No Filler Music Podcast - And We Were So Small: The Music of Polaris

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

With Miracle Legion's future in limbo after legal troubles with their label at the time, Mark Mulcahy came up with a new name for the group (and alter egos for each band member) when they were approached by Will McRobb to write songs and appear in his upcoming Nickelodeon project. The show was of course The Adventures of Pete and Pete. Not only did they appear in the opening credits and write the theme song for the show, Polaris also played a heavy role in an episode all about discovering your favorite song at a young age. We talk about what an amazing television network Nickelodeon was and how fortunate we feel to have grow up in the 90s, and how Polaris and the music of Pete and Pete played such a big role in shaping our taste in music. Tracklist: Hey Sandy Saturnine Everywhere (as featured in S1E1 "King of the Road") Summerbaby (as featured in S1E13 "Hard Day's Pete") Recently This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And I'm all smiles, dude. All ready. Today we are covering Polaris and the music from the Adventures of Pete and Pete. And that, of course, was the intro to the beloved TV series, Trev. And I mean, seriously, every time, dude, it puts a big smile on my face. Yeah, I think more so than any, just about any song. Like, a rush of nostalgia always hits me like goosebumps and everything, especially when you watch the, when you watch the intro too, which is what we were doing.

Right there, we had the YouTube clip pulled up. Yeah, I mean, music has the ability to transport you, right, back to a moment. And that particular song always takes me back to our childhood, right? Because in a lot of ways, like Polaris was the first rock band, perhaps, that we had exposure to. I mean, aside from like listening to music, you know, that our dad would play us or something like that, that was like a band that you saw every time you saw an episode of Pete and Pete, they're out there on the front lawn, you know, rocking out. So like we're seeing the drum and the guitar close up.

We're seeing their like grungy-looking alt-rock hairstyles. Yeah. Back then in the early 90s, you know, it wasn't as easy to, you know, watch clips of your favorite band performing. So, like you were saying, that's like the first band that we actually got to see perform in a way, right? I think it was the first band that we probably felt a little bit of like ownership of or something like that, you know, where it's like, this is our rock band. now. Yeah. Yeah. So interesting, dude. And that's why you really can't talk about this band and Pete and Pete without talking about the network that green lit it, right, which is Nickelodeon. So we're going to spend some time in this episode talking about how amazing that network was and, you know, how the people

at the top of the network, the president at the time, understood like the importance of not talking at kids, right, but like speaking their language, right? Yeah. That's what made it such a incredible network. And we were too young to realize how amazing it was, right? Because it was just there. Like, yeah, this is the kids network that we watched. Right. We always had it. These are the shows that we're getting to see, right? But like, when you reflect back on it as an adult, it's amazing that it even happened. And the way that they went about it is like, it's unbelievable, dude. So we'll talk about that a little bit too. But so yeah, coming off of last week, We talked about a band called Miracle Legion, and we talked about how Miracle Legion essentially

had put out a few albums and they had done, you know, some personnel change, if you will. They switched out their bass player and drummer before they made their album drenched. And then they had some record label trouble right around the same time that the creator of the Adventures of Pete and Pete, whose name is Will McRob, approached Mark Malkahehy of Miracle Legion to see if the band Miracle Legion could appear on the show and write music for the show, right? And, you know, even though the band wasn't really together anymore, and like we said last week, for some reason, they couldn't use the name Miracle Legion because of this feud with the record label.

So he came up with another band name and the other guitar player, Ray Neal, was just like, no, I'm done, man. I'm done with this music business, right? So he didn't join. But the other two guys did. And so what we end up with and who you see in the introduction of the TV show playing in the front lawn is hilarious. And that is, you know, the three guys. Mark Mulcahy, of course, singer, guitar player. and then you had Dave McCaffrey on bass and Scott Boutier on drums.

So that is Polaris. And the funny thing is they even came up with TV names. So Mulcahye went by Muggy. Boutier was Jersey. And McCaffrey was Harris Polaris. So they came up with like TV personas. I was curious, Travis. I don't know if you looked into this or not, but Will McRob was a fan, right?

