GIrl Meets World: The Shawn Episode

December 7, 2014December 8, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 5 Comments

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.

The Babysitter’s Club: The Babysitter’s Special Christmas

December 3, 2014November 30, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 1 Comment

The show opens with the baby-sitters perusing many different Christmas socks and oohing and awing indiscriminately over everything they pass. Then this bunch of 14-year olds descends upon a mall Santa’s lap, yet oddly it’s they who look like the creeps here—Jessie casually strokes Santa’s beard while he rolls his eyes and gently shakes his head. Poor guy, he’s just trying to make minimum wage around the holidays.

jessie creeps on santa After the mall, the sitters head on over to the hospital to throw a Christmas party for the kids. Everyone has markers and big pads of paper except for Mallory who gets the bitch job of sorting out the paper chain. Dawn wants to make Christmas cookies when she and Stacey babysit some obnoxious little boys, including little Pete from The Adventures of Pete and Pete. Dawn gets all self-conscious when she realizes that she’s totally disregarded Stacey’s diabetes. I don’t know how she forgot since Stacey mentions it like every other sentence.

Mary-Anne comes up with the idea to have secret Santa as soon as a couple of the girls complain that they don’t have enough money to buy everyone a gift. She instantaneously passes out slips of pre-cut paper. Probably a quiet power play since Kristy wouldn’t like someone else taking charge. “Oh I’ll just casually have these pre-cut slips of paper to pass out like I just thought of it.”

Later on, whilst baby-sitting Stacey starts shoveling cookies into her mouth all cavalierly like she’s not stuffing her body with poison. Who even thought this was a good idea–o give already rambunctious children a ton of sugar? The only reason they didn’t totally destroy the house is probably that Stacey consumed a toxic amount of sugar herself.

Dawn totally outs Stacey at the Christmas party and super bitchily says, “I just don’t like it when people don’t take care of themselves.” Like she’s personally affronted by Stacey’s reckless behavior, but not because she’s concerned about her best friend but rather she doesn’t like it on principle. Dawn and her ideals. To be fair, the babysitters do seem to be exclusively having sweets at their soirees in the episode.

BSC X-mas Of course, Stacey ends up on the hospital because all she has eaten in the past day is cookies and chocolate. I knew (of) a couple of diabetic kids growing up and once they were old enough to realize that sugar could literally kill them, I never remember any of them tempted to gorge themselves on it, so I can only assume that this is some kind of risky adolescent rebellion on Stacey’s part. Drugs seem pretty hard to come by in Stonybrook, so it looks like everyone has to settle for a sugar high. Otherwise, this seems like a pretty serious cry for help. Why aren’t we talking about Stacey’s clearly self-destructive tendencies, instead of being all like “lay off the cookies, Stace.” Everything turns out okay though because Stacey gets to come to the party with all of the other children…which makes me wonder why the babysitters are only throwing a party for young children. Wouldn’t it suck to be thirteen and stuck in the hospital? I’m thinking that these girls don’t actually interact with their peers outside of this club. Would they even be friends if they weren’t also business associates?

Very Christmas Lesson: Don’t make your diabetic friends make cookies that they can’t eat. Ever hear of artificial sweetener, people?

Cheers: Thanksgiving Orphans

November 27, 2014November 27, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 7 Comments

cheers2 Sorry Friends, but Cheers has the best friendsgiving episodes ever. Why is that?(fragments for stylistic purposes) Because these people have reached the where friendship truly becomes family. The point where your friends drive you crazy just as much as any blood relative could. The point where you spend the holidays together because you have no one else to spend them with and, even though it’s awful, you would not want it any other way.

In “Thanksgiving Orphans” the gang from Cheers heads over to Carla’s Screen Shot 2014-11-23 at 12.24.24 PM house for a Thanksgiving potluck. Things start off on the wrong foot when Norm (who is supposed to be brining the never seen wife, Vera) ends up having a huge fight with his wife and doesn’t cook the Turkey at all before arriving to Carla’s. And it’s a big turkey. And it takes forever to cook. Meanwhile, Dianne insists that they wait to eat until all of the food is on the table, so no munching on candied yams while the turkey is still cooking. This means everyone gets hangry by the end of the evening. Carla and Norm start insulting each others cooking and everything devolves into a gigantic food fight. And when Vera finally does show up to dinner, we don’t get to see her face. Dianne has hit her square in the face with a pumpkin pie that Sam narrowly dodged.

