Theme Song Week - Day Two.
Pepper Ann.
The girl power movement of the 90s and early 00s brought a lot of pink and girls in cropped tops telling me to be who I want to be while gyrating their hips and pretending they could sing.
There were also quite a few super smart, capable, kick ass girls on the television screen. Girls that were smart and slightly off beat, who didn’t care about what anyone thought about them. I always identified with the latter group more than the former. Don’t get me wrong, I watched my fair share of Clueless (both the movie and the television series) but there were only a few television characters that I really felt were aspirational in my preteen years. One of those characters was an outspoken redhead by the name of Pepper Ann Pierson.
Before I discovered Daria, before Veronica Mars ever aired, before I was old enough to watch Buffy slay vampires, there was Pepper Ann. She was funny, and confident and…ok, not the brightest bulb in the hardware store. Remember the episode when Pepper Ann was assigned the task of wearing her school mascot uniform, a giant Otter suit? Remember when she thought that her crush, Craig, was in love with the otter without any idea that she was inside, and proceeded to wear the otter suit on all of their dates? Remember how she built up the courage to reveal her true identity, only to find out at the end in a hilarious “duh” moment that he knew it was her all the time:
Pepper Ann: “You knew who I was?”
Craig: “Yeah. You think I would want to hang around with a giant otter?”
Why yes Craig, yes she did, and that’s why we all loved Pepper Ann. The chronically late, video gaming, C student who was constantly talking to her own reflection and imagining it was talking back. Such an awesome character deserved an awesome theme song, and that’s exactly what she had. It perfectly incapsulated the spirit of the character, the girl marching in her own parade, who didn’t quite fit in but only because she was cooler than anyone in middle could really comprehend.
So, on the second day of Theme Song Week I solute you, Pepper Ann Pierson, and your awesome theme song.
HELLO!
I have arbitrarily chosen this week to be the first bi-annual theme song week. Why? I think it’s because I was driving around in my car, humming the Sanford and Son theme song to myself for no particular reason. I decided that I wanted to dedicate this entire week talking about my favorite theme songs and the television shows that they belonged to.
Since this is my first blog post ever, there are a few things you should know about me. To say that I love television is a tremendous understatement. Since I was young I’ve loved everything about television and television culture. Over the years I have consumed entire series of shows like they were precious pieces of essential knowledge. It’s a love that no one understands. My parents are constantly asking me questions like, …but WHY have you been watching all six seasons of Kate & Allie? It’s something that I can’t explain myself, it’s just something that I do. It’s something that I have to do.
And it’s not just television, it’s television history and culture. I love reading and writing about television. I am endlessly fascinated by the ways in which television mirrors our culture, and the influence some shows have had on the cultural history of the US and all over the world.
So, I decided to stop boring my family and friends with my endless chatter and decided to start a blog. At least, if you’re reading this, you are doing so by choice (unless, of course, I made you do it).
SO! Let’s get started. I kind of love that this is all starting with the first of what will probably be many theme song weeks. I wrestled for a minute about how I was going to kick things off, and I decided to start with a theme song that has been loved by millions and millions for over forty years now. Sesame Street!
I once wrote a paper that I cherish to this day about Sesame Street for a class that was (I can now say at the end of my undergraduate career) hands down my favorite class ever.
Sesame Street was a part of Lyndon B Johnson’s War on Poverty in the 1960s. It was part of an effort to better prepare children for kindergarten and increase their chances of succeeding in school. The thought behind it was, not every kid has access to a good preschool, but televisions could be found in nearly every home in America. Educator Joan Ganz Cooney was brought on to develop a curriculum for a television show and, after a few months of research, brought on advertising executive Jim Henson. Ever wonder how they come up with those thirty second spots with catchy jingles for the letter “J”? That was the advertising genius of Henson. They weren’t just teaching you letters, numbers, and social and moral values. They were employing advertising techniques designed to deliver messages in short, concise segments that would stay with you long after you watched it. Only, instead of selling you potato chips, they taught you the alphabet and how to count.
The show debuted in November of 1969, and the theme song has been just as iconic as the eight-food bird, a vampire mathematician, and array of color monsters that (ironically) teach children about real life every day, in countries around the world.