Yeah, he was a fan of Miracle Legion. And kind of as we talked about last week, the reason that they're such a perfect match for a show like P&P is because of the like the themes that Mark would write about. And a lot of times it was about these really deep childhood memories that we all kind of have, right? Like collectively. Right. And P&P is a show about growing up, right? I have a quote here from Will McRob, the creator of the show. He said, I think the goal of Pete and Pete was to tell a story the way kids tell stories where it's just one big stream of consciousness, a burst of images and half-completed thoughts that underneath it all was a layer of deep nostalgia.

But on top of that, it was sort of filtered through a very fractured mindset of the narrator. Dude, I love that. So I rewatched a handful of the episodes from the first season. And that's what stood out to me the most. I mean, honestly, not something that I noticed really when I was a kid, but these stories are told. So the narrator is older Pete, right? The older of the two Pete's, the brothers. And he's the narrator, a faithful narrator as far as like what's what's going on in the story.

But the way that it's showed to us, it's almost like, you know, how you, you like, exaggerate details of a story when you retell it. Yeah. It's like you're seeing the exaggerated version of the stories. Yeah, the story that you're seeing is Big Pete's recollection of it. Yeah, what a great idea, dude. Like, you know, there's Artie, right? The town superhero. Yeah, he's, you know, and a lot of people think that he was just a figment of their imagination, right?

Either that or he, you know, he was just a weird dude in spandex. But when you watch the show, he really is the superhero of their town. Because it's told through the lens of, you know, a kid. So cool, man. Yeah. Understanding the show helps you appreciate the music that Paleris was writing, right? Because the music is written for the show, right? And apparently the way that it would go down, I've got a quote here from Mulcahai.

He said, and I guess he's referring to the network, but really it's probably like Will and maybe the director or something like that. He said, they never asked me to write lyrics they wanted. They just tell me to write about something. something like a breakup or, you know, like a sad song. He says, I really learned a lot about what I could do and I wish I could do more of it because it was really interesting and enjoyable. That is kind of interesting, right? Because like if you're a rock star, the way that he's probably used to operating in Miracle Legion is,

you know, nobody's telling him how to write music for Miracle Legion, right? Right. There is no like prompt. But I probably made it kind of a fun challenge, right? Because it's like, well, I don't have to think about what this song is about, right? This is going to be a song about breakup. Okay. Let me just start writing that.

Oh, this is going to be a sad song. Okay, cool. Well, let me just knock that out. He can go into it knowing like, you know, and we can kind of write this through the lens of, you know, a kid going through heartbreak or whatever or crushing hard on a girl. Yeah. And what I appreciate about Will and the rest of the creators and stuff is that like he said there, they never gave him lyrics, you know.

They trusted the band enough to be like breakup, right? They just threw a word at them. give me a song about breakup and then went away and knew how important it was not to interfere with the rock band's process here. Yeah. What's great about this band is that there's nothing childish about these songs. It's not like it's Baby Shark, right? You know what I mean?

Like, it's just a rock band that did music for a kids TV show. But in the 90s, like, alt rock and all that stuff was so much a part of, like, pop culture and stuff like that, that like it just worked. I feel like it wouldn't work right now. I mean, I guess you can maybe get like a pop star to do some music. I mean, look at Disney, right? All they did was have these super manufactured pop stars both appear in the TV show and then write music that they would also profit off of like Hannah Montana and all that stuff, right?

Oh, yeah, definitely. But that's not what this was at all, right? This was just, hey, I know this band Miracle Legion. I love them. I'm going to have them write music for my show. And that speaks to how Nickelodeon was at the time. Exactly, dude, because they let it happen. They didn't interfere with it.

They trusted it. And they let shows be written that didn't, like, talk down to the kids. Exactly, dude. That's what it's all about, man. And that's what made them such an amazing network because they did it differently than any other child, like children's network ever did. Because typically, like, prior to Nickelodeon kind of finding its groove and stuff, kids shows were always like educational you know what i mean like right or just you know don't do drugs or

whatever right and so the entertainment wasn't actually like for us you know or like it was it was not speaking our language and nicolodeon knew how to speak the language of what it was like to be a kid you know what i mean then p and pete did that beautifully because it told stories the way that we tell stories. Anyway, all right, so one thing I noticed, I watched a couple of episodes. You can find all of them on YouTube, by the way, but I watched the first and second episode. And I noticed, because I was listening for the Polaris stuff, basically, Will McRob would have, like, you know, these songs to pool from and just kind of throw in here and there. And for example, episode one, there's just maybe 10 seconds of the guitar riff from Shea is Staggering, which is track two,

just in the background. But snippets did. Like if he said, give me a sad song, well, then he could throw that guitar riff anywhere that needed like a sad song in the background, right? Yeah, I noticed that too. Yeah, so it's basically, it's almost like, and this is going to be a weird example,

but you know how in Star Wars, Luke has his theme song, right? It's almost like this was the theme song for Big Pete, you know, and his love interest, whoever it was at the time. Because in episode one, it was that girl in the rival car. Yeah, right, right. Episode one is called King of the Road.

