I hope you guys liked my Saved by the Bell & Baby-Sitters Club mashup book covers. I liked it so much that I’ve decided to do it again with Boy Meets World and Sweet Valley High. I got the light box out for this and it turns out I’m realllllly bad at writing in the letterman style of the book covers. The first one was so painstaking that I gradually strayed from them until I ended up with the burn-book style cover for the last one. The covers are (in order) the stand off between Harley and Griff (Adam Scott), that time Shawn joins a cult, and that time that Topanga dated Jonathan Jackson.
I found this to be a totally hilarious parody of late 20th century sitcom intros. “Too Many Cooks” is about a family (The Cooks) with at least twenty-five members who are all worthy of opening credit introduction. I watched this at work (silently due to my lack of speakers) and I laughed for like eleven minutes straight. However, the theme song has been slowly driving my boyfriend crazy over the past couple of days. I’ve never listened to the theme song in it’s entirety but eleven minutes of a theme song sounds pretty awful, so I suggest you mute it if it’s bugging you. Either way, this video is hilarious.
I am a super-organized-nerd-person. I carry around this little notebook in case I need to make a schedule or a list of very important information for The Very Special Blog. I like to pretend that this is my high-profile creative job that I have to strategically plan for in a little pink notebook at Starbucks. And every now and then when I have some downtime, I get to do that. It’s really fun and surprisingly gratifying. So that’s why I got particularly pissed at this woman who decided to completely disturb the fifteen minute period I had carved out of my day. I’m roughly five minutes into my planning-session, having secured a highly coveted table, when this woman and said:
“I have a question…are you going to be here for like the next fifteen minutes?”
I knew what she was up to, so I put on my best “don’t shit me condescending face” and said, “Probably not. Why? Do you want it?”
And she said, “Yeah I would like it. I have an interview at two. So just like within the next fifteen minutes…”
Within the next fifteen minuets, I could what? Hurry up and leave? I had to be back at work by 2 pm anyway and I wasn’t going to send her away from a table that I wasn’t even going to be using.
I said, “Yeah, you can have it because I will be back at work by two.” Then she proceeded to hover around my table. She put her bag on the stool across from me as if I would renegotiate the situation with some other eager-table seeker. Then she proceeded to stand in front of my face and furiously type on her tablet. She seemed young–maybe college or a recent grad. She is probably at that age where you think you know how to get a job, but you totally suck at it and look like an entitled asshole.
As she encroached upon my space, I found myself taking comfort in the fact that she probably wouldn’t be getting this job. I didn’t wish that on her (or anyone), but I did kind of enjoy the thought. Now that I work in Operations, I can tell you (with a fairly low margin of error) who will be getting a job offer and who won’t simply based upon the way they introduce themselves and wait to be interviewed. Sadly, I haven’t been able to totally implement this knowledge on my own behavior, but I’m hoping it’s osmosis-ing its way into my subconscious.
Her first mistake was that she was trying to create a perfect! environment around her interview. And she was probably stressing herself out by expecting that kind of environment. No one actually expects you to be perfect. (I say this as someone who previously thought the opposite.) You may already know this, but there are plenty of idiots with jobs. I’m sure she was very smart, but in the real world that doesn’t really matter. People will take the chill person who is pretty-okay at her job over a fidgety-stress-nugget any day. Why? Because most jobs involve working with other people. So if you’re able to efficiently get a task done but you make the clients/customers/vendors/boss/fellow employees feel even remotely like you’re high maintenance, then there is a very slim chance that they will want to spend forty (plus) hours a week with you.
This post needs more pictures. Here is a cat.
Secondly, she missed an opportunity to appear resourceful. Okay, so there were no tables. Instead of harassing me, she could have been on her tablet looking up other places in the area with MORE seating. She could have stood in the middle of the store so that she had a better vantage point to see any and all other tables become available. She could have stood in line, gotten her coffee, and then tried again to get a seat.
But if all of those things failed and her interviewer showed up with no place for them to sit down, then she could have presented a great contingency plan. “Hey, I got here about ten minutes ago and I couldn’t find a table. But I found a few other places that seem to offer more seating, or if you don’t mind we could sit in the park because it’s unseasonably warm and sunny out today.”
