Sarah Michelle Gellar

Grosse Pointe (1999)

Director: Andrew Fleming, Allison Anders, Jake Kasdan, Jim Fall, Dennis Erdman

Format: NTSC

90210 meets "Primary Colors" :

I grew up along with Beverly Hills 90210 and consider the high school years of that series to be among the best which the show ever created. So I was ecstatic when original series producer Darren Starr announced a new project called Grosse Pointe. To achieve success, Starr was now parodying the very quantity which made him a household name in the 90’s.

Seventeen episodes of the solitary 2000-2001 season take a critical yet affectionate look at "behind the scenes" of that now-infamous teen drama.

It aired on the WB (the `new’ home for teen dramas) in the present-day, but had an endless allusion to a certain California zip code during the 1990’s. I and other people who grew up with the aforementioned original show could not stop laughing during each episode we were watching. We did not laugh at Grosse Pointe, we laughed along with the show and because it was genuinely hysterical.

Behind the scenes and the production of 90210 was both much different than and eerily similar to the manufactured images which our teen magazines had fed us. The characters on this show are a composite of the characters/the actors who play them during the high school years of 90210. Despite some absences (there are no Andrea Zuckerman character/actors) Grosse Pointe was a really good series which deserves to be released out onto DVD!

My favorite character is Quentin King/Stone Anders (Kohl Sudduth) who is supposed to be the "Luke Perry/Dylan McKay" roles of this series. His character is the `rebel’ of this series, but King himself is a good-natured (if na�ve) guy.

Like Perry, Quentin King also has a pet pig. Quentin prefers to take care of Barnaby himself (and is a genuinely doting `pig father’) but a mini panic genuinely ensues on the set when Barnaby gets loose and lost. Quentin has several other similarities with Perry right down to his hair style.

During their visit, a child from the (fictional) "Make a dream" foundation catches him without his toupee on behind the scenes (Pilot). We previously see this toupee in a scene where Quentin is mysteriously talking about something itching to the ever-trusty stagehand Ira (Jeb Armstrong).

Instead of being the `empathetic survivor’, in a really twisted reversal of recent Michael Jackson-style pay off allegations, that kid promptly decides to blackmail this much older actor for a speaking part on Grosse Pointe: He receives a part, or else Quentin’s secret gets divulged to the public and Quentin’s career is thus over. Again, the contrast between prior media image and this episode is awesome; King actually grovels to the little brat who is at least twice as small as him.

Quentin’s genuinely interested in sponsoring causes through his celebrity. However, he quickly learns that the only thing people want to see him doing is prostate cancer awareness ("Devil in a blue dress"). Since it is at least something he takes it, but dreams of doing more. Quentin also is pressured by his pig to do the right thing after hitting an old woman and initially attempting to have others take the blame (Passion Fish).

Another episode during this season references the birthday distortion which these actors must inevitably go through in order to have their current jobs. There is also an AARP reference, again reminding viewers that the people who were playing teens were in fact themselves pushing at least 40 (if not more).

In addition to age, this series dealt with sexuality issues.

Al Santos’s Johnny Bishop (Jason Priestly/Brandon Walsh) is completely oblivious to the fact that his television dad Richard Towers (Michael Hitchcock) tries to get into his pants, it certainly made me go back to study `Mr. Walsh’s’ on-camera actions towards `Brandon’ more closely! Bishop plays goody goody Brad Johnson on-camera, but is always getting in trouble off-camera. This too is reminiscent of Priestly, who was arrested in 1999 for suspicion of drug and alcohol abuse while being the virtual tee-totaler on screen.

He learns that the winner of the ’Win a date with Johnny Bishop’ contest is a boy named Leslie Chupak (Thomas Decker). Johnny is horrified by the implications: he is hot to men-but Marcy makes him go through with the previously-agreed upon date. Bishop later defends that same boy when Courtney Scott’s (Bonnie Summerfield) date, Deegan makes snide remarks.

Courtney Scott (playing "Laura Johnson") is a relative newcomer to the world of television. According to the back story throughout this series, was brought in as Becky’s cousin from West Virginia. The accomplished actress was horrified to learn that the Grosse Pointe cast just slides by with their lines, but became grateful to Johnny Bishop (Al Santos) for having shown her the ropes of filming a series during the very first day, Bishop plays the Brandon Walshesque Brad Johnson.

By the time this episode airs, Scott (in real-life the awesome Bonnie Sommerville) realizes that she has in fact become a part of Hollywood and does not appreciate Deegan’s limited and judgmental perspective. She recognizes that she no longer loves Deegan like she used to and they have in fact grown apart while she was working on this series.

Finally, Irene Molloy is Hunter/Becky (Shannen Doherty/Brenda Walsh). According to this series, Doherty’s legendary bitchiness comes from having to starve herself in order to satisfy Hollywood producers. She only has this role and a Hollywood career because she is so thin. When she lands the role in `Lewinsky’ ("Devil in a blue dress") the required subsequent weight gain turns her into a very nice person---albeit creating problems for her role on Grosse Pointe, the producers scramble to explain her sudden weight gain . Hunter is concerned that bad things always happen to her Grosse Pointe character and is apparently trying to produce grrl power for her character in a teen soap opera where such character dimensions run short.

Because Buffy was then at the WB and Perry had stared in the 1992 movie version, there is a `horror’ episode where the gang temporarily becomes vampire slayer. I genuinely had expected Quentin to play a leather jacket wearing hood who conveniently comes by to help the teen girl hero (after fainting several times) however, I think people will get the movie-to-tv allusions which do exist.

Sarah Michelle Gellar (the second Buffy) herself has a guest role in "Passion fish". She plays herself in a guest cameo, she propositions Marcy’s character for a kiss. The producers pointedly want to have two women kissing on both shows for the subsequent ratings bonanza, and bring in the teen boy market who usually does not tune into these series.

I don’t think the "Devil with a blue dress" episode is going to hold up in subsequent viewings. Hunter is excited because she may have the title lead in the Oliver Stone interpretation of the Monica Lewinski affair 1994-1996. That event was blown out of proportion in its own time and attempting to explain it to current audiences is very difficult. Like 8-tracks, this episode is a product of its own time and cannot be explained well today.

I’m disappointed that this awesome series only lasted one season. Rumors had circulated that Tori Spelling was not flattered by the parody of herself/her character. While she is parodied through Marcy Sternfeld/Kim Peterson, the bulk of the season focuses on the other characters, she receives less parody time.

Additionally, like Primary Colors: The movie’s referencing of the 1992 Clinton campaign, this series was a critical-but-affectionate look at a real life phenomena.