SEASON 1 – CBS
Theme song composed and performed by The Waitresses, and narration by Amy Linker and Sarah Jessica Parker
- 001 – Pilot (aka Square Pegs) – 9/27/1982
- Patty Green (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Lauren Hutchinson (Amy Linker) are two freshmen attending Weemawee High School, presumably on the outskirts of New York City, both desiring to become popular in school, although Lauren is more intent on achieving it. They meet and befriend fellow misfits new-wave rocker Johnny “Slash” Ulasewicz (Merritt Butrick) and wanna-be comedian and impressionist Marshall Blechtman (John Femia). They are immediately shunned and ridiculed by Valley Girl Jennifer DiNuccio (Tracy Nelson), her boyfriend Vinnie Pasetta (Jon Caliri), and her black friend LaDonna Fredericks (Claudette Wells). The pushy Muffy Tepperman (Jami Gertz) leads the school on spirit activities. When Patty finds out that Jennifer would be willing to leave Vinnie for senior Larry Simpson (Ben Marley), she sees dating him as the perfect way to get into a popular clique. He is very kind to her and tells her that he’ll see her at the upcoming Freshman Dance. Johnny and Marshall accompany the girls to the dance, with the agreement that they stay six paces behind them. When Larry arrives he dances with Patty, but has to break it to her that he is already involved with a college girl. Lauren takes delight in telling Jennifer that she won’t have to leave Vinnie now that they’ve found out that Larry is already taken. The Waitresses appears as themselves (led by Patty Donahue) at the dance performing I Know What Boys Like and Square Pegs. Basil Hoffman is Principal Dingleman. David Hubbard is Steve Griffin. Carol Androsky is the gym teacher. 11/15/14
- 002. A Cafeteria Line – 10/4/1982
- Lauren convinces Patty to try out for the school play A Cafeteria Line, directed by the flamboyant Mr. Jon Michael Spacek (Craig Richard Nelson). Marshall’s impressions, LaDonna’s poetry, and Jennifer’s lament over her melted make-up fail to impress him. But he likes Patty’s painful monologue about her glasses, Vinnie’s singing of New York, New York, and Johnny’s angst. Johnny however prefers to work backstage. Patty and Vinnie end up with the leads, and pretty soon sparks are flying, and Vinnie invites her to see his old paper route. Jennifer gets upset that she is momentarily without a boyfriend, so she turns to Lauren, Johnny, and Marshall for advice. They are depressed over ‘losing’ Patty from their group, so Lauren advises that she run to Vinnie and ask to see his paper route. This works, and they end up leaving Patty to walk home alone. Still the play is a success and Patty’s performance and vocal solo are acclaimed. Johnny’s is downtrodden that his work with the props wasn’t mentioned in the paper. Karen Armstrong is Cindy. 11/16/14
- 003. Pac Man Fever – 10/11/1982
- Muffy arranges to have video games put in the cafeteria as a fund raiser for Guatemalan children. When Marshall sees how much his playing impresses girls, he becomes quickly addicted to Pac Man and can think of nothing else. Vinnie can’t seem to beat Marshall, and he too becomes obsessed with practicing in order to defeat him, completely ignoring Jennifer. Patty, Lauren, and Slash scheme with Jennifer to have her seduce Marshall to get his mind off of Pac Man, but Marshall only asks her for her quarters. Jennifer convinces Vinnie’s Uncle Sal (Allan Rich), who supplied the games, to remove them as it is threatening Vinnie’s focus. Meanwhile, Slash gets Father Guido Sarducci (as himself, Don Novello) to visit Marshall, which finally takes his mind off the game. All is well, but when Ms. Pac Man shows up at the Acropolis Diner, aka The Grease, it looks like Lauren might become addicted. 12/21/14
- 004. Square Pigskins – 10/18/1982
- Teacher Ms. Allison Loomis (Catlin Adams) organizes a female football team at Weemawee. Lauren is anxious to join, thinking it could help her meet boys, and she drags Patty along. LaDonna hopes to parlay a football career into product endorsements, so she is the most enthusiastic, dragging Jennifer along, who thinks it might help her get out of homework from their militant ex-Army math teacher Osgood Murphy (Donovan Womack). Muffy is only interested in naming the team The Squaws. They face off against a much bigger team and lose miserably during their first game. LaDonna is the most upset, although the other team offers to let her join them. When everyone apologizes to her for not trying, she decides to stay on with Weemawee. 12/22/14
