Trivia / Undergrads

• Acting for Two: Creator Pete Williams voices all four main characters.
• Disqualification-Induced Victory: This is why the series exists at all. Pete Williams pitched the idea (then called "Click") due to MTV holding a contest where they were accepting pitches from people for a new cartoon. Williams won, but he later discovered it was because just 15 people entered the contest, and Williams was the only one who actually followed the instructions.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: When the series originally aired on MTV, the series soundtrack was full of popular 90s and 2000s pop and rock artists, such as Lenny Kravitz, Kid Rock, Madonna, the Foo Fighters, the Beastie Boys and Third Eye Blind. On international broadcasts, this soundtrack was replaced by a soundtrack of indie and emo rock bands, mostly Canadian artists. The MTV soundtrack is completely lost except for the track listings of episodes 4 and 5.
• One-Book Author: The only television series that Pete Williams has worked on, animated or otherwise.
• Protection from Editors: MTV weren't going to give the show more than one season from the beginning, and basically let crew do whatever they wanted because the network wouldn't need to take responsibility for anything that might be controversial.
  • Lucasfilm gave the creators a note that they couldn't make the characters discuss Princess Leia's virginity, and the creators replaced this with a discussion about Miss Scully (from The X-Files)'s virginity.
• Real Song Theme Tune: "The Click" by Good Charlotte. Clips of the show also appeared in their video for "The Motivation Proclamation."
• Same Language Dub: The Canadian version of the show replaces Pete Williams' lines as Rocko with a local voice actor. Word of God says this was for legal reasons to keep the show funded.
• Saved from Development Hell:
  • Pete Williams pitched the show three times before it was finally picked up, animating a different proof-of-concept for each one.
  • In June 2018, Williams acquired the rights to the show and launched a Kickstarter campaign to make a movie, which was fully funded by that October.
• Screwed by the Lawyers
  • After MTV passed on the second pitch for the show, Pete Williams tried to pitch it to Syfy, but because MTV still owned it as their intellectual property, development fell through.
  • Due to its legal ties to the show, Good Charlotte's full version of the theme song isn't available to stream or download.
• Screwed by the Network: MTV did not promote the show at all, aired it at the same time as The Simpsons, changed the scheduling multiple times after the second episode, cancelled the show without the creator's knowledge, did not allow another network to fund the series, and did not relinquish the rights for 17 years , not without the series being Screwed by the Lawyers (above).
  • Averted by Teletoon, who reran the series for more than a decade after cancellation, not at least because of Canadian content laws. This is where the large Canadian following of the series originated.
• Sending Stuff to Save the Show: Several campaigns to revive the show were made, including having fans bombard Comedy Central and Comedy Central with emails and letters, which initally failed after MTV still did not give the rights back and Teletoon wasn't able to afford to produce the series. After the creators were invited to a Con Bravo panel about the show where attendance was unexpectedly filled, a "Bring Back Undergrads" page on Facebook was created, which turned into a (successful) Kickstarter campaign in 2018 to fund a movie.
• Troubled Production: According to various interviews with Pete Williams, the show's pre-production was no cakewalk.
  • When the show was pitched at MTV, it was originally called The Click but spent three years stuck in focus testing before finally being made into a proper pilot... which was so poorly received that it killed any chances of the show being greenlit. Williams then tried to pitch the show at Syfy, who accepted it, but had to go back to MTV since they still owned the rights to the original pilot. This forced Williams to have to go through the trouble of recreating the original pilot, which thankfully did much better that time around.
  • After finally premiering in April 2001, MTV flat out told Decode Entertainment that they were only going to give the show a single season, and proceeded to act as if the show never existed with its lack of advertisement and inconsistent schedule. Williams was unaware of the cancellation (even though all the Decode staff were) until his MTV key card stopped working. After the plug was finally pulled, it wouldn't be until 2018 that Williams was able to personally acquire the rights to the show.
• What Could Have Been: blink-182 were going to provide the theme song before Good Charlotte were chosen to write a different one. Note the similarities between "The Click" and Blink's "Man Overboard."
• Working Title: Was originally called The Click, but because there was another show airing at the time with the same name, it was changed to Undergrads.
• Write Who You Know: All of the characters are based on creator Pete Williams, his best friends and people he met in college. In fact Jessie is voiced by the actual woman she's based on.

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