The title of this movie completely mislead me. Amber from Clueless is supposed to be this endearing dog-lover whose life is just not going right. First, she has to relocate her dog to the shelter she volunteers at because she’s been keeping her in violation of her lease. Then she loses her job. But then she gets a “life coach” who grants her 12 wishes. I thought that this life coach was an elf working for Santa but she is actually an angel working for God. Amber from Clueless uses most of her wishes to win the lottery, get a new car, change out her wardrobe. This shouldn’t be surprising if you have seen her previous work.
This is the sketchiest website ever.
So I was like, when does the dog come into play with this? The Netflix description promised that all of the wishes would come true in an unexpected way, so I was thinking this was all extended exposition for like a dog getting a brand new car or something. But it wasn’t. In fact, it was all pretty boring and the way that the wishes came true unexpectedly was that she ended up alienating like all of her loved ones (except for her mom who we only ever see in phone conversations).
If you ever doubted that Amber fromClueless seriously sucked, then this should solidify the fact that she does totally suck. She is content to let her dog live in a spacious cage with a nice handler instead of at home in her cozy apartment? I mean that should have been the first wish! I need no other evidence to see that she is a totally selfish woman. She eventually learns from the elf/angels that her individual problems will sort of melt away if she just focuses on others
This is what I love most about unemployed people in movies. They’re like “I’m sad I don’t have a job” while I sit in my cozy townhouse and play on my computer/don’t at all look for a new job. There’s never any threat of actual real life damage. I guess she did fix that when she wished to win the lottery but still…
She eventually does get her dog back at the end of the movie because her new boyfriend (who started dating her because they both love dogs so much) talks to the owner of the townhouses and like they allow her to keep the dog (no wishes necessary). Well, clearly she doesn’t love her dog that much. She wished for new clothes before she ever thought about getting that thing back.
Very Special Lesson: Don’t date the bubbly woman just because she volunteers at the animal shelter. What you don’t know is that she has special powers and could have used them to keep her dog in a loving home, but she didn’t because she sucks.
Why didn’t anyone tell me there was an All That Christmas Special?! I should have been watching it 1995 and not finding out about it on iTunes over a decade later! Also it’s only eighteen minutes and forty-five seconds long, so there is no excuse for not watching this. If you’re like “ahhh the holidays are driving me crazy! I have no time to be festive!” then I recommend you sit down right now and watch this very short children’s program. A lot of these are greatest hits (Super Dude, Cooking with Randy and Manny, Vital Information for your every day life). Do not let the short running time fool you into thinking there aren’t a lot of sketches. There are plenty of sketches. It’s just that some of them are like one minute long.
Anyway, the episode starts off with the meaning of Christmas: materialism. All of the kids tell Santa what they want for Christmas, including Josh who says he is Jewish but is awarded a new computer anyway. Kenan and Lori Beth are excluded because they are not on the nice list this year. Everyone else pretty much asks for the most 90’s stuff ever. I’m surprised someone didn’t request moon boots.
Things All That Kids Want for Christmas:
-Katrina wants a cordless phone
-Monique wants Denzel Washington
-Alisa wants rollerblades (and a lot of other stuff)
-Kel wants $50 cash immediately for a date (well I guess that’s something that has stood the test of time. Santa, if you do exist. Please bring me $50 immediately. I don’t have a date but I would like a little help on my groceries).
So basically this is just an All That episode but every sketch has a Christmas theme. Randy and Mandy’s cooking show is all about making chocolate meals (as usual) but they also include recipes for Chocolate Matzah Ball Soup and Chocolate Turkey Stuffing. Then they mix a chocolate milkshake in Kenan’s mouth and it feels like such a choking hazard that I wonder if this would be allowed today.
Then we get to see Superdude overcome his lactose intolerance and defeat the Milkman, who has kidnapped Santa. Did anyone else feel like Josh as “Milkman” in Super Dude was just doing his best Jim Carrey impression? Actually, maybe all of Josh’s characters are his impersonation of Jim Carrey.
This is only 19 minutes long! Where is the musical guest? Did the DVD cut it?
Anyway, French with Pierre Escargot is still the best part of this show.
Very Special Lesson: There was a severe lack of Lori Beth Denberg in this episode.
