Greetings from the happiest place on Earth! Look who I spotted in Hollywood Studios? It’s Scott from Full House!
’90’s
7th Heaven: Who Knew?
7th Heaven has to be the most saccharine, didactic, and unrealistic show ever—in other words, it’s perfect for The Very Special Blog. To be honest, I usually cannot stand this show, so there is a good chance that I will never post about it ever again. Yet every now and again the stars align and I get interested in an episode. Here is a math equation for why I am sitting here and watching this show right now:
Barry Watson (handsome and much too authentic for this melodramatic crap) + parents reacting to joint as if it is PCP blunt + Family dog holding said joint in mouth for “profound” emotional effect =
A great way to spend a weeknight.
Matt (Barry Watson) gets a joint from a friend at school. This guy just kinda says something like, “Hey buddy, sorry you can’t hang out with me and the guys tonight, so here’s a joint, Bye.” Matt’s a “good” kid but he hangs on to it anyway because all teenagers are tempted by the forbidden fruit of rebellion, or something like that. When he comes home from school, the joing falls out of his pocket, and the family dog, Happy, picks it up. She does not devour it but simple holds it gently until the patriarch of the Camden family can come home and dislodge it from her mouth whilst cas
ually greeting her. Dog as plot device. We are off to a good start.
The Reverend Camden joins the family in the kitchen, eager to begin the witch hunt. He’s playing his own private game of Clue as he suspiciously eyes all of his children. Has Happy been outside today? No. Mary’s eyes are red from allergies (she claims). But she is not the one devouring cookies. Was it Lucy in the hall with the marijuana?
The reverend is certain that the culprit is eldest son Matt, but –like any good mother—his wife attempts to convince him to consider accusing all of their other children as well. Finally, they decide to let their kids invite friends over, so that they can interrogate them as well. In the meantime, the matriarch of the family stashes the joint in her dresser.
In a shocking twist, Lucy discovers the joint while borrowing clothes from her mother’s dresser. Of course, she assumes that her mother is a pothead. Meanwhile, the reverend 
gives all the kids a good talking too with some real facts about marijuana, such as junkies with “needles in their arms” all started off with someone giving them a joint at a party.
In another shocking twist, the reverend’s wife reveals that she smoked pot as a kid. It’s been decades, but he gives her the cold shoulder because she defied his expectations before he met her.
“How could you just drop a bomb on me like that and then serve eight people and a dog a meatloaf like nothing happened,” he asks her. At this point, you must be wondering, how this could escalate anymore. Well, let me tell you.
The reverend proceeds to ask everyone at the dinner if they think that Lucy’s new friend–who rides a moped and likes reggae music–uses drugs. Then, in an effort to figure out how other parents handle this looming drug issue, the reverend asks Mary’s boyfriend, Wilson, what his father would do if he suspected he was on drugs. Wilson replies that his father periodically drug tests him because he l
ost all trust in his son when he became a teen father at sixteen. So you know, if you happen to get your girlfriend pregnant in high school, you are probably also a drug user. And if you are incredibly responsible and care for your child even though you are still a teenager…you’re probably still using drugs. Also, can we just take a second and look at Wilson’s backstory? He is eighteen years old, widowed, and father of a two year-old. How did his teen wife die? Was it in childbirth? It would be in childbirth wouldn’t it…
“Some mistakes are like jumping out of a plane.” Wilson says, “Once you do it you can never take it back. It stays with you forever.” So just in case this was not clear to all of you– parenting a tiny human that needs your constant attention and support for the next eighteen years is just as significant as experimenting once with a non-addictive drug.
Finally, it’s time to drive the point home with one of the most terrible stories I have ever witnessed in a sitcom. Matt’s mom confront him directly (such a novel idea) and tells him that she is concerned because she used to smoke pot when she was a teen. She tells him that one of her friends drove home stoned and was killed because he did not stop in time for a red light. Don’t drive under the influence is always a good lesson, and she actually manages to redeem the plot by genuinely relating to her son—except that everything that surrounds this conversation is so ridiculous that it makes it hard to be affected by this heart to heart.
