Boy Meets World vs. The Brady Bunch

August 28, 2014August 20, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 4 Comments

This is some stiff competition, you guys. The final semi-final round is upon us. This is the penultimate post before we find out once and for all which of our six sitcoms took the best vacation to Hawaii! As you may recall, all of the Brady’s got to go to Hawaii on business with Mr. Brady. They almost died because of a “tabu” amulet, but luckily they managed to return the amulet to a creepy cave, thus avoiding total destruction, and ended up having a lovely family vacation.

But over at Boy Meets World, Corey and To boy-meets-world panga are finally on their honeymoon! Eric messes up their wedding night by sending Corey and Topanga to a honeymoon suite pretending to be another couple. The best-man/wacky-brother decides to make it up to them by lightly stalking them on their honeymoon in order to make sure everything goes perfectly. Corey and Topanga have such a good time on their honeymoon that Corey pressures Topanga into not returning to Philadelphia and instead spending the rest of their lives at the Hawaiian resort. Corey manages to make enough money painting celebrity heads onto coconuts, which all of the tourists love. They actually end up being pretty rich and very popular. The island is really weird to be honest. Everyone relocated from Ohio and managed to remain pasty white. They also use soup as deodorant?

Eventually, Corey and Topanga realize how much they miss their family. Mostly, because Corey paints a couple of coconuts to look like Shawn and Mr. Feeney and has absolutely no memory of doing so. (As it turns out, Eric actually painted them and then was held captive by the Ohioan-Hawaiian clan.)

I think these two episodes will be hard to compare, but here we go! The Brady Bunch clearly wins on integration of Hawaiian setting. I’m pretty sure everything except for 4 seconds of stock footage was filmed on a soundstage in Boy Meets World. They also win on overall vacation attire as well, in part because the late-90’s prep fashion can never compare to late-mod meets suburban-hippie garb. Even though I love the “adorkable” Brady’s, the writing on Boy Meets World is (unsurprisingly) much tighter and manages to be genuinely heartfelt even when it is ridiculous, so they win on overall plot. The Brady Bunch soundtrack is solid and even features Don Ho singing to little Bobby and Cindy, which of course the canned elevator music of Boy Meets World‘s Hawaii just cannot match.

Point Break Down:
The Brady Bunch: Music (1 pt) + Vacation Attire (1 pt) + Integration of Hawaiian Setting (1 pt) = 3 pts

Boy Meets World: Overall Plot (2 pts) = 2 pts

Very Special Winner: The Brady Bunch

The as yet undefeated Bradys advance to the final round. Will they have the best Hawaiian Vacation ever??

Growing Pains vs. Full House

August 27, 2014August 20, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 2 Comments

Hi friends! It’s time for another installment of VSE: Hawaiian Style! In our first semi-final match up, the victorious Growing Pains faces off with the hitherto unchallenged Full House.

Let’s start off with a brief recap of what’s going on in Growing Pains. When we last saw the Seavers, Carol and Mike were off pursuing island romances, Maggie was struggling to balance her career with her family, Jason was stressed because his family didn’t want to spend time together, and Ben was just hanging out being a kid.

Meanwhile on Full House, Joey also falls in love with a native Hawaiian because that is what everyone does when traveling to Hawaii. Resident patriarch Danny tries to force his reluctant family into doing everything together (sound familiar?). And the similarities don’t end there! The Tanner family ends up stranded on a desert island in a much more dire albeit similar situation to the Seavers being stranded mid-ocean…on a boat that Jason Seaver intentionally sabotaged for the sake of family together-ness.

But who had the best self-imposed isolation in the name of family bonding? Who learned the most about the importance of interpersonal relationships through their time in the tropics?

