Friends

Rarely does a sitcom become as pervasive and persistently popular as Friends. It maintained a surprisingly consistent level of quality and popularity throusghout its ten-year run, particularly for a show that was based on such a simple premise. As the name implies, the subject matter in question was, put simply, friends. Apparently all it takes is a group of eclectic and mismatched personality types with a penchant for local coffee houses living in unrealistically mammoth and well-decorated Manhattan apartments to hold our attention. Who knew?

Friends's large ensemble cast was a great credit to its success, utilizing six then lesser-known twenty-something actors as principals with relatively equal screen time. So many sitcoms gave us a main character or two with a smattering of conveniently prominent or absent sidekick roles, so it was refreshing to see such a strong balance of multiple main characters. Conceived by David Crane and Marta Kauffman in the early 90s, they sought to explore the lives of young adults making it on their own for the first time in a fast-paced New York setting. Kauffman and Crane teamed up with producer Kevin Bright to develop a show that captured a relatively universal experience of finding oneself post-college.



Tentatively (thankfully) entitled Insomnia Cafe, the trio pitched the show to NBC in late 1993. NBC liked the idea, so the three went to work on their pilot now somewhat less tentatively called Friends Like Us. They also liked the pilot, investing in the series that the creators now called Six of One. Who knew a show could cycle through so many terrible working titles before even going into full-scale production? Especially considering the final choice for title ended up being such a no-brainer. As Chandler Bing might say, "Could it be any simpler?"

That level of simplicity was what sold not only NBC but a vast proportion of the sitcom-viewing public on this fledgling show. The creators' original pitch for show described it as being "[...about sex, love, relationships, careers, a time in your life when everything's possible. And it's about friendship because when you're single and in the city, your friends are your family," giving the premise an open-ended array of endless scenarios, couplings, and experiences for its main characters.

As so many of us children of the 90s are just now coasting through that stage of our lives that Bright, Kauffman, and Crane envisioned as the universal connecting experience to bolster the show's appeal, it's strange to think so many of us were major fans of the show at a point in our life that in no way intersected with that of the major characters. At the time of its premiere in 1994, I was only nine years old, yet somehow my friends and I were convinced we found the show hilarious. More likely is that we initially found it a little bit confusing; a vast proportion of the humor and situations certainly must have gone straight over our heads. It was just so likable, though, that we couldn't help getting caught up in the Friends fervor,

At the time, Ross, Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Phoebe, and Joey seemed like such grown ups to me and my peers, so it's always odd catching an early episode in syndicated rerun and realizing that I'm possibly now as old as or older as they were then. If you never got into it or haven't seen any of the early seasons in a few years, you might want to invest a few hours in doing so. There's a reason the show became such a quick hit: the producers nailed their intended delivery of that universal twenty-something experience. Their pitch about your friends being your family may be a little cheesy, but it also rings true for so many of us at the stage in our life between extended adolescence and responsible parenthood,.

So much of the show's charm lay in the quirkiness and depth of its characters; without their idiosyncratic personalities and strong performances from the cast of comically gifted actors, there would be no show. The majority of the action focused on our six principal characters:

Chandler Bing



The One With All The Sarcasm. Chandler is the resident wise-cracking smartass, always quick to issue a cutting quip or a self-deprecating witticism. He's wound up pretty tightly, though his eventual marriage to Monica gave him a more playful side.



Phoebe Buffay



The One With The Offbeat, Out There Personality. Phoebe not only marched to the beat of her own drummer, she seemed to have invented a new style of drumming entirely. Her singer/songwriter escapades at the local Central Perk coffee shop feature gems like "Smelly Cat", which is indeed about a cat with a less-than-appealing odor. I suppose her eclectic early years on the street could be the source of her general oddity, so all in all she turned out pretty okay.

Rachel Green



The One With the Semi-Reformed Princess Behavior Tendencies. We first meet Rachel in the debut episode as a rain-soaked bride who left her groom at the altar, claiming she was getting married for all the wrong reasons. Once something of a spoiled brat, her reconnection with childhood friend Monica sets on her on, if not a totally straight path, at least a less wavy and more grounded one. Rachel's on-again-off-again with Ross is a major plot point throughout the show's ten-year lifespan.


Monica Gellar



The One With The Serious Neuroses. Monica is as obsessive compulsive and anal retentive as they come, so it's a good thing Courtney Cox managed to make her so charming. The show had originally wanted to cast Cox as Rachel, but she preferred the Monica role and convinced them she could make it her own. Monica is Ross's sister, Rachel's childhood friend, and Chandler's eventual wife. Oh, and she also used to be fat--that's one of the show's favorite retrospective punchlines, often through fat suit technology.


Ross Gellar



The One With the All the Lovable Nerdiness. It takes a special kind of endearingly intellectual guy to not only choose a career path in paleontology but also to bore his friends with the details. Ross's first wife turned out to be a lesbian, though the truth didn't come out until after she became pregnant with his son. Ross excels in karate, is a sometime-monkey daddy, and has compelling evidence that he and Rachel were indeed on a break at that crucial juncture in their relationship.