And I say that especially because of the next part, in which the reverend decides that it is best to tell everyone that he will drug test them in order to find out who the druggie is. He then proceeds to shame Matt into admitting in front of the entire family that he brought a joint home from school. This includes shocking eleven year-old Simon into believing that his brother is a total burnout and loser. So even though Matt never smoked the joint, he has been totally vilified—even accused of not being able to keep a job because of his (presumed) drug habit. But by the end of the episode, the only person who has ever done drugs in the Camden family is the mother…twenty-five years earlier…
Very Special Lesson: I just feel like there was a much more reasonable way to handle this. Like what just even happened right now.
Very Special Movie: Wish Upon a Star
Wish Upon a Star is kind of like Freaky Friday but with sisters and edgier. It stars a young Katherine Heigl from the days before she supposedly alienated everyone in Hollywood with her alleged attitude problem. (That was so hypothetical that I hope Ms. Heigl can’t be mad at me. Since, you know she probably reads this right?) It contains a theme song that sounds like a bizarro rip off of the Boy Meets World theme. And parents whose primary role in this film is to do absolutely nothing. And unlike the typical body-switching movies, which teach us to appreciate our parents, this one teaches us not to be assholes to our siblings. In short, it is awesome.
Theme songs for comparison:
Danielle Harris and Katherine Heigl play polar opposite sisters, Haley and Alexia Wheaton. Haley is a mousey science nerd and Alexia is a hot bimbo. They really cannot stand each other. This is mostly because Alexia is a snob and thinks Haley is lame while Haley hates that Alexia makes her late to school. So clearly, one of the sisters is more of a jerk than the other. Hayley also wants to date Alexia’s boyfriend. One night, each girl wishes upon the same shooting star that she could be the other sister. (Oh wait, sorry that’s a spoiler. So for most of the move we only know that Haley wished and not that Alexia did too…)
Anyway, they wake up the morning after the shooting-star-incident in the wrong body. Haley (in Alexia/Katherine Heigl’s body) is super pumped because now she gets to be popular and date her crush. Alexia is really frantic because she has a fragile soul and cannot stand life without the protection of her 1995 version of the Plastics from Mean Girls. They try a ton of other wishing methods (b-day cake candles, wishbone, pennies in the toilet a.k.a. “wishing well”) but discover that only the star method is effective. Thus, they have no choice but to live as each other over the course of a day.
The girls in this movie have even worse rules than the plastics. According to one of the clique members, they signed these rules in blood. Here’s a list I have curated from my viewing of this film:
- Shave every day, NO STUBBLE . Stubble sightings will be called out for public embarrassment
- No tunafish sandwiches
- Members alternate bringing diet soda for the rest of the group
- Never date a boy for longer than 3 months (a rule designed to “maximize” experience with “other men”)
- Do not wear the same outfit two days in a row
- Everyone must read Self magazine cover to cover
- All members must weigh in every Friday
- Clique members will be friends forever
Haley learns from Alexia’s friends that Alexia broke up with her boyfriend (a.k.a. Hayley’s crush), so she tries to get him back. It’s very creepy if you think about the fact that she is an entirely different person and she’s trying to make out with this dude. Meanwhile, Alexia binge eats since she is no longer counting calories in her own body. When Aleixa discovers a hickey on the neck of her usual body, she flips out and forces Hayley outside to wish upon another star. They find no stars as it is overcast and decide to spend the next day ruining each others lives.