As far as overall plot is concerned, I’d have to say that Full House wins that category. The way that Danny forces everyone to do participate as a group in something that each person enjoys (everyone gets bored watching Joey play golf, everyone gets bored trekking to Elvis movie locations with Jessie, and so on) really highlights the importance of family separateness. I think that’s an important very special lesson that we often overlook. I also think this would have been a great opportunity for a Gilligan’s Island-style Full House spin off. I wish we could have seen an episode arc where they’re stuck on the island and Jesse tries to build a raft but Joey is also organizing a talent competition. I feel like that would have been an opportunity for the Joey character to actually do something because I could never figure out exactly why he was around in the regular series. Becky already managed to change form a bikini into a sundress even though their boat floated away and she brought no luggage on this day trip.

The point for fashion also has to go to Full House as well. John Stamos is killing it with some palazzo pants and everyone is rocking the floral prints. I’m still giving Growing Pains the music category, not because I love Christopher Cross but rather because I hate Elvis impersonators. The end of the episode features John Stamos singing “Rock a Hula” because of course they weren’t really stranded, they were just on a deserted portion of the island where they were trying to attend a big luau/arena concert. I feel like neither episode outperformed the other in terms of overall integration of the Hawaiian setting, so I’ll call that a tie and disregard it in the point breakdown.

Point Break Down:

Full House: Overall Plot (2 pts) + Vacation Attire (1 pt) = 3 pts

Growing Pains: Music (1 pt) = 1 pt

Very Special Winner: Full House

Step by Step vs. The Brady Bunch

August 26, 2014August 13, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 4 Comments

Welcome back to VSE: Hawaiian Style! Today two blended families face off in the ultimate Hawaiian vacation challenge. Let’s start with a brief summary shall we?

In The Brady Bunch, Mike Brady’s architectural firm pays for he and all of his family (including their housekeeper) to spend a few weeks in Hawaii so he can supervise a construction site. Talk about fringe benefits, right? Unless, you’ve been living under a rock for all of brady-bunch-hulu your life, then you probably know that the youngest boy, Bobby, finds a “cursed” amulet at the construction site. He mistakes it for a good luck charm, but it seems to be wreaking havoc on his family’s entire vacation. It makes poor housekeeper/nanny-person, Alice throw her back out when she wears it during a hula lesson. And it even near-murders his oldest brother, Greg, in a freak surfing accident. The entire family races into the water to try to find in the current except for Carol, but she’s only his step-mom anyway, right? An another note, the kids learn a lot about Pearl Harbor and even visit the USS Arizona. They check out the local flora an fauna along as well, managing to pick up a tarantula on the way–that’s the amulet again! The Brady’s finally find out that the only way to get rid of their bad luck is to return the amulet to the sacred ground from whence it came.

Okay let’s jump twentyish years in the future to another blended family with Step by Step. You can tell that this is a totally distinct series because instead of the mom having three girls and the dad having three boys, the dad has 2 boys and a girl and the mom has 1 boy and 2 girls. See how much more normal and believable that is? The Lambert-Foster family wins an all expenses paid trip to Hawaii. One of the girls, Dana, is all piss step_320 ed that she has to go to Hawaii because it will interfere with her study schedule. But don’t worry, she falls in love in Hawaii and becomes the center of this two part episode. She decides after a few days that she wants to marry this dude (he’s a 22 year old rich entrepreneur so you can see the attraction). Meanwhile, Suzanne Somers can’t relax on vacation and keeps trying to create tasks for herself. I think this is the most realistic part of this episode. The rest of the kids enter a sandcastle building contest, which is a challenge for them because they are from Wisconsin, but it’s pretty boring so that’s the last I’ll mention of it. Dana’s mom freaks out because she’s worried Dana will get married without her permission (which I didn’t know was possible at seventeen but I guess it is in the TV world?) Ultimately, Dana and her boyfriend (whose name I don’t even know) decide to split up because he doesn’t want her to go to college. So that’s pretty crappy. Yeah I think she made the right choice here.

