Double Dare

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Why don't we offer the Physical Challenge as a viable alternative to difficult tasks anymore? It always worked for our pals on Double Dare. Just picture it. You're in a crowded classroom taking your bar exam and you come across an exceptionally confounding question. Imagine how much simpler things would be if you could simply alert the proctor you were going to take the Physical Challenge instead. You'd get up from your desk, put on the giant clown pants, and proceed to catch flying pies catapulting toward you at breakneck speed. "Pie in the Pants" was a credible recourse for baffled minds on 90s kids game shows; why not extend it to other arenas? At the very least, it would give some much needed excitement and spontaneity to those boring hours-long tests.

In actuality, not much of the Double Dare world translates into real life. It's a testament to the show's creators' creativity--or insanity, depending on your sense of whimsy and wonder. It was like some sort of alternate kid fantasy universe: children slimed their parents, slid down a giant Sundae Slide, and went home with armloads of cash and prizes. It was crazy and nonsensical and criminally messy, but it was undeniably pure kid-driven fun.

It's another one of those Nickelodeons 80s and 90s anomalies where you'd just got to wonder what was running through the network executives' respective heads when the Double Dare creators pitched them the show. "We open with a messy challenge, see. Then we move onto a random, disjointed trivia round that's actually an excuse to stump kids and have them opt for an even messier challenge. Next, the team with the most points attempts an utterly insane obstacle course, searching for flags in piles of sloppy food, swimming through vats of jello, running on a giant hamster wheel, and monkey barring their way over to the spewing Gak Geiser. If they make it, they go to space camp and get to thow up on one of those anti-gravity simulation spinny rides. How does that sound?" To which we can only imagine the Nickelodeon bigwigs replied, "Excellent! We'll take 500 episodes."

The show went through a series of reformatted and re-imagined incarnations, but the underlying structure remained the same. First up, we had Super Sloppy Double Dare:



It seems the major differentiating feature of Super Sloppy Double Dare was that it was not just regular sloppy but indeed super sloppy. The original version of Double Dare was messy, but SSDD brought disgusting sloppiness to a whole new level. The challenges existed for the sole purpose of creating the most explosive mess imaginable. This version had more thematic episodes and gimmicks, but the main change was probably in the significant increase in the number of janitors employed by the show.

There was the quickly-dropped Celebrity Double Dare concept:



This version never actually made it into production, so all we have to remember it by is this pilot footage. It was mostly like Double Dare, but everything was just a tiny bit off, meaning fans would probably never accept it. It was hosted by a feathered-haired Bruce Jenner, who depending on your generation is either that dashing Wheaties box-gracing Olympian or the frozen-faced dad on Keeping Up With the Kardashians.


Next up we had the popular Family Double Dare:

This clip hails from the Nickelodeon (not FOX) era. Just in case you were curious.

For this version, the show had a brief stint on the Fox network in a Saturday night timeslot. As the name implies, this version pitted two families against one another in lieu of all-kid teams. Teams included two parents and two children. Families cycled through the same segments as in the original Double Dare (Opening Stunt, Physical Challenges, Triva, Obstacle Course) but it was a new plane of funny to watch adults wade through knee-deep slime ravines. The show moved back to Nickelodeon in 1990, where it continued to humiliate parents everywhere through the cunning use of pies.

We also had Super Special Double Dare, which was basically a pared down retooling of Celebrity Double Dare. We had sports stars, Nick stars, and minor celebrities competing for charity. I don't know if it necessarily lived up to its promise of being Super Special, but it was at the very least averagely special.

Unfortunately, the Double Dare book didn't close then. There was actually a Double Dare 2000 version, or as 90s children may better know it, The Version That Shall Not Be Named. Heresy, I tell you. Um, hi, they called the Obstacle Course the Slopstacle Course. Really? Really? They should be ashamed of themselves. Where's my beloved host Marc Summers? What? Relegated to an executive consultant credit? For shame.


Can you believe this was already ten years ago? Depressing, no?

Speaking of Marc Summers, Double Dare and his ever-expanding portfolio of other Nickelodeon hosting duties turned him into the poster child for irony. Unbeknownst to the world (and to Marc, until he was diagnosed at age 43), Summers suffered from obsessive compulsive disorders. Yes, that's right. The man who brought us our daily dose of super sloppiness later went on to co-author the book, "Everything in its Place: My Trials and Triumphs with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder."



Double Dare lived on in syndicated reruns for many years following its 1992 cancellation. As Summers remarks in his book, "We had enough episodes on tape to do reruns forever." Indeed, the pure volume of episodes must speak to the high demand for this type of purely entertaining children's television programming. Yes, the show had a trivia question or two thrown in for good measure, but it was far from educational. It taught us something far more valuable: how to have fun and be kids. Oh, and how to dig a flag out of a Super Sloppy Blue Plate Special. I'm still thinking that one's going to come in handy someday.

The Ones that Got Away: 90s Shows that Ended with Cliffhangers

Do you ever wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, worrying yourself awake over Angela Chase's eventual choice of high school beau? Do you find your mind racing over the endless possibilities, considering the implications of taking a pro-Jordan or pro-Brian bias? No, no, of course you don't. That's what I'm here for. To carry your unshouldered burden of those unsolved 90s pop culture mysteries.

It's the ultimate case of The One That Got Away. We found a TV series we enjoyed, we became invested in the characters and plot lines, and then suddenly the reality of poor ratings and low ad revenues kicked in and the network would yank it from its lineup. This is disappointing in any case, but it's especially vexing when the writers leave important plot threads dangling. We never saw it coming. At least when a series that plans its own finale, we get that closure we so desperately crave. Everything wraps up neatly and we can all sleep soundly knowing that our characters have found their peace.

Sometimes, though, the writers may not know they're teetering on the brink of imminent cancellation. They write a season finale as a cliffhanger, hoping to keep their loyal viewers in suspense of a surprising twist in the next season's premiere episode. We're all waiting anxiously for our favorite show's return, eager for the answers to our most pressing plot questions when we hear the bad news: the show has been canceled. The canon on its storylines is officially closed, and we're left to speculate forever on the true nature of the show's intentions. I'm still vacillating over the whole Jordan/Brian ordeal, and it's been over ten years.


Home Improvement

Like many young girls of my time, the show started its decline in my mind the minute JTT left. It just wasn't the same without his endearing floppy-haired precociousness. Aside from my own bitterness at his departure, most viewers had a bigger issue with the iffy series finale. After nine years, you would think they would at least have given us a little something to hold onto.

The final episode features a wealth of deliberations for the Taylor family. Tim films his final Tool Time and producers beg him to stay. Jill gets a job offer to be a psychologist in Indiana. It looks like they're going to Indiana, moving their house one piece at a time...or are they? Yup, we potentially got Dallas'ed. Is it a dream? We'll never know.

