Old School Nickelodeon

The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo: The Mystery of the Mice that Roared

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Let me preface this by saying, this show was the best. If you were a child of the 90’s who loved Nancy Drew Mysteries, then you were into The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo. In each episode, Shelby shows us one of her case files (on an old ass computer that was very innovative at the time). She also lives with her grandpa, Pat Morita, who I recently learned once had his own detective series!

This Christmas episode is kind of weird. The mystery starts at a restaurant where someone has swapped out an entree with um…live mice…

The very easy solution here is to not serve covered dishes at the table…but this restaurant is very into the room service aesthetic, so unfortunately live mice have been served up for dinner. Yikes.

When the health department closes the restaurant. Shelby not only tries to find the culprit because she loves a good mystery, but also because her friend’s parents own the place.

Clue #1: An empty strawberry basket filled with cheese is in the kitchen trash. (Both Shelby and the detective think it’s mouse-related because obviously this kitchen wouldn’t have cheese for any other reason. But to be fair, the cheese in the strawberry container is odd and does look just like the cheese on the mouse plate).

Back at the station, we’re introduced to a B-Plot: Secret Santa! (More on this later.)

Clue #2: The chef destroyed the original plate of food before the detectives arrived. (Okay, but seriously who sends a detective to respond to mice at a restaurant? Is this a thing?)

Oh also the C-plot is Pat Morita playing Santa for a bunch of underprivileged kids. He takes knowledge of Santa’s backstory very seriously and studies the lore extensively throughout the episode.

In the midst of all these happenings, the restaurant owners’ older daughter finds the time to help the younger daughter study fractions by using measuring cups and the restaurants supplies…but okay that also feels like another health department no-no. Anyway…

Clue #3: A very small attempt at arson in the restaurant’s kitchen with a type-written note that mentions going out of business. Bold move to leave a paper message in the midst of arson. (Also note, the couple’s younger daughter tries to throw the half-burned note away before Shelby can read what’s left of it.)

Clue #4: The chef buys cooking spices at the market. Buying his own ingredients is suspicious cause he’s trying to destroy the restaurant and take it back from the owners (according to Shelby) but…I dunno…I’m not buying it.

Later on at the restaurant, the food has been spiked with chilies!!!

Clue #5: One guest’s table doesn’t get any spiked food. Shelby also remembers that she saw this guest drive past the restaurant on the night of the fire.

And time for another C-Plot, Pat Morita appearance. This time, he’s testing the authenticity of his beard.

Clue #6: Shelby’s friend’s eyes hurt from the chilies but all she touched at the restaurant were the plates, not the food. She also touched the sugar dispenser.

This final clue helps Shelby solve the mystery…

Did you solve it as well?

Time to find out…

THE YOUNGER DAUGHTER IS THE CULPRIT!

She doesn’t see her parents anymore because they are sooooo busy. They’re even working on Christmas Eve!! And before you’re like woah woah woah but that arson was still psychotic — the fire was an accident. The note was the intention (the candle was presumably to call attention to it). The good news is they decided to keep the restaurant but just close for family time on Christmas Eve. And hopefully, that child decided to stop handling live mice for good.

And now back to the B-Plot: Shelby and her crush are each other’s secret santas and they each got one another thoughtful gifts and they are probably in looooooooveeeeee. Shelby made him a painting and he made her a mixtape. The 90’s awwwww.

And Pat Morita finally nails the Santa thing.

And in what we now know is workplace sexual harassment, Shelby’s boss makes her kiss her crush underneath the mistletoe.

Very Special Lesson(s): Really what I learned is that it’s important to STATE YOUR NEEDS and not BE RUINING EVERYONE’S LIVES because you’re being passive-aggressive. Yes, this culprit was a child and so I’m willing to grade on a cruve. Now that I know she’s not literally trying to burn down the place, she seems fine. However, I think we could have avoided this whole thing if she had simply left a note (without an open flame) saying she wanted to spend Christmas Eve at home as a family.

Also Pat Morita is the perfect Santa. I mean. Wow. I didn’t know I needed to see Pat Morita as Santa, but my heart knew. You know? And it was awesome.

