Ashley Spinelli

Ashley Spinelli
Character From:	Recess Recess: School's Out Recess: All Growed Down Recess: Taking the 5th Grade Recess Christmas: Miracle on Third Street
Name:	Ashley Funicello Spinelli
Family:	Robert "Bob" Spinelli (Father) Florence "Flo" Spinelli (Mother) Joseph "Joey" Spinelli
First Appearance:	The Break-in
Portrayed By:	Pamela Segall Adlon

Ashley Funicello Spinelli is the tomboyish Italian-American substitute ringleader of the Recess gang. Spinelli is one of the six main characters on the show Disney's Recess. She dislikes her first name Ashley because she doesn't want to be a member of the Ashley's, therfore she uses her surname as an alias.

Characteristics

She watches wrestling and is known as the toughest kid on the playground. She is stubborn, obstinate and frequently uses voilence or threats when something is troubling her. She hates talking about her parents because they embarrass her all the time. Spinelli's parents are infamous for telling her friends about her feelings or showing them her childhood photos. She also is intending to keep up with the latest trend, as revealed in "Schoolworld" when she says she likes the SAL-300 for being new, and in "Weekend at Muriel's" when Miss Finster, having turned on the car radio on the way to the latter's house, says that "everyone likes the oldies", and Spinelli says, "Actually, I like the newies." She has a crush on T.J. She is the most aggresive and antagonistic kid in the gang. The other Recess gang members are not exempted from this kid of treatment from Spinelli.

Spinelli is small in size and light in weight; and before Gus's arrival she was the shortest of the main group; now she's the second. She is shown to by tomboyishly beautiful, with a petite slender figure with shoulder length raven black hair and chocolate brown eyes, plus pink full lips and olive coloured skin. Her outfit consists of a lightorange cotton ski cap upon her head; her hair up in pig-tails on either side each held by a small red hair tie. She wears an unzipped opened black leather biker jacket over a red cotton knee length skirt dress with short sleeves and a rounded neck line, a pair of orange stockings with thin red stripes on them, and finally a pair of over sized black rubber biker boots with buckles on them that were hand-me-downs from her older brother.

In the original pilot version of "The Break-in", Spinelli was smaller and had her hair in multiple pigtails. She also wore a pale yellow t-shirt, tan overalls and dark brown shoes.

Her immediate family includes her father Robert "Bob" and her mother Florence "Flo", and her big older brother Joseph "Joey" who has been mentioned by Spinelli here and there throughout the show but has never made an appearance at all. Spinelli also mentioned something about having an uncle named Manfred "Manny" and a cousin named Gordon "Gordo" in two separate episodes, but they were of course never spoken of again nor shown at all in the show. Spinelli's parents have a tendency to embarrass their daughter in public. It is shown in the episode "Parents' Night" that her parents are both secret agents. It is a fact unknown to all the other characters. It is revealed in the episode "Weekend at Muriel's" that Spinelli's grandmother "Angie" and Miss Finster were good friends "back in Guam". As a result, Muriel is a family friend, and the perfect choice to babysit Spinelli.

Relationships

Mikey Blumberg

Mikey and Spinelli are polar opposites. Mikey is large and peaceful, while Spinelli is small and more violent. Mikey's sincerity and calm demeanor sometimes get in the way with Spinelli's attitude. The two share a rare moment of friendship in the episode "Dance Lessons", where Spinelli puts aside her tough attitude for Mikey's sake. She was also ready to defend Mikey when Randall made jokes about him in "Stand Up Randall", which Mikey appreciated but said it wasn't necessary.

Gretchen Grundler

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, 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 valentines' cards.

T.J. Detweiler

Throughout the course of the series, T.J. has been shown to have a crush on Spinelli, and vice versa. Many episodes have moments where he wraps his arms around her shoulders for usually no reason at all, showing his affection. In "More Like Gretchen", he even tells Spinelli, "My heart goes out to you", which semi-confirms his affections. On many occasionals, Spinelli has returned these affections. Also in the Parent/Teacher day, her mother even comments that Spinelli told her that T.J. is the boy she has a crush on.

Vince LaSalle

Both Vince and Spinelli are considered T.J.'s right hand. They are good friends but don't interact as much as they do with other members of the gang.

Gus Griswald

Spinelli and Gus don't often interact but are shown to care for each other in a number of episodes.