Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Children of the 90s is at a Work Conference...In the Meantime, Please Enjoy this Classic Post: Ghostwriter

Children of the 90s is at a work conference this week with tragically limited internet and computer access. Take my word for it, it's totally tragic. I didn't want to leave my loyal readers in a bind, so I am pleased to present you from a classic Children of the 90s' post from way back when I was getting a whopping 14 hits a day.

I trust few enough of you have trudged through the extensive backlogs that this is almost like new. Almost. I should be back in full force by next week. Until then, enjoy the reruns! Hey, it's summertime. I've got to save the good stuff for sweeps. Thanks for your understanding--see you next week!




Ah, the joys of good, clean multicultural middle-school student supernatural detective work. The television series Ghostwriter, which ran 3 seasons from 1992-1995, was a thinly veiled effort by public television to encourage the development of basic reading , writing, and problem-solving skills among elementary school children. We may have had no idea at the time, but watch an episode now and you will find the educational components are blindingly obvious. The show was remarkably good at tricking us into learning, as well as providing all sorts of feel-good moral lessons along the way.

The show's characters were the live-action equivalent of the names and pictures textbook publishers use to vociferously and repeatedly tout their commitment to racial and ethnic diversity. Though I can recognize this show aired during the blooming of the age of political correctness, they laid it on pretty thick. We couldn't just have a group of relatable middle-class white kids running around solving mysteries. Instead, it was necessary to produce some variation of "We are the World," the children's television series:



That intro shines so brightly with quintessentially nineties special effects, it makes you want to reach for the Vanilla Ice Gautier shades. The cast all seem remarkably surprised to see their names, though I assume they were told by the crew that they were filming the intro.

The premise of the show involves a mysterious unseen "ghost" (represented by a jumpy glowing light) who communicates with the Ghostwriter team by manipulating words and letters in the kids' everyday settings. The team quickly learns that a mysterious spirit has opted to communicate with them through the handily educational use of their reading and writing skills. While this ghost could likely have chosen all sorts of qualified, highly educated people to do his bidding, he insists on using elementary and middle-school aged children to solve his inoffensive and conveniently child-friendly brand of mysteries.

The "team" members, united by their common ability to communicate with the mysterious Ghostwriter, denoted their membership by wearing a special pen on a cord around their necks. That's right, as if they could not shove the educational component down viewer's throats any further, the team's all-powerful ability lay in their ability to write. I wouldn't call it a subtle metaphor, but hey, it worked.

Of course, just like real-life children, they had freakishly neat typewriter-grade penmanship and wrote at the slowest possible pace to ensure that their young viewers could actually grasp what was happening. Fortunately for those with limited literary prowess, each story arc took a remarkable four or five half-hour episodes to solve. Especially in a time before rampant over-prescribing of attention-deficit medications, it's nearly inconceivable children actually mustered the attention spans to follow a single mystery storyline over a weeks-long run. Ghostwriter clearly had some form of hypnotic power over its viewers, as the show was spectacularly popular throughout it three seasons.

Ghostwriter was not merely a television series; it was an educational franchising powerhouse boasting CD-ROMs, books, VHS releases, classroom curricula, and of course, replica Ghostwriter pens so viewers at home could "play along". I never had any luck solving the mysteries, but I do have a mini Lisa Frank notebook somewhere full of all of the clues tirelessly scribbled in admittedly poorer-than-Ghostwriter-team penmanship.

There are hundreds of Ghostwriter episodes floating around on the internet today, but I leave you with the original. As if you were not already convinced that Samuel L. Jackson is in every piece of motion-picture media every produced, he also plays Jamal's father in Ghostwriter. I present to you the first episode of Ghost writer, "Ghost Story:"





Link to exhausting log of Ghostwriter episode synopses:
TV.com guide

14 comments:

Rose said...

I actually got to meet David Lopez who played Alex, in the early 2000's when I was a freshman in high school. He was working as a waiter in my favorite restaurant in Brooklyn. I can still vividly remember sitting at the table with my family staring at him because he looked so familiar to me (I didn't yet realize who he was, I just thought I might have known him from the neighborhood) But then it hit me- I knew him from Ghostwriter! But I still wasn't entirely sure, so I didn't say anything to him. So I proceeded to tell my family who I thought he was and when he came back to our table my grandmother asked him if he was an actor. He said he was. We asked if he was in Ghostwriter, he said he was. He was surprised I recognized him but was really cool about it, he stayed and talked to us and even autographed a napkin for me. At the time, he was living in New Jersey and going to college there. He worked at the restaurant for a few years and always remembered me whenever I was there. Unfortunately , he doesn't work there anymore. I always hope to one day see him on TV again. He was such a nice guy.

Tracita Linda (Tracey) said...

HA- The names are so racially deliberate, the things were oblivious to as children. It's weird how I can recall that first episode, based on that handwritten note. But, I do recall Jamal being a different actor...I guess it's possible they changed eventually. Maybe even hoping no one would notice.

Unknown said...

I used to watch this show, I actually really enjoyed it. I'm glad you wrote about it because it doesn't get enough accolades.

Megan Christopher said...

Did you know the first season of Ghostwriter was just released on DVD? And it's just as wonderfully 90s as ever.

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/releaseinfo.cfm?ReleaseID=9773

RMb said...

oh my god, i LOVED ghostwriter. this post made my day! :)

Tahleen said...

I don't think they ever changed the actor who played Jamal, I always remembered that his name was Sheldon Turnipseed (really?), and that it never changed.

Unknown said...

If you watch "Ghost Story," then "Who Burned Mr. Brinker's Store?" then one could see Tracey's dilemma. "Mr. Brinker's Store" was the pilot and "Ghost Story" was filmed a year later, so they all look a bit different (um, it's called puberty)! Who they did change, however, was Gabby...and not even until the last season!

I miss those innocent days of solving mysteries with the team and using the GW pen. I have the first season on DVD...worth every penny!

Anonymous said...

One of those kids from Ghost Writer was on a season of The Real World. I can't remember his name though or the Season ugh

Unknown said...

Hey Aly, it was Hector...Willie from Real World Philly!

FearNoWeevil said...

My first kiss was with a boy who had a guest role on ghostwriter :)

We were about 13 or 14, and he played the drug dealer... He had several bit parts on the show, but that was the most memorable. He was a terrible kisser!

Felicia said...

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