I also do have some questions about how long they left that food unattended in the kitchen long enough that the kid could swap out a plate of food for a plate of mice but oh well it’s Christmas so I’ll overlook it!

I hope you have a Merry Christmas, Very Special Readers! See you in 2022 for more very special episodes!

Kenan & Kel: Merry Christmas, Kenan

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First of all, I forgot this theme song was by Coolio and it totally slaps. Secondly, Kel introduces this episode as a “Very Special Episode,” which made me feel even more like I was in the right place. It’s always good to have your selections validated!

After the pre-show intro, we cut to Kel decorating Kenan’s family’s Christmas tree with orange soda — which reminds me, head over here to check out my orange soda donut recipe.

On Christmas Eve, Kenan places a downpayment on a bike. Kel tags along to the store and finds his dream present — and one of the best props I have ever seen — a tubaphone.

Kel Mitchell on Twitter: "Hey Wisdom it's almost Christmas! Happy Christmas Eve! 🎄♥️ https://t.co/T03EttoHRL" / Twitter

Seriously. There’s even art of this thing. God, I love the internet.

❄🎀📯 Tubaphone Kenan and Kel 🎀📯❄ en 2021
Tubaphone by King Arlequin

While at the store, Kenan and Kel witness a mob of small children attack Santa. With the original toy store Santa no longer up to the job, the store manager recruits Kenan to be Santa for a flat rate of $100. Kel gets to be an elf…I’m not sure if he’s also being paid or just being supportive. Either could be true with Kel.

Kenan & Kel" (1996) - Episode: Merry Christmas, Kenan | Kenan e kel, Papai noel, Noel

Turns out, Kenan is the best Santa ever. He evens speaks an obscure language called Fishlockian and is able to sing a carol with this small Scandanavian child:

Everything is going great until he promises a bike to a kid who asks for the gift for his sister — only to find out that their mom can’t afford it. So Kenan decides to use the money he intends to use for his mountain bike to buy these kids some presents.

That’s all well and good but he also decides to break into the house, dressed as Santa, to leave presents. Luckily, this doesn’t go poorly and the whole family thinks it’s very sweet instead of very creepy.

After all this, Kenan somehow has cash left over to buy Kel the tubaphone.

97 Kenan & Kel Christmas! | Dan Schneider in the 90's

Don’t worry though because the real Santa (or maybe just the store manager also doing a little B&E) brings Kenan his bike on Christmas Eve after the family goes to sleep. Kenan and Kel then close the show with the rest of the episode’s cast and the audience singing We Wish You A Merry Christmas.

Very Special Holiday Lesson: Breaking and entering is okay as long as you leave gifts? No wait. Absolutely don’t do that. Just leave a gift card in the mailbox instead. Bye!

I’m also going to share my favorite Kenan & Kel bit from All That: “Mavis & Clavis”:

And also this really cute reunion video:

The Rugrats Reboot Is Terrifying (These Shoes Are Cute Tho)…

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In yet another reboot we never asked for, Paramount+ gives us scary CGI Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil, and ANGELICA. She’s even scarier now if that were even possible! I won’t post photos here because I’m not looking to traumatize anyone.

In better news, Puma is releasing a Rugrats collab next week and it actually looks pretty cute. You can preview the collection here (and in the shot below).

PHOTO: PUMA and Nickelodeon team up to celebrate "Rugrats" 30th anniversary with new collection.

Here’s What I Meant by “Culturally Heavy.”

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A few years ago, I posted about a lost very special episode of Hey Dude. On Saturday Night, I got a notification that a podcasted aptly titled Hugging and Learning had used my post as a source for their recent episode, “Saved by the Cowbell” — once again awesome title.

