The Cosby Show: The Shower

November 17, 2014November 15, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 4 Comments

shower2 The Cosby’s are busy preparing for a wedding shower that Denise is throwing for her friend Veronica. Theo is super bummed because he spent all day decorating the house only to find out that the party is strictly women-only. There’s some talk about gender roles (Bud wants Rudy to get him juice because she’s a female and she’s all no way, Bud.) Then Theo and Cliff spend forever hanging shelves because Clair wants to keep them away from the party. Theo tries to read instructions in French. Denise is like yay hanging out with the bride to be! BORING!

shower1 Where’s the very special part? Let me skip ahead. We find out seventeen minutes into the show that Veronica is only getting married because she is pregnant. This must be one of the slowest very special reveals ever in the history of very special episodes. And it turns out she did it on PURPOSE! This was a planned pregnancy. She and her boyfriend decided that the only way to get her father’s permission to marry while still in college was to get pregnant.

Wait. Huh? You need your dad’s permission to do stuff in college? Her fiancee had to drop of out school to get full time work but is unemployed! And they have no money! This is how you squander a booming 80’s economy, people. This really stupid master plan. Also, who thought that having a kid would be less expensive than eloping and paying for college? Or maybe getting married and not telling her dad.

Anyway, she’s not a Cosby kid so we don’t have that much to talk about with her. Denise is freaked out by what Veronica told her, so she confides in Clair. Denise is all worried like what if I did something like that? Maybe I can understand it! And Clair is like you would never do that because that is something a crazy, selfish person does.

And you know what, yeah, that is something a crazy, selfish person does. But it’s also something a person who does not know math does. How did these people get into college?

Very Special Lesson: College is expensive, but nothing is more expensive than having a kid.

Totally Tired

November 7, 2014November 4, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ Leave a comment

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.

Something Spooky This Way Comes

October 23, 2014October 10, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 3 Comments

Hello Very Special Readers!

I am excited to announce that The Very Special Blog will be premiering Halloweek starting tomorrow. Yes, that’s right! Tomorrow marks exactly one week before good old fright night! So sit back, relax, and enjoy some old school Halloween Specials.

Unfortunately, I don’t have time to include all of the Halloween specials, so I guess we’ll just have to do this again next year.

Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue

October 11, 2014October 12, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 6 Comments

Taking over the War on Drugs from Reigning Queen Nancy Reagan, is no easy task. But Barbara and George H.W. Bush pulled out all of the stops for Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue. In light of the recent death of Saturday Morning Cartoons, let this post be a requiem. A snarky, nostalgia riddled requiem for the wistful charm of a more innocent time.

cartoon 3 Your favorite cartoons are alive and well, living secretly in your home. They are the only witnesses to your drug-addicted brother robbing your piggy bank. You see, poor teenage Michael is addicted to marijuana, so the cartoons set out to help him kick the habit, while Winnie-the-Pooh stays behind to comfort Michael’s little sister and her crushed piggy bank of dreams.

They follow Michael to a cool teen hang out where his friends offer him some white rocks, and he almost takes them because MARIJUANA IS A GATEWAY DRUG and OMG PEER PRESSURE. But the cops bust the place and Michael runs away only to be corned by Bugs Bunny with a time machine in the alley.

cartoon 1

You see, it all started two years ago when Michael was seriously peer pressured at the park to the point that he had to do drugs with his friends. That’s when he started to be haunted by a creepy ghost-death-cartoon, who is the proverbial monkey on his back but if the monkey was some sort of evil genie.

One day, Michael’s friends pressure him into giving them money for crack rock. He hesitates because that is “hard stuff,” so his friend runs away with his wallet, and Michael falls into the Ninja Turtle’s open manhole while chasing her. Michelangelo is only there for like two seconds as the token Ninja Turtle and quickly hands Michael off to the Muppet Babies, so that they can show him what drugs do to his brain.

