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Characters / The Adventures of Pete & Pete

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Characters from The Adventures of Pete & Pete.


The Wrigley Family

Big Pete Wrigley (Michael Maronna)

The elder Pete is more stoic, as well as the one who tends to face the most "normal" challenges and moral quandaries of the two. He's somewhat insecure to boot.

  • Bears Are Good News: Big Pete dresses up as one while working at his dad's golf course to avoid being embarrassed by his job. It results in a hunting tournament.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Not so much in-series, but certainly in his episodic narrations.
  • Drives Like Crazy
    Mr. Slurm: (after getting out of the driving simulator with Pete) Congratulations, Mr. Wrigley. You're dead.
  • Girl of the Week: He had a lot in season three.
  • Interactive Narrator: It helped that he was a character in the show, but he also served as the narrator without being a Fourth-Wall Observer.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: A lot.
  • Ordinary High-School Student: As mentioned above, many of his stories are about navigating normal teenage situations.
  • Peer Pressure Makes You Evil: Most of his mistakes stem from trying to avoid ridicule or trying to curry favor with bad influences like Endless Mike.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Little Pete's red.
  • Supporting Protagonist: Despite the fact that Big Pete was the viewpoint character and the narrator, he was mostly secondary to his younger brother. Big Pete certainly had his share of focus episodes, but the lion's share of them were focused on Little Pete.

Little Pete Wrigley (Danny Tamberelli)

Bite my nose hair!

One of the greatest military minds of the twentieth century, Pete the Younger is brash, rude, and headstrong. He also tends to have the more "epic" adventures.

  • The Chessmaster: When dealing with Papercut in a game of rock-paper-scissors, he took a fourth option and used a suborbital meteor, which destroyed all three. Little Pete did this, knowing it would get under Papercut's skin and inspire everyone else to stand up to him.
  • Buccaneer Broadcaster: Operates a pirate radio station out of his garage, using a walkie-talkie as both microphone and transmitter.
  • Determinator: When faced with things like bullies, life's challenges, or adults who were trying to keep him down, Little Pete would sometimes need a pick-me-up from Artie or his other friends, but he always came back swinging.
  • Embarrassing Tattoo: Only he's not the one embarrassed by Petunia; Mom is.
  • The Hero: As mentioned above, many of his stories are about epic adventures.
  • Iconic Item: His flannel hat.
  • Informed Obscenity: He is constantly calling people words that aren't exactly swearwords, but certainly sound like they should be.
    Teacher: I mean, I know it's just a muscular flap on a nautical mammal, but...
  • The Kirk: A charismatic and impulsive leader.
  • Never Bare Headed: He's almost never seen without his signature hat.
  • One-Man Army: Well, with Artie's help.
  • Rebel Leader|Voice of the Resistance: Quite a few episodes revolve around him leading his friends into a rebellion, usually against some kind of adult tyranny.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Big Pete's blue.

Don Wrigley (aka "Dad", Hardy Rawls)

C'mon, Pete, we gotta kill Bob while he's still alive!

He's a well-meaning man who loves his family, his car, and his job (he owns a driving range). Dad is sometimes torn between his devotion to his sons and pressure from his neighbors.

  • Bumbling Dad: But not to the Homer Simpson degree; Don is right sometimes.
    • Moreover, he usually realizes when he's messed something up with minimal prompting. It just takes him awhile.
  • Vanity License Plate: "KING O FROD", later replaced when he finds and defeats the holder of "KING OF ROAD"

Joyce Wrigley (aka "Mom", Judy Grafe)

She's usually more sensible than Dad, but she has her loopier moments, usually when somebody is attacking her remotely via the metal plate in her head.

  • Because I Said So: Subscribes to this element of the International Adult Conspiracy's philosophy.
  • Only Sane Man: The most level-headed of the Wrigleys.
  • Super Drowning Skills: The plate is too heavy for her to swim without floatation aids.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Her plate renders her vulnerable to radio signals, sympathetic vibrations, magnetism, and lightning.


Friends

Ellen Hickle (Allison Fanelli)

Big Pete's best friend besides his brother. She has a type-A personality and can easily lose herself in a new project or cause. Ellen is also both the most likely to support Big Pete and the most likely to call him out when he's being a jerk.

