It launched most of its young actors' careers, such as James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Busy Philipps, John Francis Daley, Martin Starr, Samm Levine and Linda Cardellini.

The Weir parents, Harold and Jean, are featured in every episode, and Millie Kentner, Lindsay's nerdy and highly religious former best friend, is a recurring character, as well as Cindy Sanders, the popular cheerleader on whom Sam has a crush.

Lindsay finds herself attempting to transform her life as an academically proficient student, star "mathlete" into a rebellious teenager who hangs out with troubled slackers.

[8] Numerous actors who starred on Freaks and Geeks would later appear on Judd Apatow's later TV series Undeclared, including Rogen, Segel, Levine, Starr, Phillips and Melnick, among several others.

In a 2012 interview with Vanity Fair, Paul Feig detailed what would have happened to the characters if the show had continued: Lindsay would become a human rights lawyer, years after following the Grateful Dead.

Extra content includes behind-the-scenes memos and notes, photos, additional plot lines and excerpts from the Freaks and Geeks series bibles.

[32][33] Freaks and Geeks' creators made it a priority to feature genuine, period-specific music that would help to create the show's tone.

Clearing such names as Billy Joel, Cheap Trick, the Grateful Dead, Rush, Styx, The Moody Blues, The Who and Van Halen required much of the show's budget.

Eventually, this became an obstacle in releasing the show on DVD due to the difficulty and expense of clearing all of the music rights for the series.

However, Freaks and Geeks' creators chose to wait to release the DVD until they could find a company willing to pay for the original music.

[27] In 2000, the cast of Freaks and Geeks was featured in an episode of the game show Family Feud hosted by Louie Anderson.

The site's critical consensus reads, "Freaks and Geeks lampoons real-life adolescence while affectionately embracing every growing pain along the way with refreshing honesty.

[47] One of the cited reasons for its early cancellation was its inability to gain an audience due to its "erratic scheduling" and poor time slots, competing with the high-rated Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

The producers created a website for the series, but NBC would not share its URL because "they didn't want people to know the Internet existed; they were worried about losing viewers to it", as explained by Judd Apatow.

After the network picked up the pilot, Garth Ancier replaced Scott Sassa as president of NBC Entertainment.

Creator Paul Feig expressed the "irony of the situation", as everyone involved wanted Freaks and Geeks to be a success, but the network didn't understand the concept of realistically showcasing life as ordinary teenagers.

Jake Kasdan and Judd Apatow had multiple arguments with the network concerning "lack of victories" in the script and that the characters needed to be "cool."

Because the network did not think the series would be a success, they let the writers add things to the script that they "wouldn't have if they thought the show would resurface the next season", like the use of the phrase, "ambiguous genitalia".

[53] A reunion of several cast members and producers of both shows took place at the Paley Center for Media's PaleyFest on March 12, 2011.