Vital information only had 2 lines and neither of them were great. Lori Beth was only been in this episode for 30 seconds total! I would like to send a message to the producers of All That and ask them to get into their space-time-machine and please re-write this episode to include her as an additional villain in the Super Dude sketch. We want to see the stakes raised in a holiday episode! And why have you squandered her talent?!
Very Special Fun Fact: Malcolm-Jamal Warner directed this episode. Also, apparently the episode was 24 minutes long and iTunes ripped me off. Run DMC performs “Christmas in Hollis” in the original performance and there is also a sketch called The Girls’ Christmas Carol.
Today’s very special ugly sweater comes from very special reader, Writingbolt, and features people wearing ugly sweaters on an ugly sweater (so meta). If you would like to submit an ugly sweater drawing to The Very Special Blog, I’ll post it this holiday season! (theveryspecialblog at gmail dot com).
Okay, so for those of you who missed out on The Facts of Life, it’s a show about a group of girls who live together at boarding school and for whatever reason continue to living together well after boarding school with their dorm-mother and it’s not weird. It’s not even weird at all. And no one wants to move out. Ever. Even though there are like four twenty year-old women sharing a room.
Anyway, basically the girls end up volunteering on Christmas eve at a prison and everyone is super into it except for the snooty rich girl, Blair. Jo (whose particularly close to this situation because her dad is an ex-con) says that Blair is just a socialite do-gooder who only helps as long as she doesn’t have to actually interact with them. You know, she throws money at stuff.
So anyway, Blair refuses to participate in this show, but she goes with them anyway and sits “backstage” at the prison theater. Yep, this prison has a theater. It’s like the USO! Kind of…
These prisoners are like so clean cut and I don’t just mean like they look clean, I mean whoever is doing their hair in the prison barber shop is pretty great.
It’s kinda nice that the girls can’t sing very well.
Mrs. Garret holds a prisoner’s hand. Is that allowed? Isn’t there a no touching rule?
But the warden has promised them more and no one knows what to do! They have done the entire show! The girls want to runaway, but Mrs. Garret tells them that they are the inmates entire Christmas. Finally, Blair decides to participate after the very special speech from Mrs. Garret. Blair can sing and she’s doing it a capella because she was a mouseketeer. Then all of the inmates sing too and like agh I know they are fake inmates and this fake prison is abnormally nice, but it still makes me tear up. Then she repeats the song like seven times until the credits end. LIKE SEVEN TIMES. Does this song not have other verses??? Talk about ruining the moment.
Very Special Lesson: It’s important not to make their ears bleed when you have a captive audience.
Mr. Sheffield is not going to be home for Christmas. His kids even know that he uses a personal shopper to buy all of their gifts. Fran asks little Gracie, who is too cynical to believe is Santa, what she would ask of him for Christmas if she did believe. Gracie says that she would wish for her dad for Christmas. Well, I think we know where this episode is going.
So Mr. Sheffield decides to go out of town to raise money for a children’s charity instead of spending Christmas with his own children. She did, however, convince Mr. Sheffield to pick out the children’s gifts himself. What she didn’t realize, is that he also picked out a gift for her as well in lieu of a Christmas bonus. So she pawns the gorgeous vase he got her in order to pay for the gifts she had already charged on her credit card. But Mr. Sheffield gives her this beautiful speech as snow falls on him in the doorway (soon) about how he picked it out just for her and hopes she will cherish it, etc, etc.
So Fran rushes back to the pawn shop and pawns her grandmother’s watch (a family heirloom) in order to get the vase back. In a weird kind of not really gift-of-the-magi situation, Niles alerts Mr. Sheffield to the situation and he tracks down the watch at the pawn shop. But it isn’t her grandmother’s watch. It’s some random stranger’s watch. Then Mr. Sheffield accidentally sits on the vase and ends up in the hospital with chards of glass in his butt.
But hey they get to spend Christmas together and Gracie believes in Santa because her wish came true! Mr. Sheffield tells Gracie that it was his Christmas wish to spend time with them too. (Uh yeah okay but that didn’t stop you from scheduling a fundraiser on Christmas Day…)
Very Special Lesson: Sometimes it takes a Jewish Nanny to remind a WASP family of the true meaning of Christmas.