Hayley (in Alexia’s body of course) comes down stairs to find Alexia (in Hayley’s body) dressed as a dominatrix. I never expected to see this in a Disney film, but it happened and it is weird. Also, their parents are these overactive psychologists who have somehow meta-analyzed themselves into taking a completely permissive stance on parenting…so the fact that they see one of their daughters dressed as a dominatrix and the other dressed in the same exact clothing she wore the previous day is not concerning at all to them. Things really escalate when Alexia performs an exotic dance on a lunch room table in Hayley’s body. They get called into the principal’s office and end up having a big heart-to-heart while forced to clean off graffiti that they wrote about each other in the bathroom.
It turns out that Alexia was freaking out mostly because she thought that Hayley was going to lose her virginity (her meaning…well both of them) in Alexia’s body when Alexia was stuck in Hayley’s body, which I guess is pretty stressful when you come to think of it. But she relaxes a bit when Hayley tells her all she did was kiss a lot. Hayley is upset that Alexia thought that she would have sex in her body and Alexia is upset that Hayley assumed she was having sex. They realize that they never really knew each other and decide to start helping each other out. Hayley will help Alexia look smart and Alexia will help Hayley find a boyfriend. Also, Alexia tells Hayley it isn’t right for her to be making out with her boyfriend because it’s not fair to him, so she tells her that it’s only okay to hold his hand and nothing more. But it is too little too late because Alexia’s boyfriend tells Haley (who he thinks is Alexia) that he loves her and then she gets weird and runs away because well it is a weird situation.
Things get really out of hand with the boys when their next door neighb
or, who had a crush on Haley from the beginning, starts to feel like his personality is more compatible with Alexia (who is actually Hayley!). That night, Haley wishes on a star to become herself again, but the next morning she wakes up and she is still Alexia. She thinks that they will be trapped forever as each other, but the real reason that they did not switch back is that Alexia also made the wish. But you already know that because I told you that in second paragraph. Anyway, they tearfully admit to one another finally about how they hated themselves and wanted to be one another. They hurry outside to find a shooting star, which of course they do because this town is FULL of shooting stars. They switch back and are all the better for having not been themselves for a while.
Very Special Lesson: It’s okay to date your sister’s boyfriend as long as you love her more in the end.
Very Special Halloween Costumes
You guys are all planning super in advance for Halloween, right? Well, just in case you are…I have some suggestions. I made a Polyvore account for this. I made some pretty weird looking things, so I think it’s safe to say that I have probably scared off the average Polyvore user from following me. Anyway, check it out! And yeah, I got tired so I only made 7 looks which means this chart layout for 9 is pretty sad looking. Whoops.
A Very Special Coloring Book
I’m so excited (and I just can’t hide it)! I got this in the mail today and I spent my entire evening coloring.
There’s nothing like a little good old fashioned coloring. Most of these pages are awesome, though some of them scare me, such as the coloring page of Carrot Top and President George H. W. Bush vomiting all over the Japanese prime minister. But hey, I finally got to design my own slap bracelets! There’s a page to design your own Trapper Keeper as well, but I want to work up to that one.
All of your favorite TV shows are here too, Clarissa, Fresh Prince, Legends of the Hidden Temple, and Full House. Let’s talk about the coloring page for Full House for a second. First off, I’ve taken some liberties with the house painting largely due to the fact that the house is kind of a boring color. I also wanted to use my brand new watercolor pencils that my boyfriend gave me for our anniversary. These watercolor pencils sort of remind me of those paint books you could get as a kid where you took a wet brush and the color would just like automatically appear. But this is way cooler because you get to pick the colors and put them where you want them. Anyway, suffice it to say you should pretend the Tanner’s live in Haight-Ashbury and not Alamo Square.