Point Break Down:
The Brady Bunch: Music (1 pt) + Vacation Attire (1 pt) +Integration of Hawaiian Setting (1 pt) +Overall Plot (2 pts) = 5 pts

Step by Step: 0 pts
This was a terrible episode all around and The Brady Bunch wins by a landslide.

Very Special Winner: The Brady Bunch

Growing Pains vs. Saved by the Bell

August 25, 2014August 20, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 2 Comments

In the first round of the VSE: Hawaiian Style competition we have Growing Pains vs. Saved by the Bell. Let’s start with a brief summary of both episodes shall we? In Growing Pains, the Seavers head to Malibu for a vacation that nobody but Jason, the father, and youngest son Ben are interested in. Maggie and the two oldest children are way too busy with their lives in Long Island to be interested in Hawaii. The entire episode is basically about how they can’t deal with interacting as a family, and also Mike ends up dating a woman with a two year old child even though he’s like seventeen. They make a point of saying that she “got married early” and Jason counsels Mike on taking more responsibility in his life, which he does by babysitting her kid while she works as a hula dancer.

There’s a lot going on in Saved by the Bell. I’ll try to make this as succinct as possible. The gang has to save Kelly’s grandfather’s hotel from a corrupt competitor, Zack also falls head over heels for a Hawaiian with a child (t saved by the bell hawaiian style his one is 6 though and he’s only 10 years older than the kid so woah like wtf Saved by the Bell), and Screech is kidnapped by a local tribe and appointed their chief. If you did not find “Running Zack” to be offensive enough to indigenous people then perhaps this is the episode for you. Also, the corrupt competitor’s lawyer flirts with Kelly and tricks her into getting her grandfather to almost sell the land, so that’s also sketch on multiple levels. Lisa, Slater, and Jessie have a boring bet about whether or not Jessie and Slater can keep from fighting for the duration of the trip, which of course they cannot.

Each episode features a special song. Growing Pains uses Christopher Cross’s “Swept Away” for at least three montages and it begins to outlive its usefulness as a plot tool. Here’s the end montage from the episode:

Saved by the Bell definitely wins on the featured song front because it uses “Summertime” by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince in place of the usual opening credits.

While Saved by the Bell wins on the music front, I’m a sucker for the Seavers and I have to say that the Growing Pains episode warms my heart way more. Plus, Saved by the Bell is really not performing up to par here. Yes, I have high standards for a Saturday morning TV show, and yes, I will hold that show to those high standards in my role as Judge Supreme in the competition for this entirely fabricated yet very important award. Plus, I like the family togetherness. And even though Maggie stupidly quits her job in order to return to the vacation, I do like the idea that she’s making an effort to get her priorities straight. Luckily, Jason is a psychiatrist who makes tons of money on writing prescriptions for twenty minute visits with clients, so I think they can handle her being unemployed for a little bit.

Even though I love the Growing Pains plot, I am not digging their matching Hawaiian shirts and thus, unsurprisingly, Saved by the Bell gets the point for fashion. However, Saved by the Bell has once again succeeded in achieving a culturally insensitive plot line with the whole Screech-is-chief thing. Almost by default, I have to give Growing Pains the point for successful integration of the Hawaiian setting. After all, that luau looked pretty nice and actual Hawaiians were performing instead of Jessie, Kelly, and Lisa.

Point Break Down:

Saved by the Bell: Music (1 pt) + Vacation Attire (1 pt) = 2 pts

Growing Pains: Overall Plot (2 pts) + Integration of Hawaiian Setting (1 pt) = 3 pts

Very Special Winner: Growing Pains

Sorry, Saved by the Bell, you were uncharacteristically creepy and I think we can all tell form this set of episodes that Tiffani Theissen and Elizabeth Berkley were about to ditch you.

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!