And basically, you know, the family jumps into their station wagon and heads to Hoover Dam. And the dad comes across this other station wagon. They basically end up in a competition. Yeah, because he claims to be like King of the Road, right? Their dad is like, I, you know, look at my rig. I've got everything security. cured properly. We're going to get there in record time. And then this like perfect family shows up at this like rest stop where they're eating at. And there's a girl and there's two

girls instead of two boys, right? And Big Pete sort of becomes infatuated with the girl, right? And then in the next episode, he is fawning over Ellen again and they play that same song in the background, right? So it's kind of interesting how they used the music. But as we'll talk about later, the music also plays a huge part more prominently, I guess, in certain episodes, which we'll get to. But yeah, let's play a tune here. So here is a song called Saturnine. You found the earth.

Let's go. That's only roses in here. Great song, dude. I love that that one's, you know, a bit more lively and playful than some of the stuff we heard last week. The music is very, very similar to their miracle. and stuff, but they had to at some level realize that, like, this is going to be played for a TV, a children's TV show, right?

So I think lyrically, there are similarities because he would naturally write about nostalgic things that we can all relate to from our childhood. But yeah, I think the lyrics are a little bit more like simplified. They're not necessarily as deep. But aside from that, I love their style, man. Yeah, I love it. I actually, I prefer the Polaris stuff over the Miracle. and stuff. Well, and again, dude, like, hard to imagine music like this being played in a kids show

now, right? And I don't watch kids TV, but from what I've seen, dude, like, the live action shows that are coming out now for kids are just, there's no subtleties about any of it. It's all just extreme, like, wacky stuff. There's no, like, realness to kids shows now. Yeah, and that's what made Pete and Pete so special, right? Because like, again, Nickelodeon gave control over to the creators of these shows, right? Right. They didn't interfere with it. They trusted them. And that's why we got music from an alternative rock band, you know, as the official house band of the show. Yeah, and like, you know, what was happening in 93, right, was like rock and roll was dominant in the pop culture because of the grunge movement and stuff like that.

So, you know, it's not really a surprise, I guess, that they would allow. And again, allow isn't the right word because they really did sort of step away and let the creators kind of do what they wanted to for these shows. But like, it's not a surprise that this happens when you think about what was happening like on the larger scale of like pop culture, right? But it's, dude, it's amazing to think about us as fans of rock music. We were seven. Yeah, I guess we didn't really mention it.

aired officially November 28th of 1993. Yeah. And I doubt we tuned in now. We were only six. But by the time we, you know, this was playing reruns for, for years,

right? So by the time we tuned into it, we were the perfect age for all of this, right? Now, by the time the last season came out, which was in 95, I mean,

we were the perfect age. Yeah. And I remember watching that first episode at some point. Oh, yeah. The road trip episode. Yeah. What a great episode, man.

And speaking of that episode, So we're going to, the next song we're going to play, what we're going to do for this one. So this song actually plays a little bit more of a role like in the episode. Yeah, he's kind of mentioning it in a way. Yeah, he mentions it as if it's a song that he's hearing on the radio at the time. So I synced up the song with the scene so that we can play a little bit more of the song than what's featured in the episode. but we'll also have Big Pete's narration

overlaid over the song as the song plays in the episode. So this is actually the next track on the album. This song is called Everywhere. I can try to heart my time. Censor everything. Why is it that when you miss someone so much that your heart is ready to disintegrate? that you always hear the saddest song ever on the radio.

I wondered, was she out there somewhere listening to the same song? And if she was, was she thinking of... Great song, man. Yeah, really good. And I love the clip from that episode because everybody can relate to that. Oh, yeah, dude. You know, he was saying, like, why is it that anytime you miss somebody, you hear the saddest song on the radio.

