Subscribe!Pepper Ann (1997)
First episode title: Ziterella
How familiar with the show am I?: I am pretty sure I saw some of it when I was younger. It's definitely familiar.
Pepper Ann Pearson is a seventh-grade girl with a red ponytail and glasses and typical middle-schooler problems. She also has a very big imagination, leading to cutaway gags galore.
Yet another catchy theme song - Disney seems to be particularly good at those - tells us generally about how cool Pepper Ann is, as she imagines herself as a tall muscly superhero only to snap back to reality and rush to school late. At the end of the theme song, after being given detention, she slides down under her desk and finds five dollars. I happen to be aware that this is one of those "Simpsons couch gag" type bits where she actually finds something different under her desk every episode. I'm not sure if we've seen something like that yet on Debutniverse.
As the episode begins, we see the outside of Hazelnut Middle School, which has a very standard American school design, with a big US flag flying outside it. A signboard is displaying the slogan "Go Nuts" - I would guess that the Nuts are a school sports team given the school's name.
In the school, there's another stereotypical American school feature, a big row of lockers. It's the end of the day and everyone is closing theirs up, but Pepper Ann is struggling due to how much is stuffed into hers, and even when closed it ends up bulging outwards. Pepper Ann's two best friends approach: a long-haired girl called Nicky and a boy in a knit cap called Milo. Both of them are a bit more laid-back than the energetic Pepper Ann. As Pepper Ann's locker explodes onto an innocent boy, they discuss whether they're ready for their first ever yearbook pictures of middle school.
The conversation continues as they walk outside, and Pepper Ann insists that she's not nervous at all while everything else about her behaviour says that she is. I love her voice acting right from the start here. She relates how every class picture she's every had until now has come out terribly, and we see a montage of them fly by. She's right, they do look terrible, mostly because she always seems to have been caught at the wrong moment, although the last, extremely smudged one seems like some kind of camera fault rather than anything she could have done.
But she says that this year she has the perfect technique, and she demonstrates with a cool pose that the other two deem "excellent". It's the most confident she looks for almost all of the episode.
A grey-haired man that can only be the principal of the school interrupts them to ask why they aren't in class, and a confused Pepper Ann tells him school is over. Then he tells Pepper Ann she had better not mess around with her school picture this year because his school has won "best yearbook" in the county for the last nine years and he takes this very seriously. He also has a big mole with a hair that he absent-mindedly plays with and which Pepper Ann is very distracted by. I mean, I can relate to not realising you're playing with the hair, but I can also relate to being distracted by it.
When he's gone, a boy that Pepper Ann refers to as "Pink-Eye Pete", who I guess always has pink eye, asks if Pepper Ann wants to use his kaleidoscope, which is visibly dripping with something. Ew. Pepper Ann rushes back to the school restroom to wash her eyes, because, even though Nicky points out he didn't even touch her, "he said my name!"
In the toilets, two girls are each fretting they aren't ready for their picture while also complimenting each other on how they look. What a wholesome dynamic. At least until Pepper Ann rushes in and they call her a wacko. Then Pepper Ann dunks her head in the sink, and - I guess this must be her imagination - a goldfish floats by and points a big arrow sign that says "Wacko" at her face.
She washes her face off with a paper towel, and as if by magic... a red spot appears on her forehead. You could probably guess from the title of the episode that it would go this way - she has what some Americans would call a "zit". (We'd be more likely to say "spot" or "pimple" in Britain.) She can only meekly say "no way", as an announcement over the school's tannoy reminds everyone that pictures for students with surnames A through O are right now and those that come under P through Z are tomorrow.
We get to see some of the A-O pictures being taken. They're happening in the gym, which for some reason has some just about visible posters and banners saying things like "Kill Em All" and "Going to Die". I can only hope this refers to the opposing team in sports games taking place there? The principal hurriedly improves each kid's appearance right before their picture gets taken, and one kid panics when the cameraman asks whether he wants to hold a toy pony or a letter block (they're in middle school!), but still manages to force out a smile.
Back outside, Milo and Nicky are saying that they can't even see the pimple, while Pepper Ann looks to us like one big pimple with a face, as she obviously sees herself at the moment. Pepper Ann says she needs pimple cream, and when she panics about what she'll do, Milo sarcastically explains the concept of buying goods from a store to her. One interesting thing about her character design - and since this is the first episode it's hard to tell if it was specifically done with this in mind - is that whenever she has one eyebrow raised, it's drawn like an arrow, which means there are several shots in this episode where her eyebrow seems to be pointing right at the pimple.
Pepper Ann explains that her main concern is other people seeing her buy the pimple cream, and that she could end up ostracised from society as "Pimple Ann", not able to get any job in life better than working at a pizza place. And we see a fantasy of what that would look like, where for some reason she is stoking a fire with big burly arms and wearing a Phantom of the Opera mask. We barely have any time back in reality before Milo says he loves the way pimples explode and Pepper Ann gets another fantasy of herself as a volcano.
