Wheelchair-bound hero takes on junior high

'Pelswick' debuts on Nickelodeon

Pelswick is the hero of a new weekly Nickelodeon cartoon series. Pelswick's creator John Callahan is also in a wheelchair after an automobile accident left him paralyzed

In this story: 'Is your dog paralyzed too?' 'Pelswick to me is like a real kid' RELATED SITES

NEW YORK (AP) -- Pelswick Eggert happens to be crippled. Or, as he puts it, "permanently seated." Same difference maybe.

But for 13-year-old Pelswick, differences don't matter. In his motorized wheelchair, he's hell on wheels as he barrels through adolescence inside Alcatraz Junior High and beyond.

Pelswick is the hero and eponym of a weekly Nickelodeon cartoon series premiering Tuesday at 8 p.m. EDT.

It was created by cartoonist John Callahan, also a wheelchair habitue since an automobile accident in 1972 left him, like Pelswick, paralyzed below his armpits.

In his nationally syndicated newspaper cartoons, Callahan, now 49, exhibits a stark, often cruelly funny take on life's tribulations.

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Including his own. Perhaps the title of Callahan's bestselling autobiography (borrowed from the caption for one of his drawings) manifests his fearlessly bent attitude: "Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot."

This is a guy who, when asked if time has granted him relief from a bitter past, replies that, yes, "I feel happier, more comfortable in my skin -- at least, in the part that I can feel."

Then he volunteers a recurring nightmare: "I'm out in the ocean, screaming, 'Help! I'm being bitten by a shark ... I think."'

Is the Nickelodeon audience ready for this brand of mordant humor? Of course, not. With "Pelswick," Callahan puts shock on hold while staying true to his gutsy gospel: Everyone is different together. Or should be.

"Over the years," says Callahan, "so many kids have come up to me and asked me questions about being in a wheelchair: 'Is your dog paralyzed, too? Do you sleep in the wheelchair?' "It finally hit me: Why don't I just do a show about a kid in a wheelchair and answer those questions?"

Callahan is speaking by phone from his office at home in Portland, Oregon, where he is joined by his 13-year-old pug, Annie, and Stanley, a giant orange cat (both pets, for the record, are able-bodied).

Pelswick, says Callahan, "has a knack for seeing things the way they really are. And he demands to be treated normally. I think, basically, Pelswick has never looked down. That's one way to put it."

Pelswick, like most any kid, has irreverence for school, a crush on a fellow student, and a horror of getting a huge, bulbous zit.

He has a tough-love Gram Gram -- a crazy old lady who rides a skateboard with her walker in tow -- and Mr. Jimmy, a magical mentor who annoys Pelswick as much as assists him in dealing with life's challenges beyond the wheelchair.

"'Pelswick' happens to be a show about a kid in a wheelchair, but the show is not about being in a wheelchair," says Cyma Zarghami, Nickelodeon executive vice president. "The show is about navigating growing up."

During more than a year of developing his show with Nickelodeon, Callahan christened Pelswick by plucking the name from a newspaper page he glimpsed in an old movie. "Such-and-such Pelswick was the byline for the story the actor was supposed to be reading. I thought, 'That is a cool name!"'

As for Eggert, the surname? "I'm a big fan of Humpty Dumpty," Callahan explains. "I draw millions of cartoons about Humpty. He's like a role model for me: the egg thing."

But even before he got his name, Pelswick had made appearances in Callahan's cartoons, albeit in a primitive state.

Of course, anything drawn by Callahan resides in a somewhat primitive state. Retaining the use of his arms but plagued by stiffness in his fingers, he draws with his right hand guided with his left. The result is an agitated, urgent style that gives his cartoons all the more snap.

"But the people that draw for the show are actually real good artists," he says, lamenting their plight with a sly laugh. "I wouldn't necessarily say they had to have a spinal-cord injury just to copy my drawing style, but they had some adjustments to make."

As the series' creator and an executive producer, he has closely supervised these first 13 episodes, and loves the team effort they inspired.

"It's just such a magical thing the way all the talents work together to create this living, breathing character," says Callahan, an artist who typically works solo to still-frame his beings on a page.

"Pelswick to me is like a real kid. So colorful, so dynamic!" he says proudly, sounding like Geppetto when Pinocchio became a boy. "Isn't it enough to be father of Pelswick? A cat, a dog and a cartoon character? C'mon!"

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

John Callahan
Nickelodeon: Pelswick

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