They did, however, at least have the common courtesy to leave us with a cheesy montage and a final curtain call:





Caroline in the City

This show may not have been quite as culturally persevering as Home Improvement, but it did fare pretty well for awhile in NBC's Thursday night line-up. The writers dish up another heaping serving of What Might Have Been, though they leave us to ponder whether or not it will be. Caroline's all set to marry Richard, he tells her he doesn't really want kids, she freaks out a bit. Fast forward six months, Caroline's about to marry Randy, and wouldn't you know it, there's Richard! Who would've thought? Anyway, the clip isn't available anywhere on the interwebs, so you'll have to settle for this montage of Caroline and Richard and just hope that was the finale's intention.





Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman

Remember, if you can think back this far, a time before Terri Hatcher was a Desperate Housewife and Dean Cain a desperate Ripley's Believe it or Not host. In the 90s, these two embodied the updated Superman and Lois Lane. The series' last episode is a real puzzler, though. The two find a baby on their doorstep with a note. We don't get much more than that. They thought the show would get picked up for another season, but we were stuck with this ending. If it helps, though, one of the writers later revealed that the baby was a Krypton royal who they needed to shield from deadly assassins. I think I liked it better when I didn't know.





Moesha

Someone's pregnant! Moesha's brother's been kidnapped! It's all pretty exciting stuff, but unfortunately we don't get to find out what happened. They'd originally intended to resolve the issues on the spin-off The Parkers, but there just wasn't enough time. Besides, at that point, I'd lost interest anyway.





My So-Called Life

Ah, the classic cliffhanger ending. MSCL didn't have spectacular ratings, but it did gather a fiercely loyal fanbase. You can imagine the anger they felt when they found out that the eternal question of Angela's love life would never be resolved. Angela's all about hunky and semi-illiterate Jordan Catalano until she finds out at the end of the episode that his heartfelt love letter was ghostwritten by none other than geeky but kind-hearted Brian Krakow. Like I said earlier, this one still haunts me. I'm sort of a Brian fan, but I had a huge crush on Jared Leto. I don't know what I wanted, I just wanted an ending, dammit.





Models, Inc.

I'm still not totally sure why I loved this show as a kid. It wasn't particularly good, nor was it remotely appropriate for my young age. Regardless, I have a soft spot for this one and I'd really like to know how it all played out. This one was so bold to splash a big To Be Continued.... across the screen, meaning they were pretty cocky about their chances for a second season. There's a wedding, an assassin points a gun at several different characters, camera pans away, we hear a shot. And then...nothing. No answers. Several years down the road, E! aired an alternate ending that gave us some closure. Unfortunately, I never saw it. If any of you did, let me know what happened.

Oh, wait, never mind. Here it is. Thanks, YouTube!





Cybill

Did Cybill and Maryanne kill the infamous Dr. Dick or not? They thought not, just a simple blow-up-his-boat operation. Next, they're arrested for his murder. The show was canceled so suddenly, we never got a chance to find out what might have been. Either way, I think he deserved it.





Popular

I spent many of my high school years pondering the age-old question: was I Brooke or a Sam? I realize now that I'm probably not missing anything by not falling into the categories of bulimic cheerleader or repressed lesbian. I've really got to get some new role models.

Anyway, this show was, as the title implies, pretty popular for awhile. The WB pushed it into the black hole of the Friday night time slot and the ratings plummeted. The cliffhanger was pretty juicy, too--we probably all would've tuned in for a little tying-up of loose ends. Brooke's fellow cheerleader Nicole Julian gets drunk and runs over Brooke with her car. How could you not want to know what happened? My curiosity is pretty persistent.

I couldn't find the ending, so you'll have to settle for the intro. If you'll excuse me, I'm off to iTunes to go download that theme song.






We may never know what happened in most of these scenarios, but perhaps it's better off that way. Leaving the story open-ended lets it lives on and gives it a potential that probably exceeds whatever the writers would have actually come up with. They also taught us the valuable life lesson of learning to live with disappointment. Sure, I was upset when I didn't know how Home Improvement wrapped up, but it did prepare me for the continued grief associated with opening one of my current paychecks.


And for the record, Runner Up: Dallas. It got resolved in a TV movie, anyway. Plus, what kind of a 6-year old watched Dallas? I have no context for it. On the other hand, I watched Cybill, so my tastes may have been a bit more mature than I'd initially thought.

Blossom

Today, on a Very Special posting on Children of the 90s: Sex! Drugs! Drinking! Puberty! School Violence! If it's an issue you don't feel comfortable discussing with your adolescent child, have no fear. We'll do the heavy lifting for you! Simply listen for your cue (a deep, all-business voice intoning, "On a Very Special..."), turn on the tube, and let the TV do its responsible parental heart-to-heart magic.

Teen TV in the 80s and 90s was frequently preoccupied with addressing heavy moral issues. The shows would suck you in with their teenspeak and lighthearted humor (and in the case of Blossom, enviable headwear), and then pull a quick switcheroo into explications on ethical adolescent behavior. One day we'd be empathizing with a character's case of acne or bad hair day, and the next we'd be tricked into learning a Very Special valuable lesson about the consequences of our decisions.

In this Very Special Episode, Six gets completely wasted

Blossom was a pioneer in the burdgeoning field of Very Special Episoding. NBC would promise us that a forthcoming Blossom episode was one our families "could not afford to miss." Yes, that's right. In terms of familial moral currency, NBC billed Blossom as the most valuable moral stock available. In accordance with traditional after-school special norms, we watched as Blossom and friends battled a slew of ethical dilemmas. Unlike some of the cautionary tale after-school movies, Blossom and Co. usually emerged morally victorious, making the right decisions and resetting their moral odometers to squeaky clean.



Mayim Bialik starred as Blossom Russo, a quirky, perky teenager with a penchant for flower-adorned floppy hats. Her mother essentially backs out of her role in the family, leaving her ex-husband Nick to fend for Blossom and her older brothers Joey (a dim-witted jock) and Tony (a recovering addict). With a premise like that, things could have gotten very heavy very quickly in the series, but writers were smart enough to keep it pretty light at the outset. Rather than focusing on the hardships facing a family torn apart by circumstances, the show centered more on the day-to-day lives of Blossom, her family, and her friends.

Oh, and also sex, lies, and teenagers. Catchy title, huh?

The show quickly segued into more controversial topics, giving Blossom an edgier feel than many of its sappy 90s sitcom counterparts. In today's entertainment marketplace it would be considered pretty tame, but in the 90s the show was touted for its tackling of tough issues in a realistic way. Blossom's world was mostly pretty family-friendly, but every so often they veered into PG-13 territory. While some of us would groan at the announcement of yet another Very Special Blossom, parents often took the hint that the upcoming episode might not be suitable for their younger children. Like I said, Blossom was a bit ahead of its time. It had parental rating indicators way before the networks mandated the caveat.

