Some of you may recall, that I valiantly vowed to review every episode of Murder, She Wrote to prove that Jessica Fletcher is truly the world’s most prolific albeit fictional serial killer. And while I still believe it’s an important mantle to assume, and am truly humbled to be able to share it with all of you, I have to admit that I’ve discovered that Murder, She Wrote is actually well, um, boring. I know, I know, plenty of people on the internet would disagree with me. And listen, I’m the first to admit that Angela Lansbury is a QUEEN. Seeing her in Blythe Spirit a few years ago is seriously one of the highlights of my LIFE. But I’m just not the kind of person who can watch every single episode of Murder, She Wrote. I am a person who can watch every episode of every sitcom that ever featured cocaine as a one-off episode plot point, but it’s important to know your limits and these are mine.
So, what now? Well don’t expect JB Fletcher to disappear from this blog entirely. I am of course under an ethical obligation to review “A Murderous Muse,” featuring patron saint of The Very Special Blog, Jenny Lewis. And I’m pretty curious to see the infamous oculus rift episode. But really I’d like to be able to cherry pick the episodes I review just like I do everything else on this blog. Okay, now that I’ve effectively assuaged my guilt of having willfully not completed a project I set out before myself (omg are you even still reading or have you switched to posts about Brad and Angelina?), I am replacing the “Murder, She Wrote” page with “Save the BSC!” a Baby-Sitters Club parody musical that I wrote a few years ago while temping.
And by musical, I mean I didn’t actually write any music. But I wrote some lyrics that rhyme at the level of a 5th grade language arts student’s pastiche to Shel Silverstein. It’s a short play, loosely based on Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls and largely based on my own strange brain. Anyway, it’s been chilling on my computer for a while doing nothing, so I thought I might as well let you all read it.
Scooby-Doo has more franchises than I can even keep track of. One of those was the late-80’s/early-90’s A Pup Named Scooby-Doo. The gang is adorable a group of adorable children solving mysteries with the titular puppy. Since, the original Scooby-Doo was set in the late 60’s, I’m pretty sure this show is supposed to be set in the late 50’s/early 60’s. But really the only evidence of this other than the characters’ ages are Freddy’s flat top and the fact that Daphne is sporting a neck-kerchief.
In this episode, the gang has taken a trip to the beach where Velma’s aunt works at some sort of marine institute’s “dolphin corral.” The dolphins have become un-corralled (read: stolen) and the gang is there to help find them. Or maybe they should just go on their merry way because who corrals dolphins anyway? That’s messed up. Leave the dolphins alone!
Anyhow, while trying to track down the missing dolphins, the gang is continually terrorized by “The Headless Skateboarder.” They’re all like meh, it’s a monster in a mask. But I’m not so sure. I think this one may be the real deal. Do you have any idea how hard it would be for a human to skateboard on sand??
Everyone gets really offended that Al would do drugs, so they head back to his store to question him. He immediately breaks down crying. Yes, A Pup Named Scooby Doo shows a grown man break down and cry when confronted by a group of children about his addiction. But it’s okay because he’s a cartoon so it makes it not really that depressing.
Velma has somehow solved this mystery and takes the team back to Al’s shed to look for more clues. They plan to drop a dolphin’s harness on the headless skateboarder and control his every move, thus leading him directly to them. Sounds like a good plan. Except he doesn’t have a head. So he probably doesn’t have a neck. How will you harness his neck if he has no neck, Mystery Team??
I have “How Do You Talk to An Angel” stuck in my head, but only the chorus part because I don’t actually know the rest of the song. I’ve been singing it on loop in the bathroom and my living room and in that fake-husky 90’s indie-rock voice. This is a song I have always known and never remember hearing for the first time.
For this piece, I did a lot of heavy research: I read a wikipedia page and googled “‘How Do You Talk to An Angel’ + ‘Touched by an Angel'” [There appears to be no overlap between the two shows.] I also vaguely reflected upon an episode of something that I saw on VH1 roughly ten years ago that briefly talked about this song and how lead singer, Jamie Walters, went on to play an abusive boyfriend of Donna Martin (Tori Spelling) on 90210, which the show seemed to suggest killed his career. (Like apparently he got type cast as a deadbeat, which is kind of a bummer).
A few weeks ago, 
Riley and the front-desk guy (Evan) are still talking on the window seat bench as the sunrises. Riley freaks out and says that her parents “can never know.” And then front desk guy says, “You can never know.” And then Cory and Topanga pop up from behind one of the ski lodge couches. Wait what?? This is is so creepy and I’m totally freaked out on behalf of Riley. I’ve heard of helicopter parents but this is some next level shit.
They too have stayed up all night talking. (Probably more like covertly whispering as they eavesdropped on their kid and her new friend.) They said they wanted to “see what the big deal was.” So Riley asks them how it was. And Topanga basically says it was great and now she likes Cory more. And so Cory says to Riley, “What about you, Riley. Is it a big deal?”
