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Festive Rewind: Beverly Hills 90210 “It’s a Totally Happening Life”

It’s TV Ate My Wardrobe’s first festive season and to mark this occasion we are hosting a very special rewind series. What this means is that we will be featuring a whole host of guest posts and in the spirit of the holidays we have asked a variety of writers to discuss a festive episode of their choice. These will be appear on the site over the next couple of weeks and there’s an eclectic mix including teen dramas, science fiction, animation, comedy, drama and more to get you in the celebratory mood. Or to at least give you plenty of suggestions of TV to watch over the break.

Julie Hammerle is treating us to the joys of early 90s teen TV and the wonder that is Beverly Hills 90210 and “It’s a Totally Happening Life”

“Don’t thank me. Thank you-know-who.”

These are the last lines of Beverly Hills 90210’s third season Christmas episode, “It’s a Totally Happening Life,” and I’m pretty sure the “you-know-who” we’re supposed to be thanking is Donna Martin Graduates for being a perfectly perfect role model and character who solves all the problems and never does anything wrong. She gives angels wings, people. She makes miracles happen.

This whole “Donna the Angel” thing is a recurring theme throughout the ten seasons of Beverly Hills 90210, and I just wonder if it was Aaron Spelling’s doing or if it was the brain child of the writers to stay on Aaron Spelling’s good side.

Anyway.

“It’s a Totally Happening Life” is ridiculous. It’s a ridiculous hour of television. It has everything: a potential bus crash, talking star angels, lots of smooching, and Andrea rapping.

The episode starts when Miriam, a star who wants to be an angel I don’t know, asks a more seasoned angel-star, Clarence, to help her save a bunch of rich, good-looking adults-pretending-to-be-high-schoolers. We don’t know why she needs to save them when millions of other people need saving around the world every day or what she needs to save them from (themselves? food poisoning) until later in the episode (spoiler: it’s a bus crash), but we just know that she needs to do it.

What is happening outside the bus crash is that everyone in the West Beverly popular group is fighting or moping. Steve is stuck in detention. David is sad that he’s only junior and won’t graduate with Donna Martin Graduates, et. al. Andrea and Brandon have both just been dumped, and they wind up kissing each other for no good reason. Brenda and Kelly have proposed a fake friendship with Dylan, though really they both just want to jump his mom-jeaned bones.

Because everyone is so frustrated with one another, they almost don’t get on the bus (yay, the bus is going to crash!), but then Donna and the principal guilt them into getting on the bus and doing what they promised (bringing Christmas joy to underprivileged girls and boys).

Everyone keeps pouting on the bus and yelling at one another, even at the people with whom they had no beef. Why was Kelly yelling at David? I have no idea, but it happened. Then Donna gets up and gives a big, dumb speech about the Reason for the Season and everyone kisses and makes up and then the drunk guy in the truck drives RIGHT THROUGH, literally RIGHT THROUGH, the bus and no one is hurt. Because Donna is God. That is the lesson here, I think.

While the truck was on its way to ram into the bus, I just kept thinking, what if the show had had the balls to just let the bus crash. The only main character not on that bus was Steve. What if they had killed everybody else and just started over with Steve? That would’ve been kind of amazing. I’m sure we’d still be talking about it today. Remember that time 90210 killed EVERYONE?

But, of course, that didn’t happen. And I guess I’m thankful for that. If everyone had died in the bus crash, we would never have seen drunk Donna or meth-head David or coked-out-burned-stalked-in-a-cult Kelly or Brandon, doing whatever it is Brandon does.

I know I should mention the fashions here. This show was from December 1992, when I was in 8th grade, and much of this fashion hits close to home. I especially loved Donna’s velvet choker that, up close, revealed itself to have…a tiny Christmas wreath charm attached. Amazing. I need it. I also loved how baggy Dylan’s shirt was, tucked in and bloused out of his stone washed mom jeans. And Andrea’s upholstery vest? Gorgeous. A thing of beauty. How did anyone ever think she could pass for a teenager?

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good…this.

Julie Hammerle is, according to Klout, an expert in the areas of both Morgan Freeman and glasses. Her writing can be found atchicagonow.com/hammervision and you can holler at her on Twitter as well.

Tags: '90s fashion, Beverly Hills 90210, Festive TV, Guest Post, Teen TV

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Categories Festive Rewind
Author Emma Fraser

Festive Rewind: Parks and Recreation “Citizen Knope”

11 Dec

Today’s guest post comes courtesy of Elena as we take a trip to Pawnee, Indiana.

Like most Christmas-themed episodes, Parks and Recreation’s fourth season episode “Citizen Knope” introduces a potentially catastrophic setback for Leslie that ends up being solved by the love and support of her friends. While most of the episode strays from a typical holiday-themed plot, the narrative threads all have a sense of optimism and joy that characterizes the Christmas season.