And then he says, I wonder if she's out there hearing the same song and thinking of me. Yeah, man. Which is, you know, a very kind of like, innocent sort of like look at,

you know, the reason I say innocent was because, um, music, you know, and love are so freaking intertwined, dude. I remember when I,

you know, my very first like infatuation and relationship with somebody in high school, like you start to hear different things in a song. You know what I mean? You start to interpret lyrics in a way that suddenly it's like, I know what the song means now, dude, because I'm in love, you know?

Yeah, dude. It's almost like for me, anytime like, if I get like a new car or something, I'll notice that car on the road everywhere. Right. Sure, yeah. It's just like. Nothing's changed. It's just that you notice things,

bit differently when your circumstances change. And when you fall in love, dude, every song that you hear is a love song or you can find a way to tie it back to the feelings that you're experiencing. Yeah. And so like in the story, like he's literally talking about a girl that he saw for 30 seconds at some truck stop. Yeah, they had like a brief conversation and he is immediately like head over heels. Yeah, exactly.

And so now he's like, he's hearing sad songs on the radio. He's thinking about her. Is she thinking about me? You know, things that, you know, emotions and feelings that we've all gone through as young, young people in love, right? Yeah. And it's great that not only was that just a song playing in the background, but that was the song that was playing on the radio. So this song, it may show up in other episodes. I'm not sure.

But it is, when you hear it, it's the perfect, like, melancholy song, right? of like, I'm bummed out, you know, I'm thinking about this girl. And wouldn't you know it, this song shows up on the radio. Right, exactly. Anyway, I love that. So that's episode one, you know, and there's Polaris on the radio, right? And let me just say, dude, I love that episode one was about a road trip to the Hoover Dam. We have taken that family road trip, man.

Yeah, right. Exactly. Exactly. And I love all the shenanigans that go down in the car in that episode. They're playing like roadkill dingo and stuff like that. So great, dude. Anyway, all right. Now here is one of the greatest TV scenes of all time.

There is it. It's a little bit of an exaggeration, but this scene and this song we're going to play, I think is the perfect scene to describe how music was such an important part of this TV show. and the stories that this guy was telling through this show and how anybody who is a fan of rock in particular can relate to this scene and it should frickin' stop in your tracks, you know, can give you goosebumps, dude. Yeah, this scene's great, man. Go to YouTube and search for Pete and Pete and then in quotes Hard Days Pete,

which is obviously a play on the Beatles song, Hard Days Night. and you will find a video uploaded by yours truly, Travis Helf. Uploaded in 2009 to YouTube, thankfully it's never been taken down. Back in the New Dust Days, man. But yeah, I created this clip and uploaded it to YouTube so that I could use it on a post that I was doing about Polaris on our music blog, right? Because I wanted to show this scene to talk about it. This is a scene in the show where Polaris is actually. in the scene in a big way, right?

And it's also worth noting that they invited Ray Neal to join them in the scene. So even though he's not technically a part of Polaris, he is in this scene playing guitar. Nice. So in a way, this is Miracle Legion, right? In a way. So they're a band practicing in a garage. Yeah. So to set the scene, Little Pete is riding his bike around, and he stumbles upon this band.

and in a garage playing a song. That's kind of all you need to know, right? And everything about this scene is fucking perfect, dude. And the song featured here in this scene is called Summer Baby. If he had had just an extra two minutes to get to school, none of what happened would have happened. But I guess fate has a way of putting you in the right place at just the right time. As he raced towards school, a strange new feeling raced through him, and suddenly it hit him.

It wasn't supposed to happen. He wasn't supposed to care. But as the feeling blasted through his heart, he knew nothing could ever be the same. He had a favorite song, a song he could call his own. Perfect, dude. Love it. It's so great. I love Little Pete's face, like, as he's watching him.

He's got this little smile on. And he's like kind of nodding his head along to the music and just like getting into it. Right. And so the scene is like, you know, he hears the band. He starts driving, you know, start to run his bike down the alleyway and then he stumbles upon him. Basically, they're putting on a private concert for him. That's kind of how it feels like right to him. Yeah, yeah.

