Naturally, Sadie

Naturally, Sadie
The main cast of Naturally, Sadie, (from left to right), Rain, Margaret, Sadie, Jean, Walter and Hal.
Created by	Barbara Wiechmann
Developed by	John May Suzanne Bolch
Starring	Charlotte Arnold Jasmine Richards Michael D'Ascenzo Justin Bradley
Opening theme	Performed by Angie Grant
Country of origin	Canada
No. of seasons	3
No. of episodes	63 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	John May Suzanne Bolch (Season 1) Brent Piaskoski (Seasons 2-3) Steve DeNure Neil Court Beth Stevenson
Producer	Kevin May
Running time	22 minutes
Original release
Network	Family Disney Channel (Seasons 1-2) Nickelodeon UK MBC 3 Family Room HD
Release	U.S.: June 24, 2005 - January 14, 2007 Canada: June 25, 2005 – August 26, 2007

Naturally, Sadie is a Canadian-produced comedy television program that currently airs on Family in Canada, Nickelodeon in the UK, Australia and Germany, RTE Two in Ireland and Disney in India.

The plot centres on Sadie Hawthorne, a high school student and aspiring naturalist who loves to study and observe animal behaviour. Luckily for her, she's got two best friends, Margaret and Rain, to back her up until she figures it all out. The series was originally titled, and broadcast as, The Complete Freaks Of Nature, the name being changed to Naturally, Sadie when Disney Channel picked up the series after its first season of production.

Sadie's brother, Hal, always does his best to trip her up along the way and then laugh at her misfortune. She has a crush on a boy named Owen Anthony during Season 1.

Season 2 deals with Sadie as a sophomore in high school, and sees her acting, feeling, and looking more like a typical teenager. She has a new crush, Benjamin Harrison, and her life is always turned upside down. From season 1 to season 2, the show's format changed greatly.

Season 3 deals with Sadie and Ben's new-found relationship. Margaret is still really into fashion and gives even more advice. Rain's old friend Taylor comes back into his life and they get closer and become a couple.

The series contains great similaruites to the Nickelodean show, Unfabulous. Sadie's friends, mom, dad, crush, and personality are very much alike with Addie Singer's (Played by Emma Roberts) on Unfabulous.

Major characters

Sadie Hawthorne

Portrayed by Charlotte Arnold, Sadie Hawthorne is an aspiring naturalist and student at R.B. Bennett High School. Sadie treats every day like one big experiment. From her theories on social-climbing classmates to her hypotheses about the life cycle of a crush on Ben Harrison, Sadie is quick to try and apply her naturalist knowledge to her homeroom habitat. Sometimes Sadie's stubborn pursuit of knowledge lands her in serious trouble. From offending classmates to accidental boyfriend stealing, Sadie herself is all too-often a failed experiment in good intentions. She manages to scrape through somehow - with a little help from her friends.

Margaret Browning-Levesque

Portrayed by Jasmine Richards. She is Sadie's best friend, although sometimes she wants Sadie to behave more like her peers. Together with Rainbow Papadakis, the three are best friends. Margaret sometimes wishes for more average friends, but she still supports Sadie's naturalist interests and Rain's crazy schemes. She is often sought out by Sadie for the typical teenage point of view, and much of her attention is usually focused on shopping and boys.

Rainbow "Rain" Papadakis

Portrayed by Michael D'Ascenzo, Rain is a constant source of comedy. He is always working on one of his master plans-for-success, which usually end in failure. He has a gruelling part-time job at his family's restaurant, and parents who lecture at length in Greek about the virtues of being "more like his cousins". Luckily he has best friends Sadie and Margaret to support and accept him for his craziness. In season three, he began dating Taylor Dedomanikdantonio, an old friend from camp. When she moved to Whitby, they hit it off like old times. Rain and Margaret kissed once on the way home from Sadie's house, and were both happy to discover they have no chemistry.

Owen Anthony

On Sadie's scale of survival, Owen (Kyle Kass) is easily the fittest of the species. Kind, smart, athletic and charming, Owen is a guy with a lot of popularity and no perceivable ego. If Sadie could, she'd date him, but she's never actually managed to utter a complete sentence in his presence. Sadie watches Owen from afar, unravelling the mystery of this wonderous creature, if not in the name of science, in the name of love. From season two on, however, her focus shifts to Ben Harrison.

Ben Harrison

Ben (Jacob Kraemer) is Sadie's love interest from season two onwards. He's the new kid who everyone likes. Sadie finds him sweet, charming, smug, and cute. He always says "chimo" with a little twist with his hand, to greet and says goodbye to people. He calls her "Red" because of her red hair. And she likes him because he has a naturally long nose like an anteater as Sadie would describe it.