As you can see, I have not colored in any of the people in this picture. That’s partially because I got sleepy, but also because I am confused as to who the people in this picture are. They cannot be The Tanners. They do not look like the Tanners. Michelle is like as tall as that doorway and everyone takes up an entire row house window. The best part of this depiction is that doppleganger Michelle is lurking around the side of the house, but who could that possible be in the bottom right window? Aunt Becky? No, it has to be one of the six original cast. DJ!? Is that DJ? No way! I mistook the girl on the left for Kimmy, but I believe it’s actually supposed to be Steph. And what is going on with Uncle Jesse’s hair?? That’s not his full wavy locks! That some reject style from The Backstreet Boys. And the only distinction between Danny and Joey is that Joey looks slightly lamer and is grouped with Uncle Jesse. ugh. Oh well, it’s not like I could draw those people either.
A Very Special Guest Post: Smart Guy-“Never Too Young”
Hello, Very Special Readers! I am delighted to share a very special guest post with you today from a very special blogger! This is a guest post from Ali at Sleepoverz, a blog that covers ’90s pop culture, teen angst, and 2AM thoughts.
Smart Guy existed for a short period of time on the WB in the late ‘90s and then re-aired for another few years on Disney in the 2000s. If you blinked you could have missed it, but it still managed to make an impression on me. The show centers around T.J. Henderson, played by Tahj Mowry, a child prodigy who enters high school at 12-years-old. He regularly gets into antics with his brother, Marcus, Marcus’s friend Mo, and his sister Yvette. All of them co-exist together at Piedmont High School. Rounding out the cast of characters is T.J.’s dad, Floyd Henderson.
Today’s very special episode is “Never Too Young” and it deals with T.J.’s drinking problem. There are two storylines going on in this episode, one involving cafeteria food and one about beer. At the start of the episode Marcus and Mo are ripping into the cafeteria food and blaming the hulking eastern European lunch lady for the sub-par food. To demonstrate the staleness of the Bread Pudding, Marcus throws a piece against the wall expecting it to bounce back. But just his luck, the pudding is intercepted by the vice principal and it lands directly on his shirt. The boys are sentenced to work in the cafeteria for the foreseeable future or “until they’ve learned what it’s like to live in someone else’s shoes,” to put it in TV trope terms.
Back at the Henderson home, T.J.’s dad tells him that one of the kids from his old school is having a birthday party and T.J. must attend. This is the middle school T.J. left because he was too smart and now he’s nervous the party is going to babyish. When he gets to the party he tries to interact with the other kids but he is so out of touch and intellectually advanced that he isolates himself. He devastates a girl named Kelly by telling her that Titanic was not actually filmed on a boat and bores her with the science behind blue screens.
At the end of hi
s rope, T.J. wanders into a back room of the basement where he finally recognizes two kids. Unfortunately for T.J., the two kids are the class flunkies and future burnouts, Kevin and Rich. Things are going really well reminiscing about the old days until Rich pulls a beer from his coat and asks T.J. if he wants some. T.J. actually says no and makes a joke about ruining his six-pack but Kevin and Rich are not cool with sobriety. They mock T.J. about going back into the party to hang out with all the babies, which remember T.J. was afraid of to begin with so they have a point. T.J. relents and spends the next hour getting wasted off one beer split 3 ways. When he reenters the party he is trashed and tries to get Titanic Kelly to dance with him by calling her “Kel, Kel.” Then he knocks into her, spilling her red drink on her dress, and all the kids back away from him because he has committed every party foul ever.
The next morning, T.J. has a nasty hangover from his third of a beer. He has a headache and asks for Ginger Ale at breakfast to which Yvette, T.J.’s sister, responds with a knowing glance. She already knows T.J. is afflicted but it’s still early on in the episode and his incredibly naïve and defensive dad does not see it. When Yvette suggests maybe it wasn’t just the excess cake and ice cream making T.J. sick, Floyd refuses to listen and dramatically shuts her up with an “end of discussion” scene exit.
Back at the cafeteria, Marcus and Mo decide to really give it their all and bake their own food instead of the school sanctioned slop. Sadly, the students are not impressed and Marcus and Mo quickly turn into the grizzled eastern European lunch lady. They learn that kids are ungrateful and no amount of hard work will change that.