Joey Tribbiani



The One With Limited Intellectual Capacity. It's okay, he gets all the ladies, so it's really sort of a trade-off. All he has to do was issue a signature, "How you doin'?" and the women were putty in his hands. Joey and Chandler were roommates for a bulk of the sitcom's run, with the two engaging in all sorts of comedic apartment-sharing situations. He is a sometimes-working actor, most notably for his role as Dr. Drake Ramoray on Days of Our Lives. Joey was the only one to get his one spin-off, though I think we all know how that turned out.

Friends kept the writing sharp over its extensive ten-year run, a stretch that would leave many lesser sitcoms grasping at cop-out storylines. That's not to say Friends didn't use its fair share of guerrilla ratings tactics: inane plot twists, surprise couplings, and most notably the end-of-season leave-us-on-the-edge-of-our-seats-and-stick-us-with-three-months-of-reruns-why-don't-you cliffhangers. Those things were brutal. What's that? Ross said Rachel's name instead of Emily's at his wedding? And now we have all summer to contemplate the repercussions? Awesome. I was hoping to work on my tan and read the classics, but now I'm stuck pondering this one for all of my waking hours until it can be resolved in the fall season premiere.

It was all part of the show's signature charm, though. Sure, there was a fair amount of reliance on gimmicks and well-worn sitcom territory, but the cast chemistry and smart writing brought in all together in a new way. If you flip on your TV at any given time of evening or night, you're pretty likely to find Friends still playing on at least three or four different channels in multiple timeslots. It's perseverance in syndication speaks volumes to its impact and success. More importantly, though, it's funny. When so few sitcoms actually make us laugh, it's a legitimate claim to fame to be The One With All of the Good Jokes.

Together at Last--They Finally Did It (AKA TV Shows that Eventually Alleviated Crucial Plot-Centric Romantic Tensions)

Will they or won't they? It's a classic sitcom cliche that keeps us as viewers hungry for more romantically tense moments between principal characters. Any current fan of The Office can certainly attest to the deflating plot cycle that accompanies the realization of a will-they-or-won't-they couple: once Jim and Pam got together, the mystery and intrigue of their friendship dissipated quickly into mundane territory. If the writers opt to resolve the major underlying plotline, it can be tough to come up with material that will appeal to fans on an equal level to that of unresolved sexual tension.

In many cases, the answer to the infamous "Will they or won't they" question turns out to be yes, leading to one of two options. In some cases, the writers may get it just right and time their suppressed romantic unions at either the end of the series or as a natural climax of a story arc. More often, though, the show veers into distinct shark-jumping territory, proving that the picture of reality can never measure up to that of the viewer's fantasy. We're all rooting for the subjects of the unresolved romantic tension to live happily ever after, but when we get to see it for ourselves we realize that there's a reason many fairy tales cut off at this point. It's a bit boring to watch two people who were once witty and interesting devolve into a happy but generally mundane couple. If we want to see people trade in their excitement for marriage and kids, we could just look to real life. It just can't sustain the same level of interest.

Love it or hate it, these shows eventually gave these would-be couples their due. Whether it culminated in an Era of TV Good Feelings or left us a bit cold, at least we got our answer to "Will they or won't they?" In all of these cases, apparently, they will.


Ross and Rachel



Here's a sitcom that shows us how to do the romantic tension story arc right. As long as Friends was on the air, it's shocking they managed to draw out the uncertainty over the scope of ten seasons. If executed poorly, this could have caused a major backlash from viewers, but the writers played it well enough to keep fans on their toes. Ross and Rachel were pretty persistent; even having a baby together wasn't enough to dissolve their tension. In the series finale, the couple finally gets their moment in the sun. After arguing over whether or not they had been on a break or not, of course. What would they be without their quintessential schtick?


Joey and Dawson



Remember, if you can think back this far, to a time before Katie Holmes was some repressed silent-birthing Scientologist mommy. Way back, back to when she was Joey on Dawson's Creek, epitomizing the girl next door prototype. Joey and Dawson were best friends, but their eventual coupling proved the old When Harry Met Sally adage about opposite sex friendships to be true. These two had an on-again-off-again sort of thing going throughout the seasons. They were together, then they weren't, then they were, then they sort of were, then...well, you get the idea. Repeat ad infinitum.


Sam and Diane



What fun is a sitcom without all of the sharp witty banter? Apparently not much, based on the way our once dagger-tongued Cheers were reduced to cuddly bunnies as they succumb to romance. The show managed to hold its audience even with the realized romance, though the eventual recreated "Will they or won't they" scenario of Sam and Rebecca failed to measure up to the tension of the original.


Fran and Maxwell



So much of The Nanny's charm was in the sassy quick-witted banter between boss Maxwell Sheffield and nanny Fran Fine, a tension that the writers managed to uphold for the better part of five seasons before caving to the temptation of uniting the subjects of their unresolved sexual tension. At this point, everything sort of unravels, eventually culminating in the sixth season ridiculousness of CC and Niles' wedding and Fran giving birth to Maxwell's twins.


David and Maddie



Moonlighting was a bit before my time, but I just can't in good conscience leave out the classic example. When Maddie and David break through their tension in the second season and consummate their romance, the show went into a steep decline. Producers gave a last-ditch effort to recreate the mystery by haphazardly marrying Maddie off to some random guy in the final season, but their efforts were to no avail. Between that and the fact that Cybil Shepherd's scenes had to be shot in advance due to her pregnancy, the once boiling-over chemistry of the costars eventually cooled to a tepid standstill.


