Showing posts with label General Ridiculousness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label General Ridiculousness. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

90s TV Switcheroos: Characters Played by More than One Actor

Oh my gosh, as I was posting this it suddenly hit me--today is my blogaversary! That's right, one year ago today Children of the 90s was born. That's a whole lotta 90s. Lucky for all of you, I won't go the way of this post and suddenly replace myself with a cheap imitation, less credible 90s chronicler...looks like you're stuck with me. Thanks for reading! :)


How many Beckys does it take to complete a series of Roseanne? The answer may surprise you


It's the old Darrin Stevens switcharoo. For one reason or another, the original TV actor exits stage left and is immediately replaced by the next available understudy standing in the wings. Unlike at the theater, though, where they give you the benefit of announcing the replacement, on TV they tend to just proceed with business as usual as if nothing had happened. Never mind the fact that one of our major players was one person one day and someone else the next. All of the other actors simply treat the replacement as if they were the old standard and we're supposed to be immediately convinced that this new actor embodies the character we once knew and loved as another person.

Sometimes there's some brief wink-wink nudge-nudge type of acknowledgment, but for the most part they leave us to fend for ourselves in digesting the adjustment. Imagine if someone in your inner circle of friends came to dinner one night, only it was another person entirely. All of your other friends continue to call the newcomer by the first friend's name and reminisce with him as if he were there all along. The way they're acting, it's enough to make the rest of us have to wonder if we're the crazy ones for not going along with this charade.

The tactic happens more than you might think; sometimes you don't even notice it until you're watching the show in syndication many years later. Whether it's a minor character or a principal player, it definitely requires more than your average level of TV-grade suspension of disbelief. The following are among the most grievous offenders:


Fresh Prince: Vivian Banks


Here is an instance of the most blatant kind of switcheroo: one that occurs with a character who appears in virtually every episode of the series. Vivian (Will's aunt) was initially played by Janet Hubert-Whitten, but she found herself in breach of series contract when she became pregnant. While they wrote the pregnancy into Vivian Banks's storyline, Hubert-Whitten left soon thereafter to stay home with her child. She was replaced by Daphne Maxwell Reid, which might have been fine had the producers possessed the common sense to maintain linearity with the character.

Instead, the new Vivian was starkly different than the original. While Hubert-Whitten's Vivian was career-driven and outspoken, Reid's was a more soft-spoken homemaker. The writers gave a couple of on-screen tongue-in-cheek acknowledgments of the switch ("You know, Mrs. Banks, ever since you had that baby, there's something different about you...") but for the most part the change went unmentioned.



Boy Meets World: Morgan Matthews


The first Morgan Matthews was cute-relief kid sister played by Lily Nicksay. After regular appearances in the first and second seasons, she never appears in the third season, only to reappear in the fourth season played by Lindsay Ridgeway. She was still blonde, but the similarities pretty much ended there. They sought to ease the transition by having her joke, "That was the longest time-out I've ever had!" I guess that time-out made her pretty bitter, because Morgan emerged several times more sarcastic then she had been in the second season.



Friends: Ross's Ex-Wife Carol


Anita Barone was the original Carol, though she appeared in just one episode. All installments of the Ross/Carol saga thereafter played out with Jane Sibbett. Because Barone only appeared in one episode, this switcheroo was able to slip by far more quietly than some of the more blatant offenders.



Roseanne: Becky Connor-Healy


Here's an interesting bait-and-switch tactic: bring in one actress for a fair number of seasons, replace her with a new actor, bring her back, and then finish the series out with the second actress. Talk about confusing. Alicia Goranson was the original Becky, playing Roseanne and Dan's oldest child for the first five seasons. She left to attend college, so the writers started phasing her out in the fifth season based on her decision.

The story, of course, doesn't end there. For some reasons, the writers find it necessary to revive Becky as a series regular, bringing in Sarah Chalke for Becky reinforcement purposes. It's a passable though certainly not entirely excusable switch until Goranson decided she should come back to the show for the eighth season, which she believed would be the final installment. Goranson was not able to fully commit to the role and during the eighth season and she Chalke alternated in the part, leaving the writers grasping at straws writing awkward in-jokes for the obvious switch back and forth. In the ninth and final season, Chalke again took full command of the role and the switch was finally left unmentioned by the cast.



Seinfeld: Frank Costanza, Morty Seinfeld


At least these producers seemed vaguely conscious of the switch: they actually re-filmed some of the Frank Costanza scenes with Jerry Stiller for the syndicated reruns to replace the old shots of John Randolph. At least they're covering their tracks on that one.

The Morty Seinfeld flip-flop was handled differently, as by the time of the switch so many seasons had gone by that Barney Martin was too old to believably fill the role originally cast with Phil Bruns. In the greater context of the Seinfeld universe though, this type of thing was more acceptable. The focus on the minutiae of life left a pretty general disregard for the broader picture, so it wasn't quite the earth-shattering switch we saw in some of the other shows.



Ghostwriter: Gaby




Gaby Fernandez is Alex's little sister, a character whose traits are largely based on the stereotypical kid sister persona. Unfortunately for original Gaby Mayteana Morales, her onset of puberty quickly made her an unlikely fill-in for the tag-along kid sister. The scripts were adapted to portray Gaby as a more mature character, but she was replaced in the midst of the third season by a younger-looking Melissa Gonzalez. The writers clearly breathed a collective sigh of relief that they didn't have to send Gaby out on dates and give her serious adult aspirations, and the new Gaby reverted to the original character mold.


Clueless: Cher Horowitz (TV vs. film)


This one's a little different, as one actress (Alicia Silverstone) portrayed Cher in the film Clueless while another (Rachel Blanchard) took on the role for the eponymous TV series based on the movie. Blanchard wasn't the only newcomer--we also had TV fill-in replacements for the roles of Cher's father and for the character of Josh (Paul Rudd in the film).

All switcheroos considered, perhaps the most offensive were the plot and character changes that ensued in the shift from movie to television adaptation. Plus, everyone's outfits were significantly less cool in the series. Then again, the budget (especially during the UPN years) was probably to blame on that front.