There have been eleven attempts where Ben and Sadie have almost kissed on the lips.

1. At the end of the episode "Election", where they got interrupted by a beach ball thrown at them,
2. In an episode where they attended a bowling party, they were about an inch away, but the guy over the intercom announced it was almost midnight, and that was when Sadie and her brother had to be home (They were grounded but snuck out anyways, and their parents were going to be home at midnight, In the end they were grounded again).
3. Ben tried to kiss her again a few moments later, but Hal got in the way.
4. In a later episode, he admits he likes Sadie as more than a friend.
5. In the episode "Rashômon", when Ben is told to clean, Sadie stays behind to help. They almost kiss but Ben puts a mop handle between them.
6. In the episode "The Mask", Sadie meets a new boy and they have a lot in common. They start to hang out as friends and Ben gets jealous. In the end, he comes to say he is sorry. They almost kiss when Ben turns Sadie's head and kisses her on the ear as a joke.
7. Ben asks Sadie out to the Wow on Friday and she says yes. Her parents show up and sit with them and tell Ben embarrassing stories about Sadie. They start to dance with him and have a lot of fun. Sadie on the otherhand is really mad and embarrassed and yells at her parents. She runs home and sits in her room, then later she walks downstairs and sees Ben in the living room with a romantic dinner. They are about to kiss but Sadie's parents come in the room.
8. In the episode "Play it Again, Sadie", Sadie is afraid that Ben will kiss Arden before her because of the acting class. Sadie finally gets the courage to stop Arden and Ben from kissing but Rain finally takes Margaret's advice and starts making decisions as the director of the play. Rain stops Ben and Sadie again from kissing for the first time.
9. In the episode "Ghouls Just Want To Have Fun", Sadie almost kisses Ben, but then Ben turns into a fanged-zombie and freaks Sadie out.
10. In the episode "The Bennett Club", Sadie and Ben almost kiss, but then Arden, Margaret, and Rain start laughing on the loud speaker to get Ms. Mann out of the gym, so Sadie and Ben can leave too, without being caught.
11. In the episode "A Very Sadie Christmas", Ben and Sadie nearly kiss under the mistletoe, but Hal purposely walks between them.

But all that almost kissing changes in the episode "Sliding Closet Doors", Sadie is choosing between a pink and blue shirt in the morning and dreams up ways that each shirt could change her day. While wearing the blue shirt (instead of the pink shirt) Ben tells Sadie that he needs to ask her something, but not while they're at school and tells her to meet him at he Wow. While waiting for him Sadie gets a text that is supposedly from Ben saying that he had to have some time to think and wouldn't come with a :( and it was signed Benjamin instead of Ben. (But the text was actually from Arden.) After Ben finds out that Arden was trying to keep Sadie and him apart he goes looking for Sadie. But while all that is happening Sadie is getting some unusual advice from Hal, he tells Sadie that the text is a fake because their was no chimo and it was signed Benjamin instead of his usual signature Ben so he tells her to go look for Ben. Ben and Sadie are both searching for each other and as soon as they give up they end up finding one and other. Ben shows Sadie pictures that he had taken of her, but the last one is blank and he says that it is his favourite because he hopes it will be of his girlfriend (Sadie). The episode ends as Sadie and Ben kiss. The real question is though, "Will Sadie choose the blue shirt or the pink shirt?" because the kiss will never happen if she chooses the pink shirt.

If Sadie chooses the pink shirt she will go with this guy named Chris (who happens to be crushing on Sadie) to the Wow. She will hug Chris and Ben will walk in and see them. He gets into a fight with Sadie and basically tells her that something is telling them that they don't belong together. She will stand there depressed until Chris (who left because he was sad that Sadie didn't like him) came back in to pay for the shakes that they had ordered. He asks her if she wants to talk and she says yes so they sit down and start talking. Then Chris offers to walk Sadie home and so they are at her house and he is saying that he can't believe that he is walking her home while she is basically thinking about Ben. The last thing you see before it rewinds everything that happens is her snapping out of it and asking what Chris said. This episode is basically making you realize that what you wear could change the outcome of your day. This is the last episode of Naturally Sadie that would air in the United States of America.

Hal Hawthorne

Hal (Justin Bradley) is Sadie's annoying, although sometimes helpful, older brother, who, unlike Sadie, does not do very well in school. He gets into trouble with the principal a lot, and, in one episode, ends up with Rain in detention as well. In another episode, Hal becomes Sadie's art tutor. Art happens to be Hal's best subject and Sadie's worst. At first, Hal tries to help her. But when he realizes that Sadie could become better than him, Hal makes her do silly things like paint with her butt. In the end, Sadie does become better at art, but turns in one of her worse pieces to make Hal feel better. Hal is also the leader of his own band called "Morning Breath".