Braceface: Skin Deep

August 20, 2014August 20, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 6 Comments

Someone in the early 2000’s decided that a cartoon television version of Clueless set while Cher was in middle school (and had braces) would be a great idea, and thus Braceface exists. They did get Alicia Silverstone to voice “Sharon” so it is actually pretty cool. But I don’t understand why they changed Cher’s name to Sharon. Alicia Silverstone (Cher/Sharon) clearly states in Clueless that she and Dionne were both named for singers. I guess I should not expect continuity between a cartoon prequel show and the clearly superior, genius film that inspired it, but this really bugs me. Since “Shar” is a stupid name that looks like the beginning of the world shard, I will henceforth refer to the lead character as Cher.

I find this episode especially confusing because Cher is going to model in a fashion show in which Dionne is the designer. I did not remember Dionne being in the cartoon, but they said that she is designing something for the fashion show so she must be a character. I kept looking around for a cartoon version of Dionne and I was like, “Ugh, where is she? I know I need new glasses but come on!” It turns out that the cartoon version of Dionne does not exist and the fashion designer is actually a male named Dion (as in Dion not Dionne).

Anyway, Cher gets to wear this great dress designed by Dion for the annual fashion show at her school. Unfortunately, Dionne does not go to Cher’s school but that mean girl Amber does. I guess she’s technically “Nina” but if Cher is “Sharon” then this must be Amber. Cher has a little trouble fitting into Dion’s dress and instead of just altering having him alter it, Cher decides to stop eating in order to fit into it. This mostly happens because Amber tells Cher she has baby fat. Baby fat is the tamest form of fat but, since Cher is thirteen, it totally sucks to be called both chubby and a baby.

Cher’s friends (not anyone you would know from Clueless) stage an intervention when Cher refuses to eat the baked tofu that her mom made her for dinner. Cher thinks diets cannot be bad for you because magazines always promote them. Her friends are like Cher, you are so dumb, the pictures in magazines are photo-shopped. So Cher humors them and eats some baked tofu. If this was your run-of-the-mill very special episode, then we would end with a nice freeze frame because all compulsive behaviors are cured with a conversation.

Instead, it’s all a clever ruse on Cher’s part and she stops eating again as soon as they leave. Hah! You did not even expect a cartoon to have an eating disorder did you? Let alone resist the very special episode resolve! It is only when Cher passes out on the runway that she realizes she has a problem. She and her friend Maria (the middle school version of Dionne) decide to go out and have some burgers and fries and giggle about how silly Cher was.

Very Special Lesson: If you realize your crash diet was dangerous, you should immediately binge on fast food.

I don't understand why she's worried about her waistline when her face is literally full of hard angles. Don't her cheeks hurt? She needs some cheek fat! — I don’t understand why she’s worried about her waistline when her face is literally full of hard angles. Don’t her cheeks hurt? She needs some cheek fat!

PSA: A Very Special Character Actor

August 14, 2014August 13, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 6 Comments

I’d like to take a moment and pay tribute to a very special actor from the 90’s, Jason Marsden. You may know him as Eric’s best friend from Boy Meets World or Brittany Murphy’s brother from Almost Home. Perhaps, you’d recognize the melodic timber of his tenor as the voice of Binx the cat from Hocus Pocus. This guy owned the 90’s. He may have played mostly minor roles, but he was everywhere, and chances are you owe a great deal of your childhood entertainment to him.

Step by Step

Jason played one of the male lead’s best friends in this 90’s version of The Brady Bunch. Can you spot Jason in this cast photo?

Full House

Jason played DJ’s rich boyfriend and even caused some turmoil between DJ and Kimmy Gibbler. DJ broke up with him and then he went on a date with Kimmy. (gasp!)

Almost Home

Almost Home (a.k.a. The Torkelsons) was a show I watched after church on Sunday’s. I doubt anyone else watched it because it only lasted two seasons. It featured a pre-Clueless Brittany Murphy and…you guessed it! Jason Marsden. This time he was a series regular and a lead. Sorry it only lasted one season, Jason 😦 But hey, you did get to go to prom with Allyson Hannigan!