Daphne and Niles



If we learned anything from Frasier, it's that it's tough to maintain a steady high quality of plot writing over 11 seasons. The romantic tensions between Daphne and Niles had been building for several seasons, but the writers tried to throw us off the scent with Daphne's engagement and near-miss wedding to Donny. Daphne and Niles were such lovable characters largely on the basis of their respective eccentricities, many of which traits had to fall by the wayside for the two to form a healthy and compatible relationship. That's all well and good for some, but I'm just not willing to sacrifice endearing craziness in the name of late-season desperate ratings ploys.


Whether you were satisfied with these unions or were left wanting more, the shows sought to give us what they thought we wanted. For better or worse, they gave us an easy answer to once-mysterious "Will they or won't they?" scenario that had so entertained us throughout the series' run. It just goes to show, be careful what you wish for. You just might get canceled.

Child Stars Gone....Good?

Image via www.wolfgnards.com

In the midst of the tragedy of Corey Haim's apparent overdose, there's been a lot of speculation out there about child stars "gone bad." The public is endlessly fascinated by watching our favorite fresh-faced young child actors crash and burn in a frenzy of drinking and drug use. Perhaps it's our naturally voyeuristic spirit, but we just can't seem to get enough of these stories that warrant a VH1 voiceover guy intoning humorlessly, "He had everything, and he threw it all away." It seems the price of fame is often paid in a lifetime of indebtedness to a cuteness and innocence they can never recapture as an adult.


But what about those child stars who went the straight and narrow? Certainly there are some child actors out there who went on to become doctors, lawyers, or even non-drug using celebrities? While the temptation to go the Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? route is undeniably tempting, some of the actors we knew and love as children have managed to pull it together and lead relatively normal lives. You know, if your normal life still involved being accosted by now-grown-but-still-screechy devoted fans. They've got to be out there.

Turns out, they are. Just because their once banked-upon child cuteness factor plummets as they grow older doesn't automatically mean they're doomed for a life of listless unhappiness and sporadic drug binges. Some of them get it together with a successful show biz career, while others grow into an unrecognizable version of their celebrity child selves and can walk freely among us as common citizens.

Natalie Portman


Portman first caught mainstream public attention for her roles in Anywhere but Here and the Star Wars prequels, establishing herself as a formidable child actress. She must also have been a formidable student, as she went on to study psychology at Harvard, even serving as Alan Dershowitz's research assistant. Portman has since been heavily involved in environmental and political affairs, proving that she's more than just a tiny pretty face.

Mayim Bialik



Oh, Blossom. You were poised to be such a star, and then you seemed to vanish from the show biz radar entirely. She was so likable in her eponymous role in Blossom, it's not a stretch to imagine her down-to-earthness translated into her real life. Bialik was accepted to both Harvard and Yale but chose to attend UCLA, pursuing a bachelor's in neuroscience, Hebrew, and Jewish studies and later a PhD in neuroscience. As Joey Russo would say, whoa.


Tina Majorino



In the 90s, we knew Majorino for her roles in Corinna, Corinna and Andre, though you may more recently recognize from Big Love, Veronica Mars, and Napoleon Dynamite. Despite her recent dabblings in the biz, she's stayed low key to a point she refers to as the "anti-Lohan."


Anna Paquin



After watching Tatum O'Neil's downward spiral following her childhood Oscar win, it's natural we'd be a bit wary of the future of other children Academy Award recipients. Paquin won her Best Supporting Actress award for The Piano at age 11 and went on to smoothly transition from child actor to adult actor with a steady line of work. I just knew that girl had a good head on her shoulders; I sensed it from when I saw her in Fly Away Home. I would totally trust her to regulate my migration patterns.


Fred Savage, Josh Saviano, Danica McKellar






Let's give a hand to the good people behind The Wonder Years, shall we? These people really knew how to pick 'em. How else do you explain the mostly quiet but relatively normal success of the show's main child stars? Saviano became a lawyer, McKellar a hot mathematician, and Savage went on to mostly behind-the-scenes work. We may not totally be able to forgive him for bringing us Daddy Day Care, but overall this group's alright.


Jeff B. Cohen



I know, I know, the name might not be familiar, but this guy was "Chunk" from The Goonies. He's come a long way since the Truffle Shuffle--he's now an attorney and was named one of the top 35 entertainment executives under 25 by the Hollywood Report.


Neil Patrick Harris



What else would you expect from child prodigy Doogie Howser, MD? Harris has gone on to prove that you can have it all, including an incredibly successful sitcom career, hilarious self-mocking movie cameos, and intro-ing the Oscars vis-a-vis a huge over-the-top musical number. He's also gone on to become a role model for openly gay mainstream actors. Well done, Dr. Howser.


Larisa Oleynik


We may not have expected much from her academically as Bianca in 10 Things, but it turns out Oleynik was secretly more of a Kat in real life. Oleynik attended Sarah Lawrence College, graduating in 2004. I always suspected she was more of a Dawn from The Babysitter's Club than a Bianca, in which case it all adds up pretty well.


