Let’s get it on:
12:34pm Season 3, Disc 1, Episode 1″ The Fabulous Belding Boys”
Category Archives: Nostalgia Corner
“The Last Dance:” Zack and Kelly Break-Up and We Were Never the Same
A special video update after “The Last Dance,” the episode in which Kelly cheats on Zack with that jerk Jeff and our world comes crashing down. Not to get too Kevin Arnold on you, but when we first watched Zack and Kelly break-up a little bit of our childhood slipped away.
Filed under Nostalgia Corner
‘Saved by the Bell’ Season 2
Season 2, Disc 1, Episode 1: “The Prom” (!)
12:20am: PIZZA and Saved by the Bell. And the episode that’s the turning point for the series.
Season 2 begins, and with Zack and Kelly’s Prom we’ll never been the same.
Muppet Monday: What Do ‘Muppet Babies’ and IKEA Have In Common?
Well, I’m sure you could come up with a couple good answers for this question. Both are good Saturday morning past times. Both can be found in many countries (we assume). Both are two of our favorite things. But what we have in mind is something else. A whatchamacallit.
When we came upon this item in the IKEA marketplace we only thought of one thing: the episode of Muppet Babies in which Kermit and Fozzie find one of these in the basement and the little Muppets use their imaginations to suggest various uses for the gadget, including a microphone, intergalactic cheeseburger maker, dinosaur head, alphabet soup strainer and something called the “Mupp0-Matic” (thanks, Fozzie). And even though Nanny eventually explains the actual use of the item the kids refuse to let their creativity be stifled. To top it all off, the episode is titled “Muppets Not Included,” a reference to the 1987 Steven Spielberg-produced film *Batteries Not Included. What other late 1980s children’s cartoon had such deep subtext, tapping into the cultural zeitgeist? None.
Open your minds, people!
Filed under Muppet Mondays, Muppets, Nostalgia Corner
Whooo Isss It??? It’s ‘Bosom Buddies’, Finally Getting the Recognition It Deserves!
We were pleased to encounter some well-earned commendations for Bosom Buddies this week, from two relatively varied sources. First, in the AV Club‘s truly excellent Primer on 1980s sitcoms, they list Buddies as one of the cult hits from the decade that played with traditional sitcom conventions. Article scribe Todd VanDerWerff continues:
Bosom Buddies, which debuted on ABC in the fall of 1980, has a reputation as one of the worst shows of all time in some circles, but it’s actually a surreal work of near-genius and the only good show to ever emerge from the Miller-Boyett factory. Miller-Boyett assigned a young writer named Chris Thompson to work on a TV spin on Some Like It Hot, and he cast Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari in the lead roles…Thompson, who would go on to work on The Larry Sanders Show, filled the series with strange sight gags and mostly abandoned his central premise as soon as he possibly could. The show allowed Hanks and Scolari to improvise freely, often leaving the script for far funnier, stranger tangents.
Some might question the rank of “near-genius,” but we’re here to defend it. We recently used Blizzpocalypse as an excuse to revisit the series, and it’s impressive how well it holds up. And, as a bonus, there are jokes that I didn’t get upon first viewing that, with the benefit of age and wisdom, I now understand (although, there are still others I didn’t get then and don’t get now). However, we’re not exactly sure that we’d qualify the program as “surreal;” certainly, the premise that Hanks and Scolari, in the roles Kip and Henry, were required to dress in drag in order to maintain residence at a “hotel for women” was somewhat off-beat for the time, but, as the writer mentions, since the show was loosely based on Some Like It Hot it’s not exactly a novel premise. But VanDerWerff is right on when he notes that they wisely jettisoned the drag plotlines, in favor of letting the talented cast (including Holland Taylor, Wendie Jo Sperber, Donna Dixon and Telma Hopkins) utilize their immense chemistry and crack timing in more successful, less gimmicky storylines.
(we urge you to go over to the AV Club and read the comprehensive essay as soon as you finish this post. You’ll need to set aside a good 20 minutes, more if you want to watch the accompanying videos (primary source materials), but it’ll be worth it. And be certain to also study their 1970s sitcom Primer, either before or after (however, we do take umbrage with the 80s Primer’s criticism of the shows that comprised TGIF. Certainly, those sitcoms don’t represent the best the decade had to offer, but they have their redeeming qualities. However, that’s a defense for a later post.))
Continue to see what a certain The Office star also has to say about the show…
In Memorium Nostalgia Corner: Bill Erwin
Well, it’s been a big week for Growing Pains news. Unfortunately, this latest development is of the sadder variety, as we’ve lost another member of the Growing Pains family. It was announced today that veteran actor, Bill Erwin passed away at his home on December 28th, at the admirable age of 96. You may know him best as Sid Fields from Seinfeld, the old man whom Jerry volunteers to assist, a role for which Erwin was nominated for an Emmy. However, long before Seinfeld, Erwin had already made an indelible mark on us from his many appearances on Growing Pains. Over six seasons Erwin appeared on the sitcom eight different times as seven different characters, from Buzz the plumber to Lloyd the fumigator to the school janitor (he was the go-to old man for thankless blue-collar jobs, evidently). He was like Bruce Willis in North, or Rachel Dratch in the first season of 30 Rock, there whenever the Seavers needed him, in whatever guise was most appropriate. We’ve seen him in many roles since then, some he shot after, some he shot before, but, to us, he’ll always be the old man from Growing Pains.
And here he is as Bubs the mechanic, from the Growing Pains meta-episode “Meet the Seavers:”
And if you watched Home Alone over Christmas (like we did a couple of times) you might also recognize Erwin as the old man in the Scranton airport who refuses to give up his plane tickets to Mrs. McCallister:
TV and film just lost a good one, that’s for sure.
[btw, not to be confused with Bill Irwin]
Filed under Growing Pains, In Memoriam, Nostalgia Corner
Danza Moment of the Week: Christmas in Connecticut; Plus, Self-Promotion!
What happens when Angela decides to spend Christmas with that dick Geoffrey? To what lengths will Angela go to find Tony’s baseball card? What gift will Tony get for Angela that shows once and for all how much better he his than that dick Geoffrey? Find out!
Continue (I know you will) with Parts II and III of “The Christmas Card.”
Isn’t it weird that the big joke with Mona is that she’s a huge slut? Sorta like Blanche Devereaux, but with even less subtlety. Kind creepy now (and even creepier as a 7-year-old).
In other (big!) Danza news, the folks over at Gawker.TV were kind enough to let us explore our fascination with Teach: Tony Danza in greater detail. We ask the question: Whatever Happened to Teach: Tony Danza? Check it out!
Filed under Count Bleh, Golden Girls, Nostalgia Corner, Who's the Boss?, Yankee Swap
The Bestest News: Jim Carrey to Return to ‘SNL’! And a Look Back at His Last Go ‘Round
To this day we consider Jim Carrey’s May 1996 hosting turn as the best SNL of our generation (with perhaps Alec Baldwin’s November 2006 hosting appearance as the strongest since, but certainly not better), so it was with great excitement that we learned that Carrey will be returning after almost 15 years to host the first SNL of 2011. Set your DVRs for 11:30pm on January 8, kids. If anyone could pull SNL out of its doldrums, it might be Carrey (although, the NBC website might want to get his name spelled name right).
Even Better News!
Just discovered that Season 1 of Fifteen is available on iTunes (and has been for some time, apparently)!
Expect a Jumped the Snark Nostalgia Corner look back to come your way soon.
Guys, High School is hard.
Filed under Freak Out Control, Nostalgia Corner
Jumped The Snark 