Very Special Lesson: Things don’t always have to go perfectly to have the perfect Thanksgiving.

Very Special Thanksgiving Activity: Don’t forget to have a little fun this Thanksgiving. In my opinion, everyone should play a game. If you don’t have any standard family games, try this Thanksgiving Bingo that Jennifer Lewis at Flavorwire made a couple of years ago. But I suggest using this idea to make your own Bingo boards, so that you can make sure all of your familial quirks are represented.

Happy Days: The First Thanksgiving

November 25, 2014October 25, 2015 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 2 Comments

I haven’t watched Happy Days in years and my how I have missed it. The cozy living room, the breakfast nook, the hair scarfs, and how wonderfully Henry Winkler managed to pull off the greaser look with just a brown bomber jacket and a ton of hairspray.

But Mrs. Cunningham is struggling through Thanksgiving to be honest. She’s cooked an entire turkey dinner for the entire family and not a single person has helped her. Not even Joanie and she’s the girl. Everyone is so busy watching football that they have forgotten what Thanksgiving is all about, so Marion Cunningham decides to tell them.

Screen Shot 2014-10-22 at 8.32.57 PM “Now in 1621 the Pilgrims had this wonderful harvest…” (cue ripple screen affect to signify dream/fantasy sequence…)

It turns out that the “womenfolk” of the colony have been talking and would like to celebrate the harvest with a feast that they want to call “Thanksgiving.” But it was Fonzie’s idea to invite them to dinner.

It’s surprising to me that Pilgrim Fonzie literally just used magic to make fire in the hearth, yet none of these witch-fearing folk seem to want to hunt him down. His power is great. But Pilgrim Mr. Cunningham is suspicious of him because he makes all the ladies squeal and kiss in public. For shame!

So anyway, Fonzie gets put in the stocks because he wants to be nice to the natives. And by be nice I mean tread them like humans and not defraud them of all of their possessions/land/livelihood/lives. Fonzie agrees to spend the rest of the day in the stocks only if they will leave the tribe alone.

It’s only when Pilgrim Joanie gets her foot caught in an animal trap that they decide that Fonzie’s special powers can be used for good. It turns out that Fonzie could have magically gotten out of the stocks the whole time, but he was staying in there for civil disobedience and all. He gets Joanie out of the trap and they decide that he is not evil, so they invite him to the Thanksgiving feast. Fonzie says he can’t make it though because he has a reservation with for dinner with the Indians.

Everyone is like “oh no, savages! Agh!” and Fonzie is all like “you guys are racist,” so he and Richie talk them into having a peaceful, lovely Thanksgiving in which everyone is invited regardless of cultural differences.

And that is history. You see, back in the early days, Pilgrim Richie and Pilgrim Fonzie taught us all that every human life is important. And we learned never to be racist again.

That’s how it happened

Then end.

Very Special Lesson: DON’T THINK ABOUT THE TRUTH. THIS IS THE THANKSGIVING STORY.

Very Thanksgiving Activity: Here is a fun printable craft that you can do when your family is driving you crazy. It will help you remember that you like each other. Or you can just list all of the other things that you do like and remind yourself that this is only one day out of the whole entire year.

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: There’s the Rub

November 24, 2014November 24, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 5 Comments

Carlton and Hilary volunteer at a homeless shelter on Thanksgiving, but they are only doing it to serve their own needs. Carlton wants the volunteer service for his college application and Hilary wants to film the experience for her talk show. Carlton picks a fight with a young homeless Brad from Home Improvement. Brad puts him in his place for being so stuck up, but then he says he was only kidding. I think Carlton is really humbled either way.

Hillary gets annoyed at manual labor and starts clearing plates before people are done eating, then she is totally shocked and horrified when they run out of food. When she finds out that the supervisor who has been bossing her around is not some holier-than-thou volunteer, but rather a homeless woman, she realizes she has been a big jerk.

Meanwhile, Will takes Uncle Phil to a massage parlor after he throws out his back. They get arrested after they’re surprised to learn it’s, erm, not the kind of massage parlor they expected. In jail, Uncle Phil settles in to eat a prison Thanksgiving dinner and is only moved to tell of the detective when Will starts to wax on about the delicious meal that they are missing. He only lightly played the judge card when they were arrested, but missing out on the “little tiny onions” in cream sauce moves him to provide a litany of procedural errors that could cost the detective his job unless he gets the D.A. on the phone immediately. Pretty soon there after, Will and Uncle Phil get to go home.