Speaking to the cast, Bialik played a great "everygirl". Young girls related to her because she was ordinary, though they wouldn't have wanted to be related to her; that would spoil their chances with hunky brother Joey. I had a fairly serious crush on Joey (Joey Lawrence) back in my Blossom-watching days. Every time he uttered his signature "Whoa" my heart fluttered just a bit. Jenna von Oy co-starred as Blossom's best friend and quick-talking confidant Six. Yep, Six. Didn't you hear? The good people at Blossom decided it was a name.

To be honest, Six is likely to blame for a generation of children growing up talking at a speed totally incomprehensible to anyone over the age of 30. We all embody her legacy very time one of our grandparents says, "Can you repeat that honey? You're talking too fast." Curse you, Six. You've muddled my chances at ever becoming an adequate public speaker.

Older brother Tony (Michael Stoyanov) played out a role uncommon to most glossed over 90s sitcoms, portraying the life of a struggling addict in recovery. Most teen-centric sitcoms would have an episode or two where kids were tempted by alcohol or drugs (and to be fair, so did Blossom) but at the end of the day none of the major players ever seemed to know any actual perpetual users. While Tony's role certainly could have been darker, the show didn't sugarcoat the breadth of his daily struggles. You've got to give Blossom some credit for shedding light on a widespread issue once largely absent from network shows.

In addition to a well-rounded regular cast, Blossom brought in more than its fair share of impressive guest stars. The show boasted cameo appearances from celebrities like Hugh Hefner, Will Smith, and Mr. T. Even ALF came along for the ride, appearing in a bizarre crossover episode. Even though he was just a puppet, he was still a pretty big name in TV back then.

Check out Alf around the 8 minute mark

Blossom had edge but it wasn't groundbreaking. It didn't try to deny that sometimes teenagers act like teenagers and not like their counterparts in most sitcoms. The show let the kids make their mistakes, deal with the consequences, and live to tell about it. Plus, they got to wear awesome hats while doing it. What's not to like?

The 80s' and 90s' Oldest High Schoolers: Giving New Meaning to the Term "Senior"

When I get confused on a daily basis for a high school student, I don't let it faze me. Instead, I simply remind myself that I am probably younger than the average actor who plays a high school student in the movies or on TV. People think high schoolers look like 25 year olds because 25 year olds populate most of the high school roles: it's as simple as that. In contemporary shows like Glee, some of the actors playing the students (namely Cory Monteith and Mark Saling, both 27) are only four years younger than the actor playing their teacher (Matthew Morrison, 31). It's no wonder our perceptions are skewed; in Hollywood, it seems, one truly can stay 16 forever.

The problem with a movie franchise featuring a high-school age lead character is simple: that actor is going to age a lot faster than you can churn out those movies. So while the "...To be continued" might allegedly pick up the day after the original action, in reality the actors are a few years older. It's the same problem they're bound to have with those Twilight films. Unless Robert Pattinson really is a vampire and thus immortal (and based on his skin tone, I wouldn't automatically rule it out), he's probably going to stop looking 17 at some point.

The practice of casting 20-something actors as teens is a fairly common one. After all, it's far easier to deal with adult than a minor when casting actors. On the other hand, there's only so far you can push the age range and still reside comfortably in believable territory. Maybe some of you had 30-year old classmates in high school, but in my experience most of these actors would have garnered some questionable looks from their alleged peers if they showed up at the homecoming game.

The 80s and 90s had a lot of gross offenders, but the group listed here is among the most grievous:



Alan Ruck as Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off


Cameron's age: 18
Ruck's age when the movie was released in 1986: 29

I'm not much of a math person, but even I can figure this one out pretty easily. Alan Ruck was born in 1956, making him practically the same age as my parents. I was born in 1985, and I'm pretty sure my parents weren't high school seniors at the time. It just doesn't add up.

It's not whether or not we can appreciate his performance in Ferris Bueller; personally, I thought he was great. It's more that he was twice the age of some real-life high school students while playing one himself. To be fair, Matthew Broderick was in his 20s when he filmed the movies, but Mia Sara (Sloane) was actually 19. When you've got an actress 10 years younger than you giving you life advice onscreen as your peer, we've got a slight problem.



Gabrielle Carteris as Andrea Zuckerman on Beverly Hills, 90210


Andrea's age at the outset of 90210: 17
Carteris's age at the outset of 90210 in 1990: 29

It's one thing to play a part 10-plus years your junior for a one-time gig, but it's another entirely to commit to a long-running project under these pretenses. Carteris was 29 when she started on 90210, meaning that by the time of her departure in the fifth season she was probably old enough to have a high school son or daughter of her own. She was only 6 years younger than James Eckhouse, the actor who played Brenda and Brandon's dad. Then again, on a show where character's willfully name their children cutesily matchy names like Brenda and Brandon, perhaps hiring a 29 year old actor isn't your biggest problem.



Shannon Elizabeth as Nadia in American Pie


Nadia's age in American Pie: 18
Elizabeth's age when American Pie was released in 1999: 26

Thank goodness for Shannon Elizabeth's terrible fake European accent or else her age would have been the least believable aspect of her character in American Pie. Actually, I should take that back. Her boobs probably win that prize.



Michael J Fox as Marty McFly in Back to the Future III


Marty's age: 17
Fox's age when the movie was released in 1990: 29

Here's another case of an actor aging out of their original character in a franchise while preserving the illusion that they haven't changed a bit. In a movie that defines time travel so laxly, you'd think they could have written in a few extra years of life for Marty in between installments, but they all just kept picking up where the last one left off. I always liked this one better than Part II, though, so maybe I was a tad more willing to suspend my disbelief.



Meredith Monroe as Andie McPhee on Dawson's Creek


Andies's age when she first appeared on Dawson's Creek: 15
Monroe's age when he first appeared on Dawson's Creek in 1998: 30

Dawson's Creek made Monroe's extreme age discrepancy from her character a bit more stomachable by casting Kerr Smith as Andie's fraternal twin, Jack. Smith was no fresh-faced kid himself, debuting on the show at age 26. I'm not sure if any of you have ever seen a high school sophomore, but I'll give you a hint: they look much closer to 12 than 30. Of course, they are much closer to 12 than 30, but that's really beside the point.

To her credit, Monroe did have a pretty youthful appearance, but when she appeared in the series finale at age 36 the show may muddled its credibility. Suddenly, storylines like Pacey hooking up with a teacher don't seem so scandalous. It would probably been equally troubling if he'd just gotten together with one of his senior castmates.



Judd Nelson as John Bender in The Breakfast Club


John's age in The Breakfast Club: 18
Nelson's age when The Breakfast Club came out in 1986: 25

25 is still young compared to some of the others rounding out this list, but both Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall were actually high school-aged when The Breakfast Club premiered in 1986. I'll concede that co-stars Emilio Estevez and Ally Sheedy were both 22, but still. Either you cast a bunch of teenagers or you cast a bunch of 20-somethings, but mixing the two only highlights the differences in age.



Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase on Buffy the Vampire Slayer


Cordelia's age when Buffy premiered: 16
Carpenter's age when Buffy premiered: 27

Carpenter had originally intended to audition for the show's title role and Sarah Michelle Gellar for the role of Cordelia, but the two got switched somewhere along the audition process. I don't care what they dressed her in: there was no way this girl would ever pass for 16. She might not even have gotten carded at the club. Carpenter is, however, gorgeous, which means many viewers were in it more for the eye candy than the believability.



Stacey Dash as Dionne Davenport in Clueless


Dionne's age in Clueless: 16
Dash's age when Clueless came out in 1995: 29

When I first saw the movie, I'd never have guessed that Dash was almost 11 years older than her costar Alicia Silverstone. Actually, if you've seen any recent photos of Stacey Dash, it's pretty obvious she's still got it. Dash went on to reprise her role for the Clueless TV show, continuing to play her high-school aged character well into her 30s. Aside from posing for Playboy in 2006, Dash's career probably peaked in her postmature high school days, so it's for the best she milked her perceived youth for as long as humanly possible.


Most of us would balk at the offer to experience high school all over again, but some of these actors have made pretty lucrative careers out of living their adult lives in reverse. It just goes to show that there doesn't need to be such a thing as aging gracefully. Who would pick that option when you could choose not to age at all?

Barney the Dinosaur

When you look back wistfully on beloved characters from your childhood, you may notice that some of their back stories were a bit questionable. As a child, I would never dare have questioned the existence of a towering overly jolly purple dinosaur who resided in the abstract realm of our collective imaginations. He could only spring to life from his miniature plush toy existence if we just believed. Too bad when our parents bought us an official licensed Barney stuff toy and we tried to imagine him to life, nothing happened. The power of our actual imaginations had been dulled by the glittering allure of television entertainment. It was a lot easier to watch kids imagine something than to go through the whole ordeal ourselves. So thanks a lot, Barney and Friends. Our parents spent $24.95 on this stuffed Barney and it won't even come alive and interact with us. Sheesh.

Truth be told, Barney's habitation of our imagination was nothing new. Kid's shows have been featured imaginary characters for generations. It's pretty much par for the course for adults trying to make a buck off of children's natural sense of wonderment and naivete. Usually, though, it didn't come out quite as sugar drippingly sweet as Barney and friends. The fact that our friends at Guantanamo use Barney's signature "I Love You" played on loop as a form of auditory torture to detainees probably says it all; I can imagine our parents felt the same way after hearing it blaring from our television sets for the 12th time that day.



That song has a way of lodging itself in your brain to a place where you can't seem to wrangle it free. So, sorry, readers. If you've even begun to inwardly play the song, you're pretty much stuck with it for the day. I guess that's just the power of imagination coming back to bite you in the butt. Tough break.

The Barney the dinosaur character premiered in 1987 in a series of videos called Barney and the Backyard Gang. My family owned these videos, and I played them into the VHS reel was sputtering to cough out its last whirring rotation. I yearned for an imaginary dinosaur friend and accompanying backyard gang with whom I could put on talent shows and have campfire sing-alongs. In my reenactments, though, I pathetically had to imagine not only my dino pal but also summon a nonexistent gang of backyard pals. While now the suggestion of a backyard gang sounds pretty threatening, dangerously proximal, and somehow involving meaningfully-colored bandannas, at the time it seemed like a warm and inviting proposition of friendship.



Barney and the Backyard Gang was adapted for television as Barney and Friends in 1992 as part of the PBS kids' programming block. The show quickly caught on and became a phenomenon for small children. Like many things that appeal to small children, the show was chalkboard-scratchingly irritating to the rest of the world. To justify its presence in our home despite being generally repugnant to anyone over the age of eight, the show's theme song lauded some hefty promises set to the toon of Yankee Doodle:

Barney is a dinosaur from our imagination
When he's tall, he's what we call a dinosaur sensation
Barney teaches lots of things, like how to play pretend
A-B-Cs and 1-2-3s and how to be a friend!
Barney comes to play with us, whenever we may need him
Barney can be your friend, too, if you just make believe him!



Once your adult self has quelled the inevitable gagging from reading these sickly sweet sentiments, consider the educational value of Barney. Yes, the theme song extols Barney as a sort of teaching jack-of-all-trades, bestowing timeless wisdom onto eager young devotees worldwide. Kids may have fallen for his insidious purple charm, but a fair proportion of parents weren't buying it. While they may have sung Barney's praises for his ability to keep their children glued to the TV while they conducted some household chores, they weren't wholly impressed with his purported dissemination of important life lessons.

As a character, Barney isn't a bad guy. He's generally a pretty positive role model for children, save for the fact that he's imaginary and a dinosaur. He's upbeat, optimistic, and an all around decent dinosaur. Barney's relentless cheerfulness, however, has been the subject of critical scrutiny. Some critics claim Barney's overly positive spin on life and lack of attention paid to any negative life experiences could numb children to real emotion. This claim is pretty ridiculous, assuming that the children in question are exposed to any other life experiences than their Barney videotapes. Sorry, researchers. You can try to take down Barney, but he'll just continue his reign of jolly terror. You can't win that easily.

The television version of the show features a different group of kids, continually cycling out once they reach a point of maturity that renders questionable their consorting with imaginary dinosaurs. PBS also threw in some younger dinosaur characters like Baby Bop and BJ to broaden the show's appeal. All secondary characters are typically just as nerve-grinding and irritating as the originals, performing equally irritating signature songs and dances. It's no wonder our parents left the room when this came on. As a child, it's all sort of cute and enticing, but as an adult it's just grating.

In case you were worried that kids today might go hungry for the Barney they so desperately crave, you needn't worry. Barney's still churning out the episodes, meaning you may soon be getting a taste of your own karmic medicine when you have your own preschool-age children. Purple, imaginary dinosaur-flavored medicine with bits of cloying song stuck in it. I'm sure all of our parents will gleefully delight in our slow progression to craziness after hearing that damn "I love you" song for the umpteenth time. We put them through it, though, so it's probably only fair we have to have a go at it from the other side.

90s Kid-Friendly TV Program Blocks

Parents in the 90s must not have considered the potentially detrimental effects of parking their kids in front of the TV for four or five straight hours. How else can you explain the endless list of hours-long program blocks marketed at TV-hungry kids in the 90s? Children's TV was shaping up to be the ultimate babysitter, seamlessly filling in every possible day and time slot during which kids might be loitering around the house. After all, why go outside and play with our Huffy bikes and Skip-Its when we could just experience it vicariously through the commercials? Those kids were always way more enthusiastic than we could ever be, anyway.

