Stay Tuned is premiering another new feature today: Throwback Thursday! #TBT is nothing new in the social media realm and it celebrates the great music, movies, TV shows, toys, and gadgets (just to name a few items) that marked our childhoods. Are all of them classics? Not necessarily. How about retro? Yes, yes they are and we just love it! Each Thursday we'll highlight a TV show from the past and get those memories jogging.
So without further ado, let's hop in the DeLorean and glide back a few years...
If you grew up in the late '80s/early '90s watching Nickelodeon then you might have come across an episode or commercial for Hey Dude. Nickelodeon had just begun to produce original live-action programming and Hey Dude was one of the earlier shows that broke ground on the kid's network. With the increasing growth of cable television and more youth watching television after school, Nickelodeon took advantage of the opportunity and target that demographic. Years later, shows like Hey Dude were models for the current string of original programming on Nickelodeon, TeenNick, and The N.
The setting of the show was the Bar None Dude Ranch near Tuscon, Arizona. Truth be told that after watching Hey Dude, we all wanted to go work on a dude ranch for the summer. It was like summer camp but with sweet digs and pay...and no boatload of kids. The premise of the show was divorced father Mr. Ernst acquires the dude ranch and moves to Arizona with his son Buddy and a dog that disappears after the first season. No explanation for the dog's whereabouts. She didn't die, she didn't run away...she just gone.
The ranch is staffed with female ranchhand Lucy and summer workers Ted, Danny, Melody, and Brad. Later on in the show Mr. Ernst's nephew Jake and Lucy's ex-boyfriend's son Kyle would join the show's cast.
Episodes of Hey Dude were geared towards a teenage audience and they varied in tone, theme, and storyline. Mostly comedic in nature, episodes usually followed the adventures of the summer staff as they worked on the dude ranch. You know, the normal stuff like leading overnight camping trips, telling ghost stories, competing for employee of the month, learning to swim, getting tied up by playful little kids, and misplacing a camper or two somewhere in the desert. Normal stuff. But Hey Dude also touched upon sensitive topics like cultural misconceptions, alcoholism, physical disabilities, theft and robbery, and the occasional murder (which later would be a misunderstanding). Oh and of course it wouldn't be a teenage show without frequent romances and crushes. Viewers particularly enjoyed the love-hate relationship between cocky senior staff member Ted and snobbish greenie Brad.
Hey Dude was the vehicle that launched the acting careers of David Lascher (Ted) and Christine Taylor (Melody). David Lascher would go on and enjoy long stints on Blossom and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch as well as numerous television guest spots. Christine Taylor was more successful with a television and film career. Her breakthrough movie role as Marcia Brady on The Brady Bunch Movie propelled Taylor to stardom where she would film many popular movies with future husband Ben Stiller.
Fans of Hey Dude can currently purchase all four seasons on DVD, and the fifth and final season is scheduled to be released July 16, 2013. Shout! Factory acquired the rights to Hey Dude several years ago and have been non-stop in releasing the seasons. The first three seasons are available to purchase through your preferred shop for DVDs while seasons 4 and 5 are exclusive available through Shout's Shout! Select program. Shout! has done an amazing job bringing many Nickelodeon shows to DVD and the company continues to impress us with ever-increasing library of releases. Click on the link above and check out why we can't get enough of Shout! Factory.
Do you have any memories of Hey Dude? What is your #TBT show? Share with us and keep watching Stay Tuned!
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