The portion of the podcast I’m writing this follow up post in response to involves the character Danny Lightfoot, a member of the Hopi Nation, portrayed by Joe Torres. Let me pause here and acknowledge that this casting and the way the show’s creators have since described it could be its own separate post entirely. According to Michael Koegel in the book Slimed!: An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age, when casting the show “we fudged it because Joe Torres was really Mexican-American. He had a little American-Indian blood in him, but once you get into that part of the country, there’s a fine line between what’s an American Indian and what’s a Mexican Indian. It’s a cultural divide.” This book was published in 2013 and even though it is an oral history, I am struck by how glib this statement is, right down to the “what’s” instead of “who’s”. And in case it needed clarification, tribal sovereignty is much more than a “cultural divide.”

In all fairness, I did not dive into the casting (nor did I research it) in my original post and it doesn’t appear to come up in the discussion between hosts Chelsea and Andrew on the podcast either, though I may have missed it. However, as anyone would in 2020, Chelsea and Andrew immediately zero in on the incredibly problematic line Danny says to describe why he would not go drinking with his coworker Melody’s brother. If you’re listening to the podcast, this section starts at about 24:52.

For those of you who haven’t read the original post, I’ve included a screenshot below for the section in question.

There is so very much to unpack here. The first of which is that I’d like to clarify that “betrayed” is my word. Chelsea refers to this in the podcast, but she attributes that word to the character (before she quotes the same section I quoted in the original post). To be clear, Chelsea says, “He had a friend of the family that he says betrayed all of them by becoming quote another Indian with a drinking problem.”

The text from the show is actually as follows, “it felt like he let us all down.” So here’s where this gets sticky and where I want to be very clear because this podcast is using a lot of my phrasing. Anything in the screenshot above that I did not directly quote came from me, not the show.

My interpretation of the line reading was that Danny and his community felt “betrayed” and I chose that word in 2017 because of my personal experiences with alcoholism and perhaps that’s unfair for me to apply to this situation. However, alcoholism runs in my family and I was very strict about experimentation (or lack there of) as a teenager because I personally would have felt that I betrayed my family if I were to become another member of the family with an alcohol problem: betrayed the experiences and examples of my ill family members; betrayed the expectations of my immediate family; betrayed the family name at large in our community. I don’t know what the writers intended, but Danny’s sentiment of not wanting to let anyone down or in essence “betray” them resonated with me. The most glaring difference here being that my perfectionism was self-imposed and Danny’s was the result of generations of oppression following a genocide.

Chelsea then goes on to say that, “He basically lays it out like therefore I can never drink because that would make me a stereotype, which is like a really weird thing for a writer to put into the mouth of a character who’s, I’m guessing, ethnic group they don’t share. You know what I mean? Like part of me is sort of like wow okay we like got culturally heavy here for a second.”

Once again, that “culturally heavy” is my interpretation of the actor’s line reading, one that Chelsea and Andrew appear to agree with. But I want to take this one step further and tell you exactly what I meant by that in 2017 because I didn’t lay it out and I should have.

To me, one of most devastating aspects of racism on a micro level is that individuals do not feel permission to express a full range of emotions, and there are often devastating consequences should they choose to do so. My interpretation of Danny’s statement is not that the show unfairly “puts” this desire to avoid “stereotypical” (and wholly untrue) behavior “into his mouth” so to speak, but rather that this statement reflects the innermost thoughts of a young man who is not afforded the opportunity to make mistakes in the same way that Melody’s white brother is.

And let’s be clear, Melody’s brother has a disease. All people experiencing alcoholism unfortunately face stigma and stereotyping. That said, the stereotypical interpretation of his disease is not nearly the same as it would be for Danny’s friend.

I do think this is an appropriate conversation to have. I do not think this is a “weird” statement for Danny to say because the pressure this character feels is very real and very relevant. He in fact states, “I don’t think there’s anyway I could have gone with Billy, even if I wanted to.”

What I find to be inappropriate in this episode and, more accurately, harmful is that this statement is said and dropped. Within this episode, there is no unpacking of Danny’s feelings or the systemic pressure that created them. There is no acknowledgment of the immense unfairness in the simple fact that he cannot make a mistake even if he wants to.

I wrote “culturally heavy” and I figured people would get it. But maybe what I should have written was “personally heavy” because we personally carry the pain of our cultures and for minority communities that pain is more than any individual should bear.