Jonathan Taylor Thomas


Jonathan Taylor Thomas was a bona fide teen heartthrob in the 90s, so imagine our surprise to find JTT wasn't all that into the limelight, opting to enroll in college in lieu of continuing on his Tiger Beat-heavy career path. Oh JTT, how little we knew ye. So little, in fact, that many of us had no clue his real name is Jonathan Taylor Weiss. JTW just don't have the same ring to it, though, does it?


Joseph Gordon-Levitt



One of the lucky to smoothly transition from successful child actor to successful teen actor to successful adult actor. He even managed to attend Columbia somewhere in between. Plus, he finally found a haircut that suited him. Very impressive stuff.


Charlie Korsmo

You know, that kid from Hook and the nerdy revenge-seeking kid from Can't Hardly Wait? He went on to pursue a degree in physics froms MIT, graduate Yale Law, and make good as a Young Republican. Not too shabby.


These grown up child stars are living proof that the kids can turn out all right after all. It's comforting to know that not all child stars are headed on an inevitable downward trajectory. Some of them are doing just fine. More than fine, really; many have managed to sustain their level of initial success. The rest of us should only be so lucky.

Our Favorite 80s and 90s TV Puppet Pals

If there's one thing we've learned from TV, it's that everything is cuter when a puppet does it. It's a fail-safe formula. A person performs a hackneyed visual gag and we all groan in agony, but an adorable puppet does it and we fall for it hook, line, and stinker.*

It's no mystery that children love puppets, but TV in the 80s and 90s proved that adults have a pretty solid puppet-loving capacity all their own. Puppets often make the best punchlines, giving them an automatic boost in likability in both kids' and grown-up television programming. Plus, they never need a stunt double or act like a diva when it comes to contract renewal. Talk about cutting expenses.

Puppet-studded programs may not be the most highbrow fare on TV, but they have a unique style of entertaining us. They allow us to suspend our disbelief to a point where if we can believe this talking toy exists somewhere in real life, maybe all of the magical features that come along with it are possible, too. These 80s and 90s shows didn't need to be realistic or to feature deeply developed characters; we were perfectly content with our cartoonish, overdrawn cliches. So long as they kept feeding us hilarious puppet gag antics, we were more than happy to partake in spoonful after heaping spoonful.


Eureeka's Castle


Eureeka's Castle was a Nick Jr. gem, giving us a quirky, offbeat world of wizardry and goofy characters. The show revolved around sorceress trainee Eureeka, thickheaded dragon Magellan, peanut butter sandwich-gobbling twins Bogge and Quagmire, the visually impaired Batley, and the vaguely ethnic pushcart proprietor Mr. Knack. The characters were creative and imaginative in a way that bodes well for children's programming. It may not have been highly educational, but it did teach me to fear claymation Slurms. Those things were weird.


Lambchop's Play-Along



If there's one thing kids love more than puppets, it's baby puppets. Have you ever seen a more adorable little sheeplet? When I grew up, I was horrified to find that "Lambchop" referred to a cut of meat. Slicing into it for the first time was pretty traumatic, though luckily there was no stuffing inside. That might have scarred me for life. As a device to distract myself from the lambchop chopping task at knife, I just hummed a few bars of "This is the Song that Never Ends." That seemed to do the trick.


Mystery Science Theater 3000



I think our buddy Joel at MST3K had the right idea. If you're stuck orbiting the earth sequestered on a spacecraft forced by the powers that be to watch n endless stream of B-movies, you should definitely use the spare theater equipment to build yourself some sentient robot pals. You should, of course, name them Gypsy, Cambot, Crow T. Robot, and Tom Servo. There are pretty much no other options.


Sesame Street



For many of us, this was our first major exposure to puppetry. Or, equally likely, our first exposure to platonic male puppet roommates who share a cookie crumb-ridden bed and know an awful lot about each other's bathtime habits and carrier pigeon preferences. Either way, most of us fell for the cuddly Sesame Street characters, and hard. I mean, a monster who lives in a garbage can? Where do they come up with this stuff?


ALF


Alf Sings "Old Time Rock and Roll" - Click here for the most popular videos

Just when you thought noses couldn't get any more phallic looking than Joe Camel's, you met Alf. And then, you knew. This was the be-all-end-all of vaguely suggestive schnozes. ALF stood for "Alien Life Form", which is how we kindly earth-folk classify floppy-looking brown masses who grew up on the Lower East Side of the planet Melmac. ALF definitely had his moments, but his appearance is just a little unsettling. It just feels inappropriate.


Dinosaurs



If after watching this show you cried out endlessly, "I'm the baby! Gotta love me!" I'm sure your parents were less than pleased with their decision to grant viewership privileges. The show wasn't really directed at kids; it was more of a family sitcom that happened to feature full-size puppet characters. By the time we'd realized this, though, we'd already moved on to gleefully smacking our fathers on their heads with a frying pan while screaming, "Not the mama! Not the mama!"


Muppets Tonight



There have been so many incarnations of The Muppets over the years it's become difficult to differentiate between one series and another, but for the sake of 90s nostalgia we'll single out Muppets Tonight for brief examination. The show hinged pretty heavily on celebrity guest appearances and wasn't especially a standout in the long line of Muppet shows. I must say, though, the Baywatch parodies were worth a chuckle or two.


