Doogie Howser, MD

As children, it was tough to see beyond our own narrow worldview. If the world didn't revolve around us, then at least we must have had a fair portion of gravitational pull. In turn, our flawed perspective-taking led us to believe that every child's life was pretty much just like our own. Unless evidence to the contrary presented itself, we all seemed relatively assured that our childhood was the prototype.

Until, of course, we heard of a youngster named Doogie Howser. Though technically a fictional character, his divergence from our limited expectations of childhood and adolescence was enough to secure our interest and engage our imaginations. Just think, a mere kid, a kid just like you or me, living a double life. No, not in the exciting superhero manner we were accustomed to, but rather on the basis of his academic achievements alone. You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief from nerdy kids that there existed a route to exceptionality that precluded athleticism.

Doogie was renowned for his geekiness, and the uncool amongst us savored this fact. Though seriously ill as a child, Doogie managed to beat society's odds not only through a recovery to good health but also on the academic front. At the tender age of six he aced the SAT, achieving a perfect score. In a couple of months, he had breezed through high school and found himself accepted to the prestigious Princeton University at the age of ten. After a few years of medical school, our Doogie was well on his way to becoming a full-fledged doctor.

Of course, all of this happened before we ever laid eyes on our hero. We met Doogie at the slightly riper age of 16, already elbow-deep (sometimes literally, or at least surgically) into his medical residency. In the first episode, Doogie is taking his driver's license road test and drives recklessly to step in at the scene of a nearby accident. When a cop tries to apprehend him by asking "Do you want to go to jail?", Doogie bad-assedly retorts "No, you'll be the one going to jail...for criminal negligence!" Oh, burn! His mother looks on dreamily and remarks, "That's my son...the doctor!"

(Doogie Howser DVD trailer runs until the 1 minute mark...I can't be responsible the garbage that follows, I'm at the mercy of the almighty YouTube uploaders)

Doogie was not just your run-of-the-mill socially inept wunderkind, though. The show knew better than to make Doog into what he probably would have been in real life: a pompous social outcast incomprehensible to his peers. No, our friend Doogie was marvelously well-adjusted for someone who'd had a lifetime's worth of achievements in a mere decade or so of existence. In the show, he was just a normal kid, or so we were led to believe.

So how exactly did they manage to lead us to this improbable conclusion of normalcy? Well, for starters, he's got a totally goof-off best friend, Vinnie. In sitcom tropes, a zany sidekick is more than just a comic foil; rather, this character allowed us to take the leap of faith in assuming that a Doogie could really be friends with a Vinnie.

Vinnie, like all good 90s TV best friends, meets up with Doogie by climbing through his bedroom window. I guess he, Jessie Spano, and Sam from Clarissa Explains it All had a conference call or something. I don't know about you, but I was generally encouraged to use doors as my main point of entry. Bromancing aside, Vinnie was always pulling Doogie into his fast-talking teenage craziness. The intro shows a tiny snippet of their soda-packed beer hat-wearing, pool jumping antics:

If that theme music fails to transport you directly back to your childhood, I don't know what will.

Before he was hawking Old Spice deodorant and tripping in the backseat on Harold and Kumar's car, Neil Patrick Harris was a formidably pioneering child star. Though you may have forgotten it, he was the original Carrie Bradshaw--albeit, with more calming music and less voice-overs during his typing sequences.

Don't you just love that two-color screen and boxy font? That computer is just beckoning me, aching for a floppy disk insertion or a rousing round of Space Invaders.

All in all, Doogie Howser, MD was just a smart show. Not because of its brainy main character, but for its ability to present him to us as a relatable, regular guy. A part of all of us wanted to be Doogie, regardless of our actual academic aspirations. He had normal teenage relationships and problems, but he also got to be a legitimate hero.

Thankfully, we can all get our weekly (daily, on Lifetime) fix of NPH on ABC's How I Met Your Mother in which Harris plays the womanizing Barney Stinson. Lucky for us, the show isn't afraid to poke fun at the former child star:

(My favorite part is when he looks up, nods, and smiles. Is it just me, or did the guy from the Commerative Obama Plate commercial steal that signature move from Doogie?)

The "Very Special" Episode

Image via NY Post PopWrap Blog

Tonight, on a Very Special Episode of Children of the 90s: watch as our heroes combat drinking/smoking/drugs/racism/domestic abuse/eating disorders/gang violence/poverty/suicide/disease/prejudice/homophobia. Stay tuned, as this is not one you'll want to miss!

The Very Special Episode was spurned in the 70s, when the airwaves were teeming with family sitcoms just aching to impart morality and wisdom onto the eager viewing masses. With time, the Very Specialness of it all had been toned down considerably; the 80s boasted its fair share of preachy sitcom episodes, but for a few minutes in the late 80s it appeared as if the trend were preparing to taper off gracefully.