Carlton and Hillary realize that they really do want to help the homeless, so they return to the shelter with a catered candlelight dinner. When the camera crew finally shows up, Hillary sends them away because she doesn’t want to exploit the homeless anymore. I guess she didn’t think of turning it into a public interest piece that might actually help the homeless. Oh well.

Very Special Lesson: Catering a candlelight supper for one night is far better than feeding the homeless for many nights.

Very Thanksgiving Activity: I have had the opportunity to volunteer at a couple of food pantries in the past. I can say firsthand that food pantries are often the first way to help underserved populations connect with the resources they need to improve their circumstances. Food pantries cannot operate without grants and donations from area food banks, many of which come from individual donations. If you really want to help this Thanksgiving or ever, I suggest finding your local food bank and making a donation: http://www.feedingamerica.org/find-your-local-foodbank/

I don’t like to cook, but I have to

November 24, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 8 Comments

For me, the largest struggle of adulthood has been feeding myself. I don’t enjoy cooking, I try to eat as many raw things as possible, and I eat out as much as I can afford to. However, I’ve come to the point where I have to admit that this is not fiscally responsible. And it’s not really healthy either. I do think I make healthy choices when I eat out, but it’s cold and flu season and as much as I trust the health department and general food worker, germs still happen.

First I learned how to cook eggs. And this was how I truly realized that my college days were behind me. I was using my iphone to take pictures when the group I volunteer with was rendered camera-less due to low batteries. The facilitator came over to me and said, “Are you getting the pictures okay with your iphone?” And I quickly said, “Yeah!”and shielded my screen. This wasn’t because of anything particularly sordid in my camera roll, but rather at that moment I realized that my pictures from the last couple of weeks were all a mixture of scrambled eggs and lumps. The eggs being food the lumps being a swollen lymph node and a couple of spider bites on my arm (separate incidences).

I thought something was wrong with this egg because I couldn't crack it. And I am not a bad egg cracker. — I thought something was wrong with this egg because I couldn’t crack it. And I am not a bad egg cracker.

But it looked fine and Google told me that healthier chickens have harder egg shells than less healthy chickens. Yay organic cage-free!

I have now realized that I’m a real grown up.

I may have thought I was before, but I was just kid masquerading as a grown person. And that my concerns are real grown up concerns. “Is this lump normal? Was this bite from a brown recluse? Will my eggs be undercooked and give me salmonella?” Okay, well maybe these are not normal grownup concerns, but they are my grown up concerns.

So tonight, I conquered one of my biggest fears. I touched raw meat. Thus far, I haven’t been able to do that. I have only cooked with soy protein or fish (which I don’t really have to touch). But I used chicken tonight. My roommate witnessed all of this and decided that I should stat a YouTube cooking series for “Girls Who Don’t Know How to Cook.” A blind leading the blind sort of thing. And while I’m too afraid of YouTube to actually do this (too many haters in the comments and alleged rapists in the videos), I did make a list of the things that made her laugh the most. And hey! Maybe there actually are some helpful cooking tips in here for those of you who like me, maybe hadn’t touched raw chicken before tonight. It should be noted that my roommate has also never touched raw chicken.

“It’s starting to smell like food now”

“It’s okay if you cry the first time you touch the raw chicken. I was surprised I didn’t cry.”

“I think the juices are clear. Is it a bad sign if you can’t cut the chicken? Maybe it’s because I’m using a dinner fork.”

“Do you find that the potatoes are a little crunchy when you make this?”

Very Special Movie Bonus: The ‘Burbs

November 22, 2014December 10, 2020 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 4 Comments

I know I’ve already done a very special movie this month, but The ‘Burbs is on Netflix and I just love it. If you haven’t seen this movie then go check it out now. Tom Hanks plays a burnt-out suburbanite staycationer whose neighbor manages to convince him that the new family on the cul-de-sac are murderers. Much to the chagrin of Tom’s wife (in this case, Carrie Fisher) he and a few of the guys from the neighborhood (Bruce Dern and Rick Ducommun) decide to conduct their own guerrilla-style investigation of the new family and their creepy basement.

You’re probably thinking, this does not sound like a very special movie. You’re probably thinking, “she’s just trying to make this into a very special movie to justify watching and posting about a movie that has nothing to do with anything very special at all.”