Fraggle Rock



That is some seriously rockin' theme music. I probably haven't seen this intro since 1992, yet somehow I find myself singing along with a surprisingly adept command of the lyrics. It's catchy, right? It's got that sparkly puppet charm sprinkled liberally throughout. Well done, Jim Henson studios. Well done, indeed.

Fraggle Rock managed to slip in a bunch of heavy issues while we were busy enjoying the musical numbers and highly colorful wardrobe selection. Some of us also spent a fair amount of time giggling over the fact that there was a Fraggle named Boober. I mean, Boober! Can you beat that?


Cousin Skeeter



Who knew a marionette could be such a bad-ass? It probably speaks volumes about my level of maturity that the theme song's phrase, "Skeeter's what I want" amuses me in a slangy double-entendre kind of way. I don't think I've advanced much in behavioral age since the days this show originally aired.


Unhappily Ever After


This show gave many of us an unquenchable desire to own a crass, wise-cracking stuffed rabbit. Mr. Floppy was just so adorable. His looks were, anyway. His personality could probably have used a bit of a tune-up to align with his cherubic appearance, but it all just contributed to his puppety charm.


Weinerville



If you had to pick the most terrifying mode of puppet, I'd say human-head-on-tiny-puppet-body would fall pretty darn close to the top of the list. Weinerville was a Nickelodeon cartoon/live-action variety show based on the comedic stylings of Marc Weiner. The characters were undeniably creative, but they still seem a little creepy to me. Add cross-dressing to the giant head/tiny puppet body mix and be prepared for the wrath of Weinerville.


Whatever the reason, puppets had a hold on us. Maybe we just don't watch enough Nick Jr. anymore, but the proportion of puppets in prime-time programming seems to have persistently plummeted. It's too bad, really. A lot of today's shows could probably use a good puppet boost. Just think: if this weekend's Oscars had used puppet presenters, we'd have been far more likely to push through to the bitter end. Just a thought.




*This is not a typo, it's just a terrible, terrible play on words. Had I been a puppet, you would have been all over that one

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

Infectious 90s TV Theme Songs

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I'm not saying our generation watched too much TV, but it's pretty telling that I've yet to witness someone break into, "Innnnn West Philadelphia, born and raised..." without an entire room of 20-somethings clambering to joining in. If I even overhear someone humming what sounds to be the opening bars of Rockapella's iconic Where in the World of Carmen San Diego theme, I'm wont to fill in the mid-range harmony bits from distances of up to 100 feet. True story. It may or may not have happened at the gym.*

It's almost a physiological reaction; we just can't help ourselves. Somewhere along the way, we've collected an arsenal of television theme song lyrics that are laying dormant in the darkest nether regions of our brains. We have an excellent command of the instrumental themes as well, but they fail to command the same involuntary knee-jerk reaction. Singing along to your old favorite TV intros has a way of transporting you right back onto your childhood couch, covered in Pringle crumbs, sipping on a Kool-Aid Burst. It's the magic of memory. Or maybe just a testament to the innumerable hours we all logged in front of the tube during our formative years.

Whether or not you liked the shows was almost irrelevant. Some of them were worth watching on the merit of introductory song alone. For the most part, though, they lived up to the immense promise of their catchy theme tunes. For whatever reason, they were irrepressibly memorable:



Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?



Love it or hate it, you've got to admit Rockapella did their homework. PBS commissioned the Carmen San Diego children's game show in direct response to the abysmal perfomance of American students on geography standards. Rockapella managed to squeeze almost every location on earth into their three-minute theme song, not to mention the wealth of groan-inducing puns they sprinkled throughout.

Some of these puns I'm willing to accept as legitimate jokes. You know, "We never Arkansas her steal" and that kind of thing. But at a certain point, they're really pushing it; I don't care how alluring their multi-part harmonious arrangement is, it's never okay to say, "She stole the beans from Lima." I get it, I get it, but it's not even the correct pronounciation. Rockapella did make up for their grevious pun infractions, though, by breaking it down in a major way at the end of the song. Well done, Rockapella.



The Fresh Prince of Bel Air



Expository theme songs are great the first time you tune in to a show. If you have no clue of the premise or back story, it'll fill you in pretty much right up until the events of the current episode with aits incredibly informative and detailed lyrics. In some cases, it all gets pretty tiresome after the first few viewings. In a time before DVR, there was no fast-forwarding through the credits.

Luckily, this was not the case with The Fresh Prince's theme song. We just couldn't get enough. Sometimes I'd watch the show just to see the opening credits. This one was a keeper, destined to go down forever in 90s TV theme history. So many of us worked tirelessly on memorizing this one. The furthest I ever got was to, "You're moving with your auntie and uncle in Bel Air", so I'm achingly jealous of all of you who know all of the verses by heart.



Saved By the Bell



The sheer exposure to this one was more than enough to commit it to memory. Saved By The Bell played in seemingly continuous loop in syndication throughout our youth. For awhile it seemed that we couldn't turn on the TV without flipping by an episode of SbtB. The theme song lyrics rivaled the show's subject matter in cheesiness, but both had a certain alluring quality.

This song takes a lot of liberties in fitting in syllables, working in well-pruned lines like "And the 'larm gives out a warning". Yes, you heard right. The 'larm. Alarm just wouldn't fit. It didn't really matter to us, though. So long as they kept parading attractive teen stars across our screen, we'd listen to whatever they wanted.



