I was waxing poetic about my love of ridiculous “life lesson” episodes from the TV shows of my youth (just about a year ago this month!) and how I just wanted to talk about all of the nitty gritty details of schmaltz forever. So my boyfriend suggested the title of this blog (maybe it was a subtle hint to share these thoughts with the world/not him. But I signed him up as an email subscriber so ha!) Over the past year, these has evolved into a blog not just about very special episodes but bits of entertainment, culture, and memory that are very special to me! It’s been really fun connecting with other internet-people who also remember these little bits of Americana and love to adoringly make-fun as well.
Very Special Episode
Punky Brewster: The Graphic Novel
I discovered today that Punky Brewster has been re-imagined for 21st century elementary school readers as a graphic novel. And even though I totally don’t fall into that age group, I loved the advanced copy. In fact, I know some baby girls who will be getting this book from me in a few years.
Broken down into seven sections (which kind of remind me of the 5 part story arcs the television series used to use) the story takes introduces us to Punky as a “street urchin,” who discovers a long-lost cousin named Henry. If you watched the original series, you’ll have to accept this as one of the “re-imagined” parts but no modern-day kid would care or notice the difference.
We follow Punky (and her dog Brandon) in her quest to be placed in foster-care and/or adopted by Henry. I know that this adoption was an integral part of the television plotline, but I did feel like it was a bit drawn out in the graphic novel, especially for young readers. It was still a fun read though, and the design of the book is just as adorable as Punky herself. I think would be very appealing to anyone who likes Pippi Longstocking or Amelia Bedelia (or, like me, loves both).
The full title of this graphic novel is Punky Brewster: Volume 1, so here’s hoping that volume 2 includes the infamous very special refrigerator episode, “Cherie Lifesaver.” I’d like to see that re-imagined, and also on my book shelf for multiple re-reads.
Sabrina the Teenage Witch: Soul Mates
Sabrina wakes up on the morning of her wedding with cold feet. They’re frozen in blocks of ice. She admits that maybe she’s a little anxious because most of her family can’t be at her wedding and she kind of wishes that Harvey could be there (but he can’t because it’s too weird). Things are clearly not fine even though she promises that they are.
But her cousin Amanda (played by Melissa Joan Hart’s real life sister) is there and soon her Aunt Hilda arrives too. Aunt Hilda brings Sabrina’s mom disguised as a lama as a wedding present. She’s recently been liberated from the ball of wax due to some unexpected leniency from the witch’s counsel. Then Aunt Hilda presents Sabrina with a candle. Her Aunt Zelda has agreed to be wax in place of Sabrina’s mom for the duration of the wedding.
Sabrina returns to her room to get ready with renewed confidence. But she finds doubt sitting on her bed. Sorry, that’s Doubt with a capital D. He’s a person and he’s brought her fiancee Aaron’s soul star. He believes Sabrina is doubting that she and Aaron are soul-mates and he hoping this will help. But they only way to tell if they’re soul-mates or not is to see if their stars fit together. Doubt didn’t bring Sabrina’s star to her (jerk) so she has to go to the North Star to get it.
The soul stars almost fit together, but not completely. And try as she might, Sabrina can’t get them to fit. So she and Aaron have a talk, and he tells her he doesn’t really think life guarantees soul-mates but that they love each other and will try to make each other happy. This convinces Sabrina to go ahead with the wedding.
Just as she is about to walk down the aisle, she realizes she is still wearing a bracelet that Harvey gave her seven years prior with the exact time they met engraved in the band. How could you not remember you were wearing your ex’s gift throughout the entire duration of your engagement, Sabrina??
Sabrina shows up on her Aunt Hilda’s program and asks to speak to her and Mother Spellman STAT. They try to walk down the aisle as discretely as possible, but Sabrina’s stupid friends leave the alter to join the chat too. This is such a nightmare. Sabrina starts bemoaning the fact that the universe has been against this relationship from the start, and her mom and aunt tell her that she’s the only one dooming it to fail. They tell her to listen to what she really wants.