The Golden Girls: Everybody

These ladies are lucky they're hilarious...otherwise all of the discrepancies would be wholly unforgivable


Had any newbie GG writers ever even seen an episode of the Golden Girls? I'm tempted to venture "no" based on the incredibly blatant inconsistencies in the storylines. The biggest offenders were usually the Girls' respective children, who were not only played by different actors but also frequently were suddenly different ages and had totally different physical traits (see: Michael Zbornak, age 29 vs. 23, or Rebecca Devereux fat and then suddenly inexplicably thin).

The other great Goldren Girls' mystery was why they had the same actor play two different roles, sometimes within the same season. Clearly the writers' and casting agents' faith in the viewership was pretty low, meaning that Harold Gould played two of Rose's boyfriends and Paul Dooley played Rose's blind date Isaac Newton and the doctor next door in the Empty Nest set-up...in the same season.


Whatever the reasoning, mid-series replacements generally left us with an uneasy feeling. We trusted these people; we considered them our friends and invited them into our lives in half-hour weekly installments. There was some sense of betrayal when the show we'd so trusted pulled the ol' Darrin Stevens on us and replaced one of its actors with a newcomer. Luckily, we were all pretty adaptable in our budding couch-potato state. In some cases, we forgot there was ever another actor in the first place. So long as they kept us entertained, we'd keep eating up whatever it was they were feeding us: believable or not

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Raves

Only a few days left! Don't forget to entire the Children of the 90s Ultimate Nostalgia-Fest 2010 Giveaway! It's open until Wednesday, February 17. Click here to see rules and enter for your chance to win some fun Goosebumps, BSC, Magic Eye, Lisa Frank, Pete and Pete, and more!


Even before they were harping about online predators, Dateline NBC had me terrified to leave the comfort of my own home. With their multi-part series on the dangers of 90s raves, I was almost certain that someone was going to randomly usher me into an abandoned warehouse against my will, stick an ecstasy-laced candy pacifier in my mouth, and subject me to endless hours of pulsating techno music and seizure-inducing light shows. You know you're growing up in pretty cushy conditions when your most major fears revolve around involuntary attendance at a wild underground party.




Other generations have all the luck. Their subcultural miscreants were usually tied to some sort of ideological principles. You know, peace, free love, that sort of thing. It's almost as if the preceding counter-cultural movements took all the good visionary underpinnings and we were stuck sorting through the remnants bin. Our take on rebellious youth culture amounted to Seattle Grunge culture and Euro-techno ravers. We may not have been as idealistic as the hippies who came before us, but it could have been worse. After all, we could have been pseudo-intellectual fake glasses-sporting ironic t-shirt clad hipsters.

There were some vague alliances between rave culture and principles, but the connection was fuzzy at best. At its heart, rave culture represented the happy-go-lucky invincibility that characterized the 90s. You know you're getting older when you start drawing broad metaphors between youth culture and the state of the economy, but it's an aging leap I'm willing to make. Raving was youth culture in its purest, least dilute form: wild, irresponsible, and generally under contempt of adults everywhere.

Many of us may have been too young at the time to be a driving force in the rave scene, but that wasn't about to stop us from defiantly sucking our pacifiers in homeroom. Rave trends quickly disseminated from underground phenomenon into mainstream fashion statements. While the raw ingredients undoubtedly varied from rave to rave, here's a rough recipe for a legitimate 90s raver.


Abandoned Warehouse


What's a party without a proper venue? By proper venue, of course, I mean a sketchy abandoned space that may or may not have once been some sort of industrial storage facility. As many of the early raves were a sort of impromptu underground effort, any old enclosed area would have to do. Raves were by no means limited to these settings, but there was a certain charm to illegal party squatting. Or at least that's what I gathered from my avid viewing of numerous multi-part Dateline NBC undercover exposes. They made it seem like every abandoned warehouse in the country was packed fire-code defiantly full of sweaty, effervescent teenagers.



Light Show


If you're going to party straight through to the wee hours of the morning, you've got to have some sort of visual stimulation. Laser light shows were a signature rave feature, with brightly colored strobe-like flashing creating a uniquely headache-inducing effect. I had to settle for my cheaply imitative Nickelodeon brand laser light how generator. I had the power to turn my basement into a wild party light-flashing party scene, but unfortunately I was only 10 at the time. The closest I was coming to raving was chugging a bottle of Surge and nursing a ring pop.



Pacifier

This was one of those inexplicable trends that caught on in a big way despite a total lack of purpose and functionality. Our parents spent months coaxing us off these damned things only to have us pick up the habit again 15 years down the road. I'm still not completely clear on if the pacifier had any sort of representational meaning or if someone just thought it might be fun to start selling them as necklaces to teenagers. Either way, these things were everywhere.



Candy Rings/Necklaces


The more I look at it, the more it seems like ravers all had some sort of serious oral fixation. The ecstasy could only make everything all the more delicious, so it was probably a good idea to keep some highly portable snacks on your person at all times.



Glowsticks


They're sort of like your own personal laser light show. If you get bored with whatever lights the party coordinators are flashing, you can always wave your glowstick super quickly in front of your face. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the drugs probably enhanced this experience somewhat as well.



Ecstasy and/or Cocaine


Speaking of mood-altering substances, 90s partiers weren't really the depressant type. Leave the mellowed-out drugs to the peace and free love hippies. Ravers needed uppers to maintain a decent level of prolonged hyperactivity. If you've got to flail wildly in a warehouse with only the aid of glowsticks and laser light shows to keep you awake, you probably needed a little something to keep the edge on.



UV Facepaint


Again with the glowing. It's a pretty safe bet to say if it glowed, ravers wanted to slather their bodies in it. I suppose it's a bit hard to see in a darkened warehouse, so any light source is much appreciated.


It's odd to think of raves as retro, but countercultural phenomenons tend to age quickly. While in the 90s raving seemed edgy and dangerous and unspeakably modern, in retrospect it loses a bit of its luster. Not literally, of course. I imagine that UV facepaint bonds to pores for life.It was a pretty wild ride while it lasted, but for now we'll just have to relive the experience (or vicarious experience) through the magic of memory. So grab your glowsticks, pop in a pacifier, and beware the judgmental Dateline undercover reporters; it's rave reminiscing time.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

No Fear


Have you ever been sitting in your doctor's waiting room admiring his framed inspirational posters and thought to yourself, "Hey, I could really go for this as a T-shirt, only with an angry spin"? Well, have I got a brand for you. For those among us who felt the need not to impose our trite tidbits of sports-minded wisdom onto the general public, No Fear clothing was nothing short of a godsend. Finally, here was our chance to make our voices heard and let our peers know that they need not fear hockey or snowboarding.

