The Weekenders

The Weekenders
Created by	Doug Langdale
Starring	Jason Marsden Grey DeLisle Phil LaMarr Katherine Soucie Lisa Kaplan
Country of origin	USA
No. of episodes	39 (78 episodes including each 15-minute segment)
Production
Running time	30 minutes with commercials (mostly two 15-minute segments, with some double-length 22-minute segments)
Original release
Network	ABC
Release	February 26, 2000 – February 29, 2004

This article is about the American animated series. For the Reeves and Mortimer sitcom pilot, see The Weekenders (UK TV series).

The Weekenders is a Disney animated series about the weekend life of four pre-adolescents: Tino Tonitini (Jason Marsden), Lor McQuarrie (Grey DeLisle), Carver Descartes (Phil LaMarr), and Petrotishkovna "Tish" Katsufrakis (Kath Soucie).

Premise

Despite having four school-age children in the main roles, the show hardly (if ever) touches on aspects of school life (as Recess does), as stories nearly always begin on Friday afternoon and end on Sunday evening, with a few exceptions that cover the aftermath on Monday morning, usually only if the plot relates to homework or other school activities. Tino often breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to the viewer about what's going on à la Greek chorus.

Production

The series, created by Doug Langdale, made its debut in 2000 as a part of Disney's One Saturday Morning on ABC and later on Disney's One Too on Sunday Mornings. Later it moved to cable channel Toon Disney and aired on The Disney Channel for a short time. In Canada, it is shown on the Family Channel. In the UK, Disney Channel began airing the show exclusively on Friday Afternoons, Saturdays and Sunday Mornings to fit in with the basic premise.

There are a handful of episodes that have never been screened in the US). The show's title theme was written and performed by Wayne Brady.

TV Guide dubbed The Weekenders as "the show that killed Pokémon," because ABC stole the ratings when they aired it at 10:00 am - the same time Pokémon aired on Kids' WB.

Episodes

Main article: List of The Weekenders episodes

Cast

• Jason Marsden - Tino Tonitini, Colby
• Grey DeLisle - Lor McQuarrie
• Phil LaMarr - Carver Descartes, Bluke, Coach Colson, Mr.Higginbottom, Mr. Descartes
• Kath Soucie - Tish Katsufrackis, Ruby
• Lisa Kaplan - Mrs. Tonitini, Foods of the World Lady
• Jeff Bennett - Mr. Katsufrakis, Pizza Guy, Percy, Mr. MacQuarrie
• Kerri Kenney - Mrs. Katsufrakis
• Julianne Buescher - Bree, Frances
• Robbie Rist - Thompson Oberman
• Lauren Tom - Pru, Candace
• David Razowsky - Dixon
• Cree Summer - Penny Descartes, Todd Descartes, Mrs. Descartes

Main characters

Tino Tonitini

Voiced by Jason Marsden, the usual narrator of the show, Tino has straight, blonde hair and a pumpkin-shaped head. Tino can be very sarcastic, slightly paranoid, and sometimes immature (e.g. his obsession with comic book superhero Captain Dreadnaught). Despite his reputation as the neurotic one, Tino is the de facto leader of the group and often the voice of reason. Tino's parents are divorced, but he has a good relationship with both; though he is wary of his mom's cooking, as he's never quite sure what ingredients have been used, and he wishes his dad would visit more often. We find out in "The Worst Holiday Ever" that he and his mother celebrate the Winter Solstice.

Tish Katsufrakis

Voiced by Kath Soucie, Tish has straight, auburn hair and glasses. Tish loves Shakespeare, the dulcimer, culture and arts. She is very intelligent and knowledgeable, though this has caused trouble for her at times. Tish is a vegetarian and requests her pizza without meat (in the opening credits, she eats a carrot in her hotdog bun while everyone else eats a chili dog). However, she tends to be a perfectionist and sometimes ends up bossing her friends around instead of just hanging out with them, a common plot of many episodes. When she was born in the Old Country, Tish was originally named "Gooosh" which meant "Girl who must remove shoes to count past ten", but was renamed once Tish's parents soon discovered her amazing abilities at a young age. As the artist of the group, Tish is sometimes embarrassed by her parents' (particularly her mother's) lack of understanding of American culture. "Tish" is short for "Petrotishkovna" which, according to her father, means "Girl with only one nose". We learn in "The Worst Holiday Ever" that she celebrates Hanukkah, despite also practicing Lent ("Carver the Terrible"). This can either point to her family being both Jewish and Christian (somewhat like the Pickles Family in Nickelodeon's Rugrats) or that she willingly chooses to celebrate Lent (probably due to some Christians abstaining from eating meat during Fridays of Lent, which aligns to her vegetarianism). Considering the context of her comment about Lent, it's also very likely she was joking.