But no, she lurked in front of a table that wasn’t her own. She worked herself up into a tizzy and that definitely showed, even though I left seven minutes before the interview was set to begin. She saw a problem as something to be controlled rather than an opportunity to showcase her critical thinking skills. And yeah, I’m pissed because I wasn’t able to enjoy my break-time fully. And had she interrupted me and asked for my table in fifteen minutes and then left me alone until I left, I probably would not have written this.
It’s tough out there. I get it. I would have given you my table gladly if you hadn’t been a jerk. But I still gave you my table (less gladly) because I know it sucks to be anxious and jobless. But one day, when you do have a job, you might realize how rare and essential it is not to be interrupted for fifteen minutes in the middle of the day.
There’s a great episode in the criminally underrated Square Pegs, in which Johnny “Slash”Ulasewicz starts a new wave band called “Open 24 Hours,” which features very special guest star John Densmore on drums. Open 24 Hours lead and only single is a song called “Total Tired” and is inspired by Johnny Slash’s dominant feeling at the time of writing. I currently feel very much the same way, so I’m going to share this short and sweet song, while trying to find a location for my next nap.
Typically on The Very Special Blog, we talk about funny things like illegal substance abuse in schools, teen pregnancy, and racism. Today, however, we turn our focus to a serious issue in the child star community: Early Onset Rapid Aging Syndrome. Early Onset Rapid Aging Syndrome is a rare but serious condition that affects many children born into the middle to late stages of a sitcom. Research scientists believe that the origin of this disorder may triggered by the trauma of being born during a “jump the shark” period. However, the underlying root of the problem remains unknown.
Families are instructed by their doctors not to acknowledge the sudden growth of their infants or toddlers into precocious elementary school children. The common belief being that this practice will best protect the children from the stress of realizing that their best childhood years are behind them and the looming pressure to be a sassy eight year old is all that is left for them in this world. Fortunately, most cases of Early Onset Rapid Aging Syndrome seem to dissipate after the initial acute onset, leaving no other lasting complications or continued aging beyond the normal rate. In fact, most of the children appear not to have noticed or cared that they have suddenly aged. Their young minds are, perhaps, unaware of their swift progression because they lacked a general awareness as young babies, existing only as cute props and charming cutaways from their parents’ and older siblings’ drama or antics.
Case References for the aforementioned Early Onset Rapid Aging Disorder:
-Chrissy from Growing Pains-
Chrissy was a happy and otherwise health child.But over the course of roughly four months, she went from a babe-in-arms to a spunky six year-old in what is considered to be one of the most severe cases ever.
-Morgan from Boy Meets World-
Morgan was the youngest of three children and aged normally through preschool.Morgan began spending a lot of time in her room (likely during the early stages of the disorder) and emerged months later like a 4th grade butterfly from her preschool cocoon.
-Richie from Family Matters-
Richie was an adorable baby.But he skipped the terrible twos and went straight to preschool. This case it notable because it also caused rapid mullet onset–a rare but serious complication of the disorder.
-Little Ricky from I Love Lucy-
In one of the first recorded cases of EORAS, this Cuban-American toddler aged normally for the first couple of years of his life.Little Ricky quickly grew into a six year old with excellent percussion skills. The fact that the children (while chronologically younger) seem to have all of the fine motor skills and verbalization associated with their physical age is of note.
-Nelson & Winnie from The Cosby Show-
Fraternal Twins, Nelson and Winnie, both suffered from this disorder. This would suggest a higher prevalence between first degree siblings. However, many families with EORAS children have other children that seem to age at the normal rate. The fact that two fraternal twins were both affected by this disorder may suggest some kind of in utero trauma.Fortunately, Nelson and Winnie seem to have only developed a minor case of the disorder and appeared to begin to age normal again after the acute onset subsided at physical age three (medical approximation).
-Nicky and Alex from Full House-
In another case of twin EORAS, Nicky and Alex Katsopolis (identical twins) aged rapidly only to physical age three before return to normal aging speed. This may suggest that twins with EORAS actually suffer from less extreme cases than single children (i.e. Morgan or Chrissy). Their symptoms seem to begin at an earlier age and slow down after aging three or less physical years.Post-acute onset Nicky and Alex, appearing to be trauma-free and healthy with their dog, Comet.