For a decade of children far less dependent on technology than today's kids, we sure watched a lot of TV. We can only imagine the future of children's programming as parents' growing anxiousness to keep their children satiated and entertained continues to grow. In our childhood years, though, we were content watching a few hours at a time and luxuriating in the laziness. It still had that delightful aura of the forbidden. Our parents may have tried their best to limit our TV hours, but at the end of the day (or the case of some of these blocks, the beginning) it was a lot easier to just let the mind-numbing glow of passive entertainment wash over us. It's like those parents who load up their grocery carts with organic kale and banana chips for their kids, but eventually cave to nuking some chicken nuggets. It may not be the right choice, but it's an easy one. As we grow into adults, we can certainly appreciate their laziness.


ABC's TGIF



TGIF reigned supreme when it came to Friday night kid's TV. Originally conceived in the late 80s as the "Friday Night Fun Club", ABC's kid-friendly block morphed into TGIF: Thank Goodness It's Funny. The original lineup included Perfect Strangers, Full House, Mr. Belvedere, and Just the Ten of US. A lot of pretty terrible short-lived shows cycled through TGIF over the years, but they were able to mask it with some solid favorites like Boy Meets World, Step by Step, Family Matters, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. For every miscalculated move like Teen Angel, there always seemed to be a Dinosaurs waiting in the wings.



SNICK



SNICk was a brilliant marketing tool, as it mainly catered to the then-unclaimed tween demographic. The key to capturing the interest of 8-12 year olds is treating them like teenagers. I don't mean in a current Limited Too miniskirts and go-go boots way. This was thankfully far subtler. Nickelodeon shows with teenage characters and market them at tweens, a demographic that at times is likely to act too cool for kid's shows. SNICK premiered in 1992 featuring Clarissa Explains It All, Ren and Stimpy, Roundhouse, and Are You Afraid of the Dark? Though the lineup changed frequently throughout the years, Nick was pretty masterful at holding our fleeting attention spans. They threw in some goodies like The Secret World of Alex Mack and All That and we were hooked.



Nick in the Afternoon



Another wise and undoubtedly calculated move on the part of Nickelodeon, the network aimed to capture the at-home idling demographic of kids in the summertime. They installed a popsicle stick host with the hours-deliberating-in-the-Nick-boardroom moniker Stick Stickly. It was a great means of getting more mileage out of their reruns, packaging the block as a chance for kids to request their favorite classic episodes. For Nick, this meant they didn't have to come up with anything other than a popsicle stick and some googly eyes. Not too shabby.



The Disney Afternoon



There's no doubt Disney is great at hawking its animated goods to kids. The Disney Afternoon block was no exception, featuring endless variations of their always popular characters. The block premiered in 1990 with Adventures of the Gummi Bears, DuckTales, Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers, and TaleSpin. Later shows included Darkwing Duck, Goof Troop, and the far-inferior Disney's Doug. The shows aired in the after-school hours, a perfect means of entertaining the growing number of latchkey kids left to fend for themselves with nothing but the remote control and a tube of Pringles.



FOX Kids



FOX Kids was a formidable franchise, despite the fact that it rarely aired the same shows two years in a row. Though the block opened in 1990 with animated shows like Bobby's World and the game show Fun House, the lineup changed regularly throughout its 12-year run. That's not to say there was no quality programming: FOX Kids played classics like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Animaniacs, Tiny Toon Adventures, and Goosebumps. My favorite, though, was always the magazine. For some as-of-yet unexplained reason, this block of children's TV shows warranted its own publication. Sometimes we got it free with Pizza Hut orders, others it came in the mail, but whatever route it took to my mailbox the glorified promo was inexplicably awesome.



Nick Junior



Let me just say, that Face mascot is actually pretty creepy. What is that thing? Why is it so happy all the time? I liked it as a kid, but as an adult it's almost disturbingly cheerful. Maybe I just haven't had enough coffee yet to deal with this sort of unnerving smileyness, but it definitely is weirding me out.

Nick Junior was marketed at a younger set, namely kids under the age of 5. I'll admit, though, on elementary school sick days there was nothing quite like curling up with some Blue's Clues and Gullah Gullah Island. I wasn't going to shout it from the rooftops or anything, but I sincerely enjoyed shows like Eureka's Castle, Muppet Babies, and David the Knome. Whew. Feels good to finally get that one off my chest.


Teen NBC (TNBC)



Turns out Saturday mornings weren't just for cartoons: apparently older kids could get in on the action too with these delightfully cheesy teen sitcoms. With shows like Saved by the Bell and California Dreams, they could definitely hold our attention while padding the rest of the block with total fluff. That, of course, hinges on the notion that the aforementioned TNBC shows had any substance. I'll leave that one up to you.


Nick at Nite



Nick at Nite may not have been just for kids, but it was a means of enjoying some good ol' fashioned cross-generational TV. Kids and parents could watch old favorites together, delighting in shows like I Love Lucy, The Brady Bunch and Mister Ed. It introduced a new generation of kids to a lineup of classic shows. The Nick@Nite model has wavered a bit over the years, though, now broadcasting old 90s reruns in lieu of black and white oldies. When did we become so retro? It's rumored they may even add Friends to their lineup in the next couple of years. If the thought of kids viewing Friends the way you saw Bewitched doesn't make you feel the tiniest bit old, I don't know what will.


Overall, the programming blocks were a happy compromise. Kids liked the notion that they were getting away with watching an ungodly amount of TV, while parents liked the fact that the shows were at best marginally educational and at the least, appropriate. We may have lost countless of potentially active hours glued to our screens, but it's given us wonderful life preparation for our hours spent in front of our desk's computers. Thanks, SNICK!

Cheesy Made for TV Movies. Alternate Title: Our Favorite 90s Teen Stars Sell Out

Cheesy made-for-TV movies: are there any other kind? The whole idea behind a Movie of the Week is that it probably didn't pass muster to warrant a big-budget, big-screen premiere and thus was beamed straight to your television instead. Lucky for you, you get to watch it in the comfort of your own home rather than being ridiculed at the ticket counter.

As someone whose mother only tunes the TV to three channels (for the record: Lifetime, Hallmark, and Lifetime Movie Network), I am well-versed in the art of the made-for-TV movie. They're not hard to miss. You can usually identify them in the TV listings by title alone. I'll give you a hint: Article Adjective Noun/Verb: The ________ _________ Story. Popular variations of adages ("Too Little, Too Late" "For the Love of a Woman") made good titles, as did vague, overgeneralized cliches ("A Mother's Love" "A Daughter Scorned"). It wasn't exactly rocket science.

The 90s brought us some particularly cheesy TV movies featuring some of our favorite teen stars desperate to be taken seriously as actors. I'll give you a hint: a movie of the week isn't going to cut it. For the most part, viewers just couldn't get over the idea that Zach Morris raped DJ Tanner or that the pink Power Ranger was an anorexic gymnast. I'm still struggling with the idea that Rebecca from Life Goes On killed Donna Martin.