The 90s marked the beginning of the fascination with so-called Extreme Sports, which were classified as "extreme" largely on the basis of their high risk of fatal injury. Sounds fun, right? We all seemed to think so as we sat glued to our televisions fascinated at the death-defying antics of professional skateboarders and their ilk. The No Fear brand capitalized on the rising interest in Extreme Sports, channeling its invincible and ambivalent spirit with its existential slogans.

Of course, most of us were too young to see it that way. We weren't out to debate Camus' influence on our sportswear choices, we just wanted to be cool. According to the rising No Fear brand, what was cool was an aggressive, nihilistic outlook on life. While the brand produced both adult and youth apparel, it was always more unsettling to see a kid sporting a shirt with the phrase "He who dies with the most toys, still dies." For one, the punctuation is pretty questionable. Is this the level of comma misuse we want to bestow unto our children?



Created by race car driver Brian Simo and friends in 1989, the No Fear brand quickly ascended to popularity in the early-to-mid 1990s. Most of the shirts offered up semi-inspirational sports quotes with a sole focus on winning, defeating others, never losing, and...well, you get the idea. According to No Fear, even coming in second was a sure sign of longstanding failure. These sentiments were a far cry from the touchy-feely "At least you tried!" attitudes of today. According to No Fear, there was no trying, only winning. That sounds like a pretty healthy attitude, right?

No Fear presented a very machismo-esque black-and-white view of the world, mainly that our self worth hinged on our ability to shoot baskets or make game-winning goals. Self-proclaimed macho sportsmen took to the streets in No Fear-adorned pickup trucks and SUVs, proudly displaying bumper stickers or over-sized decals. This practice declared your extreme, anti-establishment, tough-guy attitude. Everyone knows that an obstructed view through your rear window is for pansies.
The problem with the No Fear message was that it wasn't really a message at all. People quickly bought into the notion as some sort of ideology to live by, but it was really just a gimmick to sell some crappy athletic t-shirts. "No Fear" wasn't a way of life or a religion. Truthfully, "No Fear" wearers were probably most afraid of outing themselves as fear-mongering frauds. The false bravado of the t-shirt just hid the ultimate fear of failure. Plus, it made them look like a total tool. I mean, really. Just awful.

No Fear shirts quickly became the daily uniform of many boys and young men, or at least when their Stussy and Mossimo shirts were in the wash. These shirts were arguably a step above the "Coed Naked" and "Big Johnson" t-shirts, but not by much. For bonus points and to achieve the 90s athletic apparel trifecta, a guy could even pair their No Fear shirt with Umbros and a Starter Jacket. It may not have been pretty, but dammit it was stylish.



It wasn't long before the moral-minded knockoffs started rolling off the copyright-infringing assembly lines. Just like the innumerable "Got Milk?" parodies, many religious organizations began parodying No Fear's signature t-shirts and replacing the win-at-all-costs aggressiveness with faith-friendly slogans. Seemingly overnight we were seeing these well-intentioned knockoffs everywhere; phrases like "Fear God" and "No Fear, Got Faith" were popular variations. The producers of these shirts meant well, I'm sure, but the overall effect was less than desirable. After all, the only thing worse than wearing a No Fear shirt was wearing a parody No Fear shirt.

The brand's popularity peaked in the mid-90s and the craze quietly petered out. People soon found new, similarly tool-ish decals to pollute their rear window views, and No Fear seemed to fade into relative obscurity. While once you couldn't turn a corner without being bombarded with No Fear's single-minded message of winning and defying society, it seemed everyone's shirts had quieted down considerably. Clothing no longer spoke to me about my growing sense of failure and inadequacy; it was all drowned out by the far more upbeat ads for Gap khakis and Old Navy fleece vests.

It appears No Fear is still churning out t-shirts, but their current style offerings look like a poor man's Ed Hardy. That is, a watered-down version of the Jon Gosselin-patented douchebag-at-a-distance identification system. To put it another way, our over-tanned pals on Jersey Shore would look right at home fist-pumping at the club in any item from the present-day No Fear line.* So, like the shirts say, have no fear: these babies are here to stay.


*Depending on your penchance for trashy reality TV, the above comparisons could yield disgust or could go over your head entirely.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Ubiquitous 80s and 90s Advertising Slogans


An effective and memorable advertising campaign can be both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, a phrase associated with your product will be forever embedded in your consumers' minds. On the other, they will probably find this mentally inextricable campaign to fall somewhere between mildly irritating and hair-tearingly unbearable. So to review, yes, they'll remember it, but they'll also grow to hate it. Sort of a mixed bag if I ever saw one.

Adhering to the age-old adage of "all publicity is good publicity", these advertising agencies pushed forward with these catchy campaigns that with repeated viewing came to resemble nails on a chalkboard. Regardless, if we're still remembering them a decade later, it must be a testament to their effectiveness. Here are just a few of the ads that populated our favorite TV blocks and haunted our dreams throughout the 80s and 90s:




Where's the Beef? (Wendy's)


There must be something to be said for repetition. By my count, the old broad on the right croaks, "Where's the beef?" three times in a thirty second spot. No wonder we all remember it so well: they were essentially drilling it into our consciousness with these ads.

The ad served to showcase the perceived poor ratio of bun-to-burger we find at most fast food restaurants. Not at Wendy's, though, according to our elderly spokesfriend Clara Peller. She's not sold on that all bun/mini burger combo and is quick to question the relative location of her cow byproducts, and with good reason. Nice going, Clara. You tell it like it is.

"Where's the Beef?" became such a popular slogan that 1984 presidential candidate Walter Mondale actually adopted it for his campaign, accusing fellow Democrat-in-the-running Gary Hart of being all show and little substance. Admittedly, Mondale didn't ascend to the presidency either, but you have to admire his cajones for adopting a fast food slogan as a debate point.



Got Milk? (Milk)


The Got Milk? ads are still circulating, but they premiered and reached their peak popularity in the 90s. Above is the first television spot in which an Aaron Burr fanatic fails to win the $10,000 radio call-in prize about, you guessed, it, Aaron Burr. And why, do you ask, were his noble Burr-loving efforts thwarted? Why, a peanut butter sandwich of course. With no milk to wash it down. All sandwich and no milk makes a very sad boy. Or at least one out $10,000. It seems the message here was fail to drink milk, miss out on valuable contest prize opportunities. You don't have to tell me twice.