A Goofy Movie

First of all, A Goofy Movie came out in 1995. Does anyone else think that is weird? Secondly, Jason Marsden voiced Goofy’s son, Max!

Boy Meets World

Perhaps you remember seeing Jason as a recurring character in the first couple of seasons of Boy Meets World. He played Eric’s bff “Jason” and they both dating the same incredibly annoying girl.

Thanks for the memories, Jason!

The Facts of Life: Starstruck

August 11, 2014March 13, 2016 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 1 Comment

This is one of those shows that I am technically too young for but could not escape in syndication. The Facts of Life was a show about a group of girls at a boarding school. The entire series was basically a very special episode with every single show ending in some kind of big deal life lesson. I mean, they covered literally every single “ism” in the book and then some. So how have I managed to select a very special episode for this post? This episode has Jermaine Jackson.

In fact, I think this episode scripted more fans for Jermaine than he actually had in real life. Tootie (Kim Fields) is the president of the Jermaine Jackson fan club and she thinks that she and Jermaine know each other. I mean literally know each other–as in pen pals. She’s like fifteen years old but she cannot tell the difference between a rubber stamp and an actual signature. Please, I’ve known the difference ever since I received a packet of information form Gerald R. Ford for a project in the fifth grade.

Creepy cult worship activities. Can you imagine what this would have been like if he had more top 40 hits?!

But that is not the point. The point is that Tootie is delusional. Everyone is encouraging her not to be obsessed with Jermaine and so on and so forth, but no one has addressed the fact that she has essentially started the cult of Jermaine Jackson. She has a group of girls play records until midnight and then open the window and yell Jermaine’s name so that he will hear them hundreds of miles away in New York City. She is also working on a paper mache sculpture of his head that she won’t let any of the other club members touch.

Tootie gets hysterical when she cannot go to the Jermaine Jackson concert, and I mean literally hysterical. Mrs. Garret (who is basically a random woman in charge of all of these girls but like whatever do not question it) agrees to take her to the concert because she think that Tootie has had a psychotic break and she does not know what else to do to help her.

Nothing to be concerned about here... — Nothing to be concerned about here…

Is this not a school? Do they not have resources like a counselor? Or her parents? But no, it’s probably best to take her to the concert where the dude she stalks will be. Of course, she eventually gets to meet Jermaine Jackson, hang out with him, and learn a very important life lesson, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Tootie arrives at the concert and is completely shocked when she gets to Jermaine’s dressing room and realizes that he has no idea who she is. He tells her that he is too busy with his music to deal with fans. (Hahaha give me a break) She also finds out that everything she has ever read about Jermaine is essentially a lie, and frankly that is kind of sad. Tootie lives in a pre-internet world, so I guess I cannot totally blame her for believing celebrity magazines. She ends up being all sad for Jermaine because she thinks it must be hard to be famous. She ends up crying at the end of the episode and saying that he said “thank you.” I think that it’s implied that this thank you is for talking to him like a normal human event though Jermaine does not seemed stressed out at all about being a celebrity. In fact, based upon my casual observation, I’d say he’s probably the Jackson most eager to be a celebrity. Oh well, I guess Tootie learned her lesson? I mean right? No one like wants to talk to her about why she got so crazy in the first place? Guess not.

Creepy cult worship activities — Love the glitter, Jermaine.

Very Special Lesson: If you’re obsessed with a celebrity, become hysterical enough that the people who love you are scared of you and then they will take you to meet said celebrity.

Very Special Movie: Fifteen and Pregnant

August 7, 2014August 7, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 2 Comments

Hi there! I’m going to be trying a new thing where I post a “Very Special Movie” each month. This month’s movie is “Fifteen and Pregnant,” starring Kirsten Dunst.