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.” — Anne Lamott

Doug: Doug’s Christmas Story

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Before we start, I need to inform you all that this is a VERY dramatic episode of Doug. It starts off with Doug’s dog Porkchop saving Beebe, the resident spoiled brat, from falling through thin ice and being FALSELY accused of biting her in the process. Her father has Pork Chop taken to the pound and presses charges against Doug.

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In an effort to clear Porkchop’s name, Doug goes door to door with a petition. Unfortunately, he has a lot of trouble getting anyone to sign it. With no one in the real world to help him, Doug strategizes with his imagination. He assembles the dream team of Smash Adams (A James Bond-type who looks like Doug), Quailman (A superhero who looks like Doug), and Race Canyon (an Indiana Jones-type who looks like Doug). They all have different suggestions for Doug, but he decides to go with Smash Adams’s idea to get Porkchop out with some “high-tech gadgetry.” A pair of twins (whose names I cannot remember) help him out with a smoke bomb designed as a cupcake.

While his BFF Skeeter creates a diversion, Doug sneaks into the restricted area of the pound. Meanwhile, the security guard takes a bite out of the smoke bomb, whoops. And just before he can get to Porkchop, the guard kicks Doug out of the pound.

Finally, it is Porkchop’s day in court (and the poor thing has to wear a muzzle). Porkchop is able to communicate to Doug that he needs to go to the lake, but Doug has trouble convincing the court. This leads to Doug giving an impassioned speech about how Porkchop is a part of his family, just like Beebe is a part of he family. And the judge is all like “he’s just a dog.” And Doug proclaims that Porkchop is also a part of the community.

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Here is a short list of all the things Porkchop has done for humans:
-Babysat a couple of kids while their mom was out of town on an overnight trip
-Showed up with a hammer and nails to help some neighbors rebuild their home the morning after it burned down (he also brought cookies)
-Fixed a transmission
-Lent someone $20 bucks
-Taught a child to walk again after a devastating accident

This convinces everyone to go to the lake where Beebe recreates her steps. Porkchop starts to freak out again when she nears the thin ice, but guards hold him back. So she falls in and almost drowns. Luckily, Porkchop is able to break away from him restraints and jumps into the water to save her.

Porkchop is exonerated and hailed as a hero of his community. To repay Porkchop for how poorly they treated him, the whole town hosts a dinner for all of the dogs in the pound.

Very Special Holiday Lesson: Well, this is now my favorite Christmas episode ever. I don’t think I even need to watch any others (but I will because I promised you seven). Just remember, if you’re getting a puppy for Christmas, it’s a long-term commitment and if you’re not willing to stand by that dog through his wrongful imprisonment and come to his defense in a kangaroo court, then you should probably buy the new iPhone this holiday season instead.

Hey Dude: Melody’s Brother (My White Whale, My Broken Teenage Heart)

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Very Special Readers, I am very excited to share with you “Melody’s Brother,” a.k.a. my white whale of Very Special Episodes. This is a “lost episode” of Hey Dude, and I have been looking for it for YEARS. (Hey, this blog just had it’s 3rd birthday. The VSB isn’t a toddler anymore. Aw, it’s growing up so fast.)

01-07-brownHey Dude is a show about a bunch of teenagers working on a dude ranch. I was really into it as a small child, but I think this was mostly due to the fact that there was a girl named “Brad” on the show and I thought that “Brad” was a cool name for a girl. Incidentally, Brad was the name of my first boyfriend. I don’t think the two facts are related since I was mostly into him because he was into Nirvana and had blond hair.

Sadly, things ended badly with Brad. He brought another girl on a date to a football game at my high school (which he did not attend) mere days after he crushed my little fourteen year old heart while Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” played in the background. (To add insult to injury, I had only slightly earlier in the day determined that this would be “our song.”) But it’s funny how life goes because now I look back on this fondly as one of my better break ups. (For the record, Brad apologized to me a year later, so we’re good. I’m not here to drag some dude through the mud for youthful transgressions over a decade later. OVER A DECADE. And the VSB is 3 years old. OH NO, I AM AGING.)