The ads featuring the trademark mustache ran in many popular magazines, showcasing milk mustachioed celebrities with a blurb about their calcium-rich lifetstyles. We'll just ignore that many of the young starlets featured in these ads went on to lead drug-addled, eating-disordered, generally troubled lives and chalk their resilience up to milk-related bone strength.

To read the full article about the Got Milk? campaign, click here



Wassup? (Budweiser)



This ad is proof that more irritating your ad, the more likely it is to catch on as a general societal phenomenon. These Budweisers commercials feature a group of beer-drinkin', football watchin' fellas greet each other on the phone with the phrase, "Whasssssup?" There was a certain inflection and accompanying head-shaking movement that made the phrase distinctive from its less idiotic counterpart, "What's Up?"

The ad was actually based on a short film entitled True, which was basically the "Whassssup?"-loving premise we see here only with less direct product placement. That film caught the attention of someone over at Anheuser-Busch, and the rest was irritating catch phrase-spewing history. This ad was shown so often and parodied so frequently that it was quickly woven into the fabric of our daily speech patterns. I will admit, I did like the international version of the ad Budweiser put out. When that Japanese guy bellows, "Konichiwaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?" I just melt a little inside.



Yo Quiero Taco Bell (Taco Bell)



There's nothing like good old fashioned animal ethnic stereotyping to bring something fresh and fun to the fast food advertising table. Thanks to Taco Bell, I can't imagine any of my friend's chihuahuas speaking in anything other than a Mexican accent. Granted, they don't really speak so much as yip, but I'd prefer to not feel guilty over my racial profiling-style translation of their yips into requests for cheesy gorditas.

Taco Bell's chihuahua became a very popular advertising icon, and his trademark phrase, "Yo Quiero Taco Bell" quickly rose to catch phrase status. All this dog did was walk down the street, proclaim his desire for Taco Bell in Spanish, and everyone loved him. It seems the second you throw another language into the mix, the ad suddenly becomes exotic and interesting to the general public. I can't imagine we'd have reacted the same to a Staten Island Taco Bell Dog.



I Want to Be Like Mike (Gatorade)



In 1992, who didn't want to be like Mike? We were all in awe of the basketball star's incredible prowess on the courts, and if Gatorade promised to make us just a little more Mike-like, well, then we were going to take them at their word. I drank hundreds of Gatorades and have yet to make a jump shot. How do you explain that one, Gatorade? Huh?



Keeps Going and Going and Going (Energizer)



Though most of us 90s kids wouldn't know it from our own respective childhoods, the Energizer Bunny actually started as a parody of their battery-producing rival Duracell's trademark Duracell Bunny. I know, right? A Duracell bunny? Who knew? The popularity and resonance of Energizer's mascot far outlived its competition, and its Energizer Bunny soon became a highly recognizable character. I mean, he wears wayfarer sunglasses and plays a marching band-style drum. What's not to like?



What Would You Do For a Klondike Bar? (Klondike)



The people at Good Humor-Breyers just knew that we were all gaga for the rich chocolatey ice-creamy taste of their trademark Klondike Bars. So they posed us a simple question: What would you do for a Klondike Bar? According to their commercials, it seemed we'd do quite a bit. The ads were definitely memorable, but they also made me seriously question my candy-coated ice cream intervention. I'm still working on my 12 step program. I'm just about to apologize to my dog in the above ad for mocking him just to get my fix. Sorry, Fido.



Just Do It (Nike)


What exactly is this mysterious "it"? We may never know, but at least Nike dropped us all some helpful hints in the slogan's premiere ad spot in 1988. "It" must be some sort of athletic ball, though its exact specifications are never clarified. I guess we'll just have to keep buying Nike products till we find out. I have a feeling that Swoosh will eventually point us in the right direction, though I can't be sure.



Once You Pop, You Can't Stop (Pringles)


Yes, that's right: not only did this decade's advertising campaigns encourage us to embrace our addiction to Klondike Bars, we were supposed to take on the Pringle fix as well. I'm not exactly sure what all of these addiction-themed ads are trying to tell us about the relationship between advertising and susceptibility to addiction, but I don't think I want to know. I can't even look at a duck anymore without picturing myself in full on Pringle duck-bill mode. That's how far this has gone. Are you happy now, Pringles? Well? Are you?



Pardon Me, Would You Have any Grey Poupon? (Grey Poupon)


When I think class and upper crustiness, the first place my mind usually goes is mustard. I can't help it. I know they must eat caviar and filet mignon also, but my childhood advertising never exposed that side of wealthy living to me. No, all I got was the Grey Poupon angle. Apparently, if you're classy and you drive a Rolls Royce, people are bound to trouble you for some Grey Poupon so you sure as hell better have some on hand. I mean, can you imagine the humiliation if another Rolls pulls up alongside yours and you don't even have any mustard to offer? For shame.



I've Fallen, and I Can't Get Up! (LifeAlert)



Okay, okay. I admit it. This one is such an easy target. It just oozes a corniness and poor reenactment quality that rivals any grainy black and white fake footage I've seen in those Discovery documentaries about unknowing pregnancies. And let me tell you, that's no easy feat.

Despite the fact that our narrator informs us that she was allegedly "deathly ill", she still summoned the mental wherewithal to press her LifeAlert button. Now that's a powerful system. Death doesn't stand a chance against it. Whether it's Mr. Miller's poorly acted chest pains or Mrs. Fletcher's trademark falling/inability to get up, this commercial was really asking to be mocked. If you're trying to convince children to respect the elderly, I'd advise never showing them this commercial. Even after the laughter eventually dies down, they're doomed to forever think of the old as both helpless and in desperate need of acting classes. Not exactly the respectable combination they may have hoped for.

To read the full post on the I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up! campaign, click here




Whether or not you'd like to admit it at this juncture in your life, most of us shamelessly repeated these refrains as if we'd discovered the golden ticket to comedic exceptionality. At one point or another, you probably pretended to be a Rolls Royce patron in desperate need of spiced mustard or a Chihuahua seeking his favored cheesy sour cream chalupas. It's time to embrace your embarrassing youthful slogan parroting and remember these campaigns for what they were: brilliant forays into the realm of eternal memory. Someday we may be old and senile, but we will probably still quip from our adjustable hospital beds about the addictive qualities of Pringles or the basketball skill-affirming powers of Gatorade. Now that's good advertising.