- 005. Halloween XII – 11/1/1982
- Principal Dingleman cancels Weemawee’s Halloween party when Muffy overspends on the decorations. She talks Ms. Loomis into having a party at her house and then makes it a slumber party without telling her. Patty, Lauren, Muffy, Jennifer, and LaDonna all show up, but Patty and Lauren feel like outcasts there as well, especially when their new nightgowns match Ms. Loomis’. Meanwhile, an unknown stalker in a mask watches Vinnie and his friends toilet paper the Acopolis Lunchenette as well as the slumber party. The girls play a game called Lemon Squeezing, where the girls air their grievances about one another. They become scared when they feel they’re being watched. Soon Marshall and Johnny crash the party, followed by Vinnie. And yet still the stalker remains…and it ends up being Principal Dingleman who just wanted to punish Vinnie for his toilet papering job. Patty and Lauren get credit from Jennifer for being the bravest ones at the party. 2/7/15
- 006. A Simple Attachment – 11/8/1982
- Marshall is crazy about Lauren, but she doesn’t return the feelings. He plans to enter a phony contraption called a Love Detector that he bought into the Science Fair. The plan is to have Lauren test it and hopes the needle moves when his name is mentioned. He introduces it to the class as his own invention, but before Lauren can test it, Vinnie hooks Jennifer up to it, and asks about some senior boys who make him jealous, and the machine lights up. She hooks him up in return and mentions her own name, to which nothing happens. This causes a rift between them, and the entire class becomes angry at Marshall, who has nightmares about the class stalking him. Vinnie and Marshall rig the machine to make it go off at their will, and Vinnie convinces Jennifer that he does love her. But even when he makes the machine go off for Lauren, she says the machine means nothing and love is actually a feeling of the heart. He uses her theory to debunk the machine for the class. 2/7/15
- 007. Weemaweegate – 11/15/1982
- Patty and Lauren’s journalism teacher, the former hippie Rob Donovan (Steven Peterman) inspires them to dig deep to come up with a story worthy of the Watergate reporting. Since the current school mascot has been caught absconding with funds, Muffy conducts an election for the new Weemawee Indian. Vinnie is nominated by LaDonna and is nearly the only candidate until Marshall nominates Johnny. Patty and Lauren come to suspect that Marshall is sabotaging Vinnie’s campaign by putting up insulting posters, adding weight to his barbells during a demonstration, and putting a whoopie cushion under him during the assembly. It turns out that the culprit is actually unmasked during the assembly, and it is Vinnie’s girlfriend Jennifer who doesn’t want other girls admiring him in the skimpy Indian costume. Johnny wins the election and takes his duties seriously by dressing in full-throttle Indian garb every day. 3/19/15
- 008. Open 24 Hours – 11/22/1982
- During Careers Week at school, Principal Dingleman lambasts Johnny for thinking that being in a rock band is a viable career, remembering his own career as leader of the Dingletoons. Marshall assures Dingleman that Johnny will be headlining a concert before Careers Week is up. Meanwhile Lauren tries to guide Patty into becoming a famous writer, offering the suggestion that she die young. Marshall gets Marshall a gig at a grocery store deli counter with the stipulation that he sing a jingle advertising Chunks n’ Franks but gets frustrated when Johnny cannot come up with a band, which includes trying to land former Doors drummer John Densmore (himself) or finish his song I’m Tired. Marshall helps him find some band members, arranges for Dingleman to be at the grocery store for the concert, while Patty helps Johnny finish his song using one of her poems, and Densmore finally comes through. Johnny names his band Open 24 Hours and they have a successful performance and Muffy offers them a gig at a rest home, while Dingleman admits they did a great job, although Johnny is no Fabian. 3/19/15