Alright, alright, I promised you a very special episode.

o-hey-dude-facebook
Would you let that kid in the middle fix your toilet?

Melody’s brother comes for a visit and tells her he’s going to propose to his girlfriend. She refuses to be a bridesmaid, which is pretty rude, and invites him to go canoeing. He’s like NOPE I AM GOING TO CHILL WITH MY FRAT BROS. (Rude family.) He presumed that she would be working, and she says, “No, I switched with Brad.” (Brad being the girl character on the show and not my ex-boyfriend.)

On his way into town, Melody’s bro invites some of her coworkers into town to a bar that WILL NOT CHECK ID. But they’re good ranch hands, so they say no. Listen, The VSB would NEVER condone underage drinking, but as someone who is a few years past the legal drinking age, I must say that I will never again be able to drink like I could drink when I was 20. Would that I could, Hey Dude, would that I could.

dude12Danny (played by the “missing” Joe Torres but this guy on Facebook says he’s Joe and not to worry), says that he doesn’t want to go because a friend of the family had a drinking problem. Melody’s brother says, “there’s a big difference between having a few beers with your friends and having a problem.” He’s right, but obviously this is the Chekov’s gun of this episode.

He leaves the room and the ranch hands comment on his stank alcohol breath. (Oh, yep. Here we go.)

Danny, says that the friend of the family betrayed all of them by becoming “another Indian with a drinking problem.” Therefore, Danny can never drink even if he wants to lest he become a stereotype. Shit, things got culturally heavy here.

Later in the afternoon, Billy dry heaves by the cabins. He doesn’t want to join Melody for dinner. His jeans are ripped and he has an injury that he can’t explain. He says he only had two beers. (LIES!)

12-38-melody-delightedThe overzealous ranch hands see Melody talking to her brother and they’re like oh hey, your brother is drunk. And she gets all defensive and says he’s just tired. Meanwhile, it’s dinner time and everyone wants to tell Melody her brother has a problem in their judgey voices but no one wants to help this guy metabolize that booze by encouraging him to eat some bread or drink some water. Have we no plain pasta, people???

In a flagrant violation of child labor laws, the manager insists on opening up the room where Melody’s bro is “sleeping it off” so that a thirteen year old can presumably fix the plumbing. This obviously fails, so her brother has to move rooms. While they’re moving the luggage, a big old bottle of brandy falls out of his bag.

Melody is PISSED. Apparently, their dad is an alcoholic too. But her bro says he’s just having a hard time right now. You know that girl he wanted to marry? That girl broke up with him and is in love with someone else.

Okay, Rule #1. Don’t drink when you’re sad. 
Rule #2. Enjoy your fast metabolism while it lasts and STAY HYDRATED.
I’m dishing out very special lessons all over the place today, guys.

Melody’s bro promises to never drink again (but don’t count on it because this episode still has several minutes left.) He leaves the ranch to go see a movie and…uh oh…this ends with the cops calling to say there has been an accident. He’s alive, but he has a DUI. Melody decides to practice some tough love and not bail her brother out of jail. Woah. Damn. This episode is rough.

37-73-melody-billy-2Her boss bails him out and big bro is mad as hell that Melody wasn’t there to support him. Melody is devastated and she says that she’s already been lying to everyone for him and is starting to resemble their mother covering for their father. (GUYS, THESE PEOPLE NEED THERAPY AND CRAP I’M SO GLAD I DIDN’T SEE THIS ON NICKELODEON AS A KID.)

She says, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe you don’t have a problem with your drinking. But I do.” Mic drop.

Turns out, he lied AGAIN. That girl from earlier (the one who he wanted to marry but she broke up with him because she was in love with somebody else), she wasn’t really in love with somebody else. She broke up with him because they argued all the time about his drinking. Damn, those overzealous ranch hands are perceptive. Be careful who you invite to hang out with you. They may just expose your deepest secrets in an instant.

Anyway, he has to fly home to their parents’ house since he no longer has a drivers license.