Salute Your Shorts



Salute Your Shorts' theme played out like a camp anthem parceled out amongst the main characters. As in any good teen sitcom, we all just assume that there are indeed other campers somewhere on the premises, though none quite as interesting and plotline-worthy as our major players. Sure, there might have been some other kids stationed at Camp Anawanna over the summer, but none quite as enthralling as Budnik or Donkey Lips.

Toilet humor is like comedic gold to children, so it's no wonder we delighted in the line, "Camp Anawanna, we hold you in our hearts/and when we think about you/it makes me wanna fart!" We all knew Ug was just a huge spoilsport for reprimanding the gang. I guess we've got to cut him a break, though. He was the almost only adult we ever saw, save for the mysterious disembodied voice of camp director Dr. Kahn. You'd probably be pretty tightly wound, too, if you were the only grown-up in a sea of teenagers for an entire summer.


Full House



Even a few bars of the jazzy "ba-ba-ba-de-ba-bop-bop" at the end is enough to jar us all back into full Full House mode, yearning once again to be raised by a zany, madcap team of ill-equipped and uncompatible male role models. The opening sequence became incredibly well known throughout the show's multi-season run. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who can't complete the line, "What ever happened to predictability? The milkman, the paper boy..." See, you're just itching to fill in the blank, aren't you?



Hey Dude



Who would have thought that a western song about working summers on a dude ranch could be so compelling? Hey Dude represented the classic era of Nickelodeon, and its signature theme song did not disappoint. Well, at least not in melody; lyrically it could have used some rethinking. It doesn't really make sense, per se (It's a little wild and a little strange? Really?) but it all adds up to a part of the show's charm. Yippee ki yi ay, lil dogie.


We may not have known it at the time, but even after all these years these themes are as recognizable and catchy as they ever were. The downside, of course, is that they'll be tumbling around in your head on spin cycle for the rest of the day, but it's a fair trade off to get to relive all of those gloriously cheesy 90s TV anthems. Or at least that's how you can justify it when the guy at the next cubicle tells you for the twelfth time to please keep it down.

*Okay, okay, it did happen at the gym. Someone's iPod was blaring it from the bank of treadmills. I couldn't resist.

The Secret World of Alex Mack

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One of the fascinating things about looking back at shows you watched as a kid is that the characters never age. Upon revisiting the show you find that while you have progressed into an adult somewhere along the way, the show's characters remain frozen in time. When the show debuted you may have been the same age as the principal players, yet they've been held back in an eternal repetition of their childhood years.

Such is the case with Alex Mack, a middle school-aged semi-superhero of 90s Nickelodeon fame. I always thought of the two of us as contemporaries, so imagine my surprise to find that she's still just thirteen years old. The real-life actress who portrayed her, Larisa Oleynik, has grown alongside me into a more reasonable age of 28, but I related so well to the character that I came to think of her as something of a real person. I half-expected a current Google search for Alex Mack to pull up a YouTube clip of a late-20s version of the character, again clad in a flannel shirt and backwards cap, playing hooky from her office day job by morphing Capri Sun-style into a metallic puddle and slipping out through the heating vent. It was a bit jarring to realize that someone I'd yearned to befriend as as a kid is stuck at thirteen forever. Watching the show, I still kind of want to be friends, but it gives me a sort of uneasy feeling to imagine myself randomly befriending seventh graders. Sure, she might be scientifically significant, but I doubt Mr. and Mrs. Mack would take kindly to the two of us going out for a soda. At least not until after she'd finished her algebra homework, I mean.


The Secret World of Alex Mack premiered in 1994 as part of the Saturday night tween-geared SNICK programming block on Nickelodeon. Featuring a quirky young teenage girl, the show was a natural fit as a replacement for the very popular Clarissa Explains it All. Superpower premise aside, the general genre was a solid match to its predecessor. The show was originally conceived of with a male central character, but the departure of Clarissa led to some retooling. I don't think the boys were too disappointed, though. They all got Larisa Oleynik to drool over, so it wasn't a bad deal in the end.

While Alex's coming of age story is certainly confounded by her unusual chemical circumstances, she's generally just a young girl struggling to find her place in the ever-viney jungle of adolescence. We see her face mean girls, first crushes, and fights with her parents. Okay, so maybe she can move things with her mind and turn into a shiny puddle of echo-voiced goo, but at the end of the day she's just trying to see where she fits into the puzzle of junior high.

The show's subject matter was pretty sophisticated for a children's show. While many programs aimed at a young viewer demographic tend to patronize and dumb down factual information, The Secret World of Alex Mack gave it to us straight. Well, sort of. If you want to get technical, the entire premise and all related scientific data was completely fabricated and improbably at best. Shows with made-up scientific background are probably better-suited to children as we're less likely to question any chemical plot holes. Regardless, The Secret World of Alex Mack treated its viewers more or less like adults. We had a high tech chemical plant, the background on research and development, and some entree into the world of as-of-yet FDA unapproved weight loss aids that have the potential to turn you into a mutant.