Monday, November 9, 2009

80s and 90s Spontaneous Movie Group Dance Scenes Where Everyone Knows Exactly What to Do

Photo: LA Times


All movies require a certain degree of suspended disbelief. We know and understand that these words and images do not constitute real life, nor should they. If we wanted real life, we'd go out and live it. If we want a brief period of escapism, we shell out ten bucks to watch other people lead more exciting lives.

Despite this understanding that movies should not be taken as real life, there are some scenes that make it more difficult than others. In real life, very few of us are trained dancers who have spent grueling hours under the guidance of professional choreographers and stage blockers. In movies, though, we're just supposed to ignore the fact that the cast has put in hours of dance rehearsals (or better yet, have body doubles) and just assume that there lives are just so exciting and carefree that it's impossible to not spontaneously break into well-organized group dancing. It's awfully convenient when someone spontaneously breaks out into dance and their costars know all the complex prechoreographed steps, but we just accept it as movie truth.

This trick was especially prominent in 80s and 90s movies, with directors throwing in a spontaneous eruption of dance whenever things seemed to be getting a little slow. Nothing like a foray into the art of dance to get things moving again. Except, you know, some plot twists and character developments. Honestly, though, that would probably be asking too much from these films. It's almost better to just take their cop-out flashy spontaneous dance distractions for what they are.

Regardless of their plot-thickening merit, these scenes are pure fun. They're almost enough to make us wish our current coworkers would toss aside their desk chairs and assemble into formation for a grandiose musical number. Until that happens, though, you'll have to rely on these clips to hold you over for your spontaneous dance fix:



She's All That


Let's start strong here with the classic 90s teen movie example, She's All That. This movie is not exactly grounded in high school reality, so it's not wonder they were able to pull off this spontaneous eruption of choreographed prom dancing. Depending on your definition of "pulling off", of course. The scheming prom attendees got down to the Rockerfeller Skank by Fatboy Slim, proving that a movie doesn't need a wealth of substance to crank out a spontaneous dance number. Well played, She's All That.



Encino Man


I'm not embarrassed to admit my boyfriend and I watched this entire movie in full this weekend. Okay, I lied, I'm incredibly embarrassed. What I thought was a hilarious caveman comedy is actually possibly the worst movie ever made, though this glaring fact won't stop me from loving it unconditionally. This ending dance scene was indeed the inspiration for this entire post, so I refuse to concede that I wasted 88 minutes of my life engrossed in this glaringly awful piece of 90s cinematic ridiculousness. The entire movie is so hokey and nonsensical, this dance number almost seems like a shot of realism.



Austin Powers


As a parody, Austin Powers was a prime candidate for a group dance number. It was already mocking everything these movies stood for, so why not throw in some groovy swinging moves well-timed to catchy theme music? It was a dance that spurned a thousand imitators, each more annoying than the last, but you must admit the original was pretty entertaining.




Ferris Bueller's Day Off


I've never been in a marching band so I can't say for sure, but I imagine it's not the kind of thing you can just orchestrate with a snap of your fingers. Unless you're Ferris Bueller, that is, in which case the world is your parade float. Like I said, though, I'm not expert in this arena, so it's possible my inexperience as a marching band member is throwing off my judgment a bit.

In this now-classic scene, Ferris performs a spur-of-the-moment show-stopping version of "Twist and Shout" atop a parade float at the Von Steuben Day Parade in Chicago. Everyone joins in on the dancing, from his Oktoberfest costume-clad floatmates to scaffolding-bound construction workers. It's classic John Hughes: totally over the top, yet almost believable in the moment.



Footloose


This one isn't quite a stretch considering the whole movie hinges on a dancing equals social freedom plot line, but the dancing is great nonetheless. You've got to admit, these kids seem incredibly at ease with their moves for people who've never danced a step in their lives. Just saying.



Breakfast Club

Breakfast Club Dance from Brandon McGhee on Vimeo.



I still can't watch this clip without yearning for Molly Ringwald's awesomely 80s dance moves. This scene embodies the movie because it pounds each character's two-dimensional stereotype into our heads with their personality-specific dance moves. The wild one is going crazy, the nerd's nerding out, the weird one is going nuts. We get it, they're all different. I'm not sure if I could have grasped at that conclusion without the help of this handy dance scene.



Teen Wolf


Do the wolf, man. Or is it...do the Wolfman? We may never know for sure. Either way, it's cheesy 80s school dancing at its finest.



Fame


I admit, with its 1980 release date it's pretty unlikely many of us children of the 90s grew up with this one, but the scene is just such a classic example of the spontaneous group dance I would be depriving you by leaving it out. At least in this case, most of the group in question is actually made of trained dancers, so it fits in well. Plus, it's just a really catchy song. I'm pretty sure if someone started singing it while I was on the street, I'd bust a move or two also. Probably two.


Reality Bites


This movie was meant to be the defining Generation X film, so it's fair enough that this group doesn't go for the all-out choreography. They're far too cynical and angsty for something that mainstream. No, they're content with their makeshift moves certain to humiliate Ethan Hawke's character. Can you blame him, really? I'm not saying the gas station attendant is there to judge, but if I were him I certainly would be. If nothing else, I'd be judging the hell out of Janeane Garafalo's bangs. What is up with those?


These movies may not be especially reflective of real life, but they're entertaining enough to almost make us believe that a crowd could instinctively just feel the moment was right for breaking into some serious dance moves. Our everyday lives may not contain copious amounts of extemporaneous group choreography, but that just makes it all the more fun to watch.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Girly Board Games


Male readers, you may just have to bear with me on this one. Actually, maybe you should use this as a welcome opportunity to bask in the notion that board games targeted at your demographic did not limit your life goals to princessery and shopping. You guys got to be ninjas and surgeons and we got to worry about getting a zit before our dates. And you wonder why we don't have a woman president yet. She'd probably get a zit before the big inaugural ball and concede. Damn you, Girl Talk, and your powerfully brain-dead life lessons.

I'd like to say this was an isolated phenomenon of archaic norms, and it was what I was planning on saying until I took a stroll down the toy aisle today at Target. Lo and behold, High School Musical Dream Date. That's So Raven Girl Talk. Hannah Montana Mall Madness. As if the frighteningly stereotypical girly game offerings weren't morally void enough, we've added new corporate sponsors and Disney tie-ins. Ah, the sweet scent of moral apathy. Now that's progress.