- 009. Muffy’s Bat Mitzvah – 11/29/1982
- Lauren and Patty desperately want to get into Muffy’s exclusive New Wave themed Bat Mitzvah because it promised to be a stellar social event since she has managed to book the New Wave band Devo (themselves: Bob Casale, Gerald V. Casale, Mark Mothersbaugh, Robert Mothersbaugh). Likewise, Marshall and especially Johnny wants to get in to see the band. Muffy claims that fire code limits how many she can invite, but when Devo cancels for a gig on Saturday Night Live, Lauren and Patty convince her that Johnny’ s new band Open 48 Hours – renamed because now they’re ‘twice as good’ – would be a suitable substitute. Johnny agrees to play with the condition that Lauren and Patty can come along. When they get there, they find out that Devo has been bumped from their gig and are going to show up, Muffy scratches Marshall’s band. However Devo’s sound man is sick, and Johnny is the only one who can operate the sound board. Devo performs That’s Good, and after their performance, Johnny’s band performs Get Back to Me as the janitor sweeps up. DJ Richard Blade appears as himself. Muffy’s parents Alan and Brenda are William Bogert and Marj Dusay. Rabbi Kaplan is played by Walter Gertz. 6/15/15
- 010. Hardly Working – 12/13/1982
- Despite the crowds at The Grease, Jennifer starts talking about how uncool the place is and storms out. Patty and Lauren try to find out where the new cooler place is but end up finding out that Jennifer’s father is falling on hard times and has forced her to work at The Grease as a waitress… which greatly embarrasses Vinnie. Patty and Lauren try to protect Jennifer’s reputation, but they are overheard by Muffy, who then tries to organize a benefit on Jennifer’s behalf, with Marshall ready to act as M.C. of the ‘telethon’ roast. Patty and Lauren convince Johnny to talk Marshall out of the job, but they can’t stop Muffy from making a big presentation out of giving Jennifer a check for $87. Jennifer ends up getting fired, but then her father’s business picks up and she is back to old, rude self. 6/15/15
- 011 & 012 – Child’s Christmas in Weemawee – 12/20/1982
- As the Christmas holiday approaches, Muffy has assembled a Small World’s Children Choir who sing around the school for donations, and she has also organized a gift exchange. Patty struggles with knowing what to get LaDonna, who refers to her as ‘the fat girl’s friend’. Johnny struggles with what to get “Fennifer,” and ends up getting her a live turtle. Lauren has scoped out all of the upcoming Christmas parties in the area and plans to crash them with Lauren over the holiday break. Vinnie is planning a New Year’s Eve party, and he invites Lauren and Patty to attend; Jennifer surprisingly invites Johnny. Mr. Spacek and the lonely Ms. Loomis arrange a horrific Christmas play in which Lauren will play Santa Claus and Marshall will be an elf, and Johnny will be the head reindeer. Patty’s father Ed (Tony Dow) also informs her that since the divorce he has not been spending much time with her, so Patty’s mother is allowing him to take her ice fishing over the Christmas holiday. Patty is torn between hurting her father and wanting to spend her break having fun with Lauren. On the way to lake, she breaks down tells her father that he is completely out of touch with her current life. He takes the hint and agrees to visit with her periodically over the break but lets her return home. She shows up at the class party to everyone’s delight. LaDonna likes her gift, the Ella Fitzgerald Songbook. Mr. Spacek invites Ms. Loomis to join him and his wife for Christmas dinner. Anne Beatts is Miss Rezucha. NOTE: This episode originally aired as a single one-hour episode. 8/6/15
- 013. It’s All How You See Things – 12/27/1982