Very Special Lesson: Listen, there were some veritable truths dropped all over this post. I cannot even synthesize this post in a witty one liner because I have an overwhelming urge to listen to “Undone: The Sweater Song.”

The Adventures of Pete & Pete: O’Christmas Pete

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the_adventures_of_pete_26_pete_title_cardThis show really creeped me out as a kid. But I also LOVED it. I think it was my first encounter of something so interesting and freaky that I couldn’t look away from it. But honesty, it’s an awesome show and it is not creepy at all. In fact, the things that “creeped” me out as a kid are things I appreciate about this show more as an adult.

But I was probably a little on the younger side of the Pete & Pete demographic. I didn’t really get it. I didn’t get the band playing the theme song on the lawn, or the plate in their mom’s head, or the fact that an arm tat got a its own dedicated credit in the opening. But I did like the quirky characters and the plots were always engaging. I think I was actually okay with the fact that these two brothers have the same exact name. As an adult looking back on these shows, I can say with certainty that The Adventures of Pete & Pete holds up pretty damn well.

In the Christmas of 1996, Little Pete successfully kept Christmas alive for many days post-December 26th. Eventually, reality starts setting in and his dad has to go back to work. But more importantly, the garbage man comes to pick up the tree. And they absolutely cannot upset the garbage man.

vlcsnap-00005The garbage man is a really scary looking dude, who loves to throw dried-up Christmas trees into the truck as a metaphorical destruction of Christmas. Yeah, this guy’s a real winner. In an attempt to teach his kid about the “real world,” his dad invites the garbage man to come back to the house and take the tree out in the middle of the night. But Little Pete is ready. He’s rigged an alarm on the tree and has a nutcracker setup to shoot a tranquilizer dart at the garbage man.

When the garbage man starts “trash talking” (did the show intend this pun? I hope!) Little Pete during a physical struggle over the Christmas tree, Little Pete’s dad sees the error of his ways and throws his full support behind his son. That’s when the garbage man sets an ultimatum: The tree goes or the rest of the garbage stays.

Things get pretty smelly on the Petes’ street. But everyone is okay at first. They’re still playing Christmas Carols and mamboing with Santa around the cul-de-sac. But then again, maybe there are some creepy elements to all of this. After 12 days, the garbage man ups the ante. He hacks into their TV and tells them that he’s extended the garbage strike to the whole block until they give up their Christmas tree.

hqdefault3This pisses off all of the neighbors, who threaten Little Pete’s life if he doesn’t give up the Christmas tree. So Pete does the only reasonable thing anyone could do in this situation: He organizes a wrestling match between Santa Claus and any takers. Pete nominates Pit Stain (the school bully) from the crowd to be Santa’s first challenger. But Santa can melt even Pit Stain’s heart. He refuses to fight. As Pete says, “The Christmas Spirit lives!”

But the garbage man isn’t afraid to fight Santa. He even gets the crowd cheering for him (those lemmings…who want their trash picked up). He knocks Santa out cold as the onlookers turn into an angry, jeering, Shirley Jackson-esque mob. So the family agrees to part with the tree.

Little Pete is devastated. But there’s still time for one more Christmas miracle. Big Pete and their parents have rigged up the piles of garbage around the block with lights to look like lovely Christmas trees. It’s enough Christmas cheer to make even the garbage man feel a little Christmas spirit. He wins the tree, but the Christmas spirit wins the battle. (Yeah, that makes sense right?)

Very Special Holiday Lesson: Why aren’t the people on this block recycling more? It’s been like 2 weeks and everyone has 12 foot piles of trash on their lawn. If you’re reading this and you’re thinking of NOT recycling then FU man, you’re killing our planet. Happy Holidays.

Kenan & Kel Inspired Orange Soda Donuts: A 6 Step Recipe

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{I guess technically this was more Kel inspired since I’m not sure Kenan was as into the whole orange soda thing.}

I’m not really a person who makes things in the kitchen, but I found a mini donut maker on Amazon and eyed it for a very long time before purchasing it. Then I left it in its box for a couple of months until I finally decided to use it tonight. So if I can make this ridiculously easy recipe, then anyone can. Also, if you don’t have a donut maker, then you can also use a donut pan in your oven. These are cake donuts, baked not fried. And they’re very tasty! I used a cake mix donut recipe from “It’s Always Autumn” and added a little Kenan & Kel twist.

