UnNews:UnNews remembers Michelle Trachtenberg

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Sunday, March 2, 2025

I knew Michelle more from Harriet the Spy than from Buffy or Gossip Girl.

On February 26, 2025, the world lost Michelle Christine Trachtenberg at the far-too-young age of 39. The following is a transcription of my live UnNews Audio eulogy.

(audio) UnNews Audio (file info)
Listen to this story!


Michelle Trachtenberg

(Background noise)

(Deep breath)

This is gonna be raw and real.

(Long pause)

Hold on. I kinda need my handle.[1]

(Background noise)

Can everyone hear me?

(Deep breath)

Michelle Trachtenberg.

(Brief pause)

(Deep breath)

Where do I begin?

First of all I knew her from The Adventures of Pete & Pete. Nona F. Mecklenberg, Pete's best friend introduced in season 3... after Artie had left the show, Toby Huss. But it was Nickelodeon's first-ever movie Harriet the Spy that brought Michelle Trachtenberg to my attention. And she became one of my biggest celebrity crushes before Britney.

(Long pause)

I thought I heard something.

(Brief pause)

Probably just the AC.

(Brief pause)

But Harriet the Spy had a huge impact on me. I thought Michelle was great in the movie, And the other kids.[2] And Rosie O'Donnell.

(Brief pause)

And it had a really great theme song, Jill Sobule "The Secretive Life."

(Brief pause)

And... She kept doing a lot of Nickelodeon stuff. She was a panelist a few times of Figure It Out. She and Danny Tamberelli were on an episode of Space Cases. That's a deep cut.

(Brief pause)

If she was on something I would watch it. (Laugh) A year after Harriet the Spy she was on this Miller-Boyett sitcom on CBS called Meego, another deep cut. It was essentially Balki as ALF.[3] Balki as ALF.

Yes this was a real show. The Erik Von Detten replacement was Will Estes, if anyone cares.[4] Didn't think so.

Bronson Pinchot. The dad was Ed Begley Jr., and Michelle Trachtenberg was the daughter. Like, one of the boys on the show was, on the pilot, was Sid from Toy Story, Erik Von Detten.[5]

But by Halloween the show was done. I was angry, pretty sad about it. Eh, but life goes on.

The next big thing I remember her doing was, up to this point, was Inspector Gadget.

{Brief pause}

Now I never really watched the... Buffy until Michelle joined the cast. But I did watch the musical episode they did[6] for shits and giggles. But she did have a pretty good voice.

At some point, 2002, I lost everything. Kinda stopped following her. Kinda stopped following Rosie O'Donnell even. Lost my TV. Lost my bedroom. Lost all of my "privileges."[7] Slowly got them back. Very restricted life.

(Brief pause)

She mostly moved to TV by now. I was aware of Ice Princess. Never saw Eurotrip. Never saw 17 Again.[8] One of the last things I remember seeing of hers was a TV movie called Killing Kennedy where she played Oswald's girlfriend or wife[9] who spoke Russian. And then a rerun of Robot Chicken where she played Harriet the Spy all grown up.

{Brief pause}

And in 2021, having not seen the film in ages, I watched Harriet the Spy on Pluto for its 25th anniversary. I still have the VHS, but you know, I'm really precious about VHS. I don't wanna ruin the tapes, you know? I've been planning this coming-of-age '90s movie [and I don't wanna ruin my tapes] for that reason.

I never saw Gossip Girl. I never knew anything about the series until years later. I didn't know if the show was still on the air. But one of her last roles was on the reboot of Gossip Girl on Max.

I don't wanna speculate on... her health. But if you've seen her last photos. I will say that... she had reportedly had a liver transplant.

Michelle Trachtenberg, dead at 39. Crazy. She was only three months older than me. And in that way I felt like I grew up with her, you know?

(Brief pause)

Nickelodeon can do that. 90s nostalgia can do that. This really has me thinking about [my own] mortality. Ya know?

Not another news alert! Well, Gene Hackman. But that's another story for another day.[10] Let's not worry about The French Connection, let's worry about The Welsch Connection - Harriet M. Welsch. In memoriam. That's just the facts, man.[11]

UnNews Remembers Michelle Trachtenberg. This is PF4eva with UnNews, celebrating 20 years of Uncyclopedia.

Michelle Trachtenberg (art).png
Michelle Trachtenberg
October 11, 1985 - February 26, 2025

One thing I didn't mention was that when I started writing scripts as a kid, a few of them were for a hypothetical Harriet the Spy TV series. But I didn't want to make this about me. This is about Michelle.

Sources[edit | edit source]

Foootnotes[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ Forgive my slurred speech. This is when I attached the handle to my Zoom H2N
  2. ↑ Vanessa Lee Chester, Gregory Smith and Charlotte Sullivan
  3. ↑ Meego was what you'd get if you put Perfect Strangers, Mork & Mindy and ALF in a blender.
  4. ↑ I think Von Detten had to drop out to film the Disney Channel movie Brink!
  5. ↑ Oh, and after recording I just then remembered that the other son was Jonathan Lipnicki, the kid from Jerry Maguire.
  6. ↑ "Once More with Feeling"
  7. ↑ Read: Human rights
  8. ↑ But I have seen 18 Again with George Burns, but that's an entirely different movie.
  9. ↑ Wife
  10. ↑ The MSN news alert that popped up during my recording was actually not yet another celebrity death. It was Ben & Jerry's founders trying to buy back the company.
  11. ↑ I think I said. Even playing back on my Zoom mic, it's still unintelligible.
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