So great was my JTT fever that I begged my mom to get this movie on pay-per-view, which means I saw it in like the summer. And I loved JTT so much that I wasn’t even jealous that it wasn’t Christmas in my world. I haven’t seen this movie since that pay-per-viewing. But that’s all changed now. This is viewing 2.0.
So first off here are some things that were lost on me as a kid. I didn’t understand that they were in high school. It’s pretty obvious that they are boarding school kids, but when I was an elementary school kid, I thought that I was watching a movie about college students. And I’d like to assert that it was actually a fairly reasonable assumption on my part because JTT starts off this movie by buying tickets to Cabo San Lucas for he an his girlfriend (Jessica Biel) to spend Christmas. Even as a kid, I knew that romantic holiday getaways were reserved for legal adults. Or so I thought. But like apparently JTT is such a sneaky high schooler that he actually manages to secure those tickets and a three bedroom condo on the beach. It’s a Disney movie, so that must be why there are three bedrooms for two people.
Lately, I’ve been really feeling my inner 90’s kid. I think it has something to do with the fact that my brain is like “holy crap you’ve been around for a quarter of a century and what is happening in your life??” This has led to a large desire on my part to go back to kindergarten immediately. Clearly, that is not an option, so I’ve been embracing 90’s specific nostalgia extra hardcore lately.
So with all that in mind, I have to say. This movie is so 90’s. I cannot even handle it. I am 11.5 minutes in right now and I had to pause it to take a breather. So far the following things have happened:
JTT referred to the internet as “the net”
The cool kids talked about trying to sneak into The Viper Room
Jessica Biel has a Lisa Leslie jersey on her dorm room wall
JTT helps the cool kids cheat on their exams WITH BEEPERS
People have been using so many cordless landlines!!!
Robby from 7th Heaven is hitting on Mary from 7th Heaven but it is NOT okay because she is with JTT in this movie.
So Robby (for purpose of this film, Andy) so badly wants to get with Mary (for purposes of this film, Allie) that he goes full on sociopath and sabotages JTT’s beeper cheating scam, so that he can then rally the cool kid to kidnap JTT and strand him in the middle of the desert wearing a Santa suit. I mean it’s all fun and games until someone dies in the middle of the deserts all because of a beeper cheating scam. So anyway, the reason why it’s particularly awful that JTT is stuck in the middle of nowhere as Santa is that his dad has managed to discover the Cabo San Lucas tickets and bribed JTT with a 1957 porsche if he comes home for Christmas Dinner. Moreover, he has exchanged the tickets for two plane tickets to New York (since Allie got super mad at him for trying to sneak her away to Mexico when she just wants to go home to a snowy, family-filled holiday).
When JTT doesn’t show up to go to the airport with her, Allie gets all mad at him for being a slacker. She isn’t into Andy, but he offers her a ride home and she feels like she should take it. I mean hello there is a MISSING CHILD and no one calls a police officer? See why I thought they were all adults in this movie?! When JTT finally manages to call his dad to explain his circumstances, his dad thinks he’s just making up an excuse and dragging his feet about coming home.
So from here on out when cut in between JTT trying to get to New York (for both the porsche and his girlfriend) and Andy trying to seduce Allie. Allie in this movie really reminds me of Jo from The Facts of Life, but I believe that she really does love JTT and is not in a secret lesbian relationship with her roommate. But like anyway, it’s easy to see why Andy likes her.) Also, their road trip features this non-“Barbie Girl” song by Aqua. Yep. I mean holy crap the 90’s, am I right?
Stop the presses! JTT just said “Yeah, no duh” non-ironically! And he says this while trying to reunite a police officer with his scorned wife. Oh my! But now that I’ve interrupted the flow of this commentary, I would like to ask a simple question. How come all of these teenagers are driving themselves home for the holidays? When I was in college people still had to have their parents pick them up at end of the semester. Where did all of these people get cars? They obviously come from super wealthy families. But like their parents are just like no it’s cool, honey, you drive home cross-country with a mere acquaintance and stay in multiple hotels. And I’m not even talking the obvious hanky-panky. I mean like I actually cannot fathom staying in multiple hotels as a high school senior and driving from California to New York. I would have lost my freaking mind with stress, and also I don’t think anyone would have let me into a hotel room. I think they would have called the department of social services.