Hal does not appear in the episode Quiz Show

Jean Hawthorne

Jean (Collette Micks) is Sadie's mom and a novelist. When she is not on tour in some other city, she's locked in her office, working or lying on the couch with her eyes closed, thinking about work. Jean has always encouraged Sadie's fascination with animals and is the one who will stick up for her when she chooses digging up beetles over her family movie night. Jean understands focus, determination and fanciful exploration and is happy to see her daughter so full of them all. Jean's a little flighty and sometimes has her head way up in the clouds but Sadie appreciates her mother's artiness and the heartfelt - albeit abbreviated - talks that they have together.

Walter Hawthorne

Sadie's dad, (Richard Clarkin) is an engineer. He's a straight-shooting, exacting doer who can build things with tools and bake complicated cakes that require precise measurements, but who can't throw a meal together without a recipe. Walter is precise in everything he does and is, in many ways, the polar opposite of messy, think-outside-the-box Jean. Sadie ponders this "opposites attracting" thing a lot, wondering at nature's grand design, not because her parents' relationship doesn't work, but rather because somehow, miraculously, it does.

Minor characters

• Ron Yuma (played by Alex Hood) - The proverbial nerd at school who likes to annoy Sadie, but at times does have a good heart. He starts dating Mallory in "The Jacqueline Princess Bride".

• Mallory Randall (played by Mallory Margel) - Mallory is a student at Sadie's school who has a major crush on Hal and is very fond of his band "Morning Breath". She starts dating Ron Yuma in "The Jacqueline Princess Bride".

• Taylor DiDomenicantonio (played by Diana Peressini) - Rain's best friend from camp and becomes his girlfriend in season 3. They are together when the series ends.

• Vivian Wu (played by Caroline Park) - A girl that Rain had a major crush on up until "The Graduate" in season 3.

• Ms. Alberta Mann (played by Alison Sealy-Smith) - The principal of R.B. Bennett High.

• Chelsea Breuer (played by Mandy Butcher) - During the first season, Chelsea was the most popular girl in school and could be very intimidating, but she did show her soft side occasionally. She also had a small crush on Hal.

• Dr W.S. Finch (played by Sean McCann) - Dr. Finch is the owner of a wilderness store that Sadie worked part-time in during the first season.

• Toula Papadakis (played by Maria Srygiannis) - Rain's mother

• Yiorgos Papadakis (played by Alex Karzis) - Rain's father

• Tad (played by Will Seatle Bowes) - Tad was one of Rain's best friends, and a student at R.B. Bennett High during the first season. Tad also liked Sadie, as evidenced in the episode "Myth Adventures" Ron Yuma was taunting him about having "the scent of his woman" (Sadie) on his shirt after a rumour spread about Sadie and Ron playing spin the bottle.

• Arden Alcott (played by Shenae Grimes) - Arden is a self-absorbed popular girl in school and Sadie's prime enemy. She is constantly competing with Sadie for Ben's affections and will do anything to get what she wants. Hal and Rain are very fond of her along with many others guys at school. Arden is a replacement character for Chelsea.

• Chris Danvers (played by Adrian Morningstar) - One of Sadie's crushes in season 2.

• J.P. (played by Vanessa Thompson) - Margaret's younger step-sister.

• Fred (played by Tony Munch) - An employee who cooks, helps run, and lives at the Papadakis family restaurant, Acropolis Wow.

Episodes

Main article: List of Naturally, Sadie episodes

Trivia

• Most of the episodes in season 2 are named after movies or TV shows.
• Jacob Kraemer has shown up in a few episodes from the first and second season but he didn't play the same character.
• Before his recurring role as Fred, Tony Munch had guest starred as an exterminator in a Season 1 episode of Naturally, Sadie, sharing a scene with Michael D'Ascenzo.
• This show takes place in Whitby, Ontario, but is filmed in Toronto.
• Scifi veteran David Winning directed four episodes including "Double Jeopardy".
• Both Naturally, Sadie and Life with Derek aired on Disney Channel around the same time and Naturally, Sadie had the better rating until recently. It was later removed from Disney Channel, however Life With Derek is still airing.
• Charlotte Arnold will co-star in the new season of Degrassi: The Next Generation, which stars Shenae Grimes (who plays Arden in Naturally Sadie).
• Production Companies :Decode Entertainment and Walt Disney Television

External links

• Oficial web site on Disney
• Fan site on Family]
• IMDB
• David Winning (director) official web site