Carver Rene Descartes

Voiced by Phil Lamarr, Carver has brown hair that he keeps in dreadlocks and a pineapple-shaped head. He loves shoes and is always obsessing about new styles and even aspiring to be a shoe designer. His other aspiration is to be cool, even though he is viewed by everybody at the school as a loser. Carver panics easily, though he doesn't quite have Tino's paranoia. He is terrifed of worms, a fear that his father shares (though both are unaware of this fact). Carver can be a bit forgetful and self-centered, but he usually comes around in the end. He sometimes has trouble listening, which was seen when he was originally unable to listen to his Pre-Teen Pal's questions about upcoming middle-school life. He has a hard time writing in cursive. Carver is the most athletic, after Lor. He has an older sister named Penny and a younger brother named Todd. He and his family celebrate Kwanzaa, as seen in "The Worst Holiday Ever" (which was that he realized his socks didn't match his shoes, another component to his shoe obsession).

Lor McQuarrie

Voiced by Grey DeLisle, an athletic tomboy and the dumbest one in the group, Lor has short, straight, orange-blonde hair. She is of Scottish descent. Lor loves sports and despises homework, though it is revealed in one episode that she can learn just about anything when it's presented to her in game form. Lor's crush on Thompson resulted in an abandonment of her jock-like ways for a while, but by the end of the episode she had abandoned the girly girl look and resumed her tomboy activities (something Thompson seemed to approve of). Lor has a very large family, with somewhere between 12 and 16 brothers; she never can remember the precise number. (In one episode, while they are going through Lor's couch, Carver finds one of her brothers in the couch cushions. Also, in the episode with Trip Nickerson, Lor is trying to reach the goal of most baskets. The curtain is pulled across revealing 12 brothers). Lor and her family celebrate Christmas with their extended family (which is also unusually large) and Coach Coleson, as revealed in "The Worst Holiday Ever".

Running Gags

• The constantly changing themes of the pizza place (one weekend it's Pizzamergency, and another it's Pizzanaut).
• Carver's horrible handwriting.
• A reference to Lor's many brothers and Lor never being quite sure exactly how many there are.
• Tino's single mother serving foods of highly questionable origin.
• Chloe Montez's unusual predicaments.
• Tino says, "____, number ____ on my list of things that ____. Right between ____ and ____."
• Strange and exotic food exhibits at the museum.
• Whenever Mrs. Katsufrakis says something, Tish says what she means, and Mrs. Katsufrakis then says: "is what I say."
• Tino's mother knowing everything about all of the predicaments he's ever gotten himself into. This usually leads to her finishing his sentence for him.
• Tino (or someone else in the group) always summing things up and ends an episode with the statement "Later Days".
• Frances constantly saying, "I like pointy things." e.g.: The Halloween episode shows her dressed as a pair of scissors.
• Jan "The Man" Testeverde constantly saying, "Hey yowza, dudes!"
• The kids' teacher, Mr. Hossinfeld, referring to something as "a kick in the pants".
• Tino having constant fears and obsessions.
• The charitable duties of Helpers Helping the Helpless.
• Coach Coleson answering the door in his robe.

Clothing

Unlike most cartoons at the time, the Weekenders were often seen wearing different clothing, possibly to emphasize the day changes. They also tended to wear specific types footwear with their outfits. However, certain characters such as Dixon, or Percy, would often wear the same outfit.

Tino

• Standard Outfit - a short sleeved blue t-shirt with a navy blue stripe, light colored pants, blue shoes.
• - a short sleeved red t-shirt, blue jeans, blue shoes.
• - a short sleeved lime green t-shirt with a diamond emblem in the center, blue athletic shorts, blue shoes.
• - a short sleeved navy blue t-shirt, denim shorts, flip-flops. Tino would wear these flip flops indoors as well.
• - a long sleeved shirt with white and blue stripes, blue athletic shorts, blue shoes.
• - a short sleeved blue button down shirt, khaki shorts, blue shoes.
• - a short sleeved blue t-shirt with red sleeves and a T on the front worn over a long sleeved white shirt, blue jeans, blue shoes

Carver

All of Carver's outfits consisted of an open button down shirt, t-shirt, pants, and shoes, of various colors.

• Standard Outfit - white t-shirt, yellow button down shirt, gray pants, gray shoes.

External links

• The Weekenders at IMDb
• The Weekenders at TV.com
• snackshack A forum with a petition for a DVD release of the series
• [1] The Weekenders homepage on Toon Disney, no longer posted on Toon Disney's current site, only through this link.