-Lily on Modern Family-
While previously thought to have been eradicated in the early to mid 1990’s, EORAS resurfaced most recently in the case of charming two year-old Lily.While not the most severe of cases (approximately aging two physical years), Lily’s case is remarkable in that it seems to have also affected her personality. Once a sweet, charming child, Lily is now incredibly rude.
Yesterday, I discovered this search term in my referrers list:
what childrens tv programme had “the grass is.greener on the other side” in the intro
I meant to post this yesterday, but I went home and fell asleep. I also got bitten by a spider (or other mysterious insect!) and freaked out about that for hours about that. I’m not afraid of bugs, but I am afraid of welts with unknown origins. Suffice it to say that I forgot about this entirely until just now. I hope I’m not too late because I too know the struggle of not knowing the answer to a serious questions such as that delineated in the search terms above.
Perhaps, I am too late and you have already found the answer from another source. However, if you are still on your quest for this information, then let me offer some respite. The lyrics in quotes above are from the As Told By Ginger theme song, which was performed by Macy Gray. I know this because I had a brief obsession with Macy Gray from 2000-2002. I hope she’s okay! Does anyone know what she is up to these days? I still sing “I Try” every time I get a very bad head cold.
Johnny Depp has a baby face, so no one takes him seriously as a beat cop. But he’s so talented (and cute) that the police department doesn’t want to let him go. Thus, he gets to be in a special program for baby-faced cops (basically becoming a detective even though he was a beat cop .25 seconds ago) that is run out of an old church (located at 21 Jump Street) with an ex-hippie captain and some super hip fellow officers.
This show was awesome. The movies that use its namesake and back story are similarly awesome–managing to lampoon and celebrate the series at the same time. But for now, let’s focus on the 1987 series (even though I cannot wait for 23 Jump Street).
Tom Hansen (Johnny Depp) gets his first case as a Jump Street cop and it’s a real doozy. He has to become a soldier for the War on Drugs in a suburban high school where a tough gang of drug pushers that look like backup dancers from The Jacksons’ Victory tour rule the school with an iron fist. Or should I say, a leather fingerless-gloved fist.
These dudes will mess your shit up in syncopated rhythm.
Usually when I write these posts, I review the episodes instead of relying on my memory. This episode, however, is so embedded in my mind that I can probably recount the whole thing to you right now with no external reference points. You see, I first started watching 21 Jump Street at two and three o’clock in the morning on weeknights in my sophomore year of college while I was building and designing props for the theater department in my dorm room.
I guess I could have worked in the shop, but I was already spending most of tech week in the theater, so I ended up going home when I was too tired to stand up anymore. Then I would sit on the hard carpet of my single dorm room with my Sobo Glue, Bristol, paint, and God knows what else, relying only on sheer force of will and this 1980’s police drama to keep me awake. There’s an odd thing that happens to your mind when it is on the brink of hallucinatory exhaustion. For a moment before you collapse into a sleep-induced coma, everything become incredibly sharp and focused. And that’s why I can tell you this plotline in detail today.
Actually the gang might just be Waxer and this one other dude.
These drug dealers are the drug dealers that everyone warned you about and worse. That dude in the red jacket is Waxer. He’s the ring leader of this whole enterprise and he’s got a scrawny rich white boy totally hooked on dope. That kid’s name is Kenny and Tom Hansen’s job is to become his new best friend and bodyguard. Oh yeah and it’s also to arrest those drug dealers. Tom is pretty nerdy in real life, but as an undercover guy he has to be tough enough to deal with drug dealers and hip enough to appeal to teenagers, so he gets a makeover. That’s how you deal with tackling tough crime!
The school of course is totally powerless and at the mercy of the drug dealers, which in my personal experience isn’t far-fetched at all, unfortunately. But don’t worry, things do quickly become far-fetched in the best possible way.
So hip.