Sabrina decides once again that she will marry Aaron. Only, she can’t make it through her vows. So she breaks up with Aaron at the alter while her friends hide them behind her veil. As Sabrina leaves the church, she sees Harvey sitting on his bike with his soul star (retrieved by Amanda from the North Star). She runs up to him and they start making out, apparently not concerned by the fact that the man she jilted moments ago is just inside the door with all of his friends and family.
Luckily, it’s only Sabrina’s family and friends who end up standing on the church steps to see Harvey and Sabrina fit their soul stones together and ride off into the sunset (err, midday sun…) right at 12:36 exactly.
Very Special Lesson: If you wake up in the morning with cold feet. Stop there. Don’t ruin the day for everyone.
Jem: Alone Again
There’s a new girl in the Starlight Home. Jerrica finds her crying while cradling a ping-pong paddle like a baby doll. Laura says no one understands her and she doesn’t “measure up” to all of the other abandoned children at the Starlight House. They’re so cool with their fashion sense and talents. Jerrica tries to tell her that everyone is good and something and Laura’s all like everyone but me! Then she goes off to film this music video:
Jem and The Holograms enter the room and are all like you’re so talented! They ask her to play at their concert with them, but she says she’s not good enough. Finally, she accepts under protest and then she starts to crack under the pressure. A drug pusher overhears her talking to herself on the see-saw at school. He offers her pills that will make her “play great.” Then he tells her he’ll be at the concert and hopes she will play her best. This makes Laura be all like, okay if the cute boy wants me to!
I’
m not sure what kind of pills this dude gave her. She starts of feeling “lighter and faster” but then she starts hallucinating like crazy. She sees the thermos in her lunch box turn into a bird. Then she decides she’d like to fly like a bird and climbs out on her ledge. She yells at Jerrica, who is below the windo begging her not to jump, angrily and says, “You may be prettier than me and smarter. But I can fly. I can fly!” Okay, so I’ve narrowed down the drug options here to PCP. If I were Jerrica, I’d call the paramedics and then seek shelter immediately. But Jerrica’s a rescuer, so she runs upstairs while Laura is doing a countdown to blastoff and reaches the window just in time. Laura ends up slipping, but Jerrica has super human strength, so she catches Laura by the arm while also maintaining her own balance and then uses her core strength to lift Laura up into a standing position as she pulls her through the window.
Right at this moment, Laura seems to be coming down from the drug and is genuinely shocked and depressed that neither the thermos nor she is a bird. Jerrica says a lot of things like let’s talk but she never actually says anything of substance other that “WHERE ARE THE DRUGS?” and Laura says “THERE ARE NO DRUGS!” So then she goes back to school and gets more drugs from the pusher/boy she has a crush on.
This drug seems more like cocaine. She can’t sleep and all she wants to do is play guitar ALL NIGHT! One of the other Starlight Girls beats her up because she’s being so annoying. She’s like totally pummeling her but they’re only grounded for a week each. The next morning, Laura is extremely irritable and cannot find her drugs. She starts destroying the house because she can’t play her music or live without the drugs she’s taken like twice now.
Jerrica finds her stealing money from her purse (the pusher has started charging now). Laura looks all around school for the drug pusher, but when she overhears him giving the same sales pitch to another starlight girl she starts subbing because he didn’t love her at all! Jerrica finds her outside of the school and takes her for a drive to talk her into going to rehab. She fails to mention that the drug pusher was selling to another Starlight girl literally moments earlier, but she does agree to go to the group, and also to participate in a sting operation to catch the drug pusher. (Luckily, the other Starlight girl didn’t want the drugs and gave them to the police right after the drug pusher gave them to her.)
Now Laura is immensely more confident, and just in time for the concert!
Very Special Lesson: Taking drugs won’t fix your stage fright. But becoming addicted to drugs and kicking the habit in a week will make you feel badass enough to play an arena concert.