Garage door is open and they're jamming. And then like he's connecting with Mark or Muggy, I think. This is his Pilaras name. And he sort of like gives him this nod. Mark as he's rocking out. And so it's one of those things where it's like, everybody remembers their first concert, if you're a fan of rock music in particular,

and feeling like you're connected to the band in a way that you don't feel when you're just listening to it on a CD or something. And so Little Pete is having that moment for the first time. And then as he's riding away, he starts humming the song. He's trying to keep it in his head. And then Big Pete, who's narrating, is saying, hey, you know, like, this wasn't supposed to happen, you know, like, he wasn't supposed to

feel this way, but like he, he suddenly had a favorite song for the first time. A song he can call his own. Yeah, Little Pete's first favorite song, right? Yeah. And apparently the rest of the episode, I haven't seen this one in a while, but he spends the rest of the show trying to play the song from memory. So, like, he forms a band with his friends and they're trying to recreate the song. That's awesome. as fans of rock music like this should speak to you right of like that feeling and that personal connection that you can have with music right and how there's nothing like it right yeah and dude what an awesome song too man that might be one of my favorite polaris songs that's a it's a

great song yeah no doubt now um the the the record version is different than this version which I think is interesting because people were pointing out that the reason it sounds different, they actually did re-recorded, or maybe they re-recorded it for the record. But because Ray Neal is featured in the episode, there is another guitar part in it that isn't there on the record. Cool. So like, you know, they did a special version for this episode, right? Anyway, it's a great song, right?

It's called Summer Baby. but again he wrote an entire episode about connecting with music rock music as a kid yeah now that that that could happen I could see a show being written like that nowadays for kids again I have no for I don't watch kids shows like you're saying I have no idea I don't either man kids shows are like these days but I have a hard time believing that this plot the script would would make it you know yeah I doubt it dude and you know I wonder if how much of, you know, the quote unquote, orange years mentality Nickelodeon has been able to keep over all these years. Do they have a lot more control on the writers of the shows that are on the network or do they still give them that freedom? I know for a fact that the president at the time,

her name was Jerry Laybourne, and she's amazing. She's the reason that Nickelodeon is what it became, right? She's the reason that Universal Studios, remember how they had the Nickelodeon Studios was at Universal Theme Park, right? And they would film it there and you could go and get slimed and shit. Yeah. And take tours of, you could literally walk through and see shows being filmed. You could see the sets. Yeah. Yeah. That was all her. That was all her brainchild, basically. And again, bringing kids into the process, right? Yeah, that's amazing. Layborn, the president, she had stepped away in 96. I mean, isn't that interesting, man, that we watched Nickelodeon, like the prime age for us,

for watching Nickelodeon, she was all, she was a big part of it. And then she steps away. And not that long after, we got past the age of watching Nickelodeon. We got out right on time, did it? Yeah. Anyway, yeah, she was president from 1980 to 1996. That's a huge stretch of time. Yeah.

But anyway, so yeah, something else to mention. here because of how, like we were saying here, how important music is to this show. Obviously, the creator, Will McRob, is a huge music guy, right? You don't approach a relatively unknown alt rock band and ask them to write music for your show if you're not a huge rock fan, right? But also the director, Catherine Dickman, plays a huge factor in that too, because she had actually previously directed the music videos for REM's shiny happy people and stand. So through that connection that she already had with REM, she was able to get Michael Stipe

to show up as a guest cameo. Like he played like a character or something like that. And then after that, some of these other musicians had an interest in showing up as well. So some of them are like Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry of Blondie, David Johansson, the New York Dolls and Gordon Gano of the Violent Fems. So throughout this child show that we're watching, you're seeing all these rock stars play these little side characters, right? Doesn't Michael Steyb play like an ice cream man or something? Yeah, he's like an ice cream man. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I remember that. So like, again, it's just, it's just crazy to think about

all of these, how music just kind of runs through this show and how, how, you know, how crucial was. And there's also music that that was featured on there by, so I don't know all these these groups, but Luscious Jackson, nice, drop 19s, apples and stereo. The drop 19s? Yeah. Dude, that's a great shoegaze band. Race car, chug, poy dog pondering and Sid Straw. That's just on this list here on Wikipedia. Some of the other artists featured on the show. Yeah, man, just music heavy. All right, well, let's play one more song here. This one historically has been my favorite Polaris song.

It might still be to this day, man. Yeah, I think this is up there with, hey, Sandy, as far as like the feeling that you get when you hear it, that ability to just make you feel a heavy sense of nostalgia. I feel like recently has the same vibe. And again, it's just a classic love song, man. I love the lyrics. Yeah, the lyrics are great.