Okay wtf someone just rented them the honeymoon suite! Okay, now I’m concerned about the obvious hanky-panky. He has been so creepy this entire time and now she is forced into sharing a sex-room with him?! Disney, like who are you guys?! But like I guess he is kind of sweet because she makes him wear all of his clothes (including his mittens) to make sure that he has to behave himself, and he’s totally game put everything on including winter coat and mittens. He also sleeps on top of the sheets. But that actually may have been so that he did not die of heat stroke.
Okay, so JTT does a ton of obnoxious stuff in order to try to get home, but the most ridiculous (and the only one I feel super obligated to point out) is find a weird man who is about to eat some straight up raw meat and then passing that raw meat off as a liver that needs to be donated to Allie (at a hotel room) STAT. It’s pretty hard to keep all of this from Allie (the porsche, the fake liver, etc.) and she calls him a “butthole,” which in 90’s teen-speak I think means they broke up. But this gives way to Andy and JTT getting to ride the rest of the way home together and like it’s hilarious! Omg 90’s teen stars! (Also, why do all of these people live in New York and go to school in California? The have SO much money. Why aren’t they at NMH or Phillip’s? This is such a party boarding school, isn’t it. This is like the Faber College of boarding schools, isn’t it?) I got a little distracted and anyway JTT ends up in a Santa race. Why did I get distracted? I spilled water all over my untreated wood coffee table. Why do I have an untreated wood coffee table? Because it was free on the street.
Okay, so Wikipedia says that JTT participated in the Santa race because Andy decided that he was ultimately too jealous to be nice to him/give him a ride and then JTT had to enter this race because the prize was an airline ticket and he has to get home. But it turns out that the mayor always wins the race and gives the money to the less fortunate, so JTT gives him the winnings even though he won the race.
Then JTT’s kid sister takes pity on him and buys him a plane ticket with her life sayings. (Um what happened to must be 18 or older to call?) But JTT cannot get on the plane because he doesn’t have ID. So then he like stows away in the dog kennel area I think…and manages to survive that…only to be tossed off of a metronorth train (how did he get to metronorth form the airport?!?) and then he finally makes it home by holding onto the roof of a car. Oh wait just kidding! Not home yet! Nope, he has to use a sleigh stolen from a parade for that. Well, this kid is just straight up squandering his chances of getting into a good college. But hey! He does eventually get the girl. And then he intentionally shows up late to dinner, so that his family will know that the car was not the important thing!
*Oh and by the way Robby from7th Heaven is actually named Eddie in this movie, but I had already written 1000 words calling him Andy, so I figured it was just easier to make this note at the end of the post. Also, I didn’t know where to write about this earlier, but there’s a weird scene in which JTT removes Robby/Eddie/Andy’s towel in the hotel room in what I guess is supposed to be an inappropriate power play, but also isn’t showing your girlfriend some other guy’s naked body like probably not the best move?
Very Special Lesson: JTT just commands an audience man! He’s so fun to watch. Sorry he wanted to leave acting and like study and get degrees and stuff. But he’s probably a better person for it. We should all strive to be more like JTT. And I think also something like home is for the holidays and cars aren’t as important as people?
Also, shout out to *Nsync for providing the credits music. They made a great holiday album guys.
I feel like I just wrote an Opus. Did any of you make it this far?
Topanga spends Christmas with the Matthews and is basically the worst houseguest ever. I know she’s known Cory since like birth, but doesn’t she even want to try a little bit to not totally piss off his parents? Isn’t she like looking to one day marry this guy? She brazenly changes out all of their Christmas traditions with her own. She makes them drive six hundred miles to Vermont to get an evergreen instead of the aluminum tree that they have used for the past twenty years. She scorns their eggnog and sends them on a mission to get hot mulled cider. She even brings her own tree topper, a snowy white angel, instead of their cardboard macaroni noodle star.
Meanwhile, Shawn and long lost brother Jack are trying to figure out what they have in common. They accidentally discover that they both like iceskating and everything is just fine. They leave Cory sitting on their couch alone, and he falls asleep to dram A Christmas Carol-style. He has left Topanga on Christmas Eve (which is a douche move even though she was being insufferable). She says she will be waiting for him at his parents’ house, but Cory remains at Shawn’s nevertheless.