- Patty is tired of wearing her glasses, so she decides to take them off for the day, which causes her to stumble into Lauren at Muffy’s Roman bake sale and cause her to break her leg. Patty then gets irritated when Lauren keeps getting attention for her broken leg and appears to become friends with Jennifer and LaDonna. However, LaDonna is just using Lauren to get her to convince Marshall to let LaDonna have a crack at DJing the school radio station. LaDonna gets the job, but then decides to give it up when she realizes that the ‘radio station’ is nothing more than the school P.A. system. After Johnny convinces Patty that there is nothing wrong with her glasses, she returns to Lauren’s side to be her best friend again. 11/12/15
- 014. Merry Pranksters – 1/10/1983
- Patty and Lauren admire the fact that Vinnie commits funny pranks without thinking and believe that if they do the same thing it will boost their popularity. Attempts to drop their books at the same time in class and placing a classified ad selling the school in the newspaper both fall flat. They begin spray painting graffiti on the school walls each night, but all the ‘credit’ end up going to Vinnie, who accepts the fifteen-day suspension given to him by Principal Dingleman because he wants to join Jennifer, who is out of school with mono. Patty and Lauren confess their crimes to a disbelieving Dingleman, only proving their guilty by turning over their red spray paint. They are sentenced to two weeks as hall monitors, but it does nothing to improve their popularity. 11/12/15
- 015. It’s Academical – 1/24/1983
- With Principal Dingleman gone for vacation and Mr. Donovan filling in, the school hosts TV show It’s Academical host Dan Vermillion (Martin Mull). He requests three students from Weemawee to go head-to-head with students from rival school Henry Wadworth Longfellow Tech on the next show. Dingleman tells Donovan to pick the three students with the highest grades, which turns out to be Patty, Muffy, and Patty’s heartthrob Larry Donvan. Muffy also had eyes for Larry, who is recently single, and tries to get alone time with him to form a team strategy. Lauren advises Patty not to act too smart around Larry, as she won’t want to be seen as being overly intelligent. Patty tries to act dumb, but Larry assures her that he is attracted to intelligence. When the show airs, Weemawee and Longellow reach a ties score, but Muffy’s over-zealousness causes them to lose. Larry ends up asking out Mary Bolton (Denise Halma), the girl from Longellow who gave the most correct answers. Meanwhile Vinnie tries his best to get on Vermillion’s other show Dance Mall Fever. Jon Lindstrom plays Reed Kendall, the other speaking member of Longellow’s team. 1/10/16
- 016. The Stepanowicz Papers – 1/31/1983
- When the school janitor Mr. Stepanowicz (Hugh Gillin) has a heart attack, his attractive son Steve (Robin Strand) fills in for him at the school and immediately becomes the object of Lauren’s affection. She begins to obsessively stalk him and keep track of every word he utters to her and carry it in a file, even though Lauren tries to convince her that she is going overboard. Biology teacher Ms. Loomis also seems to be vying for Steve’s affections. Patty is supposed to be watching Lauren’s file when Jennifer and Donna go through it and find it hilarious that Lauren is in love with a janitor. Marshall is crushed when he hears, and Lauren is furious with Patty and thinks she double-crossed her on purpose. With Ms. Loomis by her side, Lauren finally professes her feelings to Steve while he is working in the ceiling, only to find that it is his father, who has returned from work. Later she sees the Steve, and again attempts to approach him, but he has no idea who she is. Patty is there for her to talk to and the two reconcile. 1/10/16
- 017. To Serve Weemawee All My Days – 2/7/1983
- Lauren has a big crush on Mr. Donovan, and everyone enjoys his unconventional teaching style, but when it becomes exposed that he is living with his girlfriend who has a child, Muffy takes it to her father who is on the school board, which threatens his job. Muffy also starts a Morals Club and tries to gather signatures to have Donovan fired. Mr. Dingleman plans to play golf with the president of the school board and give his recommendation, which does not appear to be favorable. Donovan returns to a more boring conventional teaching method, but Patty and Lauren stand up to Muffy and try to convince Donovan that he shouldn’t give in. When Donovan then decides to quit, Patty and Lauren organize a sit-in that Jennifer, Vinnie, and LaDonna all participate in. When Donovan hears that he’s reached many of the kids – including Jennifer – he joins the sit-in and eventually convinces Dingleman to side with him against with the school board. Donovan announces that he is going to get married, which Lauren finally accepts… and begins to plan for her job as a bridesmaid. 3/17/16
