Click with the Clique

I wonder if anybody remembers the show "Square Pegs"?  I wonder if anybody will admit that they watched it?  With the hoopla and hype over "Sex In The City", I was surprised that I never heard Square Pegs mentioned.  For those of you too young to have watched it, or too old to remember it, Square Pegs was a tv show that aired in 1982.  It only lasted one season.  Sarah Jessica Parker was the star of the show, and played a character named Patty, a freshman at Weemawee High School.  She had long, permed hair and glasses.  She wasn't a nerd, because when I was a freshman, I had long, permed hair and wore glasses, and I was definitely not a nerd.   The show was basically about Patty and her best friend Lauren, and how all they wanted was to be part of the popular clique.  Lauren was always cooking up some crazy scheme that she thought would gain them instant popularity.  Their friends at school were very stereotypical a la sitcoms set in high schools.  Marshall was the class clown, and was the science expert.  One time, he invented a love machine, that would make Patty fall in love with him.  Needless to say, it didn't work.  Johnny Slash was the New Age rocker.  He apparently failed a couple of grades, because he had his driver's license, and drove an old van that had shag carpeting in it.  His hair was bleached blonde, and he had a long tail, which was just starting to gain popularity in the early 80's.  Personally, I never knew anybody who had a tail like that.  If I had, I'm sure I would have been tempted to sneak up behind them and cut it off.  Jennifer was the most popular girl at Weemawee High School, and was the school's resident Valley Girl.  She was a snob, loved to make fun of Patty and Lauren, who would have given their first born male children to be in the clique with her.  Incidentally, Jennifer was played by Tracy Nelson, daughter of the late Ricky Nelson, and sister to Matthew and Gunnar Nelson, aka Nelson.  (I'm sure I'll discuss Nelson in another post.)  My favorite character on Square Pegs was Muffy, the girl who was the chairperson for every committee at Weemawee. She was also constantly raising money to support a Guatamalen child.  Muffy was played by Jamie Gertz, who is the star of the current CBS sit-com, "Still Standing."   The show also had the stereotypical good-looking teacher, Mr. Donovan.  He made the students call him Rob.  I think Rob lived with his girlfriend and her young son.  This was very cutting edge for 1982.   

The theme song for the show was appropiately titled "Square Pegs" and was performed by the group The Waitresses, who categorized themselves as New Wave.  They also had a semi-hit with the song "I Know What Boys Like." The song went something like this: "I know what boys like/I know what guys want/I know what boys like/I've got what boys like."  What lyrical genuises they were.