Saved by the Bell: Pipe Dreams
At first I thought this would be the episode about marijuana but no that one is called “No Hope with Dope” and it is for another day. In this episode, we meet Becky, the duck.
Becky the duck is very important because she’s going to teach us about the environment. Becky lives in the pond behind the football field at Bayside High School.
One day, Zack hit Becky with a baseball and decided to nurse her back to health out of guilt and his general good-nature.
One special day, the construction workers installing a new goalpost on the Bayside football field struck oil. Black Gold. Texas Tea. According to California State Education Laws, the public school of Bayside gets to keep all of the oil money.
Meanwhile, Becky has begun to feel better and can return to her home habitat!
But on the very day that Becky returns home, the oil rig behind the Bayside football field spills into the pond.
Becky died that day.
But Zack and all of his friends learned a very valuable lesson, and vowed to keep the oil people from ruining their high school.
Very Special Lesson: Parents don’t care when the school board votes to have their children attend class alongside oil derricks.
Home Improvement: The Longest Day
This episode scares the crap out of me because JTT has to get a cancer test after his mom tells the doctor that he’s been so sleepy. And the doctor felt swelling in JTT’s neck!
I’m chronically tired and sometimes I have a lump on my neck. But I’m a 25 year-old workaholic, hypochondriac with bad allergies, so I guess we’re not in the same boat.
Anyway, Jill keeps the cancer scare from JTT because she doesn’t want to scare him until they know what they’re dealing with. But they can’t keep it from him. They’re too busy spoiling him and he notices something is up.
And it’s moments like this that remind you that JTT isn’t just charming and skating by on his good looks. He’s actually a talented actor. COME BACK TO US JTT! I’m sure there’s a place for you in one of the 75 reboots currently in the works.
Jill and next-door neighbor Wilson have a really great heart to heart about how quickly things can change in an instant. It’s not sappy at all and is genuinely moving, which means it creeps my emotions out too much to actual comment on it at this point.
Meanwhile, JTT has gone missing. Jill’s still awaiting the phone call from the doctor, while Tim goes out looking for him. He’s at the arcade. That’s probably where I would be too.
He’s pissed that his parents didn’t tell him immediately that he might have cancer. I’d probably be pissed too. It’s awful to discover that while researching it alone at the school library. (Ugh, bad parenting moment, Tim and Jill.) And then they all come together as a family, lovingly and rationally calming their child’s fears.
Okay, the pot episode was stupid. But Home Improvement may have just won The Very Special Episode with the story of how JTT got cancer.
Oh wait. But you didn’t actually think he’d get cancer did you? This is a sitcom, and that’s way too sad of a fate for our favorite 90’s idol. He’s fine! He has hypothyroidism. The end!
Very Special Lesson: Be sure to keep important facts about your children’s health out of their knowledge. That way, when they notice they feel crappy and have been to the doctor for a lot of tests, they can fear the worst without the benefit of your health and guidance.
Clueless: None for the Road
I wanted this week’s post to be about Matthew Perry’s tragic guest arc on Growing Pains, but it’s nowhere on the internet. Since I doubt I’ll be able to get my hands on my VHS tapes from 1998, this post is probably never going to happen.
Luckily, I found an episode of Clueless (the awful TV show not the awesome movie) that essential rips off the Growing Pains plot. It’s Cher’s birthday and everyone is planning her a surprise party–as they do every year because she is soooo special. (Like this impostor could be as cool as the movie Cher, as if!) So really the surprise is not that there’s a party, but rather the party’s details.
And this party is rockin’ because *NSYNC shows up for a surprise performance. I couldn’t actually watch the second part of this episode because part 2 of 3 was missing from YouTube, but I did find this great clip of “Tearin’ Up My Heart.”
So what appears to be happening in the 14 minutes of this episode I was able to actually watch is pretty tame high school party with a really awesome concert mixed in. Only, Cher’s boyfriend, Murray, and that guy Murray always hangs out with get drunk and then drive home. Or attempt to drive home. Murray is okay, but the other two guys end up in the hospital.
