This Classic Nickelodeon Show Is Almost Impossible to Watch

Even in the age of streaming, many TV shows are difficult or impossible to track down, and that seems to be the case for the 1993 Nickelodeon sitcom The Adventures of Pete & Pete. There are clips and highlights from the series available in some places online, but the full episodes and specials are not streaming anywhere legally, including PVOD stores. As for physical media, two out of three seasons of the show were released on DVD, but these are out of print, and pre-owned copies can go for exorbitant prices among collectors online. At this rate, the show seems doomed to become “lost media” unless Nickelodeon and Paramount re-release it somehow.

The Adventures of Pete & Pete started as a series of short interstitial skits on Nickelodeon, and was then expanded to a series of half-hour TV specials. Finally, it was picked up as a sitcom with three shortened seasons, airing from 1993 to 1996. In its time, the show was broadcast on Nickelodeon in multiple time slots, and Nickelodeon released VHS tapes featuring select skits and episodes from the series.

Pete & Pete went to DVD in 2008, but at the time, Paramount Pictures was handling Nickelodeon’s home media distribution, and it was in the middle of a merger with DreamWorks. The first two seasons of Pete & Pete went on sale, but Season 3 got lost in the shuffle somehow. The season was in production at some point, but it was removed from the release schedule in the middle of the merger, and never ultimately hit shelves.

[RELATED – 10 Best Avatar: The Last Airbender Episodes, Ranked]

Much of the classic Nickelodeon catalog has made it to streaming services these days, particularly Paramount+. The Adventures of Pete & Pete is not among them, nor is it available for digital rental or purchase on PVOD stores. Prime Video and Vudu do have one title for a sale — a 14-minute compilation of the shorts that started it all. This is available digitally for $1.99, but the show itself is not.

What Are We Missing?

The Adventures of Pete & Pete was beloved by critics and viewers in its time, and to many, it is emblematic of pre-Dan Sneider Nickelodeon. The show was about two brothers who were both named Pete Wrigley — Michael Maronna played “Big Pete” while Danny Tamberelli played “Little Pete.” The show never explains why these two brothers have the same name, but it fits in well with the absurd, quirky world that they inhabit.

The show is about these brothers coming of age and having adventures in their fictional suburban hometown of Wellsville. They have a colorful cast of friends, family, neighbors, and enemies. The ensemble often feels like a parody of stories like The Sandlot and A Christmas Story. The show was praised for its writing and its bold approach to outlandish concepts, and fans mourned its cancellation for years.

Home Media Releases

There were 24 shorts that introduced fans to Pete & Pete, each either 30 seconds or one minute in length. Two more of these shorts were released later exclusively as VHS tapes. Some of these shorts were scattered across five different VHS releases, but not all of them. Eight shorts are included in the compilation available on PVOD stores.

There are five half-hour TV specials that came next, and all of those are available to fans willing to shell out for the DVDs. Four are included with Season 1, while “Space, Geeks and Johnny Unitas” is included with Season 2. As for the sitcom itself, there were eight episodes in Season 1, and 13 episodes each in Seasons 2 and 3, for a grand total of 34 episodes. The complete Seasons 1 and 2 were released on DVD, leaving 13 episodes that have not been released since their broadcast.

Reunions

One thing that makes this scarcity particularly odd is that Pete & Pete reunions starting in 2011 have drawn a lot of interest, yet they haven’t lead to any re-releases. Tamberelli and Maronna then co-hosted a monthly podcast called The Adventures of Danny and Mike for several years, and the two have drawn big crowds to live stage shows as well. They have shared the stage with series creators Chris Viscardi and Will McRobb, along with many of their co-stars.

None of that has prompted Paramount or Nickelodeon to release the third season of Pete & Pete or put the show up for streaming, yet it did earn a “Pete & Pete Takeover” on the NickRewind YouTube channel. Right now, this playlist seems to be the best place to find clips for the show online. Even then, much of it is made up of newer reunion content, not the original show itself.

Fans continue to cry out for this sitcom, and hopefully one day, Nickelodeon will listen. In the meantime, those who want to re-watch The Adventures of Pete & Pete must search the pre-owned market and be content with two out of three seasons.