Children of the ’90s will certainly remember Hey Dude, a Nickelodeon sitcom that was one of the network’s first forays into original live-action programming. (No, not the one at the summer camp. That was Salute Your Shorts. No, not the sketch comedy one in the high school. That was Welcome Freshmen. The cowboy one. There was a dog, and horses, and the lead was an older guy in glasses?)
Anyway, the show’s cast and crew reunited last week for a panel at Austin’s ATX Television Festival. The panel brought together several of the series’ stars, including David Brisbin, David Lascher, and Christine “Sally Sitwell” Taylor, finally answering the burning question of why you've always thought she looked so damn familiar.
Several cast members have retired from acting since the show stopped filming in 1991, including Kelly Brown, who played snobby rich girl Brad, and Joe Torres, who played Native American ranch hand Danny. (Torres missed the reunion for the somewhat-ominous reason that “no one really knows where he is.”) On the crew side of things, the most notable presence was Graham Yost, who wrote on Hey Dude long before he adapted its gritty, crime-infused tone to a Kentucky setting and created Justified.
There doesn’t appear to be video of the reunion online (Update: TooFab has some) but it seems to have gone perfectly pleasantly, in the way that any meeting of a bunch of moms and dads who haven’t seen each other in 20 years would go. And, really, could there be a more fitting tribute to the enduring legacy of Hey Dude than an evening of genial banality?