The Weekenders

The Weekenders details the weekends of four best friends: Tino Tonitini, Lorraine "Lor" MacQuarrie, Carver René Descartes, and Petratishkovna "Tish" Katsufrakis. Every episode is set over the course of a weekend, with little to no mentions of school life. Friday sets up the adventure of the episode, Saturday escalates or develops it, and the climatic third act happens on Sunday. The implied "ticking clock" is used to signify the characters running out of time and the problem must be solved before going back to school on Monday. The characters frequent a pizzeria that always changes its theme each weekend.

• Tino Tonitini (voiced by Jason Marsden) is the brainy, inquisitive, and mature-for-his-age leader of the central group of friends. He serves as the emotional core of the foursome, maintaining a social awareness that keeps him from being overly bookish while remaining largely invisible to the truly popular students at school. As the point-of-view character, Tino frequently addresses the audience directly, narrating his experiences, setting up stories, and sometimes pausing the action to speak to the camera or employ visual aids to clarify his thoughts. Langdale described Tino as the window to the world of the show. Marsden found Tino's voice during the audition process after viewing the character's picture and learning he was twelve years old; Marsden intentionally crafted a unique voice for the role that felt authentic to the character, and he contributed input as a writer to preserve Tino's integrity, with his ad-libs often aligning closely with the intended tone.^[2][3]
• Carver Descartes (voiced by Phil LaMarr) is an image-oriented and theatrical member of the group, representing its closest approximation to hip and popular. Larger than life and focused on fashion and appearance, Carver functions as the "clothes" in the group dynamic, contrasted with Tino as the center, Tish as the brain, and Lor as the body. He exhibits a degree of bored aloofness associated with teenage cool, though it does not fully reflect his true nature; he is the least sensitive and most selfish of the friends, yet fundamentally good-hearted and prone to mistakes he must learn from. Carver hails from a model suburban family with parents so preoccupied with maintaining appearances that they remain emotionally distant, often failing to engage closely with their children or even recall their names, leading him to rely on his friends for support.^[4]
• Lor MacQuarrie (voiced by Grey DeLisle) is a bossy yet well-intentioned tomboy on the verge of discovering her feminine side. Having grown up with several brothers, an environment saturated with testosterone, she developed athletic tendencies, a masculine style of dress, and a loud, pushy demeanor necessary to gain attention, while remaining oblivious to her own attractiveness. Despite her forceful personality, Lor is never mean-spirited, and her friends enjoy assisting her gradual exploration of femininity, albeit to a limited extent.^[4]
• Tish Katsufrakis (voiced by Kath Soucie) is the artsy and intellectual member of the group. She shifts rapidly between successive obsessions and aspirations (such as dancer, poet, or art historian) with inspired but sometimes alarming speed. Genuinely intelligent and well-read, Tish occasionally becomes detached from everyday reality, assuming others share her familiarity with advanced literary or artistic concepts like Beowulf or the term "mise-en-scène." Her cerebral focus can diminish her physical coordination, leading to mishaps such as walking into objects while absorbed in her reading.^[4]
• Tino's Mom (voiced by Lisa Kaplan) is a single parent whose actual name is never revealed in the series, although she is referred to as "Mrs. Tonitini" by Tino's friends. She treats her son Tino roughly as an equal, applying a New Age approach to health and nutrition (such as preparing seaweed sandwiches or tofu-based dinners) while providing sensible, down-to-earth advice when required. To the children, she appears somewhat wacky on the surface, yet they appreciate her as a voice of reason, experience, and honesty.^[5]
• The Pizza Guy (voiced by Jeff Bennett) is the proprietor of the local pizzeria that serves as the friends' favorite hangout. The establishment changes its name and thematic décor each week (examples include the pirate-themed "Pizzas of Eight," the science-fiction-oriented "Deep Dish Nine," and the action-oriented "Mission Impizzable") while the menu remains consistent. The Pizza Guy enthusiastically adopts costumes and personas matching each weekly theme, often becoming carried away with his roles.^[5][6]
• Coach Ned Colson (voiced by Phil LaMarr) is a middle school gym teacher. LaMarr developed his voice as a Chicago-accented blend of Charlton Heston and Ralph Kramden.^[7]

The series takes place in the fictional city of Bahia Bay, California ("Bahia" is Spanish for "bay"), which is based on San Diego, California where the creator lived.^[8]

The show's theme song, "Livin' for the Weekend", was performed by Wayne Brady and written by Brady and Roger Neill.^{[citation needed]}

The series premiered on February 26, 2000, as part of Disney's One Saturday Morning on ABC. From 2001 to 2002, it also aired as part of Disney's One Too on UPN on Sunday mornings.^[13] In September 2002, the series moved to Toon Disney,^[14] and the remaining episodes would be aired from October 19, 2002,^[15] finishing on February 29, 2004; the last four episodes of the series would air in Canada on Family Channel, ahead of their US premieres, in November 2002.^[12] Reruns of the series continued to air on Toon Disney from 2004 to 2006, and on Disney Channel in 2003.

In the United States, the entire series is now available on DVD on two volume sets sold exclusively through the Disney Movie Club,^[16] which makes The Weekenders the first Disney animated television show to have a full release on DVD.^[17] Due to the first-sale doctrine in the United States, the discs can be legally resold and are regularly available from sellers on eBay and other similar sites.^[18]

As of 2026, the series was made available to stream on Disney+ on May 25, 2026.^[19]