The ingredients are simple:
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-1 box orange cake mix
-1/4 cup vegetable oil
-1 egg
-1 cup orange soda
-Cream Cheese Frosting
-Cooking spray for your pan/donut maker

Step 1. Combine cake mix, vegetable oil, egg, and orange soda in a large mixing bowl.


Step 2. Whisk the ingredients together. I realized after starting this process that I do not own a whisk. So I used an egg beater. It worked.
Step 3. Shovel some batter into a plastic baggy, cut one of the corners, and pipe that batter into the pan. img_1081

Step 4. Use a plastic spatula or wooden spoon to remove the donuts from the pan and place them on a plate too cool.
Step 5. Lather, rinse, repeat. Seriously, this makes like 24 donuts and with only 7 fitting in the pan at a time, I felt like the “Time to Make the Donuts” guy was my kindred spirit.
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Step 6. Apply a thin layer of cream cheese frosting to your donuts.
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Although I did not use her recipe, the concept behind this post was inspired by Jessica Segarra’s “The Kenan and Kel: Orange Soda Mini Donut” in Mini Donuts: 100 Bite-Sized Donut Recipes to Sweeten Your “Hole” Day, available on Amazon.

Things I Can’t Explain

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It’s been decades since we’ve heard from Clarissa and when I started this book I was pretty nervous. There’s a lot of legacy to live up to here. Did she turn out okay? Will I feel okay reading about her outside of the TV series? Things I Can’t Explain, is written by series creator Mitchell Kriegman and will be released November 10th. You can pre-order it now on Amazon.

But full disclosure, I did not care for this book. Frankly, parts of it felt like a real chore to get through. I found myself a bit bored by the plot. And I found it hard to get past the fact that the math glaringly does not add up. I’m sure this was done for creative reasons, but Clarissa is such a cultural icon of the early/mid 90’s to me, as I’m sure she is for many other girls of that era. So to hear that she graduated from college in 2009 (and figuring that means she must have spent over a decade in high school for that to even remotely make sense) just doesn’t sit right with me.

Plus, financial crisis recent-grad millennial is not Clarissa as we grew up with her. Clarissa Explains It All first aired in 1991 and Clarissa was in the 9th grade. She’s on the cusp of the Gen-X/Millennial generation. She’s the teenager that all of the younger millennials (the one’s who actually did finish college in 2009 without any math tricks) looked up to and aspired to be. If she’s suddenly supposed to be the same age as a younger millennial, then it somehow spoils everything.

I’d be much more interested in reading about her in her early to mid thirties. She could still have a life-crisis. I’m down to hear about that. But something about this book rings false. Clarissa doesn’t belong with her contemporaries in this book. Suddenly, she’s a “millennial” and she throws around words like “SnapChat” but it doesn’t even sound like she knows how what she’s saying. She describes a friend, who is presumably Clarissa’s age, who changes her Facebook profile picture every “43 minutes.” That’s not something a late-twenties millennial would do. That sounds more like something a seventeen or eighteen year old millennial might do. And those kids don’t even have Facebook because Facebook is what “old people” use.

I feel like the character’s voice is missing, and maybe that’s a by-product of how amazingly Melissa Joan Hart depicted her on the television show. But I don’t think that’s entirely the problem. Rob Thomas wrote a couple of books using Veronica Mars as a character and the character was still very much Veronica Mars. This just does not feel like Clarissa. She feels like she’s in the wrong time and place and I feel like just about anyone could be telling me this story. Frankly I just do not care about this character, and that’s mostly because I don’t feel like there’s much of a character to care about.

