WB Cutie Recalls Childhood Demons

On the WB's new fall comedy Do Over (debuting Sept. 19 at 8:30 pm/ET), Penn Badgley plays a 14-year-old who gets a chance to relive his awkward adolescence. It's a trick the up-and-comer wishes he could pull off in real life.

The incident Badgley would like to, um, do over, took place on July 4, 2001, at a minor league baseball game in Washington state. "I was singing 'The Star-Spangled Banner' and I forgot the words in the middle of it," he recalls to TV Guide Online. "I was up to 'perilous night' and I forgot 'perilous.' I just blanked. I didn't know what to do, so I just stood there and [said] into the microphone, 'Um... ' I turned around and [the audience] was looking at me like, 'Oh my God.' And then finally, everyone was screaming, 'Perilous!' And I was like, 'Oh, thanks.'

"At the time I thought it was funny — I didn't even care that much," adds the Young & the Restless alum. "But looking back, I shouldn't have forgotten the words. My friends thought it was hilarious. They thought it was really funny that I forgot the words in front of thousands of people."

Luckily, Badgley, unlike his Do Over alter ego, won't have to go back to the '80s to fix his childhood mistakes. It's a decade about which the actor admits he has mixed feelings. "I like the '80s. It was like a feel-good era," he says. "But I don't necessarily like the wardrobe. I had to wear these horrendous parachute pants that were skin-tight and I had to wear a teal Members Only jacket and an Izod shirt with the collar up. It was really tacky."

At least he was spared legwarmers.