This genre were certainly not exclusive to the 80s and 90s, though it is more surprising that we upheld such outmoded norms this late in the game (some pun intended). With an increasing focus on gender equality, it seems that game producers chose to ignore any feminist progress and steer us straight toward the mall where they felt we belonged. All we needed was a fake credit card and some plastic crowns and we'd be back on track in no time.

Here is a light (pastel, if you will) selection of the games that kept girls beneath the plastic ceiling* of legitimate board game accomplishment:


Girl Talk



Girl Talk was a sort of innocent-ish truth or dare game that came with preset questions in board game format. It was also a teeny bit like MASH, as our accumulated points won us "fortune cards" that told of our future. Of course, according to Girl Talk, the future we yearned for was focused on marriage, career, children, and so-called "special moments". I'd like to give them some credit for including career, but if the game saddled you with a deadbeat husband and 12 kids, you were pretty stuck.

It being a parent-sanctioned game, the questions and dares were pretty tame. Dares included tasks like "Call a local radio station and dedicate a song to a boy you like!" "Make a prank phone call and hang up!" or "Lap water out of a bowl like a dog!" If you failed to perform the dares, you had to don a bright red zit sticker. On the plus side, if you agreed to be scorekeeper you were to be addressed as "Point Princess". Overall, not a bad deal.


Mall Madness



I know I've ranted on this one before, but it's so truly deserving of relentless bashing. Very few games are so shameless in their complete disregard of all things morally grounded. Mall Madness not only takes the cake on that one, it teaches us to put it on our credit card. We raced around chasing sales and scrambling back to the ATM for cash, which is just what 9-year old girls should be learning about.

The electronic version gave us an eerily disembodied voice, cheerily delivering commands to us. My all-time favorite is "You left your lights on! Go to the parking lot!" Now we're not only frenzied consumers, but vapid ones at that. It's only a few notches up from Teen Talk Barbie's "Math is hard!" and that's being generous.l


For the full post on Mall Madness, click here


Pretty Pretty Princess



This was amongst the most coveted of little girl games, teaching us at a young age that it's okay to play games as long as you end up with some jewelry. Many of us went on to build romantic relationships on that very notion.

The object of the game was to be the first player to collect our designated color of ring, earring, bracelet, and necklace plus the almighty crown. That damn black ring would always thwart our well-intentioned efforts, so we'd have to pawn it off on someone else in order to win. I'm not sure if there was any actual educational value to this game, but it did teach us how to cunningly set up our friends for failure.


Girl Talk: Date Line


I will admit that this game had me totally fooled. I thought that they'd come up with some fantastic technology that somehow converted my boombox cassette player into a predictor of romantic matches. You'd put a boy card and a girl card into this mysterious contraption and a conversation would play from the tape to see if it was a match or not. Only later did I discover that if I played the tape without plugging in that stupid little pink box, it had the exact same conversations. Obviously Milton Bradley doesn't think very highly of young girls if they thought we'd play this over and over again without growing suspicious. Then again, they had me fooled, so maybe they were right on.


Electric Dream Phone



In an age before all 8-year olds had cell phones, this game was awesome, if only because we briefly got to pretend we had our very own phones. It was kind of like Guess Who, only for squealing boy-crazy little girls eager to call up some totally buff hotties. We all went out in search of our secret admirers, though sometimes our hints were not so secret if someone pulled that speakerphone card. We all crossed our fingers to hear the magic words, "You're right! I really like you." We'd spend the better part of our teen years trying to replicate that thrill.


Girl Talk Secret Diary:

I know, I know. How many versions of this game were they going to release? The correct answer was "as many as naive young girls will blindly consume", translating to quite a few. Each one more brainless and boy-crazy than the last, many of us nevertheless adored these games. This version was sort of a cop out, as it was admittedly less involved. It came with a massive diary of some girls secrets. We were supposed to care about them for some reason or other, plus it forced us to divulge our own. It was basically like a confessional with less priest or Real World staff, depending on how you look at it. That is, whether you were raised Catholic or by TV. Just in case you needed clarification on that one.


These may not have been the most enlightened toys on the market, but that didn't stop us from going after them like a pack of shopping-crazed jewelery-adorned date-seeking wolves**. We might not have come out from them smarter or better or stronger or...what was I saying? Oh yeah, these games were pretty worthless, but we loved them all the same. We're all probably a bit more superficial and vapid for it, but at least we've got the balls to cluck like a chicken when Girl Talk tells us to. If nothing more, our subconscious avoidance of zit stickers will serve us well in life. I know it keeps me on my toes.


*I was going to say glass ceiling, but no toy company would have included glass in any of their products. Their lawyers would never go for it.
**In other words, not like wolves at all

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Saturday Night Live 90s Commercial Parodies


The 90s may not have been the golden age of Saturday Night Live but it was certainly a consistently funny time for the show, featuring a versatile and talented cast willing to do almost anything for a laugh. True to SNL tradition, the era featured an abundance of parody commercials, spoofs featuring the cast actors that closely resembled and not-so-subtly mocked real television ad spots. So many of these fake commercials were so spot-on that they became indistinguishable from actual commercials. Save for the content matter, that is. I highly doubt "Oops I Crapped My Pants" would sell well on real store shelves, but SNL does an impressive job of making it seem almost plausible.

There were countless fake commercials throughout the years, but the 90s gave us many of our most memorable. If nothing else, this trip down SNL memory line is enough to make you miss Phil Hartman's unique skill at incredibly effective deadpan. Here are just a few of the satirical gems that entertained us between sketches:



Old Glory Insurance

Robot Attack Insurance

Chris | MySpace Video


In a time when many celebrities (Alex Trebek, Wilford Brimley) were out there hawking insurance, it was tough not to poke fun at the incredibly somber and humorless tone of their paid spokesperson delivery. This Old Glory bit definitely did the trick, spotlighting the dead-on deadpan intonation of Law & Order's Sam Waterston. He really had me going for awhile. I was almost certain this was a real ad, until they brought on the robots. Waterston, completely straight-faced, announced that killer robots were among the leading causes of death among the elderly. Without his pitch-perfect delivery, this could have been a dud, but Waterston definitely brought it. I was practically at my phone frantically dialing Old Glory for robot protection, and I was only ten. The robots weren't even after me yet.