I guess there are a few other elements of insincerity to me as well, but I’m not sure they’ll bug others as much. As a former New Yorker, I find it really odd that Clarissa, while trying to convince her parents that a near-stranger is her boyfriend, would mistakenly pick Riverdale as his neighborhood of residence. I’ll point out that this guy runs a coffee stand in the lobby of a corporate building in lower Manhattan, so he’s pretty much as far socioeconomically and geographically as possible from Riverdale. She also has all of these stupid rules about little New York interactions that require you to not know anyone’s names. So she’s been getting coffee from this one guy for years and has intentionally not learned his name. Aside from making her sound like a jerk, this is also another weird attempt at a “local’s characterization” of New York City–like people have these little interactions and then intentionally do not learn each others names? It’s odd and patently false, in my experience.

I hate to say it, but I couldn’t recommend this book to you. The best thing about Clarissa in the Clarissa Explains it All  years was that she managed to be a totally genuine kid while also being a trendsetter. Actually, the whole fact that she was a trendsetter stemmed naturally from the fact that she was genuine and creative. Now, it feels like she’s a square peg forced into the round hole of the 21st century, and the transition is not happening smoothly. And no, it’s not because she is having a “quarter-life crisis.” The few shining moments in this book are those in which we get a fun graphic or cool list that remind us of Clarissa’s glory days. Those are fun, but not worth the price of trudging through everything else.

I say this as someone who runs a nostalgia blog: this character is certainly better left in your memories.

The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo

~ theveryspecialblog ~ 9 Comments

90’s children rejoice! Nickelodeon has finally indulged us and plans to rerun the stories of our youth on a new segment called “The Splat.” Beginning October 5th the programming block (including VSB favorites Salute Your Shorts and Clarissa Explains it All) will air between 10 pm and 6 am to perfectly align with your quarter-life-crisis induced insomnia. For the well-adjusted of you who have to go to sleep in order to make it to your jobs on time, you’ll probably need to DVR this.

I searched for an eternity just now and couldn’t find the article I read earlier this week that basically explained why millennials love the TV shows of our youth so much. It was a lot more profound than this, but it boils down to the fact that we lack the financial resources to meet all of the “adult” milestones we feel like we should (i.e. house-owning, loan paying-off-ing, marrying and acquiring offspring, etc). Basically, we’re comparing ourselves to how we imagined adults to be when we were youngsters and we’re failing because we don’t live in that world anymore (see: mountains of student loan debt et al). We’re also overly educated, underemployed balls of anxiety who’ve put tremendous amounts of pressure on ourselves under rules that don’t exist anymore only to also be told by society that we’re whiny, extendedly-adolescent people.

And you know what, that makes us feel bad. It literally feels like being kicked when you’re down. I’m sorry for the douche bags who make our generation look bad, but most of us are quietly spinning our wheels and trying to figure out how to adjust. So we watch TV shows (which costs way less than a vacation) that remind us of a simpler time. Also, I know I joke about a lot of the stupid crap messages these shows were sending, but their hearts were in the right place. And some of them (Boy Meets World, Clarissa Explains it All, The Secret World of Alex Mack) had really great writing that I can still legitimately enjoy today.

So that was all a very long introduction to say that I feel like The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo was wrongfully overlooked on this lineup. Shelby Woo lived with her grandfather (Pat Morita from Happy Days and The Karate Kid) in Cocoa Beach and she solved mysteries. But we’re not talking dinky The Adventure of Mary-Kate and Ashley mysteries. We’re talking like genuine thrillers. Okay, well like thrillers for kids, but I found this show to be like a 7.5 on a 1 to Are You Afraid of the Dark? scale.

For example, the episode I’m watching right now (The Haunted House Mystery) starts with a bunch of cuckoo clocks going off and an old lady screaming alone in the middle of the night. That’s genuine horror, right there. But I could always trust that Shelby would solve the mystery and put things right. She finds out about this scary case when the old lady (she’s no longer screaming at this point) checks into her grandfather’s B&B and says she likes her house but she can’t deal with the haunting. Shelby is fearless so she spends the night in the haunted house and solves the mystery. I’m not going to spoil it for you (like I do every other episode of everything) because there’s no very special lesson. It’s just a cool show. And I’m hoping “The Splat” decides to air it on Halloween.