Doesn't this opening sequence just stir up all sorts of displaced memories? I haven't watched the show in maybe 10 years, but I'm pretty sure I could recite Alex Mack's voiceover word-for-word regardless. Alex Mack is memorable in a way that few children's shows achieve, though maybe it's proportionate to how badly you wanted to possess her melting and mind-moving superpowers.

In the show's first episode, Alex is doused with the mysterious chemical (henceforth known as the crazy compound GC-161) on the way to her first day of junior high. Alex quickly discovers that the accident has left her with a number of unexplainable side effects, most importantly silver puddle meltability, telekinesis, and the ability to send little shocks out of her fingertips. On the negative, she also turns an unnatural shade of orange in lieu of a more ordinary pink when she blushes. All in all, sort of a tradeoff, but the pros pretty far outweigh the cons in terms of general superheroic symptoms.

If for some reason the show isn't so fresh in your mind, here's the entire first episode for nostalgic restoration purposes:







Alex lets her best friend Ray and her Janine Kishi-esque brainy sister Annie in on her secret, though she opts against telling her parents. Her father is employed by the anonymously ominous local chemical plant and reports directly to the notoriously evil Danielle Altron. Danielle and her plant partner in crime Vince are Alex's main adversarial forces, with the majority of superpower-related plotlines emphasizing Alex's continuous struggle to avoid capture and eventual subjection to creepy testing. Danielle and Vince see Alex as sort of a human lab rat and are endlessly caught up in hot pursuit of their subject. In a clever plot point, the chemical plant is Alex's hometown of Paradise Valley's main employer. That means most people report to Danielle, and few would want to face unemployment by crossing her. Unfortunately, that settles the score at Plant 1, Alex 0. Tough break.

The Secret World of Alex Mack lasted a solid four seasons, culminating in Alex's secret exposed. As the following finale teaser boomingly intones, "She can morph, but she can't hide..."



Alex Mack differentiated itself from other superhero shows in many ways, the most important of which may have been the fact that Alex would have preferred to be a normal kid over a wanted superhero. Even with all she had to gain from the incident, she was just an average kid at heart. Alex never asked to be extraordinary, nor did she possess some natural capacity for leadership or do-goodery. We could relate to her because she represented the rest of us far better than her comic book superhero contemporaries. She wasn't out saving the world; she just wanted to make it through seventh period English. With its cliffhanger ending, though, we're left to decide for ourselves whether Alex took the antidote. Feel free to speculate for yourself with the last clip of the series finale below. I'm still losing sleep over this one.

Before They Were Famous: Our Favorite Stars' Early TV Bit Parts

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It's hard to imagine major TV or film stars as anything less than bona fide celebrities, but all of them had to work their way to the top. In Hollywood terms, that usually means paying your dues in sitcom or soap opera appearances until you're eventually discovered and whisked off into a series of starring roles. It's got to give us hope for those of us who aren't quite at the eventual level of achievement we envision for ourselves; heck, at our age, George Clooney was still just a random handyman on Facts of Life and Quention Tarantino was a second-row Elvis impersonator on The Golden Girls. I guess that means we've all got a good twenty years or so to grow into two-time Sexiest Man of the Year or wildly successful quirky screenwriter/producer/actor/director.

That's certainly reassuring, considering many of these stars have gone on to achieve fame and fortune that outstrip even our wildest of future fantasies. It's nice to see that once upon a time, these well-known celebrities were putting in their time and trying to make it just like the rest of us. So sit, back, relax, and luxuriate in the realization that you have plenty of time to reach our ultimate goals. It's even further consolation to know that by the time we meet those goals, some of these stars may be relegated to beauty pageant hosting gigs and Dancing With the Stars appearances. Circle of life and all that.

While many, many television and movie actors started with bit roles on sitcoms or daytime soaps, I present to you a random smattering of both the memorable and the obscure:


George Clooney: Facts of Life


People are always saying Clooney has gotten more attractive with age, but watching him in this mid-80s clip I'd have to argue that he was always pretty darn good looking. 80s and 90s TV tended to be wholly unoriginal in assigning names to guest stars, often simply assigning the actor a fictitious last name to supplement their real-life first. Accordingly, Clooney played be-mulleted handyman George Burnett for two seasons on The Facts of Life. He took on a number of other bit parts, including roles on Roseanne and The Golden Girls, before striking figurative TV oil with ER.



Leonardo DiCaprio, Hilary Swank, Matthew Perry, and Brad Pitt: Growing Pains

That's Hilary Swank at her locker, in case you missed her

Apparently Growing Pains served as a functional launching pad for all sorts of young stars. DiCaprio played Luke Brower, a homeless kid the Seavers eventually adopt. Luke was a Cousin Oliver-type character, a last-ditch attempt to win over people with a cute kid and distract them from the show's decline.

Hilary Swank had a much smaller role (you can see her at her locker in the first clip), but her few lines managed to garner her some attention from Hollywood agents. She'd have to suffer through The Next Karate Kid before eventually segueing into more respectable roles like Beverly Hills, 90210. Oh, and you know, those Oscar roles of hers. Not too shabby for a girl who had just a few lines on Growing Pains.