Artie, the Strongest Man...in the World! (Toby Huss)

Soon you will be like cheese, boy: Melty, melty, melty!

Little Pete's personal superhero. He's imaginative, impulsive, creative, crazy, supportive, and subversive. In general, Artie is loved by kids and hated by adults.

  • Affectionate Nickname: He refers to Little Pete as "my little Viking."
  • The Big Guy: Literally. He's clearly older than most of the kids in the neighborhood, but always hung out with them.
  • Breakout Character: He was the most popular character in the show's run by a long shot. The actors even acknowledged this, saying in an anniversary special that "you can't have Pete & Pete without Artie."
  • But Now I Must Go: When Little Pete learns to stand up for himself, Artie realizes he's no longer needed in Wellsville. After saying his goodbyes, Artie leaves for a new town, in search of another kid in need of a personal superhero.
  • Cloud Cuckoo Lander: This is a man who claimed that he would destroy the "foul green pipe" when battling with a hose, rode a canoe through someone's backyard, and "beat up the Atlantic Ocean" by repeatedly punching the incoming tide. For whatever reason, the guy lives in his own world, and no one could break him out of it.
  • Fun Personified: He was always smiling, always full of energy, and very hard to put down.
  • Friend to All Children: The reason he hung out with the Petes as much as he did was because they needed a personal hero and someone to look up to. When Little Pete learned to stand up for himself, Artie left town to find some other kid who needed a hero.
  • Inexplicably Awesome: While Word of God has confirmed that Artie was a real person in-universe and not a figment of Little Pete's imagination, it was never explained how Artie could do the things he does. Or how he's the strongest man in the world. He just is. And that's all that mattered.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: He's a Friend to All Children.
  • Limited Wardrobe: A striped shirt and red pants seem to be his only items of clothing.
  • Large Ham: From his booming voice to his insanely showy mannerisms, he steals literally every scene he's in.
  • One of the Kids: Despite clearly being an adult, he was always hanging out with the kids, especially Little Pete.
  • Super-Strength: Well, he is the strongest man in the world.
    • He could paddle an entire canoe by himself across dry land and make it look effortless.
    • His on-camera feats include hitting a golf ball 300,003 yards, pushing a house to the left an inch (he wanted to knock it over, but he had strained a muscle earlier while lifting a brassiere emporium), rolling a bowling ball from Wellsville to Canada, skipping a stone on Neptune, leaving the Wrigley family's gutters clean and spotless by blowing through the drainage pipe (albeit at the cost of said gunk going flying all over the neighborhood), and leaping across the city in a single jump.
  • Walking the Earth: Literally, he hates riding in cars.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Playing a guitar's whammy bar within his hearing strips him of all his powers.

Nona F. Mecklenberg (Michelle Trachtenberg)

Love bites!

A newcomer to Wellsville, Little Pete is the first friend she makes. Nona has a lot of strange habits, including wearing a cast on her arm at all times because she likes how it feels.

Teddy Foresman (Dave Martel)

One of Big Pete's friends. He's book-smart, but street-dumb, which makes him kind of irritating. Teddy's a nice guy, though.

  • Captain Oblivious: Misses a lot of nonverbal social cues, including not being able to tell when people are mad at him.
  • Catchphrase: It's "Excellente!" ...What, you didn't know that?
  • Picky Eater: Avoids beans out of fear of flatulence, picks pepperoni off of pizza instead of just ordering plain cheese pizza.
  • Spit Take: Milk out his nose and eventually his ears when Bill tells jokes.

Bill Korn (Rick Barbarette)

Another of Big Pete's friends in seasons one and two. He's street-smart, but book-dumb, and kind of a prankster.

Clem Linnell (Aaron Schwartz)

One of Little Pete's most loyal friends from the specials through season two.

Mort Mortenson (Aaron Beener)

Another early recurring friend of Little Pete's.

Monica Perling (Maris Hudson)

In Kreb Scouts, we have a word for this.

Kreb Scout Monica has a variety of skills learned from her merit badges earned, and usually proves herself helpful in a pinch.

Wayne Pardue (Justin Restivo)

They tried to ditch me, but I caught up!

"The Main Brain" in his own mind, "The Pain" to everyone else.