Here are just a few of the many, many made-for-TV movies starring out favorite teen sellouts:


No One Would Tell (Candace Cameron, Fred Savage)



Kevin Arnold, how could you? This one came as a real shock to me. In 1996's No One Would Tell, Fred Savage played high school BMOC Bobby Tennison. He begins dating the eager Stacy (Cameron) and wins her over with all sorts of romantic gestures. In Lifetime movie world, that's actually an ominous sign. Actually, if you're male and you're in a Lifetime movie, it's almost guaranteed you're going to have to rape, kill, or at least abuse somewhere. I think there's a clause in the actors' contract.

Predictably, Bobby grows more and more jealous, and his behavior eventually descends into abuse. Blinded by her love, Stacy refuses to leave, despite experience with her mother's abusive relationships. Bobby ends up slitting her throat and throwing her in the river, and Sally Jessy Raphael shows up as a judge to give us the requisite talking-to: "You have a responsibility to the people you care about. If you see them hurting or you see them in trouble, you step in and you TELL someone, so that this does not happen again." It's not the most subtle of messages, but at least it's a good one.



Fifteen and Pregnant (Kirsten Dunst)



Will they ever stop playing this movie? My guess is no, considering I've probably seen it around thirty times since it premiered in 1998. Kirsten Dunst stars as Tina, who is (you guessed it!) both fifteen and pregnant. Someone in their movie naming department really deserves a medal for this one.

This is pretty much the quintessential impregnated teenage girl movie, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It has it's moments, though like all Lifetime movies it tends to be a bit melodramatic and overwrought. It's not a bad movie overall, though it pales in comparison to MTV's 16 and Pregnant. It's probably not quite as scripted as the MTV reality show.



Without Consent: Trapped and Deceived (Jennie Garth)


Jennie Garth did a lot of these made-for-TV movie projects over the years, but this one may have taken the take for theatrical dramatics. She starred as Laura, a wild teenager who gets into a drunk driving accident. Her parents send her to a psychiatric facility in lieu of disciplining her themselves. The asylum, it turns out, abuses and drugs its patients. The doctors try to hold her down with tranquilizers, but she escapes and tells her parents the sordid tale of her experience there. They don't believe her, she goes back, they do believe her, they try to get her out. It may be based on a true story, but it's an old and tired one.



A Friend to Die For (Kellie Martin, Tori Spelling)



Yeah, yeah, I know, in the 90s we were supposed to buy that Tori Spelling was the popular girl because she got a nose job and a dye job and her dad was Aaron Spelling, but I secretly always thought she was more convincing as a nerd on Saved by the Bell. Regardless, here she was in a 1994 Move of the Week playing The Most Popular Girl in School, bitchy cheerleader Stacy. Life Goes On's Kellie Martin stars as Angela, the Girl with Low Self Esteem for whom we should all feel sorry until she stabs someone.

Like many made-for-TV movies, A Friend to Die For is based on a true story, and a juicy one at that. Angela is desperate to fit in and joins the Larks, a club to which many of her more popular classmates belong. Angela idolizes rich cheerleader Stacy, who couldn't want less to do with her. Angela vies for Stacy's attention and eventually gets her alone and confesses her admiration for her. Stacy is justifiably freaked out, and tells Angela she's going to tell everyone at school what a weirdo she is. What's a girl to do? Why, stab Stacy to death, of course. Oh, and blame a less popular goth girl. Eventually the truth comes out about Angela, but the whole thing serves as a sort of cautionary tale against cliques. Ignore a less popular girl and face uncertain homocide. Something like that.



A Burning Passion: The Margaret Mitchell Story (Shannen Doherty)


Biopic made-for-TV movies can be dangerous territory, particularly if the lead actor isn't quite capable of carrying the project. Such was the case of Shannen Doherty in her portrayal of Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell, who couldn't even be bothered to read the book (though she did see the movie!). The whole thing reeked of a cross-promotional ploy to promote Scarlett, CBS's miniseries based on the sequel to Gone With the Wind. Doherty's Southern accent was truly, truly awful, and her performance was rightfully ripped apart by critics. Frankly, Shannen, we just didn't give a damn.



She Cried No (Candace Cameron, Mark-Paul Gosselaar)


Candace Cameron just can't catch a break in these, can she? It seems she's always pitted up against some teen superstar as helpless victim. Why they always have to cast the most wholesome TV guys in these awful male antagonist roles is beyond me. I get it if they're looking for an image change, but I just don't know if abusive boyfriend of frat boy rapist is the direction they should be going.

Like all made-for-TV movies that deal with the theme of drinking in college, the message is that it's always, always bad, and you will inevitably end up getting yourself into terrible situations. Cameron plays Melissa, a sweer underage co-ed who has too much to drink at a fraternity party and is date raped by Scott (Gosselaar). Melissa eventually stands up for herself and takes action against Scott, which is great, but I can't let go of the idea that Zack Morris could be so cruel to DJ Tanner. It just doesn't add up.



Perfect Body (Amy Jo Johnson)



Amy Jo Johnson (the pink ranger and Felicity's friend) plays Andie, a rising gymnastics star who develops an eating disorder. She eventually turns to bulimia upon the suggestion of a friend and ends up passing out at competitions. It's all very The Best Little Girl in the World, but overall it's not bad for a cautionary tale. It highlights the pressure young girls (and particularly athletes) to be thin. Still, I just couldn't stop thinking of Johnson as the pink Ranger. You can take the girl out of the superhero outfit, but you can't take the superhero outfit out of the girl.



It seems the formula still holds true: if all else fails for a former teen star, they can always make a buck or two in a tearjerker Movie of the Week. Artistic integrity is always second place to a steady paycheck. Considering Tori Spelling received a whopping one hundred thou for her participation in A Friend to Die For, it's probably the actors who get the last laugh.

Misunderstood TV: Great (and Sort of Great) Shows that Lasted Only One Season

It's a tale as old as television time. Someone comes up with a fantastic idea for a show, it premieres to rave reviews and critical praise, it seems poised on the brink of success...and no one watches it. There's no real formula to these things. No matter how strong a show, there's no way of knowing whether it will become a runaway hit or fizzle out into obscurity. With all the terrible shows that have been on the air for ages, it's clear you just can't count on the viewing public.

Thankfully, the internet hosts more than its fair share of elitists and snobs who are more than willing to show us all the error of our television watching ways. Really, just look at anyone who comments on the Onion's AV club. These types quick to tell us all what heathens we are for holding mainstream television viewing habits. To these TV snobs, popularity amongst the masses is the kiss of death. Everyone knows the only way to determine quality is if everyone hates something. Aside from a select chosen few who have the unique wisdom and intelligence to understand it, of course.

Luckily for you, I'm only sort of like that. I wouldn't consider myself an elitist. I just think I'm smarter than everyone else. What? I'm kidding. Only most people.

