Original air date:  December 14, 1996

Nickelodeon used to be a weird channel. It was composed mostly of old black and white television shows like Lassie and Dennis the Menace while mixing in old cartoons like re-packaged Looney Tunes blocks. Then there was early morning educational stuff including some anime that wasn’t obviously anime, plus Mr. Wizard. And don’t forget about the Canadian import You Can’t Do That on Television, a sketch-comedy show for kids that was more than a little bizarre. During commercials Nickelodeon would also fill small programming gaps with shorts like Inside Out Boy, the boy who swung over the bar on a swing-set and became inside out. The most successful of their interstitial shorts though ended up being The Adventures of Pete & Pete.

Remember when everyone had a magazine?

The Adventures of Pete & Pete starred two brothers who were both named Pete for some reason. Big Pete (Michael C. Maronna) was the narrator and the more grounded of the two Petes, while Little Pete (Danny Tamberelli) was more eccentric and weird. Surprisingly, their dad was named Don (Hardy Rawls) and their mom (Judy Grafe), as it was pointed out in every episode, had a metal plate in her head. That plate was like another character, as was Little Pete’s tattoo Petunia. Other characters included Big Pete’s best friend Ellen (Alison Fanelli) and Little Pete’s superhero friend Artie, the Strongest Man in the World (Toby Huss). The shorts were successful enough to spawn a series of holiday inspired episodes, and the success of those eventually lead to a full series order that lead to a further 34 episodes.

“O’ Christmas Pete” was one of the last episodes of the show to air. It originally premiered on December 14, 1996 and would be followed by just two more episodes before the show was shelved. I assume the show was largely cancelled because the actors were all getting older. Plus Nickelodeon was rather cheap with their live-action shows so even well-received ones usually only lasted a season or two as the network didn’t want to pay higher wages for return programming. Instead, they’d just air re-runs of everything for what felt like eternity.

This episode spotlights something close to my own heart. The rush of Christmas, the excitement, the build-up, and then the crash. It ends so quickly and then all signs of it vanish. Well, maybe not quite so fast since I have neighbors who wait until April before they finally take down their lights. Big Pete feels the blow, and dreads it, but it’s Little Pete who decides that this year he’s going to change it.

The Wrigley family:  Big Pete, Dad, Mom, and Little Pete.

Little Pete sits the family down on December 26 to recount what happened the day before, and what state the family is in now. They were happy, for yesterday was Christmas, and now are mired in a funk. He proposes that things don’t have to be with this way – Christmas can be every day! Mom and Big Pete seem to be onboard immediately, but Dad needs a little convincing in the form of fruit cake. The man just might be the only person on earth who welcomes the fruit cake. Convinced this is the way, the family celebrates Christmas all over again complete with Christmas dinner. They setup a Santa greeting station in their garage, and go caroling the next day. As the montage goes on it shows that their caroling party gets bigger and bigger each day so apparently the whole neighborhood is onboard with Little Pete’s proclamation.

Pete stages a nativity play every day, possibly multiple times per day, proving he’s not just about Santa Claus.

It starts to ware off though, and the first one to cave is Dad. He tries undressing the tree, but is confronted by his youngest son in a hostile manner. Little Pete speaks in threats while Dad tries to convince him the tree is dead and he needs to go back to work. Nothing is working, but Dad reveals his true fear – the garbage man! The house shakes as a little musical number kicks in. It sounds like a spaghetti western parody as a black and white screen shows the images of a foggy garbage truck as it rolls through the neighborhood collecting discarded Christmas trees.

It arrives at the Wrigley home and the family is out on the lawn to confront the ghastly garbage man (Joseph McKenna). He wants the tree, and while Big Pete and Mom try to cheerily convince him Christmas is still going on, Dad takes a position of fear while Little Pete remains defiant. When the garbage man eventually demands the tree, Little Pete responds with a “Ho, Ho, No!” and demands to know where his Christmas spirit is. Unfortunately for them, the garbage man was vaccinated against Christmas spirit, but he decides to leave assuring this almost certainly isn’t over.

That night, Dad is asleep on the couch when Garbageman enters. He awakens and we find out that Dad arranged for this, but when Garbageman goes to remove the tree an alarm is triggered. Little Pete bursts in to defend his tree. Garbageman tries to take the angel from the top of the tree hostage, but is met with tranquilizer darts fired from strategically positioned nutcrackers. Garbageman fires back with some well constructed Christmas insults, forcing Dad to intervene to defend his son’s honor. When Garbageman outs him, Little Pete questions how his dad could turn on him, but he’s assured that he’s with him now. Mom and Big Pete show up as the music starts to get off-key and the image distorts to reveal the tranquilizer in Garbageman is having an affect. He stumbles out of the house and falls off the porch  as the Wrigley family laughs at him. He hallucinates and sees them as laughing Santas which causes him to snap. As long as they hang onto that tree, no garbage pickup for them!

As the garbage mounts fewer neighbors show up for Pete’s nativity play and fewer are interested in Christmas carols. Even Big Pete is starting to crack as the garbage pile grows higher and higher and kids at school start calling him Garbage Boy. Little Pete remains faithful and decides on an all-out Christmas blitz. He takes over the airwaves with Christmas programming, pipes fake snow into neighbor’s homes, and organizes a Christmas mambo. It seems to be working, but it only angers Garbageman further. He hijacks the airwaves as well and declares that until the Wrigley’s give up their tree, there will be no garbage pick-up in the neighborhood!

Big Pete is forced to wear a gas mask when piling up the garbage.

