Revenge Of The Nerds Unseen TV Show Revealed, Stream It Here
The world could have easily been a different place had we seen many of the unaired pilots associated with some of our most beloved IPs. Many might not remember, but the leaked first episode of Lucifer featured Nicholas Gonzales as Dan Espinoza instead of Kevin Alejandro before the showrunners decided to reshoot the pilot. Well, the internet’s attention has turned recently when the unaired pilot episode of 1991’s Revenge of the Nerds TV show surfaced, and it’s now on streaming.
Here it is…
For those unaware of Revenge of the Nerds, we’re discussing a four-decades-old American comedy franchise that revolved around a group of nerds trying to stop the ongoing harassment by the jock fraternity and get revenge. The franchise began with the same-name film from 1984, which spawned several sequel movies released in the late ’80s and early ’90s.
While the original movie became a cult classic celebrated for its humor, the other releases weren’t as great, and one such release—a previously hidden gem—is the attempted television adaptation of the franchise.
The 1991 pilot episode of Revenge of the Nerds series, which is now accessible to the public, unfortunately never saw the light of day on television, and the reasons behind that remain speculative. We can easily guess that, while the transition to television seemed logical for the franchise stemming from a massive hit that was the original movie, the poor success of its sequel, released in 1987, could be the reason why the television show was ultimately canceled and its pilot collecting dust on some physical, but also digital shelf.
Admittedly, the early ’90s were a transformative period for television, and networks explored new genres and concepts that fortunately provided us with television releases such as Seinfeld, Friends, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The X-Files, Frasier, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So, it’s entirely possible that the show was ultimately buried by the poor performance of the second movie and the host network’s change of interest. The latter could also indicate why the third and fourth films in the Revenge of the Nerds franchise feel like typical TV fillers.
Regardless, the surprising find, such as the unaired pilot of Revenge of the Nerds, certainly provides a glimpse into what could have been. Perhaps we would refer to Revenge of the Nerds with the same love and reverence we have for Friends—which admittedly has a rather funny nerd of its own.
Ultimately, the stories of unaired pilots and series that could have been only testify to the enduring nature of digital archives, such as the Internet Archive, as well as the importance of digital media preservation.
The latter is a rather interesting proposition; the Archive has been accused of encouraging piracy, and while we condemn digital theft, we’re open about the fact that digital piracy has been at the forefront of media preservation. Without such efforts in preservation (which is probably inadvertent), we wouldn’t have access to the Revenge of the Nerds or any other part of our cultural history.
