Welcome Freshmen

Welcome Freshmen is an American comedy series that aired on Nickelodeon from February 16, 1991, to February 19, 1994, with repeats until October 27, 1996. The show took place at Hawthorne High School with a group of high school students and a bumbling vice principal.

The earlier episodes of the series consisted of comedy sketches that loosely followed a theme, each episode had two or three short skits about the gang's misadventures in high school. Some of the comedy routines involved a tortoise named Mortise teaching children about safety, a historian named Mr. History who talks about past generations of freshmen, the bumbling, freshman-hating, vice-principal Mr. Lippman imagining himself as a stand-up comedian telling really bad old jokes that insult freshmen, and a student named Billy Cushman who, though his appearance was occasional, provided not only a good example of how not to behave but also a good example of flatulence.

In the later episodes, the sketch comedy format was abandoned, and Welcome Freshmen became a standard sitcom.

In the third season, Kevin and Alex become sophomores, Walter is held behind due to him missing summer school. Merv and Tara left Hawthorne, with Merv skipping the rest of high school and going straight to college, and Tara moving to a biosphere with her family. New characters came in: Manny, Erin and Grant, by the end of the third season, Manny left. In the series finale, Walter becomes a sophomore, as the teachers all threatened to quit if they had him another year.

The show's first television pilot was filmed in May 1990, featuring a group of local actors in the main roles, among them was future Backstreet Boys member Howie Dorough.[1] After the success of the pilot, the show was picked up, but the roles were recast, according to series creator Bob Mittenthal "Those kids did a good job, the proof is that the show was picked up as a series , but research told Nickelodeon it needed better-defined characters".[2]

According to Jocelyn Steiner, several actresses had auditioned for the role of Alex before she got cast, including Brittany Daniel who was a final contender for the role.[3]