Anne Hathaway's Little-Seen, Short-Lived Teen TV Show Was A Late '90s Gem

Acting for a living can take you down some peculiar avenues. Consider Anne Hathaway and Jesse Eisenberg. In the 2010s, they lent their voices to the "Rio" movies as an oil and water pair of blue Spix's macaws who fall in love. But a decade before becoming animated amorous avians, the duo pretended to be sister and brother on Fox's short-lived dramedy series "Get Real."

Developed by Clyde B. Phillips (who, pulling a proper 180, later became the chief creative on the "Dexter" franchise), the show marked both Hathaway and Eisenberg's screen debut when it hit the airwaves in September 1999. Over the course of its first and only season's 22 episodes (two of which didn't even air), "Get Real" chronicles the various ups and downs (but mostly the downs) of the Green family. First, you've got the parents, Mary (Debrah Farentino) and Mitch (Jon Tenney), who come to realize they're dissatisfied with their careers and relationship alike. Then there's their underachieving son Cameron (Eric Christian Olsen), Eisenberg as their (what else?) awkward youngest son Kenny, and Hathaway as their daughter Meghan, a model student who throws her mom and dad for a loop by revealing she's (sorta) done being "the good kid" just as she's readying to head to college.

Much like Jennifer Lawrence's own pre-stardom turn as a mildly rebellious teenager on "The Bill Engvall Show," Hathaway's award-nominated work on "Get Real" patently signaled that she was meant for much bigger things. Naturally, that goes double for Eisenberg and Olsen (then roughly a decade out from becoming a staple on "NCIS: Los Angeles"). Still, the show around them is just as notable as not only a time capsule of cultural attitudes at the start of the 21st century but also the network TV trends at the time.

"Get Real" quickly presents itself as being more emotionally grounded than its fellow '90 teen series "Dawson's Creek" but cheekier than the early '90s coming-of-age teen TV classic "My So-Called Life." And by that, I mean Anne Hathaway's Meghan Green explicitly tells us this while interrupting her voiceover narration mid-stream to address the camera directly during her first scene in the show's pilot. More than that, characters breaking the fourth wall and parading out then-timely pop culture references into their dialogue is a core tenant of the series, which made it either sharply funny or smugly irritating to critics.

It's why "Get Real" is kind of a fascinating entry in turn of the 21st century network TV. When it premiered on Fox in January 2000, "Malcolm in the Middle" made familial dysfunction fun by embracing the vibe of a live-action "Looney Tunes" show. In contrast, "Get Real" sought to live up to its name in its treatment of teen and adult sexual desire, middle-aged malaise, youthful ennui, and even accidental pregnancies of the non-teen variety, but with a wry sense of humor. You have to admit: It's an ambitious tonal juggling act, whether you think it works or not.

That unavoidably wobbly approach may explain why more folks got their teen TV fix from the more straightforward genre mashup "Roswell," which aired on Wednesdays around the same time as "Get Real." (That's assuming they weren't simply watching the all-timer political drama that is "The West Wing.") Its pop culture nods and outlook are sometimes painfully late '90s-ish from our present vantage (the pilot alone has Jesse Eisenberg as Kenny warning off viewers from trying to be "PC"), but like the best media relics, this one's worth studying.