Yeah. All right. So here we go. This song is called Recently. It's a perfect Polaris song, man. Yeah. I love it so much, dude. What would you change to make it any better?

Nothing. I love the arc of the story that's told, right? Yeah. Like, falls in love. My favorite line, dude, never apart. We go around Siamese in crazy love. I love that line, dude. And I also love the very first chorus where he says,

recently I kissed you. It's like a dream come true. Recently, you're liking me, and I'm really like. in you. I just like the idea of that. Now, um, because like, you know, basically it's, um, recently as in like, right now I'm, I'm, I'm happy because of this thing that just happened like recently. Right. I'm happy right now because I, I kissed you the other day. You know what I mean? Yeah, that line right before that, that part, get the rocket and light the fuse. Like, it's, it's on, man. Like, yeah, this is like puppy love, right? Like, you know, you walked in,

I clicked on. I like that lyric too. And then towards the end of the song, He says, like, recently some jealousy is creeped into my mind. Yeah. And then at the very end, recently I'm happier being by myself. Recently, I'm all alone, but I'm not lonely. So it didn't work out. Yeah. But this person has learned to be comfortable being alone, right?

Yeah. He's happier, actually, now that he's not preoccupied with trying to find love. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think that happens to a lot of people, right? You fall head over heels for somebody. and when you break up with a person or vice versa, it's like rock bottom, dude.

It's like that first song everywhere, where it's like you can't escape this person. They're freaking everywhere. You can't look at anything without thinking about that person. But then you usually emerge on the other side, like, you know what, I'm fine. I'm happy with myself. Again, you know, these songs are about things

that everybody deals with growing up, right? So I got a quote from Danny Tamborelli. who most of you may recognize that name. He showed up in a bunch of kids films, and he was Little Pete. He says, he's just talking about the dynamic between Big Pete and Little Pete. This was in that documentary called The Orange Years that I referenced a few times the last few weeks. It's a Nickelodeon documentary. He says, Big Pete was always struggling with, do I want to stay a kid?

Do I want to grow up? He's at the crossroads, and I'm not there yet, meaning Little Pete. I want him to stay with me and he wants to stay too. So I think a lot of these songs about love and stuff are probably from the perspective of some of the stuff that Big Pete goes through. And that's what made the show such a joy as I had this perfect age range between Little and Big Pete. And so Little Pete is there to sort of remind him to be a kid, right?

Yeah, man. That's great. What a great quote. And so that reminds me of one of my favorite, if not favorite episodes that I remember is, I think it's in season one night crawlers. Oh, I watched that the other day. Doesn't Little Pete have like, doesn't he grow like a five o'clock shadow by the end of the episode?

Yeah, I think he does actually, which is kind of funny. That's, see, that that's another one of those like, it's just, that's not how it happened. Obviously, he's a little kid. He didn't grow a beard, but that's just part of that, like, through the lens of a child, he was up all night. You stood up so long that he grew a beard, you know? Like, that's how you would tell the story. Basically, in order to get a later bedtime than 930, he basically said, I'm going to stay up 11 days straight, as we told his mom.

She, like, called his bluff on it because that was like what the world record was for most days awake. And I don't remember when he bails, but, you know, he doesn't make it very long at all, right? But the end of the episode is, you know, as mom says, okay, how about 10 o'clock? And then Little Pete's like 10.30. And she's like 10.15. And then he's all tired, right? Because he's been up for like two hours straight. And it's like 930.

He's like, all right, I'm going to turn in. And the mom's like, well, you have another 45 minutes technically. And then they play flashlight tag at night in the front yard, him and his mom. Oh, yeah. What a great scene. So yeah, I just wanted to bring that up. And then one more thing. And then another thing after that.

I took dubious notes, dude. I just wanted to point this out. This is amazing. And again, just a relic of the. the past, dude. Never will happen again, something like this. I think this is part of what made growing up in the 90s so fond, dude. Nickelodeon partnered with Kellogg's to where you could get a free cassette with Polaris songs on it called Happily Deranged Music from the Adventures of Pete and Pete. And you basically, you know, what is it? I don't remember how the shit used to work,

but I guess you fill out some sort of... You cut out like a little coupon thing on the sort of mail a way. You put it in the mail and then you receive a cassette in the mail. I mean, that's lost nowadays, right? Free cassette with two proofs of purchase. Now it would just be like, scan this QR code and you'll get some MP3 sent to you. Right. You know.

