‘Twin Peaks’ Turns 35! Which Cast Member Called It “Happy Days’ on Acid” in a TV Guide Interview?

On April 8, 1990, filmmaker David Lynch — then best known for arthouse films like Blue Velvet — debuted the two-hour pilot of Twin Peaks, and network TV would never be the same again. Twin Peaks took the classic small town murder-mystery formula, and turned it on its head — using it as a jumping off point to take viewers into a quirky parallel universe full of mysticism, bizarre characters, and damn fine coffee.

In advance of the show’s premiere, TV Guide Magazine profiled the show’s cast in its April 7, 1990 issue. Read on to check out Timothy Carlson’s interviews with the cast and creators — including David Lynch himself, who passed away on January 16, 2025 — right before the premiere of one of the greatest cult TV shows of all time. Though as you can see from the issue cover below, no one had any idea of the cult phenomenon it would become … since the show is mentioned nowhere on the cover.