Joking aside (and for the record, I am joking), it's not about snobbery. It's just pure luck, plain and simple. Some shows make it, and others fly under the radar and face cancellation. Thanks to the almighty power of DVD, though, not to mention all sorts of online clips, there's hope for you yet on some of these:

Freaks and Geeks



This is one of those classic examples, the show everyone brings up in praise of underrated media everywhere. While nowadays some people are sick of the ever-growing Judd Apatow empire and its monopoly on the comedy market, back then he was a fledgling producer pushing a little show about high school misfits. He assembled a team of talented young comic actors and gave them a great script, but audiences just weren't biting. Apatow was loyal to his cast picks, though, and featured them all heavily in future projects. It's safe to say that even if you never saw an episode of Freaks and Geeks a day in your life, you'd recognize most of the ensemble today.

The show was set in the 1980s in small-town Michigan and focused on the daily lives of two groups of social outcasts: the "freaks" and the "geeks". It's a winding story of adolescent self-discovery and tribulations, and the show treated its characters with respect. Despite its disparaging title, the show's characters were more than the stereotypical nerds. They were multifaceted enough that we could relate to them in a distinctly human way. It's no wonder the show's become a cult classic: with the extensively detailed and commentated DVD release, it's every elitist nerd's dream.

Unfortunately, audiences responded similarly tepidly to Apatow's sophomore sitcom effort, college comedy Undeclared which lasted a single season from 2001-2002. You've got to admire his stick-to-it-ness though. He certainly got his due.



The Ben Stiller Show



Creating a sketch comedy show requires a delicate balance. Over the years, the marketplace has been flooded with them, some funny and some falling flat. It's always something of a crapshoot. This Ben Stiller's foray into sketch comedy came early in his career, preceding his ascendancy into movie stardom. And, surprise, surprise, Judd Apatow wrote for this one too. Was there any TV pot in which he had no hand? Any unpopular ones, I mean.

This show was 90s incarnate. With supporting stars like the then-unknown Janeane Garafalo and Andy Dick, this show oozed Gen X-iness from every frame. It began with a short run on MTV and was later picked up by FOX, impressed with the debut. The show mainly parodied popular media, but it was just a tad too witty and wicked for its own good. It overstepped that boundary of middle America by giving us multi-layered creative jokes that don't test well with wide audiences. TV snobs, yes, but regular people, no. That equation, however, usually equals good DVD sales over a decade later from die-hard fans, so it wasn't a total loss.


The Critic



Okay, okay, you got me. There were technically two seasons of The Critic, though each had a very limited number of episodes and showed on two different networks. In The Critic, Jon Lovitz stars as Jay Sherman, "New York's third-most popular early-morning cable TV-film critic". The show parodied popular movies and Jay offered his critiques, set against the backdrop of plots based on Jay's everyday life. In an ironic twist of fat, the Jay character has an aversion to popular taste and is generally contemptuous of well-liked media. No wonder elitists like this show so much. Jay is them. He is the epitome of the snobby intellectual New Yorker on which all intellectual poseurs base their TV show preferences. A near-perfect fit.

A full season of the show was produced, but ABC canceled The Critic after thirteen episodes. As other episodes were already moving through production, FOX jumped on the bandwagon and picked up the rest of the season, only to drop it once the remaining ten had aired. The now-defunct UPN was in talks to air some more episodes, but the deal fell through. Webisodes premiered in 2000, but it just wasn't the same. You'd think a show with Simpsons crossovers would be able to garner some interest, but it just never took off.


My So-Called Life



No, your eyes do not deceive you. I posted the entire first episode above, in hopes that you'll watch it and be pulled into the angsty goodness that was the underrated My So-Called Life. This is one of those other quintessential examples of a show that died too young. I may never recover from the shock of learning I'd never find out the answer to the season finale's cliffhanger. It plagues me still. Brian or Jordan? If you have any insights, do share. I'm still considering the possibilities.

On the other hand, this show was pretty heavy-handed with the issue-tackling. It squeezed so much into its 19 hour-long episodes, it's almost hard to imagine a continuation. In one episode, Angela muses, "When someone dies young, it's like they stay that way forever, like a vampire." Such is the case of My So-Called Life. In its existing canon, it's nearly perfect. It never took that ratings-seeking risk that could have tainted its goodness. It gets to stay that way forever, as it should. Like a vampire, only with less bloodsucking and sparkling in the sunshine.



The Dana Carvey Show



Like I said, sketch comedy shows are shaky ground, creatively speaking. Not everything that succeeds as a smaller part of a larger show will fare well when released into the wild unshielded by the popularity of its parent show. Dana Carvey was very popular on Saturday Night Live, and had a loyal following ABC hoped to to bring on board to his self-titled debut. The show was a little risque, especially considering it aired right after the family comedy Home Improvement. The sponsors were none too pleased with the iffy content, which combined with the plummeting ratings spelled imminent early cancellation.

We did get one good thing out of it: The Ambiguously Gay Duo, which later re-premiered on SNL. Thanks, Stephen Colbert and Robert Smigel. You guys did us proud.


Of course, there were many other shows that didn't get their due, but that's all we've got time for today, folks. Now they really didn't get their due, considering I wouldn't even pay tribute to them here. So, I'm sorry, Eerie, Indiana, Twin Peaks, and all you others. You've been doubly screwed. Luckily, there will always be a vocal contingency of TV elitists to keep singing your praises, canceled TV shows. There's hope for you yet. You know, on DVD--the TV snob's medium of choice.

90s TV Spinoffs

With all the movie remakes currently in the works, it's not a stretch to wonder if we've just plain run out of ideas. The Karate Kid and The Never-Ending Story are just a few decades young and already they're being treated like golden oldies in need of revamping for the new millennium. To dismiss this generation of hangers-on as a new fleeting phenomenon would be dishonest, though. Our coming-of-age era entertainment was equally if not more guilty of the same abhorrent offenses. We didn't call them rip-offs back then, though. We called them spin-offs.

A spin-off is an admittedly lazy creative process of launching a new program. Relying on the popularity of an already successful show, spin-off creators simply take existing characters and separate them from their natural habitat in an established program. The moment audiences respond remotely positively to a secondary character, producers often jumped on the spin-off bandwagon. The theory was, you liked seeing them on this show for five minutes, why not thirty? It seemed a logical leap, and certainly easier than coming up with an original idea.

In reality, some spin-offs work better than others. There's a fragile balance to keep: true enough to the original characters to ride the wave of the established show's popularity, but original enough not to appear a complete facsimile of the first show. Most of the successful spinoffs relied on repackaging standby semi-major characters, though some managed to coast on showcasing minor or one-time guests. The best of them went on to outstrip the fame of the show from which they were spawned. The worst faded into obscurity as poorly thought-out network schemes to milk a show's popularity for all it was worth.