This is the trippiest shit I have ever seen—way trippier than most surrealist films. Also, now I’m just thinking about things and like if we are in cartoon world and the cartoon all-stars are the rescuers, then why are the people drawn as cartoons too? Who are the cartoons and who are not the cartoons? ARE WE ALL JUST CARTOONS??

Oh thank God, it’s Huey, Dewy, and Louie. And now everyone is singing about how to say no to drugs. Woah sensory overload…I cannot even tell what they are saying. Miss Piggy just ninja kicked the camera and shattered the glass. And it was all a dream? What? Michael wakes up from a dream?!? Ugh, I am SO sick of the dream sequence! Wait, no. It could not have been a dream because A.L.F. just pulled Michael into the inside of a mirror. Oh man, I am so confused. Am I on drugs? It’s hurting my brain!

Aw man, now Michael’s little sister is being pressured by the scary ghost to do the drugs that she found in Michael’s room. He throws Pooh across the room when he tries to stop her from doing drugs. Then she’s all like “Woah, what is this stuff??” NO, if a creepy ethereal creature without any lower half to his body throws your Winnie-the-Pooh across the room, then you should no longer listen to anything he has to say or take anything from him!

Meanwhile, Michael is bouncing around inside the mirror, which is some kind of Carnival from Hell. At one point he is in Baby Piggy’s soda cup and she spits him out of her mouth…what? Also, at the carnival, Daffy Duck shows Michael his future, in which he becomes a drug-addled zombie. This scares him straight just in time to stop his little sister from doing drugs too.

Very Special Lesson: This really freaked me out. I think he was on something really scary. What the heck just happened?

This Is How You Write a Theme Song

October 8, 2014October 8, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 9 Comments

Just kidding guys, I don’t know how to write a song let alone tell you how to write one. But I do have a lot of thoughts about theme songs. First of all, where have they gone? Did we misplace all of the intro music to our television shows? Is it all just a symptom of the untimely death of the American sitcom? I may not be a person-snob but I am definitely a snob in regards to some pretty niche things. For example Ben Stone was significantly better than Jack McCoy on the original Law & Order and no one can tell me otherwise. But today I want to talk about theme songs. I have some pretty strong feelings, and I’d like to thank the Daily Post for giving me the opportunity to complain to a larger audience about the difficulties facing theme song savants in world in which theme songs are currently disenfranchised. (But everything old is new again, so I think maybe we can hope for a comeback one day).

First of all, let me say this. I would prefer a lack of theme song to a crappy theme song. Let’s just let the credits roll over the opening sequence instead of subjecting ourselves to the theme song from The Nanny yet again. Ugh, even just typing that right now made that song get stuck in my head all over again! Yes, a good theme song tells a story. We want to know a little bit about the plot or over all feeling of the show, but not the entire pilot episode! Alan Thicke (the only accomplished musician in his family as far as I am concerned…) does this really well in The Diff’rent Strokes theme song. And if you are going to tell a little more of the story, then it should be a really great song on it’s own like Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkees or The Ballad of Gilligan’s Island.

Then there’s the problem of a too long theme song (like in Family Ties or the uncut Cheers theme song). Luckily, Full House and Cheers managed to save themselves from the too-long-song fate by cutting down their theme songs midway through their run. Thank goodness for this because yes we all do want to go where everyone knows are name, but we do not need to slowly plod through the reminder of our worldly troubles.

Then there’s the theme song that is not worthy of it’s excellent show. I have to reference Family Ties again here. Don’t beg me wrong, I love Deniece Williams, she totally killed it on Let’s Hear it for the Boy (possibly the best song on the Footloose soundtrack tied with Shalamar’s Dancing in the Sheets). However, someone greatly wronged Deniece Williams by making her sing this totally blah song. It would have been cool if she had gotten to do the duet with BJ Thomas for the Growing Pains theme song because that song was awesome. But you’d have to expect a high quality theme song out of a show involving Alan Thicke.