Everything seems fine and then he abruptly dies just as everyone’s making plans to continue life blissfully. It’s literally the exact same plot twist as the Growing Pains episode–except that I think Cher’s dad may be facing a lawsuit on this one. I mean, I didn’t get to see the entire episode so it may not be his fault. But it kind of seems like he threw a rock concert in his backyard, let the kids get drunk, and then allowed them to drive home.
Anyway, you can compare the two on your own below. WordPress won’t let me embed at a specific time, ugh, so you have to skip to 7:26 for Clueless and 0:61 for Growing Pains.
Very Special Lesson: Clueless was such a bad TV Show that it ripped off it’s very special episode from an awesome TV Show. Who is this tragic guest star? I don’t even care. Without the Matthew Perry magic, this episode sucks.
The Facts of Life: The First Time
I feel like The Facts of Life did not live up to it’s name because everyone on this show was a virgin until the last season when they’re all well into their twenties. And I mean obviously, this is a very personally thing that doesn’t have to happen at a certain age, I just feel like statistically it’s odd that they’re all still virgins. But honestly, they all shared one bedroom for basically forever so maybe that hampered things. It’s the late 80’s and the girls live with Cloris Leachman (for unclear reasons). Blair isn’t in this episode because Lisa Whelchel objected to the subject matter for personal reasons. The house is actually a lot more pleasant without her.
The episode starts off with Snake (Natalie’s boyfriend) showing up to take her out for their one year anniversary. He wears coveralls and makes Natalie feel unappreciated, but hey it’s all one big fake out joke and he’s got a suit underneath! That’s the kind of guy you want to lose your virginity to, am I right? Snake is about thirty-five years old and also apparently a virgin. After a special night of romantic dining, no one wants to say goodnight, and that’s how babies are made! Just kidding, this is The Facts of Life and Natalie’s a core cast member, so you can trust that she’s well prepared.
Natalie comes home at 5 am and wakes up Tootie to tell her she lost her virginity. Then at breakfast she tries to tell Jo, but the two kids who live with him (why??) keep barging into the room and she can’t finish the story. Then it’s just Cloris Leachman (who is apparently Mrs. Garret’s sister and therefore privy to all of the intimate stuff) and the girls, so Natalie can finally brag about her night. And then they are so SHOCKED that Jo spills a pile of cereal onto the table and Cloris Leachman’s knees buckle. Then they all quietly slut shame Natalie because Cloris waited until marriage. And Tootie is waiting until marriage. And Jo won’t comment. Then everyone says that she’s probably going to get pregnant. And that’s really why this show is past it’s prime. It’s okay to have life lessons when you’re fifteen, but I’m offended that all of these adult women are commenting on another adult woman’s personal decision.
Then Snake calls and tells her that he can’t see her for a while. Because that’s what guys do. They date a girl for a whole year just to have sex with her. And then it’s all over after that! That’s a long con I just don’t believe in, but we are expected to believe this plot-line for the next ten minutes. After about 24 hours of not hearing from him, Natalie says she never should have slept with him. The she takes everything out on Jo, who won’t tell her if she was “right”or “wrong.”
Jo has been the only sane person in this episode, but Natalie says she’s afraid of emotions or something and that’s why she won’t judgee her choices. Ugh. So then after some yelling Jo tells her to stop feeling bad just because Snake is being a jerk. Then she says that sex made Natalie forget she was a good person before Snake. What? I’m so confused. I’m so glad I wasn’t a teenager in 1988 because I would have trusted these fools and this episode is really odd.
Anyway, Natalie finally decides that she doesn’t regret anything and it’s not her fault that Snake is being a loser. But then Snake shows up at the door! And it turns out that he’s been so emotionally affected that he avoided her for days to see if he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. So I mean I guess it’s thoughtful in the most selfish way possible. Then he says they’re heading towards marriage and Natalie is like nope. The episode cuts off here on YouTube. So I guess everything ends up okay?