Brad Pitt: dreamy even with a borderline mullet

Some people are so attractive it's essentially their service to society to become celebrities. In the case of Brad Pitt, I'd say he owed it to us. 80s and 90s sitcoms had a bad habit of recasting the same actors in multiple bit parts, apparently assuming their entire audience had severe short term memory loss. Along this vein, Pitt played two parts on GP: once as Carol's short-lived romantic interest and another as Ben's favorite rock star. He wasn't an especially nice guy in either role, but most of us were pretty won over by his dreamy physique. I don't care how mean he was to Carol; I still would've gone for him




Matthew Perry also appeared on the show as Carol's boyfriend Sandy, who was killed off in a drunk driving accident after just a few episodes. He actually first appeared in the short lived Growing Pains spinoff Just the 10 of Us, but apparently they'd liked him so much they shuffled him back over to the original. And then, you know, killed him off almost immediately. How thoughtful.



Ben Savage: Wonder Years



There he is at 4:20. How cute are the two of them? Boy Meets World's Ben Savage is Wonder Years' Fred Savage's younger brother, so it was of course adorable to have the two guest star in this Valentine's episode. They're pretty good at pretending to be strangers, what with the whole, "Hey you! Kid!" ruse they've got going on.



John Stamos: General Hospital



Obviously this feathered look was his hairstyle of choice for many, many years. It took all the way from General Hospital in 1983 to the early Full House years. Stamos is by far the best actor in this scene, though for a soap opera his style is a bit understated. He seems a little too relaxed in the midst of all the drama.



Christina Applegate: Family Ties



Before she was dizzy 90s blonde Kelly Bundy on Married With Children, Christina Applegate had a number of small sitcom roles. Applegate appeared on Family Ties in an episode shamelessly geared toward launching Tina Yothers' misguided music career. Applegate plays one of her band members, and I must say, in this clip she really rocks those shoulder pads. What else would you expect from the fashion maven of Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead?



Michelle Tratchenberg: Pete and Pete



Even before her starring role in Harriet the Spy (complete with signature Nickelodeon bright orange-VHS tape), Michelle Tratchenberg played Nona on The Adventures of Pete and Pete. It's a far cry from her mean-girl act on Gossip Girl these days, but she is pretty adorable in an un-self conscious, desperately needs-braces type of way.




Jennifer Aniston: Ferris Bueller



Following the success of John Hughes' Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the movie was optioned as a TV show starring none of the original cast. Jennifer Aniston was virtually unknown at the time, debuting in a reprisal of Jennifer Grey's Jeannie Bueller. The show lost steam quickly and was canceled after just a few episodes, but we did get something good out of it: a mid-season replacement Blossom. And Jennifer Aniston's burgeoning career, of course.



Ricky Martin on General Hospital



He may not be a household name today, but in the late 90s we were all pretty loco over singer Ricky Martin. Somewhere in between his Menudo days and his rise to astronomical fame as a solo artist, Martin find the time to play Miguel, a singer/bartender on General Hospital. His acting wasn't anything to write home about, but like most of these 80s and 90s soap-starting stars, his hair may have been.



Jessica Alba: The Secret World of Alex Mack



Oh, this one really takes me back. Just hearing them reference "GC-161" is enough to bring me back to the day of Alex's ill-fated chemical spill. When her mom tries to saddle her with that Trolls lunchbox, it's pure 90s. There's Alba at 7:25, playing the stock mean girl character. Her acting isn't especially impressive, but she's cute enough for us to overlook it. I'm guessing this means she never went through an awkward stage. When the rest of us were gawky and awkward, Alba was well on her way to Amazonian goddesshood. Then again, I saw photos from her few months post-baby bikini photo shoot--I think she's got some sort of genetic upper hand on all of us.



Parker Posey on As The World Turns



If you don't know already, I'm a pretty devoted fan of Christopher Guest Films. I've always found Parker Posey to be hilarious, with great comic timing and spot-on deadpan. Imagine my surprise, then, to learn that Posey actually paved her path to independent movie fame with a recurring role on daytime soap As The World Turns. It's always a little jarring to realize an actor or actress you respect once appeared on a soap; it's like finding out that an esteemed author once ghostwrote Sweet Valley High novels. You might have found them entertaining, sure, but it's not exactly a claim to fame. This stint has probably moved pretty far down on Posey's resume, though. I think she's redeemed herself from the uncertain fate of wooden-acted soap roles.



Quentin Taratino: Golden Girls



This isn't the best quality video, I know, but these specific TV moments are sometimes hard to pinpoint in the vast expanses of cyberspace. In case you missed him in that one-second video-recorded-off-the-TV clip, here's a handy photo helper from Motivated Photos:


Yes, that's right...Quentin Tarantino appeared as one of the many Elvis impersonators who mistakenly populated the audience at Sophia's wedding to Max Weinstock. Is it troubling that I could rattle off all of those details off the top of my head? I've seen this episode more times than I can count, but I never once noticed Tarantino. He's not exactly in a prominent role, but it is definitely an interesting piece of trivia to know. That Motivated Photo poster cracks me up, too. I am totally going to greet him that way if I ever run into him.


Like I said, all of these big names started from pretty meager beginnings, so there may be hope for you yet. Their equivalent of entry-level positions might be a little more exciting than our own, but it's a small comfort to know they had to work their way up. Plus, based on what we've seen in the above clips, I'd say each and every one of you is probably a qualified enough actor to have a supporting role on one of those soap operas. Really.