Lucky for all of you children of the 90s, television executives reconstructed and revived the Very Special Episode into a veritable art form. With the advent of countless interchangeable family sitcoms aimed at considerably younger viewers, the 90s boasted a roster of series for whom the Very Special Episode was nearly synonymous with the sehow itself. Let's take a morally conscious stroll down memory lane and examine some of the 90s most Special moments that shaped our childhoods and warped our perceptions for years to come:

Blossom (1991-1995)

Blossom was the real innovator in 1990s Very Specialness. Indeed, it was the good people at NBC who took great liberties in introducing an inordinate number of Blossom episodes with the oft-mocked phrase, "Tonight, on a Very Special Episode of Blossom..."

The show's breadth of very special episodes ran the gamut from drinking to divorce. It truly seemed as if every episode of the show was in some way Very Special; the series had no qualms about shoving allegedly acute moral lessons down the throats of its impressionable young viewers, albeit often with humorous undertones. Observe, a lighthearted reprimand from Six's mother following an incident of stealing:





Saved By the Bell (1989-1993)

Saved by the Bell was unabashed in its portrayal of faultless, morally rigid teenagers masquerading as carefree characters. Saved by the Bell spared us no issue, undertaking parental unemployment, feminism, fake IDs, drunk driving, and drug use in a scant 4 seasons. While often the drama of the purported misconduct took place outside the nuclear group of major characters, a few episodes did choose to sully our heroes' good names with some good old fashioned cheesy 90s transgressions.

While the drinking and driving episode certainly has its moments (particularly as they manage to crash Lisa's mother's car after a mere sip of beer), the most memorable episode was none other than the infamous Jessie Spano caffeine pill freak-out:



"I'm so excited! I'm so excited! I'm so (choke/gasp) scared!" And to think the movie Showgirls couldn't manage to coast along on Elizabeth Berkley's master thespianism alopne. I'm not sure if you have ever had any run-ins with caffeine pills, but unless you're on the serious overdose track they tend to be fairly benign. They might as well have had Jessie sobbing over her skinny soy latte from Starbucks.



The Fresh Prince of Bel Air (1990-1996)

The Fresh Prince of Bel Air was not without its fair share of issue tackling. Like any good sitcom featuring adolescent main characters, there were many of the requisite coming-of-age themes (such as the episode in which Will likes a plus-size girl). The show also occasionally skimmed the surface of topical issues featuring episodes about interracial marriage, race riots, and gun violence in an episode where Will is shot in an armed robbery.

Two of the most Very Special are an episode where Carlton mistakenly takes amphetamines from Will's locker and is subsequently hospitalized and an episode where Will's absentee father returns with empty promises. I did not compile the following into a video, but its existence on YouTube certainly is convenient to my chronicling its Very Specialness.





Full House (1987-1995)

If nothing else, Full House is truly a Very Special show. Rarely did more than an episode or two pass in a season without confronting some sort of wholly unsubtle moral dilemma. The perfect and sanctimonious children of Full House may not have been prone to many discretions themselves, but they were certainly good at pointing out other people's faulty behavior.

The quintessential example of this is undoubtedly the episode in which Uncle Jesse wrongly accuses DJ of drinking beer at a school dance. Of course, our fair DJ would never engage in such raucous and unbecoming behavior, particularly not while wearing that Hilary Clinton circa 1995 pantsuit. DJ's wardrobe and rockin' mullet aside, she is the epitome of innocence shocked when she exclaims, "You're drinking BEER!" I especially like when the supposedly rebellious beer-drinking 12-year old proclaims her to be "so uncool!" It seems our friends over at ABC lifted this script directly from a DARE in-class video presentation.








90210 (1990-2000)

90210 was teen soap operary at its finest, and certainly featured a hefty dosage of Very Special Episodes. One of the most memorable was the season five finale in which Donna's abusive boyfriend Ray pushes her down the stairs. This would be an admirable leap into real-issue territory if the scene hadn't been quite so hokey. Tori Spelling's verbal acting aside, it's possible her physical work could use some work. I know it's in poor taste, but watching this clip potentially suggests she'd be well suited for some sort of highly-physical comedic work:



The drama! The drama! It is, of course, a very serious issue and it makes you wish they could have pulled it off a little better in the execution. Oh well, I guess it's either you hire your daughter or you hire a credible actress, and you just can't have it both ways.



Unfortunately, I just can't fit all of your favorites into a single post. I can, however, make a totally cop-out move by simply listing my runners up without actually describing them in any great detail. Hence, here we have some formidable honorable mentions:

Dinosaurs: Robbie encounters peer pressure to smoke weed
90210: Dylan's alcoholism
Family Matters: Laura gets beat up by a gang for wearing a certain jacket, racist graffiti at school
Boy Meets World: Shawn's drinking problem
Every episode of 7th Heaven and Dawson's Creek

Thank you for tuning in to this Very Special Episode of Children of the 90s! Join us next time when Children of the 90s confronts peer pressure/promotes Black History Month/feeds the homeless/administers STD testing/get juvenile diabetes.