Meanwhile, T.J. is lying to his dad about drinking at the party and Yvette keeps throwing know-it-all glances Floyd’s way. Things hit a head when Kevin and Rich show up at T.J.’s garage and literally push peppermint Schnapps into his hand and tell him to drink it. T.J. refuses but not before Floyd walks in on the scene and shuts it down. He then has to admit to Yvette that she was right by embarrassingly asking where the “pamphlet on talking to your kids” is. Finally Floyd sits down with T.J. and has a really productive conversation about the dangers of underage drinking and the importance of building trust.
Very Special Lesson: The size of your brain is equal to the size of your hangover, regardless of how much actual beer you ingest.
The Very Special Episode: Hawaiian Style.
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!
Saved by the Bell: Running Zack
When I was looking for this episode of Saved by the Bell, I totally missed it at first on Netflix. I thought with this kind of title it must have be about an athletic event and could not possible have anything to do with Native Americans. They wouldn’t use such an insensitive title for a very special episode, right? Well, I was wrong.
So you are in for a real treat with this one.
As it turns out, this episode does involve a track meet, but this only bookends the story. Also, the entire gang is on the track team except for Kelly who is a cheerleader (for track and field?) and Screech. I guess they left Screech out of the sport because he is a nerd, but he looks way more like the track kids I knew in high school than anyone else on this show does.
Anyhow, the crux of the episode is that the gang has to do a history report on their ancestors. Slater’s ancestors were bullfighters, Screech’s ancestors were Italian spies, and I seriously feel like they did not mention Kelly’s ancestors at all. Perhaps, they were cheerleaders at the Circus Maximus. Lisa’s ancestors escaped slavery and helped others to do the same through the Underground Railroad. Lisa says, “My family calls this underground railroad the original soul train.” Lark Voorhies breaks for a second and scoffs at this line because what writer ever decided to compare escaping slavery to a dance show? Seriously.
In this episode, Jesse has a lot of white guilt because her ance
stors were slave traders. To make matters worse she has to present immediately after Lisa and right next to her poster of the Underground Railroad. I know you might want to give Jesse some credit for being aware of her white privilege, but that is not even the case here. She basically spends the entire day harassing Lisa because she feels bad and wants Lisa to make her feel better by letting her do random things for her. Lisa eventually threatens to beat her up if she does not leave her alone, and seriously no one could blame her if this thing came to blows. It’s like all of the energy Jesse usually devotes to flirtatiously calling Slater a misogynist is suddenly devoted to bribing Lisa and it is super annoying. Then it is Zack’s turn to present about his Native American forefathers. Screech helps him present by “being” a Native American prop, I think…
Luckily, his teacher calls him out on being a total jerk. He obviously knows nothing about history—he says his family is Cherokee from Burbank—so perhaps she should also be pissed at her own lack of efficacy. His teacher conveniently knows a chief, who educates Zack on his ancestors. On their second meeting he greets him as “Running Zack.” He says, “You run, you’re Zack, it works.” Then he offers this valuable lesson in cliches and offensive statements about why the “Indians” and the “white man” have such a gruesome history:
Zack finally gets his A when he comes to class in full stereotypical Native American garb. Poor Mark-Paul Gosselaar. What sixteen year old wants to dress up as a stereotype of a culture to which he has no actual relation? And as a job requirement? The worst part of all of this is that I truly feel like Saved by the Bell‘s heart was in the right place. They set Zack up with this whole it’s bad to stereotype, it’s important to know where you come from, and we need to respect other cultures plot-line. But then the writers/producers/tween Saturday morning audience either had or expected so little actual knowledge of history and culture that this episode ends up confronting one cliche with another cliche.
But then, things really get heavy when Chief Henry dies. There are only six minutes left in the episode! How are we going to wrap this up? Oh, of course, a dream sequence. And what do you suppose happens in said dream sequence? Chief Henry gives Zack a message on a handmade headband: Beat Valley. [In the track meet, you guys. Maybe you already figured that out, but I wanted to clarify just in case I skipped over the track meet part of this episode a little too much.]