First Citywide Change Bank


The voice-over confidently proclaims, "When you only do one thing, you do it better." It seems almost like a legitimate tagline for a bank. That one thing, however, was making change. As in changing monetary denominations. The proud and suave bank manager (Jim Downey) asserts, "We have been in this business a long time. With our experience, we're gonna have ideas for change combinations that probably haven't occurred to you. If you have a fifty-dollar bill, we can give you fifty singles. We can give you forty-nine singles and ten dimes. We can give you twenty-five twos. Come talk to us." And so it went, with helpful examples endless recombinations of change. Every aspect from the camera angles to the lighting to the booming voice-over was so similar to the real thing, you'd almost wish they would give you twenty singles, two tens, one five, eight quarters, forty nickels, and a hundred pennies. Wait, is that fifty? You shouldn't count on my skills, I couldn't even get through 8th grade Number Munchers the other day.

Bug-Off


In a time when some pest control agencies were focusing on humane treatment, Bug-Off would definitely have stood out in its approach. As an alternative to the paralyzing poison used by its real-life competitors, Bug-Off tears off the roaches legs, scorches its reproductive organs, beats it to unconsciousness with its own limbs, stuffs cotton in every opening, and torments it with out-of-reach morsels of food. All through a clear viewing window to boot! Now that's a show. It admits that it won't kill the roach, but it will "give him plenty to think about". After all, isn't that what we want from our roach-killers? A thought-provoking experience for our victims. Sold.

Crystal Gravy


During the ongoing cola wars, Pepsi released Crystal Pepsi, a ridiculous attempt to fool people into thinking that clear beverages were purer and less tainted. Never mind that the new product had pretty much the exact same makeup as the original, save for the dark syrupy color. Using the same "Right Now" background music as the original, SNL gave us Crystal Gravy. I know, I know. Ew. It did effectively showcase the stupidity of Crystal Pepsi's premise. Still, though. Gross.


The Love Toilet


Some of these ads weren't necessarily based on real-life products, but were just ridiculous tangential ideas likely thought up by their writers at three in the morning. I imagine the Love Toilet fell into this category. The voice-over asked sexily, "Why not share the most intimate moment of them all?" Again, ew. The Love Toilet was a side-by-side toilet, made for couples to share this, um, special time. It was certainly a novel idea, I'll give you that.


Super Colon Blow


With a rise in health-consciousness, many commercials played to our sense of nutritional superiority. Super Colon Blow did a fine job of mocking cereals like Total, with the voice-over imploring Phil Hartman to guesstimate just how many bowls of his regular cereal he'd need to equal the fiber content of Colon Blow. Correct answer? 30,000 bowls. Yikes. Sorry I'd asked. As for Super Colon Blow? A whopping 2.5 million in fiber exchange rate. Hartman was catapulted skyward on the aforementioned bowls, giving us the visual fright of colon-blasting fiber. Ouch.


Bathroom Monkey


Really, who is more prototypically 90s than Janeane Garofalo? Her stint on SNL may have been brief, but she did give us this memorable commercial. Yes, it's silly, but that's the whole point. It looks like an average cleaning product testimonial ad spot but with one twist: the product in question is actually a monkey. Janeane muses, "Idon't know where monkeys come from.. I don't know how they reproduce.. I don't know how they eat. But I do know one thing: they were born to clean bathrooms." With a smile, she continues, "And when it's cleaning power is all used up.. (throws away used monkey)..simply pick up another in any of three decorative colors: Red..(cut to monkey in red diaper)..Blue..(cut to monkey in blue diaper) ..or Orangutan". The voice-over helpfully intones, "Orangutan will not wear diaper". Sure, it makes no sense, but you've got to admit it's funny. Disturbing, yes, but funny.


Bad Idea Jeans



90s Dockers commercials were enough to drive anyone crazy after a few viewings, so the Bad Idea Jeans parodies absolutely came at an opportune comedic time. Like the Dockers ad, this featured casual conversation between regular men. The difference? I don't think any Dockers ad star would utter, "Now that I have kids, I feel much better having a gun in the house". At least, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't.

Happy Fun Ball


To avoid lawsuits, more and more ads in the 90s were tacking on every imaginable disclaimer. It wasn't quite at today's levels (today an Ambien commercial told me I might experience sleep eating/ driving and more outgoing and aggressive behavior with memory loss and hallucinations) but it was a growing trend. The Happy Fun Ball commercial aptly pokes fun at these ever-increasing warnings. It could cause everything from itching to temporary blindness, and of course if it begins to smoke, you shouldget away immediately, seek shelter and cover your head. Sounds harmless enough, right?

Oops I Crapped My Pants



I do realize these ads are abundant in bathroom humor, but that's probably why we got such a kick out of them as kids. In this spoof of a Depends ad, we see a kindly old couple with their granddaughter. The young girl asks her grandmother to play tennis, but the old woman looks pained and says she needs to "sit this one out". Up until this point, this could be an actual ad. I was pretty convinced until they revealed the product in question to be "Oops I Crapped My Pants". Other than the name, every other element of the ad is pretty much right on point with a real Depends commercial. How can you not laugh at old people saying "Oops, I Crapped My Pants"? That's like saying you didn't laugh when that LifeAlert lady fell and couldn't get up. For shame.


Yes, many of these ads employed shameless tricks and ploys to get us to laugh, but more often than not it seemed to work. In many cases, the parodies were so on target that it became tough to tell whether we were watching the show or the commercial break. No target was too big or small to be the subject of mocking in these short fake ad spots. Whether our interest was in ruthlessly maiming bugs and leaving them to die while watching through a viewing window or safeguarding ourselves from the inevitable onslaught of giant killer robots, Saturday Night Live was there with a laugh.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Popular Young Adult Books Series of the 90s

Image via fantasticfiction.co.uk

What's that old saying? Why write one good book when you can milk a hundred mediocre attempts on the same premise? Something like that. So maybe it doesn't have such resonating wisdom to it, but hey, I don't have a whole team of ghostwriter underlings to do my bidding and come up with something a bit more inspired like the evil geniuses behind franchises like Sweet Valley High.

Admittedly many of our favorite series did indeed come from a single author source, though some of them pulled it off more cunningly than others. I like farfetched plot twists as much as the next person, but things sometimes had a tendency to get out of hands when authors were given the gift of infinite access to the same characters in an unlimited combination of variable situations.