- 018. No Substitutions – 2/14/1983
- With Ms. Loomis away at a conference, substitute teacher Jack McNulty (Bill Murray) takes over the class with even more bizarre and unconventional ways than Mr. Donovan. The lesson he teaches is about marriage so he pairs up classmates with mock spouses: Muffy with Johnny, Marshall with Jennifer, and Vinnie with Lauren. He lets some be single including LaDonna, who will act as a widow, and initially Patty, but then offers to be her mock husband himself. Lauren becomes jealous of all of the attention McNulty is giving Lauren, and Mr. Donovan becomes jealous that McNulty’s popularity is surpassing his own. When he shows up late for their ‘Divorce Court’ and then Patty finds out that McNulty’s real job is acting, she becomes disillusioned with him. However he explains that the nature of the marriage exercise proved how difficult it is to get along with a partner for four days, much less for a lifetime. McNulty says goodbye and invites the kids to tune in to his upcoming commercial about Bolivia. 3/20/16
- 019. No Joy in Weemawee – 2/21/1983
- Mr. Donovan is coaching the school baseball team the Weemawee Braves, with Vinnie as the star pitcher. When Vinnie taunts Johnny to try and hit one of his pitches, Johnny surprises everyone by repeatedly hitting homeruns over the fence. Patty starts writing an article for the school paper about Johnny, who becomes more and more popular. Meanwhile Muffy convinces Jennifer to join the cheerleading squad in order to show her support of Vinnie, which she unenthusiastically does. Johnny’s streak attracts the interest of the Los Angeles Dodgers (themselves) and the prior year’s Rookie of the Year Steve Sax (himself) to come and see Johnny. Lauren fantasizes about Steve, while Patty fantasizes about interviewing him and Marshall dreams of managing and becoming rich. However, when the Braves play an away game, Johnny can’t handle it and strikes out. Jennifer gets frustrated with cheering and quits, prompting a fight between her and Muffy. Marshall, Patty, and Mr. Donovan assure Johnny that they might have pushed him too far, and he acknowledges that he won’t be able to play baseball away from Weemawee. 6/21/16
- 020. The Arrangement – 3/7/1983
- Patty and Lauren are still holding out to be popular, and mainly to get invited to the party in Vinnie’s basement to celebrate his six-month anniversary with Jennifer. Unable to secure an invitation, they promise to spend that Friday night with Johnny and Marshall watching the Doug Henning Special and The Mysterians. However, when Vinnie is in danger of failing a math test, which would cause his parents to cancel the party, Jennifer and LaDonna turn to Patty to tutor him without him knowing it. Patty agrees if they will start treating her and Lauren like humans… and invite them to the party. With their plans cancelled, Marshall and Johnny talk Muffy into letting them come with her to the party so they can act as her soundman for her live radio gossip broadcast from the party. Patty doesn’t tell Lauren about the arrangement, so Lauren is ecstatic that she is being treated so well by the popular crowd. Vinnie passes his test, and the party is a success with the band Jimmy and the Mustangs (themselves) performing. Jennifer gets irritated by Marshall and Johnny being at the party, and Patty is forced to tell Lauren about the arrangement. Patty and Lauren leave with Johnny and Marshall to go watch TV, but they are surprised when DJ Richard Blade and the band show up to visit them, having been friends with Johnny. Meanwhile Marshall is irritated that Johnny got chosen to be a Nielsen ratings family and insists that he take the job seriously. 6/20/16
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