Wrong. (Well, maybe right.) But I am going to prove to you that this is a very special movie packed with very special lessons as evidenced below:

Very Special Lesson Number One: Beware the vacation. If your job is already driving you nuts, then you need to be extra careful about how you spend your downtime. Rest and relaxation are wonderful things, but if you’re already on edge then you might use all of that unstructured time to start stalking your neighbors because you think they are running a crematorium in their basement.

Very Special Lesson Number Two: On the off chance that your neighbors actually are serial murders and running a crematorium in their basement, it is very important to be able to rely on you fellow non-psychotic suburbanites. We all need someone we can count on to run a military-grade amateur investigation in the middle of the night. We all need a friend to help us frantically search through the garbage truck for evidence. That’s what being a good neighbor means.

Very Special Lesson Number Three: Don’t do heroin. Okay, this is maybe a bit of a meta-example here, but Corey Feldman is just great in this movie. And the best part is that he’s very good at being a supporting character without being in a kids/teen movie. This could have been a great transitional moment here from child actor to regular actor. Sure, the producers probably stuck him in here to draw in a younger audience, but he really holds his own.

Very Special Lesson Number Four: Don’t doubt your friends (with whom you have just guerilla-style investigated the neighbors’ basement crematorium). Okay, so maybe it looks like you just destroyed an innocent person’s home, but they did have a 5,000 degree oven in their basement, and your dog did find a femur under their fence. I understand that we all get a little stressed out, especially if we’ve got cops surrounding our home and that old man we thought was dead has just returned home from the hospital, but that is still no reason to lash out at your best friend.

Very Special Lesson Number Five: If your significant other has just accidentally blown up the creepy neighbor’s home and nearly killed himself in the process, try to be as understanding as possible.

The Golden Girls: High Anxiety

November 21, 2014November 19, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 5 Comments

If you’ve watched The Golden Girls then you have probably heard a lot of crazy St. Olaf stories. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Rose hurt her back thirty years ago pulling a plow to till the soil during plantin goldengirls g season. Ever since, she’s been taking narcotics. That’s why she’s so un-phased and stupid all the time. Rose is always on drugs. When Sophia accidentally knocks the pill bottle into the sink all of the pills go down the drain, and Rose cannot get a new prescription for two days. Things come to a head when she lashes out at a pizzeria owner who has come to the house to film a commercial starring Sophia.

“Excuse me I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I’m very upset”

–Rose Nyland during opiate withdrawal

The girls stage a mini-intervention and Rose agrees to quit cold turkey. She deals with this harrowing endeavor by having her friends stay up all night and playing a rousing game of Monopoly—St. Olaf style. Rose starts to waver as the night goes on and Blanche tells her that she understands how Rose feels because she tried to give up sex cold turkey after her husband died. Then she slept with her sister’s husband. Whoops. Anyway, just as Blanche finishes her story, Rose realizes that the sun is rising. She has made it threw the night without pills, and is thus free forever form addiction! Except she takes one pill later that day…so then she calls a rehab center.

Flash forward 28 days and…okay, now she is really cured!

Wait…if the only problem was that she didn’t get to take her pills for a day and got cranky…hm…that sounds like me without coffee.

Very Special Lesson: Even if you can totally afford your habit, you don’t do anything harmful to yourself or others, if you get a little cranky without your little helper then it’s time to go to the Betty Ford clinic.

Family Ties: Rain Forests Keep Fallin’ on My Head

November 20, 2014November 19, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ Leave a comment

First of all, isn’t rainforest one word? Secondly, it’s really cool that youngest child Jennifer wants to rid the family home of 80’s toxins. This was before we removed formaldehyde from our hair conditioners, people! But she doesn’t know how to accurately dispose of any of the waste.

She forces Mallory to stop using her conditioner. The results are not pretty.

She gets depressed and ends up talking to a parakeet about the Brazilian rainforest. Her parents try to help her relax by watching a baseball game on TV, but there is a breaking news update on the Exxon Valdez (ripped from the headlines!) and she runs upstairs on the verge of tears. Jennifer gets like super, super depressed and decides that life is pointless because the environment is in danger.

Jennifer sporting her post-industrial look.

Her parents convince her to see the school counselor and she ends up freaking him out. By the end of their session he totally agrees with her and feels like there is nothing they can do and that life is over and depressing.

Luckily, Jennifer has two ex-hippie parents who know how to rally a depressed activist. They tell her that things seemed bleak and hopeless when they tried to save the whales. They encourage her to join Greenpeace or Sierra Club. They also use the pet parakeet to makes sure there’s no Radon in the basement.

Very Special Lesson: Don’t freak out. Join a club.

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.