Though the topics and literary value of these series varied significantly from one to the other, they were all legitimate enterprises. Publishers love series for their reliability rather than their quality, and they can certainly get away with a great deal more when dealing with younger and less discerning readers. While some of these series were well-written and twisty plot-filled, others were embarrassingly more juvenile than their intended target audience. Wherever they happen to fall on the quality spectrum, one thing was for sure: book-hungry kids ate this stuff up. Without further ado, a smattering of our most beloved and sometimes inexplicably bestselling young adult series:


Goosebumps



Children's horror series were a lucrative niche genre in the 90s. If you were so imaginatively inclined to be able to think up ridiculous tongue-in-cheek plots that wouldn't stand a chance at being made into a C movie, then you were pretty much golden. Kids went crazy for this stuff. It was sort of scary in an innocent, comical way that kept us coming back for more. Sometimes the concepts were a tad frightening, but the plots were so absurd and twist-filled that it tended to give us more head bumps than goosebumps. From all the facepalming, that is. I do distinctly remember finding the mask and that camp jellyblob thing to be a bit on the nightmare-inducing side, but then again Men in Black gave me nightmares as a kid so maybe you shouldn't take my word for it.

They also had a fair run in television form, featuring this jazzy intro with creepy glowing-eye dog:



Babysitters' Club




Tween girls were a highly desirable reader demographic in the 90s, particularly as it seemed we were pretty much willing to read anything and everything. I had a rather undying love for the girls of the babysitters' club, remaining fiercely loyal to them even in the face of their complete and total stereotypical ridiculousness. These girls were not exactly three dimensional. They essentially taught me that I could be one of a few character molds: the brassy tomboy, the diabetic fashion model, the California hippie, the shy one, the defiant artistic anti-intellectual Asian one, the nerd, or the black ballerina. I was pretty sure these were my only viable life choice paths once I hit middle school.

The BSC was franchising at its finest, featuring all sorts of additional merchandise, a feature film, and a television series with a theme song that my college friends may or may not have included on a road trip mix. I'll give you a hint: they did.


I owned all of these individual episodes on VHS ordered through the magic of Scholastic book orders. I'll give you a moment to calm your jealousy.




Animorphs




Under closer inspection, it seems that 80s and 90s teen series fell into one of two categories: bitchy preteen girls with growing-up type problems or over-the-top science fiction/horror. That is to say, either incredibly girly or with gory details to appeal to a male demographic. Animorphs fell more into the latter category with its characterization of a group of preteens who had the ability to change into animals in their efforts to quash a secret alien rebel force. Yep, these disgusting outer-space slugs would shimmy into your ear canal and turn you into an alien zombie, but luckily we've got a couple of kids on our side who can morph into housecats.

Animorphs was also granted a short run as a Nickelodeon series:




Fear Street



What happens to kids when they graduate from Goosebumps? They move on to Fear Street, of course. Goosebumps author RL Stine aged his characters a couple of years, threw in some particularly gory scenes, and made brutal murder an inevitable and unavoidable aspect of any plot. Sounds fun, right? The series is loosely tied together in the same way Goosebumps books were, rarely featuring the same characters but rehashing the same themes book after book. It's tough to say whether these would hold tight with today's kids--if anything, they'd have to suffice as the poor man's Twilight. I'm not too ashamed to admit I had RL Stine sign my well-thumbed copy of Fear Street: The New Girl at a Mall of America booksigning. I did, however, soon thereafter realize I have no patience for mysteries. Sorry, RL.



Sweet Valley High





These were pretty much my bible growing up, so you can only imagine how shocked I was to find out as an adult just how god-awful they really are. I mean honestly. Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield were nothing short of my idols as a kid, and now I hear that they're actually insufferable? Who was I to know? I was so entranced and drawn in by the ghostwriters' incredibly repetitive rehashing of their blonde hair, blue-green eyes, California good looks, and perfect size-six figures that I was blinded to the ridiculousness that was their overblown stereotypes of personalities. Jessica (also known as the cool one) was essentially the worst person in the world and Elizabeth (the smart one) made Pollyanna look like Al Capone. And I also learned a valuable lesson: you can tell popular people from nerdy brainiacs by the way they wear their hair. A ponytail is a dead giveaway for being the nerdy twin.

Though these books veered into some pretty outlandish directions (vampires, werewolves, viscount boyfriends), they did manage to keep it toned down for the brief run of the TV-series, which focused mainly on their regular Sweet Valley lives.


I always thought the twins who played the girls on TV were way too slutty-looking to be Jess and Liz. Either way, I totally owned a Sweet Valley High board game and had full collections of Sweet Valley Kids, Sweet Valley Twins, Sweet Valley High, and Sweet Valley University. I imagine that my family singlehandedly supported Francise Pascal's enterprise.



Harry Potter


I will no doubt have to better explore Harry Potter in its own full post as it's a legitimate phenomenon in a way few of these others are. I'm also willing to give credit where credit is due and concede the books are far better written and well-conceived than any of the others on this list. In short, Harry Potter made being nerdy cool in its own way. The content was undeniably fantastical and imaginative in a manner compatible with extreme geekiness, yet everyone seemed enthralled by them. Perhaps in the way media like Star Wars gave geeks an outlet of kind of cool make-believe people to admire, Harry Potter managed to simulataneously win readers with nerds and well, everyone else. You'd be pretty hard-pressed to find someone who hasn't at least read one of these books.

Harry Potter is the ultimate money-making franchise, far outliving its rival book series peers. The big-budget fantasy adventure film adaptations don't fare too poorly, either:





Help! I'm Trapped...




Did you know that you can write 16, count 'em, 16 books that have titles beginning with "Help! I'm Trapped in (insert entrapment device or body here)"? Because you totally can. Todd Strasser made a healthy living off of doing just that, trapping our pals in everything from their teachers' bodies to the first day of doggie obedience school. Actually, we got to go to obedience school twice, so I'm somewhat suspicious that he just ran out of ideas.


By the by, it wouldn't hurt to check out some of these young adult book blogs if the YA series dosage in this post didn't quell your 90s YA book withdrawal. Enjoy!

Dibbly Fresh
Shannon's Sweet Valley Blog
Are You There Youth? It's Me, Nikki

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