Very Special Lesson: Don’t make life choices without running them by your friends and trusted older adult first. You thought you could make a reasonable decision on your own? Wrong!
The Golden Girls: All Bets are Off
You know what I find most bizarre about this episode? Oh hold on, maybe you need to know a little about the plot first. Okay, so Rose is learning to paint but she doesn’t know what a horse looks like (from memory). So she bugs Dorothy to take her to the racetrack. Dorothy resists and then finally obliges.
Then Sophia flips out at Dorothy for going to the track because it turns out that she had a debilitating gambling problem fifteen years earlier. And now she has fallen off the wagon!! (Are you allowed to use that phrase for non-alcohol problems? Like maybe she fell off the race-horse-pulled-wagon?)
Anyway, here’s what I find really odd about this. Remember that time the GG’s donated a jacket to charity with Dorothy’s winning lottery ticket still in the pocket? Yeah, that happened a full season before this episode and no one was pissed about her gambling then..jpg/revision/latest?cb=20101208103602)
So it must be some kind of race-track-only gambling addiction. Fine. Things get pretty bad when she is so preoccupied by betting on the horsies, that she reschedules a job interview due to “car trouble” and then misses the rescheduled interview entirely.
But the worst part is when she manipulates poor, naive Rose into handing over her debit card, so that Sophia can “have an operation.” Only Dorothy feels guilty about this, and yells at Rose for allowing herself to be taken advantage of. But this is one of those times when Rose is surprisingly savvy, and knows Dorothy’s angle. She’s was trying to reverse-psychology her into not robbing her, and it works. Then Dorothy goes to gambling rehab and we never hear of this ever again.
Very Special Lesson: Give an addict unlimited access to your cash, and they’ll realize the error of their ways immediately.
Happy Days: Fonzie’s Blindness
Crap. What a week. I’m so tireeeed. I’ve been sitting in my bed for the past 3 hours doing that thing where you just kind of like stare at Hulu or like the empty space just beyond your computer screen and think, “How is my brain possibly still conscious and functioning?” And yet, there is some weird synapse that keeps firing and it’s that synapse that forces you to stay awake against all human odds? That’s science right?
And all I can say about this week, is at least it wasn’t as bad for me as it was for Fonzie that time he was temporarily blinded because Al hit him in the head with a lunch tray.
If your optic nerves are that fragile, then you seriously need to have some work done. But anyway, the Fonz has a really hard time with this because he’s flawless and prideful and God-forbid he be slightly vulnerable let alone missing one of his essential senses!
But since he’s a god-among-men, everyone caters to his ever need and wish, so much so that Richie worries he will be totally helpless for the rest of his life. And so he rips Fonzie a new one during the family dinner because Fonzie asks Joanie to salt his potatoes for him. And Richie is like DO IT YOUR DAMN SELF, FONZIE even though he has only been blind for like a week and maybe it takes some time and emotion to react to that kind of thing.
But I get it, we’re on a thirty minute timeline and we need to move things along. So Richie takes Fonzie’s motorcycle apart. He really shouldn’t be driving blind anyway, so this seems like no loss to me but Fonzie has a metaphysical break down. And Richie’s all like Mr. Miyagi and saying he should use the force within or something and wax-on his way to putting tiny little screws and nuts and bolts together kinesthetically.
Fonzie loses his shit and like can’t handle it. Then he asks God why he allowed this to happen to him. “I thought I was your favorite person,” he said. I mean I get that Fonzie is cocky, but that’s like way beyond the point of acceptable charm here. That’s like probably the definition of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. But then he get’s down to business and puts the bike together from memory.
And then Fonzie is rewarded for his perseverance and regains his sight at the end of the episode. He says things are a little “blurry” but if he keeps going to the doctor for his “treatments” then he should be 20/20 again in no time. That’s some awesomely advanced medical work for the 50’s.
Very Special Blog: Work hard, be humble, and all of your disabilities will melt away.
The Very Special Blog 