Out of any fictional brand that ever came across my adolescent eye, none caught my attention as much as The Pear Company.
Created by Dan Schneider, this Apple parody made its way onto many-a-Nickelodean show including iCarly, Victorious, Zoey101 and many others. We assume there were great copyright hoops that Dan Schneider just didn’t bother to jump through, so he created this brand. But, we have to applaud him for the creativity in his replica products, taking technology we were already using and making them seem even cooler.
Interestingly, Dan Schneider’s inspiration from Apple goes beyond the products themselves. We reported earlier that Apple don’t allow villain characters to use iPhones and, as it turns out, the Nickelodeon universe has a similar sentiment. In an episode of iCarly, Dan Schneider said that only good characters on his shows own Pear technology, hence Nevel (a villain on the show) does not own any Pear products. How crazy.
Anyway, to engage your nostalgia, let’s go through all the Pear products we loved and wished we owned as kids.
PearPhones
Now, unlike the iPhone, the PearPhone is shaped like the fruit of the company. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to use a phone with somewhat of a round shape and decided that it’s probably not the most practical. But, you know, it does look very cool! It should be noted that the PearPhones weren’t always shaped like a pear, but resembled the classic iPhone shape in the first generation.
PearBooks
You can track the evolution of Pear computers along with changes made by the Apple company. PearBooks first showed up in the mid-’00s, in Zoey 101, as she rocked a white and pink pear-book. But with iCarly and Victorious, the computers started to get a little experimental.
On iCarly, the props department played around with a transparent set-up, which low key looked incredible.
On Victorious, as they’re – you know – students, they obviously needed their own laptops. All of the main cast had PearBook Pro’s, with a colour that reflected their own personality.
PearPads
Similar to the PearPhone, PearPads were initially rectangular before eventually evolving to the shape of a pear. Weirdly, the shape of a pear seemed to fit the concept of an iPad much more than a phone, making this product irresistible to anyone that saw it. Interestingly, when they were first introduced on iCarly, they were humungous, presumably making fun of the products initial size.
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