Melissa Joan Hart

radar: sketch comedy show. TLC—who wrote the theme song— performed in two of the first three episodes. The pilot aired nearly seven months before their breakout album, CrazySexyCool, was released, giving 12-year-old viewers a chance to hear a new band before they made it big. The first season of the show also featured live performances by fresh faces, including Brandy, Aaliyah, and Usher, who at the point was still going by his full name, Usher Raymond. “If you look at the 10 years [that All That was on air], it’s a who’s who of music,” says Dan Schneider, the show’s creator. Pete & Pete also made a habit of featuring musicians whom you wouldn’t expect to see on any TV show, let alone one marketed to grade schoolers. David Johansen played a police officer; Debbie Harry, a neighbor; Juliana Hatfield, a lunch lady; Kate Pierson (of the B-52s), a blind millionaire; PRIME TIME and Michael Stipe, an ice cream man. Iggy Pop was a series regular, playing the overprotective father of Nona, Michelle Trachtenberg’s character. In the same episode that featured Luscious Jackson, he took to the stage and sang to his melissa daughter, begging her to dance with him. It was a far cry from joan “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” but I’m convinced that moment was influential enough for me to spend the better part of my hart late teens fanatically collecting his albums. The series’ soundtrack was equally important, with Apples in Stereo and Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields, among others, contributing music to the show. Even off-screen, the mood was music-centric; the cast was given mixtapes made by the show’s creators and regularly hung out with rock royalty. “Any time Iggy Pop was on set, we’d have lunch together, and he’d just tell me stories,” recalls Danny Tamberelli, who played the younger Pete. No other kid’s television shows were offering such broad Ross saying Rachel’s access to underground music. In the early 90s, unless you name at the altar on Friends—that was a really were on top of your college radio frequencies or zine swaps, great moment in televi- learning about new music took work. For a suburban kid like sion for me. I watched that when it came out me to be able to turn on the TV, tune in to a children’s show, because I remember and 30 minutes later have a list of bands I’d want to listen to, seeing the preview and was unheard of. Regardless of what you think about her, thinking, “I’ve got to see that one!” I was so excit- Miley Cyrus certainly isn’t inspiring kids to buy Violent Femmes ed. My heart skipped on vinyl. And while Yo Gabba Gabba! continues to carry the a beat when I saw it. It’s that “a-ha” moment of, indie music torch, it’s on Nick Jr., the spin-off station targeting “OK, now you’ve hooked three-year-olds (and their clued-in parents). Because of me.” I took the bait. I think a lot of the Nickelodeon, my generation grew up and moved on to series time on most shows, you like The O.C., whose cult following took careful note of the think you want to see bands Seth Cohen referenced (Ben Gibbard owes the show the couple together, but you can’t do the funny thing is that you’ll find that underground bands and an indie mentality are his first born), and Gossip Girl, which includes a list of the our society is trained in a way. We’re so in love integral to their DNA. The network didn’t just hook viewers; episode’s featured songs in the end credits. We accept the with the idea of being it turned a generation of kids into the record-buying, obscure fact that we’ll hear good music in surprising places (like the in love, nobody every music-listening twentysomethings who have brought indie Eclipse soundtrack, which features exclusive tunes by Vampire thinks about what hap- pens after happily ever rock into the mainstream. Weekend and the Dead Weather). Brooklyn buzz band the after. I think as a society From The Partridge Family to Hannah Montana, music Beets not-so-subtly named themselves after the rock band on we don’t want to see that on television that stuff, so it’s all about has always played an important role in children’s television, Doug, and Tamberelli picked up the bass during Pete & Pete’s the tease. The great part should we be WHEN YOU’RE 10 years old, few things seem as bad-ass For a generation too young to watch MTV but too old—or but Nick in the ’90s was different because it wasn’t focused first season; today, he tours the country with his band, Jounce. about that moment of Ross and Rachel at the thanking ’90s as seeing an indie band rock out on television, especially smart—to tune in to the drivel that was being peddled to on the bubblegum pop that plagues most shows. In the And me? My path has been shockingly similar to that altar is that you thought nickelodeon if your parents have banned you from watching MTV because pre-teens (even as a first grader, I’d get into heated arguments very first episode of Clarissa, the titular character (played by of budding journalist Clarissa Darling’s, whose every step he was over her and in a very big moment in for the rise of “you’re too young”—as was the rule in my house. (I could with Full House fans), Nickelodeon in the early ’90s offered Melissa Joan Hart) ticks off her likes, among them the quirky I watched so carefully as a kid; I was an editor for my his life he slips up and indie rock, have the video for Green Day’s “Geek Stink Breath” on mute a respite. The fledgling channel’s programming wasn’t just alt-rock band They Might Be Giants. In a subsequent episode, high school newspaper, wrote for a music magazine while calls her name. She’s and my mom would still poke her head into the basement clever, but also extremely subversive; the patently weird (from Clarissa has her best friend Sam explain to her parents that attending college in New York City, and now interview already thinking she music blogs, loves him and it just and the o.c.? stairwell, shouting, “That’s not MTV you’re watching, is it?”) Elvis, the pet baby Caiman on Clarissa Explains It All there’s nothing violent or femme-y about teen-angst rockers indie bands like Wavves and Friendly Fires for NYLON. I’m made you go, “Oh my rebecca willa Fifteen years later, I still clearly remember that late November to Petunia the dancing tattoo on Pete & Pete) was welcomed. Violent Femmes (a reference DJ Tanner would never make). able to watch MTV now (but why bother?) and no longer God, maybe they’re going to be together!” davis thinks afternoon, sitting with my chin in my palms and a dissected Though being popular at school wasn’t a priority on these Music played an even bigger part on the animated sitcom snack on Fruit Roll-Ups, but other than that, there’s surprisingly so. illustrated Fruit Roll-Up in my lap, watching Luscious Jackson perform shows, the characters somehow exuded cool—and a lot of this Doug: The fictional band the Beets were almost as important little separating my current incarnation to my 10-year-old self Melissa Joan Hart, star of Sabrina, the Teenage by sachiko at the school dance in Nickelodeon’s The Adventures of Pete was due to the music that soundtracked their escapades. as the green vest-wearing protagonist. marveling at an all-girl alt-rock band jamming on the TV set. Witch and Clarissa kanaizumi & Pete. I was mesmerized: It was a life-changing experience. Watch just about any Nickelodeon show from that era and Live music was second only to laughs on All That, the See, mom and dad, television hasn’t completely fried my brain. Explains it All, is back as producer and star of the new comedy Melissa & Joey, premiering on ABC Family this August. 182 NYLONMAG.COM.

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