Nicky says she'll buy the pimple cream for Pepper Ann, because she doesn't care who sees her, but then her mother picks her up for a violin lesson and she doesn't get the chance. Milo, referring to Pepper Ann as Ziterella like in the episode title, says he's too busy working on the cover for the yearbook, which for some reason looks like some kind of distorted screaming face. He says it symbolises "shiny happy future". He might be a little out there.
It fades from the yearbook picture to Pepper Ann making the same expression. In her mother's clothes shop, she's trying to get her mother Lydia to listen to her about the pimple, but her mother is more concerned about why she has a huge shipment of sarongs and how she's going to sell them all. Once Pepper Ann gets her mother's attention, she's actually excited that her daughter is "growing up" and shouts about it being her first pimple so loud that everyone inside the shop and a few people outside can hear, embarrassing Pepper Ann more. I don't remember my first spot in particular. My face was always covered in them anyway.
Lydia, who is as easily distracted as I am, goes back to talking about how she'll promote the sarongs, but then circles back round to asking if Pepper Ann will buy her some camera film while she's getting her pimple cream. She tells her to get it from Abe's Mall, which Pepper Ann calls the "Abys-Mall" - apparently it's a place you really don't want to be seen shopping if you want anyone to think you're cool, because "only freaks and geezers shop there". But Lydia insists. What makes this all really weird is that Lydia's shop is clearly also in a mall, but not the same one.
In the next scene, Pepper Ann is sitting on the pavement outside her house, and her Aunt Janie asks why she's looking so sad. But they're interrupted by the arrival of a small child on a skateboard swerving wildly around the street and jumping right over their heads. This is Pepper Ann's little sister Moose, and if you happen to watch a scene that doesn't refer to her by a pronoun then you would be forgiven for not realising she is a girl. Janie remarks on how Moose would do basically anything, which inspires Pepper Ann to ask her if she'll buy the pimple cream for her, but she just carries on skating and says no before even finding out what Pepper Ann wants from her.
Pepper Ann flips a penny to decide whether she should go and buy the cream, and the Lincoln on the penny comes to life and talks to her. He says to come to "my mall" - oh, so that's why it's "Abe's Mall" - and reminds her that since none of her friends go there she won't run into any of them.
Her mind thus made up, Pepper Ann starts sneaking towards the mall. She looks around a corner at a completely empty street, then the moment she turns the corner herself it's suddenly full of people and traffic! For once this is a bit of weirdness in this cartoon that doesn't seem to be in Pepper Ann's own imagination. Random kids Pepper Ann's age start asking her where she's heading, including the two girls from the school toilets before, and then various adults too, a bird and chipmunk that she must be imagining, and then Pepper Ann's uncle Jo Jo who's a police officer, offering her a doughnut because, yeah, police officer.
Back at Pepper Ann's house, her mother has got Moose modelling one of the sarongs, holding up an apple and a pinwheel for some reason, and she's getting ready to take a picture. I like this gag a lot:
Lydia: Now, don't worry, I took a photography class in college. It's one of those things you never forget! Like, uh... uh...
Milo and Nicky knock at the door asking for Pepper Ann. Wait, so Nicky's free now? She could've bought the cream for her! I know, I know, she might have not known how long her lesson would be and only just got out of it. Lydia tells them Pepper Ann isn't home but then ominously asks them to come in...
Now we get to see Abe's Mall, which has a big statue of Lincoln outside and a sign advertising its "Over 10 stores". Tumbleweed and a vulture pass by. You get the impression there must have been a shopping choice that was less out of the way. Like, does the mall that contains Lydia's shop really not have any shops that would do this kind of stuff?
A bus arrives carrying a bunch of nerdy-looking people in glasses, and another bus deposits an old man at the mall - remember, freaks and geezers. Pepper Ann has somehow obtained a pair of shades and some kind of makeshift headscarf to disguise her identity - it's not a very good disguise, with her distinctive ponytail still visible - and she walks in, the automatic doors straining to open and throwing up dust as they do.
The mall is full of shops with Lincoln-related punny names like "Getty's Burgers". The shop Pepper Ann needs ends up being the "Emancipation Bargain Station". Pepper Ann rushes in, picks up a bunch of random-looking things off the shelves and then shoves the "Plimpton's Pimple Cream" in amongst them, like no-one will notice she has it if she's buying other stuff. I can't tell if she remembers to get the film. When the cashier calls for the next customer and it's Pepper Ann's turn, there's a very brief imagination shot where the pimple cream is now bigger than anything else she's carrying. The cashier starts scanning her stuff and there's the very predictable old gag where the one embarrassing thing she's buying is the one thing that doesn't scan. The cashier's about to call a price check when Pepper Ann just dives across the counter and shoves some money on it, which seems to satisfy her.
