Pepper Ann is an American animated series created by Sue Rose and aired on ABC. It debuted on September 13, 1997. Pepper Ann starred cartoon adolescents and charted their ups and downs at Hazelnut Middle School. It aired as part of the Disney's One Saturday Morning block. The character originated in a comic strip published in YM magazine.
The show centers on the titular character, Pepper Ann Pearson, a 12-year-old girl whose emotions come out in fantasies. The show was designed to be a "different sort" of girl's cartoon, and features many strong-willed female characters who aggressively reject the idea of passive femininity.
Pepper Ann's best friends are Milo Kamalani, a very eccentric, highly dramatic artist; and Nicky Little, a soft-spoken, overachieving aspiring violinist. Other fellow students at Hazelnut Middle School include rich and spoiled Trinket St. Blair, German boy Dieter Lederhosen, popular airhead Cissy Rooney, gossipy twins Tessa and Vanessa James, Nicky's boyfriend, the RC car-racing "nerd" Stewart Waldinger, and the cool 8th-grader, Craig Bean. Pepper Ann has no real enemies except Principal Hickey, a tough disciplinarian with zero tolerance for Pepper Ann's shenanigans, Wayne Macabre, an annoying radio DJ, and Alice Kane, an uppity snob who refers to her as "P. Ann". As well, Pepper Ann usually receives advice from her conscience in the form of her reflection. She gets into mild vocal quarrels with her reflection and her feminist mother, Lydia, although Lydia usually gives the moral at the end.
Pepper Ann's father is seen only in a few episodes in his entirety. We know, however, that he was English, and divorced Lydia (although the two remain on good terms) when the girls were young. Lydia, in turn, embraces her divorcée single-mom identity with great gusto, and encourages Pepper Ann to be as proudly independent as she is, although she does keep a curfew on Pepper Ann. Further support is given by Lydia's sister, Janie Diggety an ex-Green Beret, and Pepper Ann's tomboyish deep-voiced younger sister, Moose.
At the end of the opening sequence, she always finds something different under her desk (similar to The Simpsons' couch gag), such as a mood ring or maracas (also the letter Q in the episode "Vanessa Less Tessa", a glowing green stick in the episode "Hazelnut's Finest", a singing Dieter doll in the episode "Presenting Stewart Waldinger", Mardi Gras beads, and her [Pepper Ann's] remote control in the episode "Radio Freak Hazelnut"); in season one, she always finds "five bucks". One of the original segments of "One Saturday Morning", Pepper Ann was a hit with audiences.
Pepper Ann and Lydia make a cameo appearance at the House of Mouse episode The Stolen Cartoons. They are the only Walt Disney Television Animation characters to ever appear on House of Mouse, who only used characters from Disney's features and classic shorts (and sometimes comics). Lydia says "Don't touch the villain, dear," to Pepper Ann after Pete falls out of the sky after being kicked out of the club.
After appearing on Disney's One Saturday Morning, Pepper Ann was syndicated on UPN's Disney's One Too programming block in 2000. It then moved to the Disney Channel, and eventually moved to Toon Disney. This was the last time Pepper Ann has been seen on any cable channel in the US. It returned to Disney Channel Portugal on April 11, 2011. It is unknown at this time if it will return in the US. Disney currently has no intention to release Pepper Ann on DVD, and unlike Doug and Recess, it was never available on home video.
Season 1: "Ziterella" • "Romeo and Juliet" / "Food Barn" • "Old Best Friend" / "Crunch Pod" • "Psychic Moose" / "Doll and Chain" • "Megablades of Grass" / "Family Vacation" • "The Big Pencil" / "Sani-Paper" • "Uniform Uniformity" / "Snot Your Mother's Music" • "The Environ-Mentals" • "Crush and Burn" / "Soccer Season" • "Thanksgiving Dad" • "Sketch 22" / "Manly Milo" • "Have You Ever Been Unsupervised" / "The Unusual Suspects" • "Nicky Gone Bad" / "In Support of"
Season 2: "Quiz Bowl" / "License to Drive" • "Cocoon Gables" / "Green-Eyed Monster" • "Hazelnut's Finest" / "Cat Scan" • "An OtterBiography" / "GreenSleeves" • "Vanessa Less Tessa" / "Peer Counselor P.A." • "A 'Tween Halloween" / "Mash into Me" • "Presenting Stewart Waldinger" / "P.A.'s Life in a Nutshell" • "Like Riding a Bike" • "Radio Freak Hazelnut" / "Framed" • "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Milo" / "The Sisterhood" • "Impractical Jokes" / "Cold Feet" • "Doppelganger Didi" / "Pepper Ann's Day Off-Kilter" • "A No Hair Day" / "That's My Dad" Season 3: "You Oughta Be in Musicals!" • "Dances with Ignorance" / "Girl Power" • "Beyond Good and Evel" / "One of the Guys" • "The Wash-Out" / "Def Comedy Mom" • "The First Date Club" / "Unicycle of Life" • "A Kosher Christmas" • "Effie Shrugged" / "Mom Knows What P.A. Did Two Nights Ago" • "The Spanish Imposition" / "Single Unemployed Mother" Season 4: "Burn, Hazelnut, Burn" / "Career Daze" • "G.I. Janie" / "Miss Moose" • "Pepper Shaker" / "Flaw and Order" • "Baggy Bean Buddies" / "The Beans of Wrath" • "The Velvet Room" • "One Angry Woman" • "The Sellout" / "The Telltale Fuzzy" • "A Valentine's Day Tune" • "Sammy's Song" / "Permanent Record" • "Live and Let Dye" • "Remote Possibilities" / "Considering Constance" • "To Germany with Love" • "Bye, Bye Trinket" / "P.A.'s Pop Fly" • "My Mother, Myself" • "The Amazing Becky Little" • "The Untitled Milo Kamalani Project" / "Guess Who's Coming to the Theater" • "The Great Beyond" / "Jaybirds of a Feather" • "The Way They Were" Season 5: "The One with Mr. Reason" / "Sense and Senselessness" • "Forging Ahead" / "Reality Bytes" • "Carmello" / "Strike it or Not" • "Complimentary Colors" • "The Merry Lives of Pepper Ann" • "A is for Average" / "Alice Kane Went Down to Calcutta" • "Spice of Life" / "T.G.I.F." • "Dear Debby" / "Too Cool to Be Mom" • "Moose in Love" / "Two's Company" • "Zen and the Art of Milo" / "That's My Mama Destructo" • "Unhappy Campers" / "Searching for Pepper Ann Pearson" • "The Word" / "The Perfect Couple" • "The Finale"