Very Special Lesson: Sometimes Very Special Episodes are just so misguided, you guys.
A Very Special Guest on Full House
Very Special Lesson: Don’t be yourself be Uncle Jesse.
Boy Meets World: If You Can’t Be with the One You Love
Remember the original Boy Meets World before it was co-opted into a Disney tween show that makes me feel unnecessarily old? It was a great show about growing up with your friends and your teacher who taught you every grade ever. For most of the show’s seven year run, the story lines realistically dealt with the issues kids face while they are becoming young adults. But no sitcom of the late twentieth century was totally immune to the very special episode formula. Every episode of Boy Meets World had a great life lesson, but only some episodes have the magic and schmaltz to be very special episodes. 
Once upon a time, Boy Meets World taught us all a valuable lesson about alcohol. The “boy” of BMW,Corey, and his long-time girlfriend, Topanga, have broken up. I can’t remember why they went their separate ways, but Corey is so devastated by his inability to non-awkwardly interact with Topanga at a party that he ends up drinking alone. He spends an hour and a half in the bathroom with a pint of whiskey and consumes a surprisingly small amount of it. After his best friend, Shawn, discovers him drunk and alone in a stranger’s bathroom, they decide to finish the bottle together.
Now to even the casual sitcom viewer, it is obvious that the boys are swiftly descending down the slippery slope that is teenage drinking. Corey and Shawn leave the party and pay a random man to buy them alcohol. Then, with cavalier disregard for open container laws, they enjoy a couple of beers on the sidewalk right in front of the corner store where they just bribed that dude…I don’t think they’ve had enough alcohol to be behaving this stupidly, especially since Shawn had the dexterity to walk around on his hands acrobat style like 90 seconds prior. They get arrested, of course, and Corey’s dad bails them both out of jail. Corey’s dad totally blames Shawn for everything because he’s from the wrong side of the tracks. This is super terrible on his part since he’s known Shawn for at least five years and Shawn has pretty much never done anything to warrant this “bad boy” treatment. Corey does not let Shawn take the blame, and instead confesses that he’s lost his heart and has no life. This is probably the point where you should connect your kid with a mental health professional (“the more you know”), but instead his dad just apologizes to Shawn for being such a dick.
Having learned the error of their ways, Shawn and Corey promise each other that they will never drink again, but Shawn quickly breaks that promise. Shawn, who is now apparently an alcoholic, learns from his half-brother, Jack, that their father was an alcoholic and was abusive. Shawn literally lunges at Jack for saying this, which maybe proves his brother’s point. Then Topanga and Shawn’s girlfriend, Angela, arrive and that’s where Shawn’s behavior hits a fever pitch. Shawn aggressively pushes Angela into the door when she tries to get him to stop drinking which definitely proves his brother’s point. Even though everyone just called Shawn an alcoholic, he decides to never drink again. He is totally without any signs of withdrawal and manages to quit cold turkey! This is especially impressive because Shawn also has not obtained any new coping skills since the beginning of this thirty minute episode. But you know, all it really tacks to break a habit is a stern talking to from your friends.
Very Special Lesson: If you get drunk once and you’re from a broken home, you will become an aggressive alcoholic like your dad. If you come form a middle class two parent family, you’ll have one drunken night in high school and never drink again even if you did give an entire speech full of red flags about your inability to handle a breakup.
Further Reading on the new Boy Meets World spin off Girl Meets World:
http://whitehattv.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/girl-meets-world-how-was-the-spinoff-of-the-90s-hit/
http://thehudsucker.com/2014/06/24/is-the-world-ready-for-girl-meets-world-pilot-review/ http://geekalabama.com/2014/06/24/tv-review-girl-meets-world/
The Very Special Blog 