Here’s what happens in Cory’s dream:
He and Eric live in Shawn and Jack’s old apartment. He’s very fat because all he eats now is the last meal that Topanga ever made for him: Christmas tree pancakes, no syrup, dusted with powdered sugar. Eric is bald (sad).
Topanga and Jack are happily married in suburbia. They have three kids, open presents on Christmas Eve (not like Cory’s family), but they do have an aluminum tree. (She is capable of compromise!)
Cory wakes up from his dream and delivers the promise ring to Topanga. OMG she also gives him a promise ring for Christmas! I feel like in real life Cory’s parents would have been like don’t come to our home and ruin our traditions way before things ever got to this point.
Very Special Christmas Lesson: When you love someone, you start to make your own traditions. And sometimes that means having an aluminum tree.
Both of these very special ugly sweaters come from Very Special Reader, Pam! If you would like to submit an ugly sweater drawing to The Very Special Blog, I’ll post it this holiday season! (theveryspecialblog at gmail dot com).
The Cat Ghost of Christmas PastThe Tap-Dancing Christmas Tree
What’s the dirty little secret of someone who already watches all of the cheesiest TV ever? I love The Partridge Family. I once saw Danny Bonaduce in an Amtrak Cafe car and I geeked out about it (from a distance), which means I ran back to my seat and texted my dad because he was one of the only people I knew old enough to care. He responded that Danny Bonaduce was “pretty rough” and I had to agree. Anyway, I wish him all the best because the whole former child star thing really does seem to suck. But Danny seemed to be having a lively conversation with the cafe car guy, so I hope that’s a good sign.
So anyway, this Very Special Christmas episode is pretty trippy. It opens with Shirley Jones/David Cassidy singing “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” and it is so great. It’s also great because you know it’s really their voices and that can’t be said of anyone else in this entire cast.
Oh no! The bus breaks down on the way home from the Christmas concert! Even worse, they have broken down in a ghost town!
So while Keith and (father figure/manager) Reuben try to fix the bus, a nice old man tells the rest of the family a story about what the town was like before it was a ghost town. And all of the partridge family are the characters in the story. The entire town is pastel colored. Apparently, the town has a large silver bell so that Santa can find the children because that is how far out in the boonies they are. Also, they have latex balloons in a rainbow of colors and I know that shouldn’t bug me as an anachronism with everything els that is going on, but it does. Otherwise, things seem great until a newcomer comes to town and steals the bell for no reason other than that he is mean.
Then The Partridge family mom/saloon owner convinces her daughter/schoolmarm to try to “charm” the mean bell-stealer into returning the bell. That doesn’t work and her hair is all messed up when she returns, which I find concerning. She says he is mean and I hope he just decided to pull her hair like a schoolboy instead of something sketchy.
David Cassidy, as the sheriff, walks around town singing something that sounds like the Partridge family version of the Brave Sir Robin song from Monty Python.
Then Danny Bonaduce almost saves the day as “Little the Kid,” who tries to win the bell back in a game of poker. But the mean man pulls a gun on him, and manages to keep Christmas from happening (so Grinch like). Except then Alvin and the Chipmunks start singing “We Wish You a Marry Christmas.” What? But it is not the chipmunks because Shirley Jones informs everyone that those are the sounds of eight tiny reindeer. Santa did not need the bell to find the town!
Also, it turns out that the mean man stole the bell because he was feeling left out of Christmas. Santa never visited him and that made him cranky. Then the town gives him the silver bell. But he’s so moved by the spirit of Christmas that he gives it back to them. Then they make friends.
By this time, Reuben and Keith have fixed the bus, so the family leaves but we stay in the ghost town with the old man. Then we have to witness his poor old man totally alone in a ghost town for Christmas and like it’s the most depressing thing I’ve ever seen on a sitcom. And just when you’re like the Partridges are the douchiest people ever, the dulcet tones of a fake family band caroling in a ghost town caress your ears.
They’re so obviously lip syncing but it’s heartwarming either way. Also, my favorite part of this fake family band is how there’s only one adult male and yet there’s always like three adult male voices in their “live” performances.
Very Special Lesson: Don’t leave the elderly alone on Christmas, especially not when they live in a ghost town and their only means of transportation is a donkey. That’s just horrible.