Bubble Tape

I don't know about you, but I prefer for my bubble gum supply to measure in feet. Sticks are for lightweights. Everyone knows that the true test of childhood victory is the ability to fit the maximum allowable denomination of chewing gum into your mouth and to successfully masticate without asphyxiating. But packages of gum are so difficult to unwrap, not to mention all that unsightly tinfoil waste. Sure, it can be fun for awhile to peel off the foil and stick it on your school notebooks, but what are you left with after that? I demand more from my gum.

Luckily, my concern did not go unaddressed. The Wrigley corporation not only recognized this gum supply issue, but also chose to capitalize it with a hefty marketing campaign directed as gum-crazed children. They recognized that kids prefer novelty products to everyday fare and went about tailoring a product to meet this need. They sat around the boardroom wondering, "Now how can we make a completely useless product for which we can utilize cold, calculated marketing strategies to convince children that they thought of it in the first place?"

The major thrust of many advertising campaigns directed at children in the 90s focused on the illustrious nature of adult disapproval. In some crazy existential marketing bubble, it was completely justifiable for a group of grown-ups to labor over advertising that outright villianized adults. Somehow, they managed to convince us as children that this was all some crazy idea that we had come up with. Never mind that the concept, promotion, production, and distribution of the product was completely controlled by adults. This was of little matter to the Wrigley people. The real bottom line was that children believed that this product in some way represented their lifestyle and needs while being generally repugnant to authority figures.

Adults likely frowned on Bubble Tape with good reason. A few sticks of gum to satiate a sugar-demanding child is one thing, but a full six feet of bubble gum is probably overkill. "Oh, you wanted some gum? Well, how about twice your height's worth? Now stick it in your mouth all at once and try your best not to die. Doesn't that sound fun?"

Bubble Tape was aptly named for its scotch tape-like dispenser. Who says office supplies can't be inspiration for food products? Alright, I've been known to say that from time to time, but can you blame me? It's pretty outrageous. This packaging allowed for easy access to a maximal amount of chewing gum, even possessing the capability to discard the dispenser entirely in favor of sticking the whole roll directly in your mouth.


Sometimes as an adult, when I try to eat a particularly unwieldy large piece of sushi in a single bite, I am eerily transported back to the chew-or-die memory of attempting to ingest a full six feet of Bubble Tape. The trauma has faded, but the awareness lurks just beneath the surface. My mother had told me (incorrectly, I should note) that swallowed gum would stick to my appendix, and I thus worried for years needlessly about my inexorable pending appendectomy. I can only begin to imagine what the fictitious surgeons would say. Come along, if you will, on a journey into my Bubble Tape-induced nightmare:

Surgeon One: Holy cow, Bill get a load of this!
Surgeon Two: Geez, what is that? A pancreas? Actually, on second glance it looks a little spleenish. Shouldn't we leave this in?
Surgeon One: Well, actually, I think it's...gum. Chewing gum. Enormous six-foot squared chunks of it.
Suregon Two: Gosh, Tim, she probably should have listened to her mother when she made up that ludicrous lie, then she easily could have avoided this imaginary appendectomy.

But why the urge to stuff all this gum into our mouths and masticate our way into all sorts of improbably dangerous medical scenarios? In all likelihood the commercials egged us on just a bit:



Ah, yes. For you, not them. Touche, ad execs. Touche.

You have to appreciate their understanding of the literal-mindedness of children through the illustration of 6 feet as actual human feet. On the whole, this advertisement makes very little sense. I accept that children-directed marketing doesn't necessarily have to make sense, but this truly is on the side of the extreme. Essentially, here's a random cluster of facts about our unsightly underoo-ironing gym teacher and equally unattractive ice cream-scooping mashed potatoes cafeteria lady. Sure, we understand that these are unsavory characters with undesirable behavioral attributes., but is their lack of endorsement really enough to prompt children to flood grocery stores en mass in search of lengthy chewing gum?

Apparently it was. There was some underlying childlike joy to be taken from the whole "For you, not them" concept. An adult requested a piece and you could flippantly say, "But, mother, haven't you seen the commercials? This gum is not intended for grown-ups. This is a product entirely intended for me." Of course, I'm sure our parents just loved these tidbits of commercial-learned wisdom. In fact, I suspect it was exactly this type of behavior that prompted my mother to concoct the gum-to-appendix lie in the first place: to regain control of the bubble gum situation by unfair use of fearmongering.

The real trouble arises now, as the "you" in these commercials are now all grown up. Actually, it's possible some of you are out their ironing your underwear right now. Do we still reserve this ad-given right to deny others the sweet six feet of confectionery goodness? Obviously this "for you, not them" argument was built on faulty logic; like it not, now we're them.

Regardless of this hole in the Bubble Tape reasoning, I say embrace your inner child. Go out there and buy spools of gum by the foot and remember a time in your life when this 99 cent piece of plastic meant the world to you. Just don't say I didn't warn you about the risk of imaginary appendectomies.