You Better Promise Me I’ll Be Back in Time

October 7, 2014March 13, 2016 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 5 Comments

I’m writing this as the sounds of PYT drift through my mid-morning ear drums. I borrowed a quote from a Huey Lewis song in order to come up with a title. So when asked whether I would use a time machine to travel to the future or to the past, it must be pretty obvious which one I would chose. Well, the subject matter was probably a dead giveaway.

Reasons I would travel to the past instead of the future:

I’m not comfortable with unknowns: What if the future is some weird dystopian bummer land? Or what if everyone has plague? Or what if everyone I like is dead? Ick. I’m cool with dealing with uncertainty as I live my life in the present time and gradually move into the future, but I think that if there is anything we can learn from Back to the Future: Part II, it’s that the future can be pretty grim. No hover board or self-strapping shoe can erase from my mind that is the travesty of seeing Lea Thompson looking like a hot mess.
It’s quite possible that I could be the coolest kid ever in the late 20th Century: I was not a cool kid in the late 90’s. I know, I know. I blog largely about the 90’s so how is this possible? Well, I LOVED pop culture in this gigantic gestalt even then and my classmates could not understand my passion for All in the Family or The Facts of Life when those shows were not “hip” or”relevant.” I listened to disco in the third grade and I was weird. I liked bubble gum 60’s pop while everyone else was listening exclusively to The Offspring. And frankly, while I looooved early/mid 90’s film/media/fashion, I just was not into whatever was happening in the late 90’s. Thus, after much analysis, I think I could have owned the 80’s through early 90’s with my vast knowledge and appreciation for culture and style. Unfortunately, it’s not considered acceptable behavior to take a three year old to a Madonna concert, though there was a plan to take me to see the B-52s when I was two. (My parents thought better of it at the last minute.)
I want to wear Jellies non-ironically. I know they make your feet sweat and create weird blisters where you think it would be impossible to get a blister, but I think these shoes rock. The light pink color is my favorite because it has the leg-elongating effect of a nude shoe (results may vary based on skin color) AND allows you to look like you are so care free and breezy that you do not even have to wear a sensible shoe. “Oh I’m just roaming around, taking life one minute at a time in my leg-elongating, care-free jellies.”

Would you travel to the past or the future if you had a one-way time machine? You can check out other responses here.

This is your brain on Fraggle Rock

September 26, 2014September 26, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ Leave a comment

Oh yeah. It is definitely Friday afternoon.

Jem and the Holograms: Roxy Rumbles

September 25, 2014February 26, 2016 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 3 Comments

Before there was Hannah Montana there was Jem and the Holograms. Jem was a cool glam rock version of Barbie, but she also happened to be totally normal person when she wasn’t in her glam rock makeup. Jem is also pretty interesting in that it has music videos intermingled with the plotline.

It is always surprising to me when cartoons have very special problems. I mean these are two dimensional creatures who live in a world where no matter what happens to them they can look as good as new in the next frame. But they do have problems, you see. Sometimes cartoons can’t read and it really messes up their daily lives.

What’s a show about girl rock bands without a little gang rivalry, right? The Holograms rival gang The Misfits happens to have an illiterate band member, Roxy. They all make fun of her and call her an idiot. She finally has enough of their harassment, so she quits the band and moves back home. When Roxy gets home, Jem and the Holograms are coincidentally there for a charity event to raise money for literacy programs.

Oh by the way, did I mention that Roxy wins the lottery before she moves back home? Yes, well she does win the lottery and she almost does not know it because she cannot read the numbers. This lottery money gives Roxy tons of money in which to one up Jem’s event with a big carnival. Turns out, Roxy loses all of her money, since she signed a contract that she could not read. Jem helps her pay everyone back even though Roxy has been a total jerk to her all the time.

Roxy basically never cared about reading because she always had material things. Like why on earth would she need to read if she had tons of lycra-spandex and hair spray already at her fingertips?