Almost immediately, the rest of the neighborhood begins to crack. Neighbors argue about where to put the garbage and soon a mob, organized by neighborhood bully Pit Stain (Eric Kushnick), shows up at the Wrigley house demanding to see Little Pete. He tries to argue with them that they can’t let Garbageman kill Christmas, but Pit Stain assures him it’s the tree, or his life, and he has 24 hours to think it over.

If you beat him you become Santa.

In response, Pete builds a boxing ring and the neighbors gather round for a fight. He introduces Santa Claus and institutes an open challenge. Pit Stain emerges as the first fighter, but soon finds he can’t bring himself to pummel Santa and instead thanks him for the “choo choo.” No one else is willing to fight Santa, and the crowd soon starts cheering for Christmas again. Proving that they’re a fickle audience, they’re all immediately intrigued when Garbageman emerges to answer the challenge. He wallops Santa and the crowd cheers him on. Little Pete holds out hope that Santa can recover, but Big Pete points out that he’s already lost given the crowd reaction to Garbageman. Finally admitting defeat, Little Pete throws in the towel to spare Santa of being slaughtered. Garbageman reacts with triumph as the crowd disperses.

It’s set for that night. Garbageman is coming for the tree. Big Pete, via his narration, explains the situation and also expresses relief, but also a feeling of letting his brother down. He decides he needs to do something to support Little Pete. Garbageman arrives at their house that night, and the whole neighborhood is there to watch Little Pete drag his beloved tree to the curb. It’s staged like an execution, and when he arrives at Garbageman’s truck he tells him he hopes he’s happy. Garbageman gets serious, and asks if Pete really thinks he enjoys crushing the dreams of children? He answers his own question by declaring he loves it! Laughing, he tosses the tree in the truck and begins the crushing.

Big Pete shouts for him to stop, but Garbageman refuses. Then he calls his parents to action and they plug-in an extension cord that illuminates the Wrigley house’s Christmas lights. Not just the house though, for Big Pete had decorated the mountain of garbage on their sidewalk with lights and now it looks like a giant, smelly, Christmas tree. The crowd is transfixed, and they quickly turn on Garbageman and tell him to spare the kid’s tree. He’s flabbergasted though and insists that it’s all still garbage, and it’s garbage day!

Seeing that the crowd and Garbageman need further convincing, Pete once more shouts to additional accomplices by the nativity scene who activate more lights. Now, the garbage piles at the end of all the driveways light-up like glorious, trash-filled, trees. Everyone is transfixed by the festive display, and Garbageman is at a loss for words. He confesses he feels funny, and he’s assured that what he feels inside isn’t heartburn, but the Christmas Spirit. It’s found a home in Garbageman, and though he seems concerned, he’s not rejecting it. He starts to stumble down the street while the whole crowd follows to take-in the lights. Big Pete lets us know that Christmas eventually came to an end for their neighborhood, but that everyone was a bit nicer from there on out as the snow begins to fall.

“O’ Christmas Pete” is a Christmas special true to the show’s unique and surreal nature. While it was disappointing to see the absence of some of the supporting cast, the story the episode tells is goofy and charming. The show always managed to tell silly stories while remaining very serious. Everyone’s a joke, but none of them are in on it. Joseph McKenna is great as the over-the-top Garbageman and his unique look makes him quite creepy, especially in the night scenes. Hardy Rawls is an unsung hero as Dad while Michael Maronna is the show’s real MVP who always manages to keep things grounded while they get weirder and weirder. Danny Tamberelli was always the star of this show, mostly because his character was easy for the target audience to identify with, in spite of him being the weakest performer. He’s at his best when he gets to angrily shout insults and behave like an anti-hero. His rough around the edges performance actually works to the show’s advantage, giving it even more of quirky, B-movie, vibe.

As a Christmas special, this one is fairly simple in its message that you can’t kill Christmas. Even though it must go away for nearly a year at a time, it always comes back. Pretty much any kid or even adult who loves the holiday can relate to the feeling of not wanting it to go away. And since there are a ton of Christmas specials in the wild, it’s always neat to see one do something different. In the case of this one, it’s have almost the entire episode set after Christmas as only the opening 30 seconds or so takes place during the holiday. The events after span about two weeks. We’ve seen Christmast every day plots before, but they usually involve the protagonist getting exhausted by Christmas and learnig a lesson that it’s special because it’s only one day a year. That’s not the case with this one. Everything about it is pretty silly from the absurd amount of garbage accumulated over a short period of time to its almost absence of a resolution. They must have taken down the garbage trees at some point, but how long did it go on? And did Little Peter ever permit to have his tree crushed? Making a garbage man the enemy of Christmas was a nice twist too and it was rather funny to see a character practically feed off of Christmas’s destruction.

As someone who had not watched an episode of The Adventures of Pete & Pete in decades, I must say it actually holds up pretty well. It’s low-key approach to silly comedy helps it age well. It definitely stands out from the louder, corny, live-action Nick shows and I would totally be down for watching more. If you want to check this one out this holiday season, actually keep an eye out on Teen Nick’s programming for the month as they will show older Christmas specials during The Splat. It’s a late-night block of programming catering to nostalgic 30-somethings. That’s your best hope as Season 3 remains the only season of the show to not receive a DVD release. Supposedly they were pressed, packaged, and ready to go with commentary tracks all recorded and so forth, but the merger of Dreamworks and Paramount meant they never got shipped to retailers. That was over ten years ago so presumably those copes were destroyed, but maybe they’re still hanging around somewhere. If you look hard enough online though you can stream this and it’s totally worth the effort.