Freaks and Geeks

While I was sick last week, I got to watch one of my favorite television series (and I use the term "series" loosely since only 12 episodes ever aired) Freaks & Geeks on IFC. 

In 1999-2000, I was in seventh grade, but I can still remember being in love with this show and it's characters. 

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Recognize some faces there? Yes, that's Jason Segel, Busy Phillips, James Franco and Seth Rogen. Judd Apatow, the producer of just about every funny movie you've ever seen (i.e. Pineapple Express, Step Brothers, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Superbad, Knocked Up, and so forth) produced the show and it was a "cult hit".

It centered around two groups of kids the stereotypical "geeks" and also the burnout potheads, called "freaks". I love that the show wasn't cookie-cutter. There were no absolutely awesome moments for these characters, it was like real life.

I was totally in love with James Franco as Daniel Desario, yum

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There were tons of awesome guest stars and cameos, ranging from Judd Apatow's wife Leslie Mann as Mrs. Foote.....

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to Ben Stiller as a member of the vice-president's security team.

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I love that a lot of these actors still work together today, even Judd Apatow said in his interview with Vanity Fair "Whenever I see an opportunity to use any of the people from Freaks and Geeks, I do it. It’s a way of refusing to accept that the show was canceled. In my head, I can look at Knocked Up as just an episode of Seth’s character getting a girl pregnant. All of the movies relate in my mind in that way, as the continuous adventures of those characters."

I found this great picture of all the cast with a few of the supporting characters that ended up with big careers too (like Jason Schwartzman, Samaire Armstrong, Lizzy Caplan and David Krumholtz). 

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Did you ever watch "Freaks and Geeks"?