This episode, which is supposedly about raising literacy rates, concludes with a song called “Open a Book.” The entire music video is full people picking up random things that you can read, like a cereal box or a job application. But I feel like Jem’s viewership was always mostly kids. And while they may not have been able to read, I don’t think they would have gotten the context of the help wanted sign in a store window or scribbling on a job application. To me this is just a big montage of boring words that did not make reading look fun at all. Open a book…okay..what book? I could open the dictionary and that would be a pretty disappointing book. If this is all people were throwing at Roxy then it’s no wonder she procrastinated on her abc’s. Sure that stuff is crucial to being self-sufficient and all, but she was a rock star you guys!

Very Special Lesson: You don’t need to learn how to read until you start losing money.

The Very Special Episode: Hawaiian Style.

August 22, 2014August 22, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 2 Comments

Hello Very Special Readers!

Summer is winding down. (Well, technically I guess we have another month before it’s scientifically over, but Labor Day looms just a mere nine days away.) In order to celebrate the end of the season, I’m engaging in the ultimate very special sitcom analysis. The Very Special Episode: Hawaiian Style.

Take a look at the full bracket here and don’t make fun of my slanty lines:

Here’s a pdf if you want to fill out your own bracket because obviously this is way more important than March Madness, and I expect all of you to start office pools: VSE-Hawaiian Style

All episodes will be graded on a 5 point scale and the winning episode will have the higher score based upon which categories it wins:
Overall Plot–2 points
Music–1 point
Vacation Attire–1 point
Integration of Hawaiian Setting–1 point

Here is a list of the full episode titles (as you can see the writers were not too creative with these episode titles):

Growing Pains: Aloha
Saved by the Bell: Hawaiian Style
Step by Step: Aloha
The Brady Bunch: Hawaii Bound
Full House: Tanner’s Island
Boy Meets World: The Honeymooners

Stay tuned this Monday for the first showdown Growing Pains vs. Saved by the Bell!

The Cosby Show: I’m with the In Crowd

July 21, 2014July 21, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 5 Comments

Remember all of the Cosby kids? How Denise was the cool one, Theo was the funny one, Rudy was the cute one, and Vanessa was the practical one, which meant she got very few of the story lines? (And Sondra was the already adult one that they added later kind of like an after thought.) But finally, in this very special episode of The Cosby Show, Vanessa gets her moment to shine in the sordid tale of a good girl gone bad. After finishing her chemistry final, Vanessa gets together with her friends to celebrate. When they run out of videos to watch, they decide to play the Alphabet Game with bourbon. I thought that people stopped playing this game in the third grade, but apparently sixteen year-old girls play it too and are surprisingly bad about naming American cities even with 100% sober.

Of course, that sober thing does not last very long, and soon half the girls are sick to their stomachs. For once, this seems like a pretty realistic depiction of first time drinkers because it happened out of boredom and not at a Toga party on a Tuesday night. Vanessa calls Denise and she totally covers for her because she’s the cool one, duh. But while Denise is upstairs trying to sober Vanessa up, one of the parents calls Clare tells her that all the girls were drinking. Denise (such a cool sister) tries to convince her parents that Vanessa got the flu on the way home, but they already know the truth. Clare and Cliff are uncharacteristically chill and all like, “Vanessa, you’re sick to your stomach and that’s your punishment.” Yeah, well there is NO way that the vomit is the punishment in this household. When Vanessa comes home from school, her parents sit her down to play another round of the Alphabet Game with little Rudy who is in the sixth grade. Rudy ends up with the letter J (which is one of the harder letters) and she totally blanks. Cliff starts to pour her a shot and Vanessa is all like “Dad, you can’t make your twelve year-old drink.” But Cliff persists and Rudy is all like “ew this is gross” but her parents are all like “These are the rules!!” and, in what looks like some seriously abusive, messed up shit, Rudy downs the shot and everyone cheers her on. Soon Vanessa, misses a letter and the entire family starts chanting “chug-a-lug,”–a phrase that I have never heard anyone use in real life but now would like to start using. Vanessa caves under the pressure again, and downs the shot which she finally realizes is tea because her parents are not actually psychopaths. Roll credits. Right there. No further analysis or decompression. It’s tea, we laugh, and the end.