The Final Episode #40: Pepper Ann (1997 - 2000)

 

This is a good interesting companion piece to my California Dreams thing for one reason. One Saturday Morning was ABC last real chance at keeping Saturday Morning Cartoons a thing. It was well a Disney based thing that started in 1997 and ended in 2002. It was pretty much all Disney stuff so if you liked Disney you were in for a hell of a ride if you weren't you wouldn't care about it. It wasn't just shows either they had bits in between the shows at One Saturday Morning HQ or whatever they called it and stuff like Ms Munger's Class or whatever that was called. I'm pretty sure that show got them into trouble too but I'm sure I'll get into that when I get desperate enough to talk about it in an entire article which yes, WILL happen.

So I must say that I loved the Disney Afternoon and I loved One Saturday Morning. Disney had tweleve years behind them at this point making cartoons for television. They started in 1985 with The Wuzzles and no I won't be spending an entire article talking about The Wuzzles because they fucking suck and I just wish we could say that The Adventures of the Gummi Bears was first. Anyway One Saturday Morning had Recess, Brand Spanking New Doug, 101 Dalmatians: The Series and today's show of discussion Pepper Ann.  I mentioned in the City Guys post how I would go from channel to channel to find something to watch on Saturday Morning, it wasn't the case for One Saturday Morning because I watched that entire 2 hour thing, unless we'd go out to the mall sooner than usual. I'd actually like to see what was on YTV at the time during One Saturday Morning but I have no idea how to get that information on the internet. 

Pepper Ann was created by a lady named Sue Rose, who was the first lady to create a cartoon series for Disney! Cool information huh!? Anyway she was sorta almost famous for this set of commercials or whatever called Fido Dido. I do not remember Fido Dido at all. She would also go on to co-create Angela Anaconda which was a deeply depressing and weird cartoon series. I was not a fan of that show then and I don't think I'll be a fan of it now. Both I believe ran at different times for different channels (Angela Anaconda was on Fox) I don't know for sure but I think Sue Rose put more effort into Pepper Ann 

Pepper Ann was similar to Doug as it was the day to day life of a 12 year old girl named Pepper Ann Pearson, her two friends Nicki and Milo, and her sister Moose (who I no joke thought was a boy until I was at least 23 years old) and the trials and tribulations that went along with it. I now know that portnoyd will trash the show just for this because he was like 38 years old when this show came out. Damn old geezer. Uh, anyway It was a simple fun show with a goofy cast of weirdo characters and some nice down to earth stories. She'd also talk to herself via a mirror and stuff like that. I dunno but it certainly has a Doug vibe to it but I also think its a better show than Doug.

Pepper Ann's final episode has the incredibly creative name of The Finale and came out on November 18th, 2000. It's actually a pretty neat little finale, giving us two stories in one. It takes place now where Pepper Ann is an adult, around 27 years of age seeing as they say this was 15 years after Middle School. She now lives in the far off future time of 2012.. It makes me feel weird and sad that 2012 was almost a decade ago and no we did not get cool floating signs for our towns or flying cars. I'm still fucking pissed that it's 2021 and we don't have flying cars. I WAS PROMISED A FUCKING FLYING CAR BY THE JETSONS  AND BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II AND I WANT MY FUCKING FLYING CAR EVEN THOUGH I DONT DRIVE DAMNIT. IT'S THE FUCKING PRINCIPAL OF THE THING YOU JERK"

Okay with that outburst out of the way Pepper Ann works making EDUCATIONAL video games about diseases and stuff. Her boss says it doesn't have the oomph it needs and I'm like damn thing will never have any oomph because it's an educational video game and the only one of them that was ever any good was Oregon Trail. I mean have you fuckers played Captain Novolin. It will make you want to punch a diabetic person in the face instead of learning about diabetes.

Uh, with that other outburst out the way she gets a letter from her mom about the Middle School reunion. I don't even think that's a thing but whatever. She ends up talking to her new friends about how she isn't going but in the end she goes feeling bad that she didn't keep in contact with Milo and Nikki. The episode also flashes back to the last day of Seventh Grade in which Pepper Ann is reminded of the Year Book and how she looks ridiculous in several pictures which peeves her off. It goes back and forth throughout the episode until she learns the lesson of she should have been happy to just enjoy a day with her friends.

The Future part of the episode has Pepper Ann finding out that they are going to dig up the old Time Capsule (Are these even a thing schools did, I know Saved By the Bell had an ending like that too?) and in it are letters from the kids at 12. Pepper Ann remembers that she talked about all kinds of embarrassing shit about all of her class mates and her two friends because she was mad. She also talked about getting with her crush Craig. They set off a wacky plan to get the letter. Milo would sing to get everyone's attention while Nikki talked to Mark Hammil (who is also the president in 2012. Also Pepper Ann's mom married Alex Trebek. I don't know if that was a running gag that she had a thing for him but I hope it wasn't and they just randomly ened up together because I think thats funnier for some reason)  of course the wacky plan doesn't go as well planned but she still gets the letter (I remember the letter actually getting read out but memory is the smoothest of liars), reconnects with her friends AND maybe ends up with a date with Craig AND has some new ideas for her stupid video game. 

FINAL VERDICT: I had a lot of fun re-watching this show. It was neat to see the characters I enjoyed so long ago in a new light. My favorite character was the fat German kid who is now sleek and svelte. I had forgotten about the two black twins (who are married to a set of twins AND have two sets of twins AND they all have rhyming names and yes they are voiced by Cree Summer. Who the hell else would voice them?). I also don't have anywhere else to post this but I just remember on Jump the Shark some weirdo getting upset about the feminism episode of this show. It's Disney so you know that any take on any issue like that is just "hey woman exist be good to woman" and if you get angry at something that benign I'd hate to see how he thinks about TV of today. Anyway this was a fun rewatch.