I really don't know what time of day any of this is happening, because it feels like ages since the school day ended now, but we briefly cut back to the gym to see that it's now the turn of "Peter Ogilvy", i.e. Pink-Eye Pete, to get his picture taken. Then we're right back to Abe's Mall, where Pepper Ann rushes out on rollerskates but then worries about crashing into something and hurting her head and getting amnesia. She gets a fantasy of a news report about this mysterious injured girl who no-one can identify, and then her mother identifying her because of the pimple cream that was found in her possession. Because it's a fantasy, they're able to do a gag where her mother seems to be able to see the picture of the injured Pepper Ann like it's physically there next to the news reporter when it should just be a graphic on the screen. Back in reality, she starts skating along very slowly only to almost lose her balance.
Back at the house, Moose, Milo, and Nicky are all wrapped in the sarongs and getting their picture repeatedly taken - Pepper Ann arrives and Milo and Nicky beg her to help them, but she ignores them and goes straight to the bathroom to apply the cream. She puts it on...
In the toilets at school she's relieved to see the spot is all gone, but then the principal's voice comes over the tannoy to announce that the second batch of school pictures will not be taking place today, as the photographer had to cancel. We see a shot of the photographer in hospital... with pink eye. So that little peek back at the gym did make sense to be there!
We next see Pepper Ann and Nicky in a classroom where Nicky is reassuring Pepper Ann that nothing's going to happen between today and tomorrow that can ruin the school picture again. The class's maths teacher comes in and she starts raving about how great the bargains at Abe's Mall are, showing photos of all the sales and just about connecting it to maths through all the percentages involved. You probably see where this is going - yes, she has a photo of Pepper Ann purchasing the pimple cream. Why would she take a photo of her own student unsolicited? I hate that. So does Pepper Ann, of course, as the whole class laugh at her for shopping at the "Abys-Mall". Pepper Ann has three separate imagination spots in quick succession where she gets branded with a "loser" stamp, Lincoln admits his mall is terrible, and the whole class turn into demon-ghost things while laughing at her.
In the principal's office, a very stressed principal is desperately phoning people trying to get a photographer for tomorrow, or they won't have the pictures in time for the yearbook. And in Lydia's shop, she's showing the coworker who apparently screwed up by buying all those sarongs the pictures she has taken to promote them. Nothing much to either of these scenes, but there is a reason they come so close together...
Pepper Ann walks into the house, despairing that she's going to have to change her name and move away, when she sees the TV program Moose is watching and recognises Hazelnut (as in, the town where they live, if you recall the name of the school). Presenting a show called "House of Hip" is "Supermodel Mindy", who seems to keep forgetting what she's saying while she's in the middle of saying it. She's a stereotypical blonde airhead, basically.
The show is about the coolest places to hang out in America, and she's come to Hazelnut with "Flaming Snot", which I guess must be the name of a band because she's there with two punk-looking guys with Cockney accents. And Pepper Ann is surprised to see that they're going to Abe's Mall, which the guys in Flaming Snot love!
One of them calls it the "coolest mall in the colonies" which is a very silly joke about the British. And just to make things even better, the band apparently use Plimpton's Pimple Cream to style their hair. Pepper Ann's maths teacher randomly pops up to rave about percentages again, and then the kicker at the end is a shot where Pepper Ann in her disguise happens to be clearly visible! Of course it makes sense for the show to have been recorded the previous day, although fiction often treats these kinds of shows as if they're always broadcast live.
The principal still can't find anyone to take the photos and resorts to going to a mall, harrassing a guy who's trying to use the photo booth. What, is he planning to bring the photo booth to the school? Uncle Jo Jo gets him to stop - is he a mall cop then? And then the principal sees Lydia's shop, so now we know which mall we're in. He sees the sarong-modelling photos in the window, and declares them "beautiful". The viewer never actually gets to see them, unfortunately. I guess it's pretty hard to imagine how any pictures that came out of what we saw with Moose, Milo, and Nicky could actually be beautiful, so the cartoonists didn't try to!
Presumably the next day, Pepper Ann and her friends walk into the gym for their pictures. Of course, now everyone in the school thinks she's really cool because of the TV show! Kids, eh? A guy in shades and ripped jeans says "Hey, Pearson" to Pepper Ann, and everyone looks shocked - first cutting to various people in the gym, but then random things like a bird feeding its chicks and a surgeon performing an operation also look surprised - the boy says "cool cream" and Nicky excitedly tells Pepper Ann that the boy is an eighth-grader. One year makes a lot of difference at their age!
Nice bit of random representation - we casually see a boy in a wheelchair coming away from having his picture taken as Pepper Ann's name is called.
Pepper Ann, more confident than ever, sits down for her picture. Of course, what we should expect but what she doesn't know is that her mother is the photographer! Lydia says "smile for mommy!", and Pepper Ann's embarrassed cringe is what gets captured on camera. There's a fantasy of all the other faces around hers in the yearbook laughing at her, and then a quick scene of the principal in his office, looking at all his previous "Best Yearbook" ribbons and the "Try Again Next Year" button this year. He reflects on how long it's going to be until Pepper Ann graduates... and that's where it ends!
A creative little show, this one. It could be a generic school sitcom but all those fantasies add up to give it a surreal feel overall.
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