Alas, the only answer lies in the notorious book, “The Official Guide of Who Belongs With Who,” which Cory of course remembers from 20 years earlier. He urges them not to play, but for once these virtuous children do not listen to him. Good. This is getting more interesting. Also, this is the “next generation” edition of this book, so it’s not even the same one that Cory knows.
Eric to chaperone because I’m pretty sure that’s the only person I’m actually remotely interested in watching. But I guess Maya also knows she cannot date Josh since he’s an adult and she’s a child, and thus she and Riley both want to date Lucas. Ugh I don’t know. I don’t remember having a friendship where my best girlfriend and I both fell in love with our best boyfriend because I’m pretty sure friendships with those kind of stakes don’t usually last to long. But whatever. We should all know by now that this show isn’t very realistic.
So we head over to the Anderson home to meet the kids. But one of the kids, Brad, is like 15 years old and I can’t understand for the life of me why he’s not babysitting his little sister. In the opening sequence, we established that this is the kind of movie in which older male children babysit their younger female siblings. So like does one have to be 18 to babysit a younger sibling? Cause I’m pretty sure a 15 year old can make sure that an 8 year old doesn’t burn down the house. If this is not the case, then I think we all need to have a serious discussion about The Babysitters-Club.
Now, there are some obvious problems with this script. The most glaring of which I find to be an extended exchange between the Anderson children, in which Brad tells Sara that Thor is a “total homo” and Sara repeatedly tries to make him “take-it back.” My first thought is of my friend’s fiancee, who as a closeted person in 1987 went alone to the movie theater to see Adventures in Babysitting. Obviously, he already had to go to see this movie on the DL since it isn’t the most “manly” movie to attend and I imagine it must have felt pretty shitty to see a light-comedy shit on your sexual orientation within the first ten minutes. Plus Anthony Rapp, from Rent, shows up a little later on in the film in a major supporting role as Brad’s friend Darryl. I felt like homophobic lines in the script must have been tough for him as well, and actually he commented on it in his Reddit AMA, which you can check out 
While on the expressway, they have a tire blowout. First of all, mad props to Chris for safely navigating a station wagon full of children to the side of the interstate without full tire traction. Secondly, she’s forgotten her wallet and they have no money to pay for a tow. They’re all creeped out when a tow truck driven by a man with a hook stops to pick them up. I mean I guess it IS a classic horror story trope, but like they’re really rude to this nice man who’s just trying to help them. Finally, Chris realizes she’s been an asshole. She apologizes and the man, John Pruitt, offers to tow them and by them a new tire. Everything’s good until John Pruitt gets a call on his CB radio. His lady’s been stepping out on him, her lover’s car is in front of their place, and he thinks that driving around with a bunch of random kids in his tow truck is the perfect time to seek his revenge.
John Pruitt runs into a house with a gun and starts firing shots. A man with his pants open falls backwards out of a window and onto the porch. I seriously don’t think this would pass standards for a kids movie in 2016.While John Pruitt, chases his wife’s lover out into the street, Chris et al get into the lover’s car–which by the way has been carjacked. But it’s like carjacked by THE nicest carjacker on the planet. They ask him to let them off at the next corner and he’s like not going to do it because it’s a bad neighborhood. He’s going to take them to the train station instead. And then Chris is all like “Do you promise me you won’t hurt these kids?” which is like something a little rude and insulting to some dude who just promised to take you somewhere safe and like even if he’s NOT going to do that, then why the heck are you challenging him while he literally holds your life in his hands??
Brenda, in another idiot move, took off her glasses at the train station and is now legally blind. She mistakes a rat for a kitten and probably needs to get some rabies shots as soon as he gets back to the suburbs.
Then they pass a frat party and Darryl runs away from the group to join the festivities, which by the sounds of it involve a bad Huey Lewis cover band doing a bad cover of Soul Survivors’s “Expressway to Your Heart.” Also, Sara has to pee. So Chris is all like yeah you can use the bathroom at the frat party. Uh, okay. I mean yikes. I’d hate to see that bathroom. (Also, at the party there is a whole subplot about how Chris has been mistaken for a Playboy centerfold because she looks exactly like Miss March and yadda yadda yadda that’s all I’ll say about that.)
Also, remember that guy from the very opening scene? Yeah well Chris spots his car at the fancy French restaurant where he was supposed to take her for dinner. He’s with some other girl. Chris and her charges tell him off. He’s such a scum bucket so this is really rewarding to watch. Oh yeah and in the meantime, they’ve managed to misplace Sara–who wandered away from the restaurant to look inside a toy store window and is now scaling the side of the building in order to avoid the chop shop guys. Oh yeah and that building just so happens to be where her parents are attending a party which is the entire reason they hired a babysitter in the first place.
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