In “Citizen Knope,” Leslie is dealing with the fallout of her and Ben’s affair. They’re officially a couple after the trial that aired all their relationship dirty laundry from season three, but there’s been some pretty huge fallout: Leslie is suspended from her Parks job, and Ben resigned in disgrace and starts looking for new employment. The episode follows the couple as they figure out the next step in their lives. For Ben, that means going on job interviews to be an accounting firm’s accountant, with a boss who laughs a little too hard at corny jokes, as well as trying his hand at some corporate finance with Pawnee’s cologne mogul, Dennis Feinstein. For Leslie, this means circumventing her suspension by forming a citizen action committee to petition the Parks and Recreation department for various community improvements.

In the Parks office, although Leslie is suspended, she gives her friends some extremely thoughtful Christmas gifts. Highlights include Tom’s gift, a tiny throne and a watch with an insert that reads “Baller Time!” because he wasn’t able to go to the Watch The Throne tour, and an oil painting for April, of her victoriously decapitating all the members of the Black Eyed Peas in a Xena-like outfit. The gang think of a present to give to Leslie that will even the gift-giving scale, and come up with making a gingerbread and candy model of the Parks office. After some mishaps with accidentally ingesting poisoned silver M&Ms and a lot of marshmallow models of the Parks employees, the gang creates something that Leslie will most definitely love.

Ben, after a disastrous job interview with Dennis Feinstein (who very much enjoys hunting people for sport), is about to take a job with the accounting firm when he fortuitously runs into Jean-Ralphio, who had just gotten a Brazilian wax from a woman named Kim. Like a puffy-haired Christmas angel, Jean-Ralphio encourages Ben to follow his passions. He wisely reiterates some advice he got from Kim: “She told me, ‘If you don’t love what you do, then why do it?’ Then she ripped the hair from my b-hole.” Jean-Ralphio gives Ben a different perspective on his current situation, and while he does so in the douchiest way possible, Jean-Ralphio saves Ben from a huge mistake. Jean-Ralphio is not the Christmas angel Ben deserved, but he’s definitely the one he needed at that moment.

As Leslie is working in her citizen action committee, she meets with her campaign managers to talk strategy after the trial, but soon discovers that because of the scandal involving Ben she has dropped to 1% in the polling numbers. Feeling defeated, Leslie goes back to the Parks office. She sees the gingerbread house that her friends made her as a present and is touched, but it’s what happens next that truly makes “Citizen Knope” a Christmas episode.

Ron presents Leslie with a small wooden model of her in the City Council chambers, and a banner unfurls from the ceiling behind him with the words “Knope 2012.” Ron tells Leslie that her dream of running for City Council is not dead, but through the compassion of her friends, it’s been revived. A true Christmas miracle. One by one each character offers Leslie help on her campaign: Andy’s the bodyguard, Tom is an image coach, Jerry is clueless to the whole endeavor. As each friend steps up and declares to Leslie that she is a person worth making sacrifices for, it cements the true meaning of Christmas: the importance of family, friends and love, a love that will put others before itself. Leslie’s choked, overwhelmed “thank you” was a beautiful moment from Amy Poehler, sweet and triumphant, all the more resonant now because she did win that City Council seat because of her friends.

The scene reminded me of the end of It’s A Wonderful Life, where the whole town gathered to help George with his bank loan. Each person in the town contributed what they could, because George had helped them so much throughout their lives. Leslie Knope is Parks and Recreations’ George. “Citizen Knope” began with Leslie’s generous outpouring of gifts, and ended with her friends giving her the best Christmas gift a person could have: hope.

Elena frequently live-tweets old episodes of Jeopardy and the rest of the television universe while biding her time until she heads to Spain to teach ESL. Follow her on Twitter at @ElenaIsAwesome and read her blog, http://lostsomewhereinnyc.blogspot.com, for more pop culture musings.

Tags: "Citizen Knope", Amy Poehler, Festive TV, Guest Post, Parks and Recreation

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Categories Festive Rewind
Author Emma Fraser

Festive Rewind: My So-Called Life “So-Called Angels”

10 Dec

Today join me as I discuss the My So-Called Life episode “So Called Angels”

As with Halloween and Thanksgiving, the festive period gives teen dramas an opportunity to explore the wider themes of impending adulthood; Halloween can enhance the exploration of who the characters are and want to be through costume and as with Thanksgiving, Christmas opens up the idea of what a family is. Family can mean many things and the extension of friends as family is an important component.