And happily deranged, of course, is a lyric from Hey Sandy. Exactly. Free cassette with two proofs of purchase and the tape itself included, like I said, it had Hay Sandy on it. It had Staggering and it had Coronado too, which is three songs off of this record. And actually, it's got a picture of Polaris on the back of the tape. What I would do for that tape right now, I bet you could find it on eBay. But just imagine that.

Now, again, dude, think about what that means, right? Like, Nickelodeon knew that the kids watching this show would send in for a tape cassette of Polaris songs, dude. That's really cool. It's amazing, right? But anyway, what a cool, and again, another just another thing to point to you, you know, when it comes to how important music was to this show and to Nickelodeon, right? Because they're making tapes, you know, for crying out lot. Dude, and oh man, we got to read what it says here on that, on the cassette.

It's great. It says, hey, Peter here, along with my brother Pete, to tell you about a band called Polaris. They were discovered by accident one morning blasting away and Mrs. Chakouti's garage. By the afternoon, what they left behind a music that can guide you like the North Star. That's funny because basically what they did was take that scene from the episode and say that that band that was in the garage that Little Pete stumbled upon put out this little demo tape. It's so cool, man. That's awesome. And I like how it talks about the North Star because like there is this theme, the songs of like space, right? like in the beginning of Hey Sandy on the record at least it's got this like countdown that sounds

like it's taken from the NASA archives or something like that space race kind of stuff I mean the term Polaris isn't Polaris like a like a star or something like that yeah yeah yeah it's like a star I know stuff about space anyway amazing um okay so what happened to polaris right they put out the music and then they kind of went away right and um They were invited to to participate in a P&P reunion. And they played music live in front of an audience for the first time as Polaris, which is kind of crazy to think about, that Paleris, the band, it's not like they went on and continued making albums and tour and all this stuff.

They came together to make music for the show. And then, you know, that was it. They were done, right? but with the interest that came out of that that reunion for them there was in Los Angeles I think like maybe 2015 or something like that 2016 they kind of had a second wave of popularity because by that time us the kids who watched Pete and Pete are grown adults and we're like yeah give me more of that Polaris stuff I would love to see you live right and so they went on tour as Polaris amazing after that which is amazing And then they released, you know, music from the Adventures of Pete and Pete as a proper album. Yeah, this is kind of funny. This is from a interview that he did with some, I think I actually quoted this last week, but this interview from big takeover.com.

And he's talking about that reunion show. And he says, we never even practiced most of those songs as Polaris. So that gig itself was very interesting. But since I hadn't done anything in a long time, I'm trying to. to get a record promoted and all these things, I just started thinking a little while ago that I'm always like the ex-singer of Miracle Legion, quote unquote. That's what I've been for a long time. And I don't necessarily want to be built that way, even though I don't mind it. But now I almost think that I'm sort of the ex-singer of Polaris in a lot of ways, because probably a lot more people

know about Polaris than Miracle Legion. Maybe people have found Miracle Legion through knowing about Polaris. That's us, dude. It's exactly us. He says, but yeah, it's funny. I remember this guy telling me the story that he heard, these two kids talking in a record store. And one said, Paul McCartney, who's that? And the other kid says, oh, he used to be in wings. So, like, people like us don't necessarily say, oh, he used to be in Miracle Legion. And we say, oh, he used to be in Polaris.

Because that's how we know him, right? He used to be in the band from the Adventures of Pete and Pete. Yeah, so he says, we did a lot more things in Miracle Legion than Polaris has ever done. So it's just funny how it works out. Just being on television is an amazing thing. and as we have been talking about, not only were they like part of the show musically, but they were like in the show.

They were the band in the show. The house band is what they were kind of called, right? And they're in episodes, they're indirect. He's freaking, he's nodding to Little Pete, you know, all he's jamming out in the garage and stuff. And how many other TV shows put the band of the theme music in the intro of the show? Right. And you see them on the front lawn rocking out.

