Gretchen Priscilla Grundler (voiced by Ashley Johnson) is the smart German-American, one of the six main characters on the show Disney's Recess.
Personality[]
Gretchen has been shown to be very intelligent. She has won the Science Award every year except for the 4th Grade when Becky Ben
son stole her project. She once aced a test with 100% score, which Principal Prickly noticed and applied her to Oppenheimer (which she didn't want to go to) so T.J., Vince, Gus, Mikey and Spinelli tried to dumb her down to which she said "I've been trying to dumb myself down since kindergarten." In the end she didn't go to Oppenheimer, but stayed at 3rd Street. In a flashback in the same episode, her test results were compared to those of Stinky Peterson. She has a big heart, as seen when she helps tutor her friends and sometimes even those she dislikes such as Randall Weems. She is also good at yo-yoing and won the world championship. In the episode More Like Gretchen it is revealed that she plays the piano, sings and can make up songs.
Appearance[]
Gretchen is a thin, tall geeky girl. She has reddish-brown hair in pigtails, with large circle glasses and with rather large front teeth. She wears a blue dress, pink socks and large brown shoes. In the pilot, she has black hair and a polkadot dress.
Relationships with other members of the gang[]
T.J. Detweiler[]
T.J. surprisingly doesn't say much about Gretchen. She has, apparently, tutored him in Grammar ("The Break-up"). The two don't always see eye-to-eye on things. T.J. supported her in her math club with Hank in "A Genius Among Us", but soon stopped going since it put the gang to sleep. In "Outcast Ashley", Gretchen didn't consider T.J. a friend for a while since he didn't share her interest in science and astronomy, or helped make her pinhole projector. At the end, they apologize for taking each other for granted. T.J. respects her for being the smartest kid in school, and Gretchen says T.J. is a good friend.
Mikey Blumberg[]
Mikey and Gretchen rarely interact. It remains to be seen the status of their friendship.
Vince LaSalle[]
Gretchen and Vince are good friends, but have a rivalry. Most of their friendship is seen in "The Candidates", where they are pit against each other for Class President. They are competitive until the end, where Vince realizes Gretchen truly deserved the spot. They end with Gretchen saying "a game of tetherball against a good friend". They have their moments of arguing, but also appear to be very close. There is speculation that Gretchen has a crush on Vince, and vice versa.
Ashley Spinelli[]
Being the only two girls in the group, Gretchen and Spinelli are very close. Gretchen was Spinelli's first choice to go with her to the museum in "More Like Gretchen". Their friendship goes through a rough patch in the middle of the episode (with a confused Gretchen), but Gretchen helps make things better between Spinelli and her parents. Gretchen also invited Spinelli to go with her in the "Young Adventurer's Fair" ("Bad Hair Day"). Spinelli helped Gretchen in her campaign in "The Candidates" as her assistant. They also shared revenge against T.J. in "My Funny Valentines" when he gave them both fake valentine's cards.
Gus Griswald[]
While Gus and Gretchen don't interact as often as she does with the other students, there are times where she appears to be a big sister to him, such as in Recess: School's Out.
Foreign Voice Actresse[]
- Dutch: Eva Burmeister
- Finnish: Kiti Kokkonen
- French: Charlyne Pestal
- German: Esra Vural
- Japanese: Misa Suzuki (First half of series), Yuka Hirasawa (Second half of series)
- Polish: Joanna Krejzler
- Swedish: Annika Barklund
Trivia[]
- In the show's Finnish dub, her name is "Greta"
- Gretchen is the only member of the main six with a confirmed birthday.
- Gretchen was based on Paul Germain's wife, Beatrice Germain.
- Gretchen is the only member of the Recess Gang who regularly goes by her full first name, as opposed to the other five who are regularly addressed by some sort of nickname.