Fifteen and Pregnant

This movie starts with them having sex, so like wow we are seriously getting down to business here. During foreplay, Kirsten Dunst is also talking about how bummed she is that her dad doesn’t live with their family anymore…so if you weren’t already thinking that this was a bad decision, you should probably be pretty sure of that now.

It’s okay though because Kirsten gets her period in the very next scene. Only, it’s probably not okay because this movie is called Fifteen and Pregnant. The next time Kirsten sees her boyfriend, he tells her that he is too busy to date her during football season. Kirsten immediately runs away to see her friend and her friend asks her if she’s pregnant as soon as she tells her that she and her boyfriend broke up. This strikes me as odd.

However, in the car ride home we see that her friend has a baby and maybe is a little hyper vigilant because of it. And it turns out that her questioning was warranted because Kirsten missed her previous period. Plus, the pastor at her church said it was bad to use contraceptive because then it meant that you had already thought about having sex…what??

As a teen, I was always paranoid of teen pregnancy, which does not really makes sense because I’m pretty sure you have to be having sex to get pregnant. But I watched a ton of lifetime moves and it seemed like pregnancy was a very contagious head cold and that pretty much everyone who had sex got pregnant or maybe you just got pregnant anyhow due to proximity to hormones or whatever. But now that I am no longer a teen, I’m like looking at Kristen’s mom and thinking “what the hell. She’s got a child who is going to have a child??” That seems very overwhelming because you still have to be a parent to your kid (and maybe their kid) no matter what they decide.

Kristen’s friend suggests that she have an abortion and Kirsten yells at her and is all like “THAT’S THE MOST HORRIBLE THING EVER. I WOULD NEVER DO THAT.” And that’s fine if you believe that, but I kind of want her friend to ask her why. I know that she has to be pregnant for the plot of this movie, but I wish that someone could at least have a real conversation about her options. Oh wait, just kidding this is a Lifetime movie. How silly of me to expect anymore than this.

There’s also a strange scene where Kirsten and her younger siblings have a shouting almost unintelligible argument about the shame Kirsten has brought upon their family while the music she lost her virginity is playing in the background. Ugh. Well ugh for two reasons 1. That’s a nasty juxtaposition 2. I wish there was some other phrase that I could have used in that paragraph instead of “lost her virginity.” I’m pretty sure she didn’t misplace it and I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t stolen or given away. But yeah the same music that played when she first decided to have sex is also playing when she’s arguing with her siblings about her pregnancy. I think this is meant to highlight the consequences of her actions?

The mom’s of the two teen mom’s end up going to the gym and have a more in depth discussion about Kirsten’s choices than Kirsten does. God forbid anyone like actually talk to the pregnant teenager here, right? The absentee father shows up (oh sorry, absentee from the original nuclear family—not from the one Kirsten is starting) and says that Kirsten and her mom can “probably” raise the kid on their own (“probably” that’s great) and that if they decide to go down that path he hopes they’ll consider letting him help. And Kirsten’s mom yells at him and is all like No, I hate you! So…she sounds like she’s going to be a great grandma.

Kirsten has to go to school in a trailer now on the edge of the public school property. I can’t believe this is legal. I used to work at a public high school and there were unfortunately many pregnant teens wandering around. But at least they weren’t hidden away, I suppose. This feels sort of archaic. What backwoods town does she live in? Or am I just uninformed?

Eventually, no one shows up to her baby shower and it’s very sad. After the party, Kirsten and her mom have this heart wrenching conversation in which Kirsten says that she wanted to know what love feels like from the inside, and that she finally has something that belongs to her that she can look forward to. It’s actually one of the most depressing things I’ve seen in a while, especially because her mom looks so horrified and baffled as to how her kid did not know how much she loved her. Thank goodness her family gets back together and rallies around her before she gives birth because I could not have handled it if things got more depressing in this movie.