There were many, many spin-offs in the 90s, but let's take a look at a few of the most-watched:

Cheers-->Frasier



Here's an incidence of a seriously popular spin-off. It ran eleven seasons, the same as its predecessor, Cheers. The show followed regular Cheers patron Dr. Frasier Crane as he hosts a pop psychology call-in radio show. His brother is also a psychiatrist, and a very neurotic one at that. Frasier takes in his aging father and his full-time character, and hilarious, toned-down subdued antics ensue. The show was witty and didn't talk down to its audience, which was always a refreshing notion for a sitcom. Though it wavered a bit in its final years, it remains one of the most successful spin-offs to date.



Perfect Strangers-->Family Matters



Perfect Strangers: two wacky mismatched cousin roommates with differing nationalities. Family Matters: charming middle-class black family. Tough to see the connection, right? Winslow matriarch Hariette Winslow started as a character on Perfect Stranger and was deemed worthy of further exploration. Of course, then they brought in Urkel and everything changed plot focus-wise, but it was a decent staple of the popular TGIF lineup. Not too shabby for a spin-off.



Buffy the Vampire Slayer-->Angel



If you think vampires are the hot new thing, you're probably suffering from acute memory loss. I'd get that checked out if I were you. In the 90s, it was all about Buffy. Her vampires didn't need skin sparkling gimmicks, just her pure ass-kicking finesse. The show spun off Angel in 1999, featuring Buffy regular David Boreanaz as its title character. Angel was a vampire cursed with the restoration of his human soul, thus racking him with guilt and internal struggle. It was a little hokey, but if you're into that kind of thing, it was a pretty for Buffy seconds.




Golden Girls-->Empty Nest-->Nurses + Golden Girls-->The Golden Palace

Talk about a strangled route on this one. The Golden Girls actually split into two separate spin-off tracks, one focusing on a once-featured neighbor couple and the other rebranding the original as a Bea Arthur-less project. None of them assumed the level of popular of Golden Girls, but they did reasonably well for spin-offs.

On track one, we had Empty Nest, a project that had a bumpy road to production. Originally intended to spin from the GG episode Empty Nests about a neighbor couple whose children had all flown the coop. Unluckily for producers, the characters bombed, so they brought in entirely new characters with a different premise altogether: a widower whose post-college aged daughters come back to live with them. They still called it Empty Nest, which of course makes no sense. It was a full nest. The hen was gone, but all the chicks were there. Sounds full to me. Guess they just wanted to spare themselves the embarrassment of admitting they had to can the original concept altogether.



Remarkably, Empty Nest also managed to spurn a spin-off, Nurses. The Nurses in question worked at the same hospital as Dr. Harry Weston of Empty Nest. The show was okay, but the first-season ratings were in a bit of a slump. In response, show writers played all sorts of cheap tricks including like adding new characters and completely changing existing ones. Regardless, the show lasted 3 seasons, so they must have been doing something right.



Meanwhile, on track two we had the McLanahan/White/Getty vehicle, The Golden Palace, in which Don Cheadle gives his second best performance as a hotel manager. Throw in Cheech Marin, and you've got yourself a zany bunch of hotel proprietors. That was the idea, at least. The theme song was a cheesy musakified version of The Golden Girls' "Thank You For Being a Friend". It only lasted one season, partially because of its terrible time slot and partially because it wasn't all that great.





Animaniacs-->Pinky and the Brain



After seeing them on Animaniacs, how could you not give these little lab mice their own half hour to shine? If nothing else, I'm sold on theme song alone. It's so straightforward. One is a genius, the other's insane. So incredibly simple, yet so humorous. Well played, Warner Bros.



Beavis and Butthead-->Daria

This is the first half of the first episode...intrigued? They're all up there. On YouTube. Just don't tell the authorities. They've been uploaded backwards. Ingenius, no? Now go watch them before they're gone.

Here's a case in which the spin-off was entirely different from the series from which it originated. Daria had none of Beavis and Butthead's bonehead humor. It was smart, sarcastic, quick-witted, and hilarious. It was as sharp as B&B was dumb. Our protagonist Daria was something of a social outcast, giving voice to misfits and brains everywhere. The show so perfectly captured the stereotypes of high school, though it treated its subjects with kindness even while mocking them. It had heart, but just when you thought they were going in for the kill on an aww moment, they triggered back with a biting retort.



Party of Five-->Time of Your Life



Another one-seasoner, Time of Your Life was meant to launch Jennifer Love Hewitt's character from Party of Five character into her own series as she tackled New York City. It didn't even make it all the way through its first season before cancellation, if that gives you any hints to the critical reception. It was really pretty terrible.



90210-->Melrose Place-->Models, INC



Melrose Place was intended as an expansion of the 90210 franchise to reach out to the twenty-something demographic. The Jake Hanson character originally appeared on 90210 as a bad-boy biker hired to do some construction for Kelly's family. The two engage in a brief tryst, which was conveniently resolved in time to transfer Jake to the MP apartment complex setting. The show went on to establish its own following and featured much darker storylines than its after-school-special-leaning predecessor.




I'm going to open myself to mockery and admit that as a child, I was a shameless Models, Inc. fan. Really, it was awful, but I was probably among the only disappointed people upon news of the cancellation following the first season. I mean, they ended it with To Be Continued... I heard they eventually aired the continuation on E!, but obviously I missed it. I may never know these answers.


The Tracey Ullman Show-->The Simpsons



You have to give some credit to the longest running sitcom of all time, especially considering it's a cartoon. The Simpsons premiered as animated shorts on the Tracey Ullman Show, featuring a dysfunctional family and their humorous episodic experiences. It may not still be up to its original quick-witted standards, but they do still have their original cast. That's almost as good.


Good Morning Miss Bliss-->Saved By the Bell-->Saved by the Bell: The College Years-->Saved by the Bell: The New Class

How many times can you repackage a franchise? That's the question Saved By the Bell producers must have asked themselves, obviously putting faith in the answer "a whole lot". The original Disney Series centering around junior high students and their teacher played by Hayley Mills was cute enough, but nothing cult fanship worthy. Producers tweaked the shows into the California-based Saved by the Bell and launched a franchise that begot awesome product tie ins like my previously mentioned Zackberry flavored shampoo. The show wasn't really one for continuity, but it made its shaky way to graduation and we assumed they'd all call it a day.

Not so. Featuring a distinctly huskier Zack Morris and some god-awful 90s flannel getups, Saved by the Bell: The College Years, ran one lone season from 1994-1995. It was an effort, sure, but not a particularly valiant one.



Oh, and there was an even worse but far longer-running spin-off, Saved by the Bell: The New Class, retaining only Screech and Mr Belding from the original. And really, I doubt those two were swatting away dozens of projects. They needed the work.

A few of the originals drop by The New Class

Spin-offs can obviously be very hit or miss. Some characters have the potential to carry their own series, while others are better left fading into the background. One thing's for sure, though: if you can grind a franchise into the ground, you might as well give it your best shot. You might get a Frasier, you might get a Time of Your Life, but the odds seem pretty well-stacked in your favor.