  • Catchphrase: "Supergenius!"
  • Failure Knight: Not actually good at anything.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: He's called "Wayne the Pain" for a reason. He constantly whines, tags along with Little Pete and his friends, and will sometimes chicken out when the chips are down. That said, he does sometimes prove useful, and if Pete and the others need an alibi when they're out overnight, they can just tell their mothers they're at Wayne's house.
  • Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": Narrates a lot of his actions diagetically, describing himself like a movie star.
  • The Load: His mere presence in a situation makes everything more difficult for his friends.
  • Spanner in the Works: Particularly in "Last Laugh", where he would have sunk the plan if not for a secret Enemy Mine.
  • Tagalong Kid: His friends never actually want him to come, yet there he is anyway.


Villains

"Endless Mike" Hellstrom (Rick Gomez)

I am the Doctor of Death, and I have come to cure you of your life.

He's older than the bully villains and thus better at subtlety, deception, sabotage, etc., but younger than the IAC (see below) and thus still willing to be openly violent.

  • Arch-Enemy: To Big Pete
  • Book Dumb: One of the theories for the source of his nickname is that he can't manage to graduate.
  • Meaningful Name: Hellstrom
    • Subverted by "Endless", though, because—in direct contrast to every other kid bad guy—the nickname has no apparent meaning and it's never explained why he has it. Fans have theorized that it's because he's endlessly repeating high school or because his hatred of Big Pete is endless (Nickelodeon Magazine posited the latter).
  • Teacher's Pet: To shop teacher Mr. Slurm.
  • Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Little Pete shows cute home movies of him as a baby in order to embarrass him in "Time Tunnel"

Pit Stain (aka Fran Jones, Eric Kushnick)

We've all got our problems, Wrigley. Mine happens to be glandular; yours happens to be my fist!

Hathead

A recurring bully from the original shorts.

Open Face

A bully who tries to turn Ellen against Big Pete in the Valentine's Day special.

Paper Cut

A bully with masterful origami skills, capable of creating deadly weapons from paper. Loves Rock–Paper–Scissors. Hates losing.

International Adult Conspiracy

Kent Schwinger (Adam West)

Little Pete's junior-high principal.

Mr. Markle

The high school marching band director.

  • Control Freak: As a result of...
  • My Greatest Failure: He's obsessed with recovering from a mistake he made in a past tournament that cost his band the championship (when the marching band formed the word, “squid”, they neglected to dot the “I”).
  • Nepotism: His nephew is his Dragon.
  • Serious Business: He based a band formation on a Crimean War battle.

Garbage Man (Joseph McKenna)

A city employee whose favorite activity is crushing Christmas trees.


Other

Stu Benedict (Damian Young)

Passengers will refrain from KILLING MY SOUL!!!

Bus driver, friend, basket case.

Mr. Tastee

Wellsville's most popular ice cream man, who never ever removes his big plastic head.

Phil Hickle (Steve Buscemi)

Ellen's father, a school counselor.

James Mecklenberg (Iggy Pop)

Nona's pop.

Miss Fingerwood (Syd Straw)

The Petes' math teacher.

Mr. Slurm

A mysterious, possibly-crazy professor with a prosthetic hand. Big Pete and Ellen's shop (and later, driving) instructor.

  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Is curt, mysterious, and harsh, especially toward Pete. When Pete is in his office, he sees a birthday card from his wife, and discovers that his disgust for Pete is because of the lack of respect he has toward shop class. Slurm's secret project was just a way to get him to build something and not have to stick him with the F he would've gotten otherwise.
  • Shrouded in Myth: Both how he lost his hand and what his "secret project" that he makes Big Pete work is. By the end of his first episode it's implied he lost his hand in a childhood accident, and his secret project is an air conditioner for his office
  • Stern Teacher and Reasonable Authority Figure: Particularly noteworthy, since his first appearance makes him out to be yet another lunatic useless Wellsville grown-up, but he turns out to be a dedicated and effective (though definitely eccentric) teacher fond of Secret Tests Of Character.

Sally Knorp (Ellen Cleghorne)

Another bus driver, and Stu's on-again-off-again girlfriend.

  • The Unfair Sex: Frequently breaks up with Stu for no apparent reason.


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