Kenny’s a brat and you’ll definitely hate him, but the fact of the matter is he’s a drug-addicted kid and that’s sad no matter how you slice it. Kenny really does his best to kick the habit because he loves his family, doesn’t want to waste his life, and (I believe) generally recognizes that he is being a huge dick to everyone he knows. Unfortunately, Waxer’s got him on the hook for a ton of money in addition to wanting to sell him drugs forever so as to keep that debt going. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. Waxer, like any good businessman, wants his buyer to make good on that debt, but Kenny (though he comes from a rich family) is having trouble paying off that debt. (No one likes to give money to a drug addicted teenager.)
Waxer fancies himself some kind of teenage Pablo Escobar.
So here’s where things get weird. Most drug dealers (once again, I’m speculating) would either a. beat Kenny within an inch of his life so as to really put the pressure on to give them the damn money b. kill Kenny because he is more trouble than he’s worth or c. stop selling Kenny drugs on a deficit because he is not good for it and not worth messing with because he is a rich white kid whose parents have more connections than even the most badass high school drug dealers. I get it, they are a scary gang, but the are not a cartel. Waxer is creepy and aggressive, but he’s definitely like seventeen years old with very limited higher connections–which makes it even more plausible that Waxer would have ditched this Kenny situation a lot earlier.
But this is television and even though Johnny Depp is charming and wonderful, the War on Drugs still needs to tell us to stay away from dope and eat our Wheaties. So Waxer and his gang break into the family home in the late afternoon, while everyone is sitting down to dinner. They proceed to hold everyone at gunpoint with shotguns–which seems to be an insane commonality in the 21st century but for 1980’s high school drug dealers, it seems to be a bit much.
They’re rich but they serve milk from the carton at the table?
Okay now things get a bit hazy for me. I know I said I didn’t need any reference points, but I’m just drawing a blank. Oh well, this is how I remember it however (in)accurate that may be. Kenny steals from his dad, or steals from someone, or does something like majorly obviously bad as a direct result of this home break-in. This leads to a come to Jesus talk with Tom, and Kenny renews his resolve to stop using drugs.
Meanwhile, Waxer has pretty much figured out that he has gotten all he can from Kenny and needs to get rid of him. Kenny meets Waxer one day in the locker room and relapses, but doesn’t realize that Waxer has sold him a speedball. (I’m pretty sure Waxer is trying to take the last of his money and straight up kill him at this point.) So Tom has to rescue Kenny at the last-minute as he is overdosing in the locker room. Then they have another very important and life-changing chat in the hospital room, and Tom tells Kenny he seriously has to stop doing drugs this time. Then he gets to go to rehab. All’s well that ends well! Right? That’s what the War on Drugs taught me.
(Sorry if you love 21 Jump Street and I messed up some significant details! Like I said, this is how I remember it, and obviously my mind is pretty sharp at 3 am!)
Very Special Lesson: Drug dealers will stalk you. No, I mean they will literally stalk you.
It’s day three of NaBloPoMo, and I’m going to use one of their prompts for inspiration! This prompt came from the BlogHer NaBloPoMo prompt page: Write about an amazing imaginary brand or organization you’d love to work with. What would their pitch to you look like? What would your post say?
This is not about a very special episode, but it’s tangentially related. This post is about music videos and fashion. When I was nineteen, I gave myself a scavenger hunt (that I totally failed at). This scavenger hunt stemmed from a random idea that I had where it would be cool to have quintessential classic music video looks in a non-costume-y way. And then I was like, “this sounds like a store that would exist in a movie.” I imagined that someone like Annie Potts in Pretty in Pink would run the sort of store and that it would be named “American Kitsch.” In my fantasy world, I could peruse the racks while the disgruntled teenagers who worked there (and felt too cool for the clothes) would hand me blue leopard print pants like Ola Ray’s in the Michael Jackson’s Thriller in my size and have “serious talks” about their “serious issues” like the cast of Empire Records.
