Back when I was really young, I was - and still am - a huge fan of the series "Home Movies" that aired on, originally UPN, but later Adult Swim for the remainder of its run. The animation style, the barely scripted dialogue, the concept itself and the tone overall just really sunk its teeth into me, and when Home Movies was over, I needed something else to fill that void. Thankfully, that something was O'Grady. Not thankfully, O'Grady didn't last nearly long enough.
O'Grady, which aired on Nickelodeons sister station Noggin, later renamed simply The N to bring in a more diverse teenage crowd, was primarily aimed at said targeted crowd. It featured four kids - Kevin, Abby, Beth and Harold - who live in a town called O'Grady and go to O'Grady High. Fairly typical premise for a tv show based on that age group, right? Except O'Grady had one hidden trick up its sleeve. The town itself was a magnet, sometimes literally, for something called The Weirdness. Think Dawsons Creek meets The Twilight Zone, but a lot more snappy and cynical. The show had that same charm and attitude that Home Movies did, just focused on an older age group than the previous shows protagonists, and dealt with more typical teenage issues...albeit in a very bizarre fashion.
And though the show only ran for a heartbreakingly brief 19 episodes, it really does deserved to be remembered for its fantastic writing, wonderful voice acting and hilarious premise.
As an adult looking back on it, I think what I really appreciate was just how over the top it was, when compared to other teenage shows, something else another series I'll talk about at a later date - Moody's Point - also tried to capture. It had a very surreal energy to it, and oftentimes The Weirdness could be interpreted as "Oh, so you think that teenage life is hard? You think that your pathetic little crush and that test on Friday are scary? How about also whenever you yawn you transport yourself somewhere totally random." It had this snark that, yeah, teenage life sucks, but could also be a hell of a lot worse, and I appreciate that, especially at the time as a teenager who often didn't think life could get worse because it was so bad to begin with.
I promised myself as a teenager than when I was an adult, I would never tell teenagers their problems are petty and misguided, ultimately unimportant. I made that promise, and have stuck to it I'm happy to say, because it was all adults told me, and I vowed never to tell someone else that the times they were experiencing, during the most hormonally charged time of their life where their feelings were at absolute peak, ultimately didn't mean anything. In hindsight, yes, a lot of what I worried about as a teenager was ultimately not important, but at the time it was, and I refuse to tell someone going through that very same thing that, in that time span, how they feel doesn't matter, because it does, right then, right now.
Adolescence is all about weirdness. Not to sound too much like a Sex Education teacher, but your body is changing, your brain is changing, and the way you once viewed the world is constantly changing and you're having to daily readapt to life on a whole other scale, and that's terrifying. Combine that with parents who - at least from my generation - simply didn't understand or, far more often, flat out refused to try and understand, along with feelings of inadequacy from your peer group, or perhaps yourself questioning your identity, yeah, it's full of weirdness, and that's why O'Grady is so goddamned perfect.
O'Grady doesn't talk down to its audience, and while it takes a rather cynical look at adolescence, it also recognizes it as being important to the adolescent. But it also wants to help the adolescent recognize that, okay, you might not fit in well and you might have below average grades, but you know what? You could also have your private most inner personal thoughts suddenly be heard by everyone no matter what and that would only make things worse, so maybe don't sweat AS much about things. It tried to help teenagers not be as stressed about their problems by showing them that their problems could exponentially be worse, but not by the standard way other teen shows did, what with their "very special afterschool episodes" surrounding teenage pregnancy or drug addiction. No, O'Grady went over the top for theirs, and that's why it works, because it's not grounded in reality, so you're able to laugh at it, and maybe agree they have a point. Every episode of O'Grady is essentially an after school special cranked up to 11.
As a young girl growing up, being a teenager was exceptionally difficult for me, as it likely was for a lot of you. I was living in an abusive household, I was failing at school thanks to multiple learning disorders, I didn't fit in with anyone thanks to my autism and I was terrified of my family discovering I was a lesbian. Things were not easy. I was constantly bullied and harassed, at home and at school, and television, as this blog may have clued you in by now, was a major source of escape and comfort for me. In real life, nothing made sense, but in TV, there were rules. Things always worked out in one way or another. A lot of times people got happy endings. So I flocked to television as a way to help me understand, and thusly cope, with the world around me, and O'Grady was honestly a lifesaver at that time because of its message and its understanding of its audience.
The Weirdness doesn't have to be literal, it simply exists for everyone going through adolescence. It doesn't have to create a soundtrack to your life or make everyone act like cats (these examples I've given, for the record, are all actual episodes from the show), it can simply be the fact that one day you're best friends with someone and the next day they act like they've never met you, thus making you question your entire personality, what you might've done to make them hate you, and possibly even create abandonment and trust issues that will last you a lifetime. The Weirdness exists, just not in the way O'Grady portrays it. O'Grady's weirdness is quite literal, but that literal visual representation adds a layer of comedy to the whole experience and thus makes it not be quite as scary, because how can one be scared when one is laughing so damn hard?
O'Grady only last for 19 episodes, but really, it didn't need to last forever. It came in, did its job succinctly and expertly in the span of those 19 shows and then just as quietly left. There was never any real reason given as to why O'Grady was canceled, but I have my hunches. I think it simply was not watched. I mean, I've rarely run into another person who's ever even heard of it, let alone seen it, and those who have seen it rarely remember it until I bring it up. But, much like adolescence, it didn't last forever, and maybe that's for the best. It was a strange brief weird time in your life, but you know what, you survived, and you're all the better for it.
So thanks, O'Grady, thanks for helping me navigate my teenage years with some sort of clarity. Thanks for being there, unlike my parents, and thanks for showing me that, yeah, life as a teenager might be fraught with daily peril of one kind or another, but at least my body didn't become magnetic.
It could've been worse.
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