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Get your freak (and geek) onBefore Judd Apatow (The 40-Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad) ruled Hollywood with his signature brand of adolescent dude humor, he was producing the less successful, but somewhat-less gender-biased Freaks and Geeks. The show depicted the lives of a group of gawky high school students in 1980. It aired on NBC from 1999-2000. Yes, like many a brilliant dramedy before it, Freaks and Geeks was canceled after just one year.
But what a year it was! Lucky for fans of painfully perceptive shows about the high school experience, Freaks and Geeks, which featured future Apatow mainstays Seth Rogen and Martin Starr, will be reissued in October on DVD in its bonus-filled Yearbook Edition (Shout, $169.99), marking the second time this version of the cult show hits DVD. (Suppose it has something to do with the newfound popularity of Rogen and Starr?) If Apatow’s gross-out humor doesn’t make you chuckle, fear not: Freaks and Geeks was really a vehicle for the underrated Linda Cardellini (Scooby-Doo). Cardellini portrays Lindsay, an honor roll student whose academic decline serves as the show’s backdrop. You know you’re going to see some hellbent teenage rebellion with a show whose opening credits blast Joan Jett & The Blackhearts’ "Bad Reputation."
Lindsay goes from mathlete to slacker during her senior year with the help of best friend Kim (Busy Philipps). With graduation approaching, army jacket-clad Lindsay looks at a future filled with uncertainty. The show’s writers catch every little nuance. The show’s title refers to just how this oddball collection of friends breaks down in the social strata at McKinley High: half are academic, Dungeons & Dragons-playing geeks while the rest are freaks, that is, the kids who dress weird, play the drums, and get crushes on other weirdos. Watching Rogen’s character fall madly for the awkward girl who plays the tuba in the school band brought back a lot of memories for me. I was a freak, a popular one, but nonetheless. Not a week went by that my friends and I, back in the late 1980s, weren’t coloring our hair the various shades of LifeSavers candies and skipping school to hang out in thrift stores. I was voted, in fact, Most Unpredictable at my high school and there I am in the superlative section of my senior yearbook with my Velvet Underground T-shirt on beneath a natty old man blazer I found at the Goodwill. I remember those days fondly, but the hell if I would ever return to them. Something tells me that it was more fun being a freak. I can’t imagine dressing normal, being a cheerleader, or dating jocks. Though I have met plenty of women who did just that and turned out fine. Were you a freak? A geek? Or did you – gasp – fit right in at your high school? Submitted by on June 24, 2008 - 3:00pm. |
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LOVE!
LOVE!
I loved this series! .. and none of my friends seem to have a clue what I'm on about when I mention it,, it seems only me and my Brother saw this in the Uk!
haha
I was one of the freaks with piercings and hair dye kicking in at 13 haha!
I love loveeeeeeeeeeeeee
I love loveeeeeeeeeeeeee Freaks & Geeks. I think it came on dutch television in 2001 or so can't believe it got cancelled how come GOOD shows like this get cancelled and shows like ONE TREE HILL is still on tv:S
Freaks & geeks was real and original
for the record
busy phillips played the character of kim kelly.
millie was played by sarah hagan, who also was in the seventh season of buffy.
freaks and geeks was pretty great. too bad it didn't last longer than one season.
By Starr you mean Segel? :)
By Starr you mean Segel? :)
I dunno
It seems pretty gender biased based on the picture (only one girl and six boys?)
BUT I LOVED THE SHOW. It was on when I was in middle school and a lot of the really awkward moments hit home (not to mention Cardellini is/was cute as hell).
Thanks for the update on the release.
Love this Show!
I just rewatched the whole season on youtube. I think the addition of John Francis Daley on Bones this past season had something to do with that. And I was definetly a glorified geek mixed with a bit of Millie. Honors classes, four years of lunch periods spent in the library. demanding Christian family. I think the only thing that saved me from total "geekdom" was the fact that I was an athlete: basketball player, (MVP 3 times running)
"I don't kiss girls who wear doilies"
Again, AfterEllen, always where the cool is...
Just when I think I can't heart AE any more you post a blog on one of my all-time favourite shows!
Freaks and Geeks was awesome and, dare I say it, still stands as Apatow's greatest work. By a long ol' mile.
I always liked to think there was quite the chemistry between Kim and Lindsay and had my whole own sapphic subtext running alongside the narrative.
Did anyone else clock that? Maybe not. But, like all good lesbians, I can find subtext in just about anything. Seriously, anydamnthing.
This was an amazing show
I was a geek. I love this
I was a geek. I love this show so much, I thought I would faint when I saw it on DVD at a store but instead of swooning I bought the set. Seems to me that I am the only person in Iceland to have watched it, nobody else seems to remember the show.
Also, I think Linda Cardellini was my first crush, something that I didn't realize until recently.
This was one of my favorite
Yay!
I rented the series a few months ago and loved it. I wasn't expecting to see so many faces of my favorite actors so it was an added bonus to watching the show.
I think I was just weird in high school. I was somewhat of a freak because I stuck to myself but all of the popular people knew me (for various reasons). I think I'll say I was a freak.
Another fantastic show cut down in its prime
All the cool shows get cancelled too early! I <3 Freaks and Geeks too. Linda Cardellini is excellent, and I wish I was as cool as Lindsay was when I was in high school—which, um, prolly tells you just how lame I actually was at the time... ;-)
Jessica
--
I am, you know. . . . . . yours.
~sigh~
Geekette
Freaks was excellent. I actually made an effort to watch it so of course it was cancelled. It's not surprising though is it? It's clever, a bit left field, the characters look like normal people and they're "losers" lol. It's no One Tree Hill.
But I always thought Linda Cardellini was cool. I could never see her as a freak or geek.
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