HILARIOUS! The ABC After School Special (For those of us who remember)

[matcom]

:rofl:

The ABC After School Special

First Show 1972
Last Show 1988
Genre Drama
Network ABC
Slot Day Various
Slot Time Various
Jumped The Shark when... Votes
Never Jumped 28
Helen Hunt dives out the window 7
Death (Last of the Curlews) 2
Recycling (same storylines) 2
The Boy Who Drank Too Much 2
My middle school health teacher taped them for us 1
Trini Alvarado 1

Other Thoughts:

The Curlew episode made me want to go out and buy a slingshot. With this show, Mom never had to tell me to go out and play. Watching it, I always got this gut-bad feeling that something horrible was going to happen. After eight hours of the same feeling at school, give me a break! Napalm the curlews! Right back into the stone age!!

What preteen didn't jump off the bus and run home to catch the latest controversial ABC Afterschool Special? It was the hottest thing going in those days, long before premium channels and all the other assorted shit that clogs the airwaves these days. I say, dig those old shows out and let us revel in our turbulent adolescent past one more time. These were '70's shows with an edge, I'm feeling pretty cool just thinking about them.

I swear some of these shows gave me the creeps. I'll never forget the one with the boy who decided he was gay and tried to pick up a guy at a truckstop and when he wouldn't "put out" got the crap kicked out of him. That day ended with him limping home with his bike. How about the one where the girl was being raped by her father? Or that one about suicide where the kid kept repeating the dead whoever's actions by almost driving over the cliff but stopping just in time? I just laugh now, but sheesh! We were just kids for crying out loud. On a sick note, I would love to see the look on today's kiddies faces after seeing this stuff.

I remember the show with the swimmer chick from all those cheesy supporting 80's tv roles DOIN COKE IN THE GIRLS ROOM!!

well, i guess they were all special, hence the name. i am thinking specifically of the one where scott chachi charles baio plays uber nerd who starts a smoking weed, bong hits with his budds. then his brother, the swimmer has chachi row the boat across the lake to keep him company (or perhaps a spotter- details are somewhat fuzzy)and charles nails the guy in the head with the oar. i mean, it was like the old reefer madness movie, two or three hits and someone becomes a waste of life, hell bent on self destruction. i mean, can't they base these things in reality?

The first after school special was the cartoon about the little brown birds becoming extinct. By the end there were two but then one was shot by a hunter and the last one flew away as the narrator said, "First there were many, then there were two, now there is one, soon there will be none." How I cried. I have not seen this cartoon since. The peak by far was when the cartoon character Timer, who many people will know from Saturday mornings hankering for a hunka cheese and making wagon wheels and stacks of snacks, journeyed with two children through the body of their Archie Bunker type uncle. We learned about the human body as this man smoked, ate unhealthy foods and got upset at his wife. What stood out mostly in this cartoon was the songs. Absolutely heartbreaking as Timer said good bye to the kids and sent them back home (think of Dorothy saying good bye at the end of the Wizard of Oz), but had the funniest pick-me-up as the kids tried to tell their uncle where they had been and he struggled to listen. the uncle and the kids return was real life but the journey through the body was a cartoon. Have never seen this cartoon since either. The jump? The stray from these animated educational cartoons and the descension into what was perceived as issues "today's kids" had to deal with, soap opera stories. The earliest I can recall was Melissa Sue Anderson having to deal with the death of her sister, named Joss or Josh (I want to say Joss). How did she die? She fell out of the treehouse. The girl who's parents were deaf was pretty irritating to watch too. "We're all freaks!" she screamed as she fled the Malt Shoppe. They never improved. It would be "Dad's New wife is My School Teacher" (Kristy Macnicol), then "My Mom is A Maid" (Marion Ross) and a girl struggling to become a dancer, a la Madonna, all handled the same way as dealing with drugs or alcoholism. I have always laughed in thinking about "My Mom is Having a Baby" which would deal with where babies come from in a better light than those beaming women from the fifties educational programs. Guess what, guys? It didn't! When kids ask about babies or sex, they don't want to know how many weeks it takes before baby's fingernails form or how long it takes before his ears manifest. This show said it would show the actual birth of a baby. Not in an understanding way for kids it didn't! And concluded with no clear conception of where babies come from either.

much, MUCH more: http://www.jumptheshark.com/a/abcafterschoolspecial.htm

[blondeatlast]

1. Jumped the shark when: "My middle school teacher taped them for us."

That has to be the ultimate cred-killer!

:rofl: :rofl::rofl:

I remember Helen Hunt doing the dive, too. That's a good laugh to start my Saturday, thanks!

[anarch]

2. bwaahahaha!

:thumbsup:

[xmas74]

3. They were always so funny!

[matcom]

4. kick

:kick: