A Cafeteria Line"). Until then, cup size may trump IQ, but friendship will trump popularity. Weemawee High School appears to be based in New York, but everything else about the show is totally Los Angeles, from, like, Jennifer's Valley Girl-speak to an appearance in one episode by Steve Sax and the Dodgers. The laugh track is as lame and half-hearted as the one employed by SCTV, but the show's left of center spirit shines through. Two standout episodes feature, respectively, Bill Murray (Beatts' former National Lampoon and <>SNL colleague) as an unorthodox substitute teacher, and Devo, who performs at Muffy's New Wave Bat Mitzvah. And that's Wally Cleaver himself, Tony Dow, as Patty's estranged divorced father in what passes as a Very Special two-part holiday episode. Square Pegs is totally '80s (in one episode, Marshall's Pac-Man addiction can only be cured by an intervention by Don Novello's Father Guido Sarducci), but the Waitress's indelible theme song ("I'd like it if they like us/But I don't think they like us") sets just the right pathetic/persevering tone that will resonate for a new generation for whom "one size does not fit all." --Donald Liebenson

Comedy DVD Video

DVD Video
Movies most talked about in My favorite old TV Shows
McMillan & Wife - Season One ImageMcMillan & Wife - Season One
Release date: 2005-08-09; DVD
Best price: $24.18
Price in other shops: $39.98
Welcome Back, Kotter - The Complete First Season ImageWelcome Back, Kotter - The Complete First Season
Warner Brothers; Release date: 2007-06-12; DVD
Best price: $22.52
Price in other shops: $29.98
The Odd Couple - The Fourth Season ImageThe Odd Couple - The Fourth Season
PARAMOUNT PICTURES; Release date: 2008-06-10; DVD
Best price: $24.64
Price in other shops: $39.98
Square Pegs - The Complete Series ImageSquare Pegs - The Complete Series
Sony; Release date: 2008-05-20; DVD
Best price: $19.73
Price in other shops: $29.95
Soap - The Complete First Season ImageSoap - The Complete First Season
Sony; Release date: 2003-09-16; DVD
Best price: $14.18
Price in other shops: $29.95
Barney Miller: The Complete Second Season ImageBarney Miller: The Complete Second Season
Sony; Release date: 2008-01-22; DVD
Best price: $20.00
Price in other shops: $29.95
Moonlighting - Seasons 1 & 2 ImageMoonlighting - Seasons 1 & 2
Release date: 2005-05-31; DVD
Best price: $14.80
Price in other shops: $24.98
Kate & Allie - The Complete First and Second Seasons ImageKate & Allie - The Complete First and Second Seasons
Release date: 2007-05-22; DVD
Best price: $25.72
Price in other shops: $37.78
Bosom Buddies - The Complete Series ImageBosom Buddies - The Complete Series
PARAMOUNT PICTURES; Release date: 2007-09-04; DVD
Best price: $40.89
Price in other shops: $59.99
Fantasy Island - The Complete First Season ImageFantasy Island - The Complete First Season
Sony; Release date: 2005-11-15; DVD
Best price: $25.95
Price in other shops: $49.95
Similar DVD Movies
Dexter - The Complete Second Season ImageDexter - The Complete Second Season
Paramount; Release date: 2008-08-19; DVD
Best price: $19.99
Price in other shops: $39.98
Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street ImageSweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Paramount; Release date: 2008-04-01; DVD
Best price: $11.98
Price in other shops: $29.99
Hard Candy ImageMadonna - Hard Candy
MADONNA; Release date: 2008-04-29; Music CD
Best price: $6.08
Price in other shops: $18.98
Heroes: Season 2 ImageHeroes: Season 2
Universal; Release date: 2008-08-26; DVD
Best price: $20.99
Price in other shops: $39.98
Juno (Single-Disc Edition) ImageJuno (Single-Disc Edition)
TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2008-04-15; DVD
Best price: $10.00
Price in other shops: $29.98
Mad Men - Season One ImageMad Men - Season One
Lions Gate; Release date: 2008-07-01; DVD
Best price: $24.94
Price in other shops: $49.98
Pushing Daisies - The Complete First Season ImagePushing Daisies - The Complete First Season
Warner Brothers; Release date: 2008-09-16; DVD
Best price: $18.79
Price in other shops: $29.98
Saturday Night Live - The Complete Third Season ImageSaturday Night Live - The Complete Third Season
Universal; Release date: 2008-05-13; DVD
Best price: $39.68
Price in other shops: $69.98
Sex and the City - The Movie (Special Edition) ImageSex and the City - The Movie (Special Edition)
Release date: 2008-09-23; DVD
Best price: $17.50
Price in other shops: $34.98
The Muppet Show - The Complete Third Season ImageThe Muppet Show - The Complete Third Season
Buena Vista Home Video; Release date: 2008-05-20; DVD
Best price: $26.26
Price in other shops: $39.99
Compare prices and read customer reviews for more than one million DVD titles.
Oscar 2005 Winners