Hatching Pete

Pete Ivey is a shy student at Brewster High School who mostly goes unnoticed, while his best friend Cleatus Poole is anything but invisible. Cleatus serves as the school's basketball mascot, a giant chicken, until it turns out he is allergic to the costume. When Cleatus asks Pete to wear the suit in his place, Pete discovers that hiding behind the oversized head lets him become outgoing and funny, and the crowd loves the mascot. The trouble is that everyone assumes Cleatus is the one inside the costume, so his friend takes the credit and the attention, including from a cheerleader. As the school tries to find out who the chicken really is, the two friends fall for the same girl, and Pete has to decide whether to claim what he has done.

The film is a Disney Channel television comedy directed by Stuart Gillard, the tenth of the thirteen features he has directed, arriving between The Cutting Edge: Chasing the Dream and Mega Piranha. Paul W. Cooper wrote the screenplay, and Jason Dolley plays Pete opposite Mitchel Musso as Cleatus, with Tiffany Thornton, Madison Riley, Josie Loren and Brian Stepanek in supporting roles.

On IMDb, the film holds a rating of 5.3 from roughly 3,300 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 5.5 from fewer than 200 votes.