Yeah. So they're just the neighborhood band basically in this town. But anyway, there's so many more things I wanted to talk about when it comes to Nickelodeon, but we just, we got to wrap it up, dude. So, yeah, I think if you grew up watching Nickelodeon, I highly recommend watching the orange ears. Go check it out. Go find it wherever you can find it. I think it'll make you appreciate just how special that network was. Yeah.

specifically if you grew up watching Nickelodeon in the early 90s. Yeah, and how much we owe the president of the network at the time, Jerry Laburn, for how amazing it was. Dude, she had a quote at the end of that documentary that I loved because she was asked, what do you think the legacy of Nickelodeon is, like what you did during your tenure there? And she goes, the legacy is every kid who watched us. So you and me, dude, we're the legacy of Nickelodeon. Beautiful. Our love for rock and roll and stuff like that could very well be shaped by this show.

and Will McRob's decision to reach out to Mark Mulcahye and get them to be part of the show and stuff like that. It's crazy to think about how different our taste in music and movies and just like aesthetic and stuff like that would be different. Had it not been for Nickelodeon and our worldview, I mean, lots of things, man, lots of things. We could go on and on about that. But, yeah, if you were a huge, fan of Nickelodeon like we were. Reach out to us. Tell us what was your favorite episode of Pete and Pete.

Reach out to us if you own that tape. That would be awesome. Yeah. Somebody out there owns that tape and they didn't get it on eBay. They actually got it by sending in two proofs of purchases of their Kellogg cereal. Dude, and so many people have a piece of that agro-crack, dude. Yeah. I'm not even going to explain that. How many people have the Nickelodeon alarm clock? You know what, dude? This is sad. Kara had that alarm clock that she got legitimately from sending in to get the Nickelodeon magazine or something like that. Wow, man. Doesn't have it anymore. Oh, that's a shame. It would play the Salute Your Shorts theme song. That was the alarm clock. What? I didn't know that. Well, you could switch it between like two different, like a, like a siren sound or the trumpet for Salute Your Shorts. That is so cool. So she used to wake up to the Salute Your Shorts trumpet every day when she was a kid. I think just for fun, dude, we should outro out the episode with the Salute Your Shorts theme song. That's probably my other favorite, like, live action.

Yeah, that was a good show, too. That came out before P&P. So, Hey Dude was the first live action one, right? And Salute Your Shorts was next. They may have been around the same time. But yeah, Hey Dude was like their foray into live action. Because, you know, before that it was, you know, Rugrats and, and Rinan Stimpy and stuff like that. Anyway, so next week's going to be a What You Heard episode.

for February, and then we're going to come back and stay in this pocket of jangle pop, college rock. And we're going to talk about R.M.M.M.R.M.M. That's going to be a really good, seamless, I feel like, segue from Miracle Legion. Because Murmur came out the same year that Miracle Legion's EP, the backyard came out. I'm excited to dive into that record. Lots of similarities. Yeah, it's a great. One of my favorites, for sure, from their collection. There's something about Murmur, dude. that's special. So if that's going to be hard to narrow that down, but I have my favorites from

the record. So, you know, we'll try not to play singles. That's what we try to do around here. But anyway, so yeah, reach out to us on Instagram. You can find us there at No Filler Podcast. And, of course, you can always find us on the Pantheon Podcast Network. That is the home to many great music podcasts, including our own. That's Pantheon Podcasts. That's Pantheon Podcasts. podcast.com and we'd like to thank AKG for sponsoring the show as always. And yeah, that's it. Thanks for being nostalgic with us as we kind of geek out about one of our favorite shows as kids. If you didn't watch that show, hopefully you still could connect with that music. You know, I think you should watch the show. You know, even if you didn't grow up in the 90s,

I think it holds up. It's even better as an adult, dude. It really is. I think you're right, dude. Yeah. Somebody described it on that documentary as Twin Peaks meets the Wonder Years. And I think that's a great description of it. That is fantastic. Yeah.

So again, it's all on YouTube. The entire series is on YouTube. Yeah, they even have some of the early, like, pilot bonus episodes. Yeah, the little shorts that they made. When, like, even Big Pete looks like a little tiny kid, you know. So, anyway. All right, next week, we'll be coming at you with our monthly What You Heard episode. All our favorite tunes that we've been listening to over the last month.

And thanks again, as always, for listening. Until next time, my name's Quentin. My name is Travis. And I'll take care. About you? It makes me. We never part. Now get it right or pay the price.

We will share a lifetime of the fondness memory. Hearts. Bud came apart.