This 32-Year-Old Nickelodeon Show Was Basically Twin Peaks for Kids (& It Demands a Rewatch)

In the 1990s, Nickelodeon was home to some of the most inventive and boundary-pushing children’s programming in television history. Shows like Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Rocko’s Modern Life, Clarissa Explains It All, and Hey Arnold! didn’t shy away from exploring complex emotions, surreal humor, or even darker themes, treating young audiences with a level of respect. But among the network’s standout programming, The Adventures of Pete & Pete remains one of the most bizarre, creative, and unexpectedly poignant series of the decade. With its dreamlike atmosphere, quirky small-town setting, and offbeat characters, the show was basically Twin Peaks for kids — offering an accessible surreal, magical realism-laced viewing experience that still holds up today.

Both Twin Peaks and Pete & Pete exist within towns that operate on their own strange internal logic, full of eccentric characters who often feel like they’ve wandered in from another dimension. While Twin Peaks leaned heavily into dark mysteries, supernatural horror, and existential dread, Pete & Pete took a more whimsical approach, crafting a world that was just as surreal but softened by humor and childhood nostalgia. Despite their tonal differences, both shows thrived in an era when television was embracing more experimental storytelling, making Pete & Pete a fascinating entry point for young viewers into the world of Lynchian weirdness.

’90s Nickelodeon Was A Golden Age of Programming

The Decade Spawned Several Hits That Were Ahead of Their Time

Nickelodeon’s early ‘90s slate of original programming was truly a golden era for kids’ television, serving up a mix of irreverence, creativity, and often surreal humor to its young audience. Are You Afraid of the Dark? brought atmospheric horror anthologies to younger audiences, Rocko’s Modern Life infused absurdist humor with biting social commentary, and Hey Arnold! captured the melancholy yet heartfelt struggles of urban childhood. Shows like Clarissa Explains It All and Aaahh!!! Real Monsters pushed boundaries (albeit in differing ways) with unconventional protagonists and self-aware humor that never talked down to their viewers.

But even among this diverse lineup, The Adventures of Pete & Pete stands out as perhaps the strangest of them all. Unlike its contemporaries, which often relied on zany animation or heightened comedy, Pete & Pete embraced a sense of dreamy magical realism. Set in the fictional town of Wellsville, the show followed brothers Big Pete and Little Pete as they navigated childhood and adolescence in a place where the mundane often became extraordinary. Whether it was a band of garage-dwelling adult rebels, a personal superhero in the form of the enigmatic Artie, or a dancing tattoo on a child’s arm named Petunia, Pete & Pete thrived on the surreal and the sentimental in equal measure.

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Nickelodeon’s ‘90s programming truly was special, and that is thanks in large part to its commitment to treating kids like intelligent viewers capable of handling more sophisticated storytelling. The network embraced the weird and wonderful, allowing its creators to take risks that resulted in some of the most beloved and enduring shows ever on children’s television. Pete & Pete, in particular, excelled at blending coming-of-age stories with bizarre and often existential humor, creating a show that felt like a kids’ version of the surrealist storytelling that was gaining traction in the adult television landscape of the time.

The Early ’90s Were an Era of Innovation

And Few Shows Capture This Better Than Twin Peaks

The early ’90s were a uniquely creative period for television, with shows across genres embracing a more experimental, character-driven approach. Series like Northern Exposure and Picket Fences thrived on blending quirky humor with heartfelt drama, often creating an air of small-town eccentricity that felt oddly enchanting. But Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, took this trend to its most extreme conclusion — crafting a series that was as much an avant-garde experiment as it was a compelling murder mystery and sentimental soap opera.

Premiering in 1990, Twin Peaks followed FBI Agent Dale Cooper as he investigated the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer in the idyllic yet deeply strange town of Twin Peaks. What could have been merely a straightforward whodunit was actually a genius surreal exploration of good and evil, dreams and nightmares, and the supernatural forces lurking beneath small-town America. Lynch’s signature style — mixing melodrama with dark humor and unsettling surrealism — created an atmosphere unlike anything else on television at the time.

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The early ‘90s allowed for this kind of boundary-pushing storytelling to flourish, and though Twin Peaks was far more unsettling and mature than anything airing on Nickelodeon, its DNA can be seen in The Adventures of Pete & Pete. Both shows featured towns that operated under their own peculiar logic, where oddball characters weren’t just played for laughs but felt like real people existing in their own heightened realities. Whether it was Pete’s personal superhero Artie or Twin Peaks‘s Log Lady, both series embraced the idea that the mundane could be just as meaningful as the bizarre.

The Adventures of Pete & Pete Dialed Up the Quirkiness

Resulting in Twin Peak’s Juvenile Predecessor

While Twin Peaks plunged headfirst into the eerie and unsettling, The Adventures of Pete & Pete crafted a gentler, more whimsical form of surrealism — one that made the oddities of small-town life feel both magical and oddly relatable. Wellsville, like Twin Peaks, was filled with characters that felt just a little off, their quirks dialed up to dreamlike extremes. But instead of unraveling a murder mystery or encountering supernatural horrors, the Pete brothers faced childhood dilemmas that were transformed into surrealist adventures.

Take, for example, the character of Artie, the so-called “strongest man in the world,” who serves as Little Pete’s personal hero. He wears a cartoon-like striped unitard, spouts cryptic wisdom, and approaches life with a sincerity that borders on the absurd. He feels like a lost character from Twin Peaks — the kind of person who shouldn’t exist, but somehow does — with no explanation required. Similarly, the running gag of Little Pete’s tattoo, Petunia, which he frequently flexes to make “dance,” adds to the show’s offbeat, reality-adjacent atmosphere.

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The show’s episodes also leaned into this dreamy quality, often taking ordinary childhood experiences and turning them into something more mythic. In Season 1, Episode 2, “Day of the Dot,” Big Pete becomes obsessed with the geometric precision of marching band formations, turning what should be a simple extracurricular activity into an existential crisis. In Season 2, Episode 3, “The Call,” Little Pete fixates on a mysterious ringing payphone that no one else seems to hear, an eerie plot that wouldn’t feel out of place in Twin Peaks. And in Season 3, Episode 2, “The Trouble with Teddy,” a houseguest’s bizarre behavior escalates into a surreal standoff, vaguely reminiscent of Twin Peaks’ tension-building interactions between Cooper and the town’s many oddball residents.

One of the most notable aspects of Pete & Pete was its use of music and atmosphere. The show’s indie rock soundtrack, featuring bands like Polaris (who also sang the theme song “Hey Sandy”), added to its ethereal, detached-from-time feeling. Meanwhile, its dreamlike cinematography, offbeat humor, and melancholic tone made it feel like a kid-friendly Twin Peaks — a show that reveled in the strangeness of life without ever feeling the need to explain it.

For kids watching Pete & Pete, it was an introduction to a kind of storytelling that embraced the surreal, the weird, and the sentimental all at once. It may not have had Twin Peaks’ sinister undercurrent, but it operated in the same spirit — offering a glimpse into a world that felt just slightly removed from our own. After all, childhood itself is a surreal, confusing, nebulous time when imaginations run wild and the rules of the world of adults don’t quite make sense. When we look back, too, it often feels partly like a dream. In doing so, Pete & Pete primed a generation of young viewers to appreciate more experimental narratives, making it an essential, if often overlooked, piece of television history that still demands a rewatch today.