In all actuality, this is probably a terrible idea for a business and I might be the only person who would want to shop at this store. But I do wish that it existed because I would love to walk into a store and get Paula Abdul’s dress from Opposites Attract. That’s just a classic L.B.D. if I ever saw one. Frankly, I don’t understand why the waited until the music video to make it clear that MC Skat Cat was a literal cat. I did not realize how opposite the two singers were until I saw the music video. I mean, who cares if one of them likes the movies and the other likes TV. All, they had to do was tell me that one of them was a cat. I would have required literally no other information to understand that they were not at all similar. Anyway, in my mind the store was called “American Kitsch” and unfortunately, I cannot tell you any of the other ideas for fashion looks because that list died with my old computer. However, the internet is a magical place and someone has made it a lot easier to find these looks for yourself (in case you don’t have time to stop into the brick and mortar American Kitsch…which wait doesn’t actually exist outside of my imagination, whoops…). Someone has even compiled a well-curated list of items to help you dress like Paula OR MC Skat Cat!
So we all know how Zack is the perfect most caring, cool dude ever right? Wrong. Zack hates fat people.
Hard times have fallen on the Bayside Student Council and they do not have the money to pay for new cheerleading uniforms. If you doubted that 90’s fashion is back in full swing, then look no further because the dude who suggests that they have a fundraiser for cheerleading uniforms is dressed exactly like no less than fifteen men in my office at any given time.
Zack decides that a fundraiser is a great time to auction of people as dates because you know sex sells. But wait. It’s not creepy. Jessie says that it is creepy, but Kelly and Lisa say it is not creepy. And if there is one thing I’ve learned from Bayside, it’s that Kelly and Lisa make the rules.
At the date auction, no one bids on Slater. That’s because Jessie has threatened all of them.
But then Kelly feels bad for Slater and she pays $10 to put him out of his misery. So then Jessie blindly bids on the next person without even seeing him and it turns out to be Screech.
A girl whose name Zack couldn’t even remember when he tried to flirt with her at The Max bids $75 on him. Gross. But then our very special guest star (Wendy) pays $100 dollars and wins the date! Zack is such a jerk almost immediately, treating her as if being large is some kind of highly contagious form of Leprosy.
But wait! This is a two for the price of one very special episode!
Lisa buys a date with the guy who suggested the fundraiser, but he thinks she is an idiot and that hurts her feelings.
2 women. 1 scorned for her body. 1 scorned for her brain.
Lisa decides to totally change her personality à la Sandy from Grease, whereas Zack constantly ignores Wendy and lies in order to avoid hanging out with her. But Wendy catches him in the lie and decides to go to the dance alone.
So how does Zack learn to stop being such a shallow turd person? Well, he tells Jessie to stop whining about having to go to the dance with Screech because he is a nice person and she will hurt his feelings. Then Jessie is all like woah this is exactly like your situation with Wendy! And Zack is all like omg how have I been so awful?
Zack decides to reconnect with Wendy at the dance, but she won’t have anything to do with him. She’s not interested in dancing with him just so he can stop feeling guilty. (I love this girl.)
Lisa only realizes that her date is a jerk when he insults all of her friends. Agh, too real. But at least she figured it out after only one date.
Finally, Zack tells Wendy that he would really like to dance with her because he likes her. They agree to hang out at The Max after the dance and then we never see her again.
Very Special Lesson: Be nice to the uncool kid once to prove that you are not a jerk, but then you never have to talk to her again.
This is not about a very special episode, but it’s tangentially related. This post is about music videos and fashion. When I was nineteen, I gave myself a scavenger hunt (that I totally failed at). This scavenger hunt stemmed from a random idea that I had where it would be cool to have quintessential classic music video looks in a non-costume-y way. And then I was like, “this sounds like a store that would exist in a movie.” I imagined that someone like Annie Potts in Pretty in Pink would run the sort of store and that it would be named “American Kitsch.” In my fantasy world, I could peruse the racks while the disgruntled teenagers who worked there (and felt too cool for the clothes) would hand me blue leopard print pants like Ola Ray’s in the Michael Jackson’s Thriller in my size and have “serious talks” about their “serious issues” like the cast of Empire Records.
Hard times have fallen on the Bayside Student Council and they do not have the money to pay for new cheerleading uniforms. If you doubted that 90’s fashion is back in full swing, then look no further because the dude who suggests that they have a fundraiser for cheerleading uniforms is dressed exactly like no less than fifteen men in my office at any given time.
The Very Special Blog 