Agh where do I even start? This is the 3rd episode of this show that I have ever watched While it was way better than the other two, it once again demonstrated that it totally fails at having organic heartfelt moments. It seems like Girl Meets World is all about WE ARE HAVING A BIG HEARTFELT MOMENT RIGHT NOW whereas Boy Meets World was just awesome and that is frankly all that I can say about this in terms of a critical in-depth analysis. This show is just so obviously forced and superficial that there is nothing else to say about it.
Except that Rider Strong has made a guest appearance and we need to talk about that. It’s Christmas Eve and Amy, Alan, and their son Josh are visiting, but Corey is most excited about Shawn coming over. Josh is the ridiculous fourth child that Amy and Alan produced in what was (I think) the last season of the original show. The writers clearly had nothing else to do with their characters, so they used a plot tool…ugh. But they did cast a cute actor to portray older Josh and his entire job is just to be “cool.” That makes sense to me continuity wise because two older parents raising a fourth surprise baby are probably pretty chill.
But something that does feel like a bit of a failure to me is that Amy is a total jerk to Topanga form the get-go of this episode. I know that Boy Meets World has committed some egregious character continuity errors over the years, but Amy was always like the best boyfriend’s mom/mother-in-law I could possibly imagine. Even when Topanaga stayed with them in high school and virtually destroyed all of their Christmas traditions, Amy was incredibly cool about it. But in the present day, all she can do it criticize Topanga’s cooking. Like come on people, why can’t we see Amy being cool Grandma with the kids? Why does she have to be a jerk? (Eventually, we learn that Amy is being awful because she misses having Christmas in Philly and feels useless or something like that but whatever.)
So I’ve hated the “girl Shawn character” from the first moment she showed up. But now I extra-super-mega-hate her because she’s so clearly a plot device and also because she is obnoxious. Shawn shows up and like doesn’t know how to talk to children. He talks to Josh who is like only four years older than Corey’s daughter, but apparently those four years are the difference between Shawn being able to form a sentence and well…being rude I guess. But like Shawn isn’t actually rude. You know what he is? He’s your dad’s friend who comes over for dinner and is clearly into hanging out with your dad. And that is totally okay because he is your dad’s friend. Like what thirteen year old girl is offended that a thirty-five year old man won’t hang out with her? That’s messed up.
But anyway obnoxious friend gets all plot device-y and accuses Shawn of hurting Riley (the daughter) with his lack of interaction. Then they dramatically leave the room all very special moment like and Shawn is left sitting on a window seat with Cory, thinking about his actions. Then in another scene they wake Shawn up from a nap (rude) and demand to know why he doesn’t like Riley. He’s all like what is wrong with you weird kids? I like Riley just fine. And then Riley demands that he tell her when her birthday is and what her favorite color is as if he is some bad middle school boyfriend. Like when would you ever talk to your dad’s friend like this? And what kind of parent would allow this level of disrespect? But like Cory is all calm and don’t worry Riley, Shawn knows your b-day. And then Riley gets all like offended and doesn’t believe him, so Shawn takes her and the obnoxious friend to a bakery where he tells them about Riley’s birthday. (December 8th. Tomorrow. I won’t be celebrating.) Riley’s birthday was also the day that Shawn left NYC for good.
Then Riley and her obnoxious friend proceed to armchair analyze Shawn in front of his face, and then Riley forces him to look at her. (Ugh this girl would be like the worst girl to date in middle school because look at how she behaves with grown men! Can you imagine if you forgot to cover her locker with wrapping paper for her birthday?) Then she says, “Every time you see me, does it remind you of what you don’t have?” SO OUT OF LINE, MAN! I imagine this is supposed to be some “from the mouth of babes” shit but like no way dude. This is so inappropriate.
After this ridiculousness, they go back home where Riley proceeds to force a bunch of heart to heart chats first between her father and Shawn and then between her obnoxious friend and Shawn (since they’re the same person or whatever). No actual kid has this much authority. And kids that do have an inappropriate amount of authority end up being drug addicts or assholes.
Very Special Lesson: Do not ever watch this show. Except for when WIll Friedle makes his guest appearance. We should all watch the Will Friedle episode.