I actually like this much better than I did as a kid when it's deeper more emotional themes and sharply intelligent moments and witty offbeat quirky nuances kind of went over my head for the most part, as well as the easygoing moral and life lessons that were carefully played out for the young audience, but never in a patronising or dumbed-down way, and they never spelled it out for you either, they just let those special rich moments speak for themselves, that was an extreme rarity from a kids show and still is.. I now love how it's a show that could easily be so poignant, funny or bizarre from moment to moment and brilliant juggled all the randomness and varying tones together to create something that was pretty unique, and I think it might have actually got even better with age. My favourite episode would have to be "Hard Days Pete", I thought the idea of the story was fantastic and was beautifully realised, and it was so joyously uplifting and rockin' at the end, and although it's a song that little Pete is desperately looking for in the story, I think the theme of doing almost anything to find a lost feeling or time again is something that's pretty universally relatable to anybody. I didn't think that every last single episode was great, in fact I thought the third season where things seemed to become a bit too kid-oriented and overly-focused on little Pete and his adventures with the extremely annoying Nona, was a slight step in the wrong direction. It wasn't a perfect show but thanks to episodes like "Day of the Dot", which wonderfully brings home a strong nostalgic feeling of the precious moment of youth, "X=Why?", and "Yellow Fever", which brilliantly and hilariously showcases the madness of Bus Driver Stu in one awesomely surreal bus ride, I know that it was definitely a show with something special about it, and I can definitely see why the kids of my generation reacted so strongly to it and love it to this day. I really liked Michael C. Maronna and Danny Tamborelli, both actors were great in very different ways, Maronna had a fantastic voice for the narrations that alone added a lot to the series, what would it have been without his cool words of wisdom, or his relationship with Ellen which was genuinely sweet and I loved that the two of them never actually took their friendship any further and were smart enough to realise that for the moment they were better together as friends. Little Pete was also really good, he was such a cool badass little rebel without to me ever coming off as a brat, and he had a really sharp beyond his years quality about him. I loved all his little swears that weren't really swears but sure sounded very close to them! Both guys had an easy chemistry together that really did make them feel like brothers, and in some short skits that the two have appeared in together in recent years, they've never lost that vibe together, which I find quite amazing. A lot of the time I thought some of the side characters stole the show, I really loved the very handsome Damian Young as the painfully heartbroken and manic busdriver who I thought made every episode he appeared in better. I also liked Rick Gomez a lot as Endless Mike, he always livened things up a lot in his appearances and was just a little too interesting to be classified as a one-dimensional bully - and he was also dead cute! This will make me unpopular but I must say that even as a little kid I never cared for or even got the character of Artie, he just seemed to be too bizarre and cartoony a character for me, a bit too much.. They certainly gave him a fine send off though, as well as quite possibly the best and toughest lesson of the whole show, sometimes as kids we do have to say goodbye to our friends but it doesn't always have to be forever and they're never really gone as long as we remember them. This great series, of two brothers, each in his own way uncovering the great mysteries and adventures of life and meeting a lot of really weird and interesting people while doing it, was one of the most brilliantly-written shows for younger people ever made and you just don't get ones like it anymore, it came from a time when children's programming networks weren't afraid to take chances and try something new and you can feel that creative freedom in every episode. It got in, was funny, entertaining, was much deeper and smarter than it seemed on the surface, it was around long enough to make it's young fans love and remember it, and it got out before it lost its magic or overstayed its welcome. It didn't always do everything right but it didn't need to, it had its sweet heart in the right place and I wouldn't have had it any other way. Classic nostalgia magic. X