Here are my favorite quotes from this movie:

“I just want to be a good wife and mother and make my husband happy.”—Kirsten Dunst as dumb teenager

“It’s bad enough being pregnant without having to look like a total loser.”—Kirsten Dunst as dumb teenager shopping for maternity clothes

“Well you should have thought of that before you had sex.”—Kirsten Dunst’s fictional mom who is oversimplifying the issue while shopping for maternity clothes

“I’m not doing that much with my life. Might as well have a kid, right?”—The teen father-to-be.

“We can grow up together. The three of us.”—Also the teen father-to-be.

Very Special Lesson: Condoms.

I know the issues here are so much more complex, but oh my God it would be so much easier to deal with those if someone hadn’t condom-shamed poor Kirsten Dunst before this movie started.

3 Reasons Why I Will Never Post About Jesse Spano

August 6, 2014August 6, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 1 Comment

We’ve been together for several weeks now on The Very Special Blog, during which time you have probably noticed that I love Saved by the Bell. Perhaps, you have picked up on the fact that I scour all of the episode listings in order to find any episode that even kind of fits my interpretation of the “very special episode” so that I can share my love of said episode with you on the internet. I find that watching Saved by the Bell is my sitcom equivalent of going to Walt Disney World and thus I will find any excuse to make it happen as frequently as possible without ruining the magic that is this blissful nostalgia bond.

That being said, I’d like to go ahead and address the elephant in the room. I know you’ve probably all be wondering when I will post about the infamous “Jesse’s Song” a.k.a I’m So Excited: The Caffeine Pill Addiction. Well, the truth is I won’t be posting about it. And here are some reasons why:

I think we all need to give Jesse a break.
Sure we all know that as far as addictions go, caffeine pills are the most tame by far. But of all the Saved by the Bell characters, Jesse was totally the most likely to become an addict. I think she was the only character that ever felt any kind of actual pressure in life. I mean sure they all went through “rough times” but Jesse was trying really hard to make good grade, do 700 extracurricular activities, and overcome the patriarchy. That’s a lot of work for any seventeen year old, especially one with a type-A personality. As far as I’m concerned, we should all be grateful that Jesse got her hands on some caffeine pills and not amphetamines like Liv Tyler in Empire Records.
Liv was having a hard time in that movie.
I too am a caffeine addict.
I don’t think I’m in any kind of position to judge Jesse Spano. There have been multiple occasions where I’ve thought to myself, “Maybe I should give caffeine pills a try.” Look, I see that Jesse Spano clearly used them to excess, but I work long hours and I don’t get a ton of breaks, so I have to wonder if the occasional pill might be a little convenient for when I can’t get my hands immediately on a cup off coffee. Personally, I’m still waiting for the day where they invent an IV drip for caffeine, but I understand that is not really a priority in the medical profession. But long story short, I love coffee. I love the taste, I love the smell, and I love the eye popping affect it has when I’m falling asleep at my desk. I simply cannot judge her for hammering back the caffeine.
On all of those Buzzfeed quizzes where they tell you to pick your favorite drug and all of the options are like smoking weed, drinking alcohol, or doing coke… I seriously consider picking the cocaine option because it is the most chemically similar to coffee. And then I think to myself, “My God, what is wrong with me?!” Luckily, they usually tuck a steaming latte picture somewhere in the bottom corner of the quiz options, so I’m always able to save my dignity at the last minute. (Kids, it’s NOT really that similar. Little changes in chemical properties make a big difference in the real world and no one should become a cocaine addict because they’re sleepy.)

There’s nothing left to say.
I don’t feel that I have anything interesting to add to the I’m so excited discussion. In the years since the episode aired it has become one of the most talked about and most parodied very special episodes of all time. My personal favorites are Bayside! The Musical! and that time Elizabeth Berkley herself recreated the scene on Dancing with the Stars.
The ladies of Bayside! The Musical!

If you were not wondering why I haven’t posted about Jesse’s caffeine pill addiction and subsequently are wondering why I am writing this post about not writing a different post, then I hope you enjoyed the list either way.