My So-Called Life heads into “Very Special Episode” territory with “So-Called Angels” as Rickie is beaten up and kicked out of his house; the opening scene is Rickie bleeding into the snow and it’s a very bleak intro to a festive themed episode. This is another thing about the holidays and TV drama; bad things happen and the resolution tends to be a happy one after a series of trials and tribulations. MSCL deals with a wide range of issues in this outing including teen homelessness, religion, privilege, prejudice, holiday related depression and domestic abuse. It’s one of the cheesier episodes thanks to the presence of an actual angel (more on that below) and a well telegraphed message, but at the same time it’s a Christmas episode and so sentimentality is expected.

Angela has new boots and these become a symbol of the things that people have and don’t have. This goes from sibling jealousy to conversations with dead people; for a show that is grounded in reality there are two episodes in which Angela talks to the dead (the other being Halloween). Singer Juliana Hatfield (cue raspy, sad sounding music which you can hear below) guest stars as a girl who died on the streets because of the cold, a girl who appears to both Angela and her mother to impart an important message. Angel Juliana Hatfield tells Angela that her good boots were stolen and now she can’t get warm. This conversation is all about showing the vast socioeconomic difference between Angela and this girl, Graham has already emphasized how warm Angela’s boots look. Angela leaves her boots for Angel Hatfield and they must be magical as Angel Hatfield manages to wear them even though she is dead. Yes I am only questioning the logic of this aspect.

Juliana Hatfield is a guardian angel of sorts for Rickie; she’s there to show Angela where Rickie has been sleeping so she can come to his aid. It’s a Wonderful Life is the quintessential guardian angel Christmas movie and as MSCL’s production company is called “Bedford Falls” it all makes sense. Angel Hatfield is also there to dish out some words of wisdom to Patty; Patty who is wary of Rickie because she doesn’t know him in the same way she knows someone like Brian Krakow. Angela and Patty get into a fight about the Rickie situation and Angela turns the tables exclaiming that “This girl [Juliana Hatfield], she could be me.”

Patty can’t reconcile this comparison until she meets our guitar winged visitor. This is where the episode takes a sharp turn cheese avenue, but it’s also the point where the misty eyes kick in. I’ve seen this episode countless times (it is part of my present wrapping watching playlist) and the tears hit at the same point every single time. I am a sucker for heavy handed comparisons that layer it on with emotions. That’s right Angela could be Angel Hatfield. If that wasn’t enough the combination of the choir and Patty embracing Rickie in the church sends me over the edge.

The B story of the episode is on the lighter side, even if Brian Krakow is on the verge of tears thanks to his feelings of perpetual loneliness. It’s ok because Sharon has enlisted Rayanne to help with the help line (in the all important bathroom location – those who read the This Was TV MSCL posts will know how much I love this) and she distracts Brian by turning his plea for help call into something to distract him. Denying us the future chronicles of Sharon and Rayanne is one of the many reasons why I’m still bummed out that this is a one season show. This plot is an extension of the friends as family notion and the only person alone in the montage is Jordan Catalano, who I assume is lighting a candle for Rickie.

While the Rickie situation has been solved in the short term and he won’t be sleeping in an abandoned building for Christmas there is still a long way to go. The episode ends of a hopeful note and yet it doesn’t suggest that it’s all tied up in a bow; this is why My So-Called Life can indulge in fantastical elements because the next episode will face up to the reality of the situation.

Tags: "So-Called Angels", Angela Chase, Christmas, Claire Danes, Festive TV, Juliana Hatfield, My So-Called Life, Teen TV

Comments 1 Comment
Categories Festive Rewind, My So-Called Life
Author Emma Fraser

Festive Rewind: Adventure Time “Holly Jolly Secrets”

9 Dec

Up first is Andrew Daar with the Adventure Time episode “Holly Jolly Secrets.”

There is no Christmas in the Land of Ooo, the setting for Cartoon Network’s sublime Adventure Time. That’s because the series takes place in a post-apocalyptic world in which nothing from our current society has survived. So the Christmas episode isn’t about the holiday itself but what it’s often represents: friends coming together to hang out and eat sweets, and the airing of dark secrets among families.

“Holly Jolly Secrets” isn’t the first Adventure Time episode to suggest that there is something deeper going on with the Ice King, Finn and Jake’s arch-nemesis and bane to princesses everywhere; he wanted Finn and Jake to throw him a “manchelorette” party and he wanted the duo to teach him the secret of being happy. But it’s here that we first see the Ice King as a tragic figure rather than a comic villain with intimacy issues. Much of the two-part episode’s runtime is devoted to watching Finn and Jake watching the Ice King’s video diaries. This sounds like a boring set-up, but Adventure Time’s bizarre humor makes the scenes of watching characters watch TV not only enjoyable but laugh-out-loud funny. The structure is also very important to the final reveal because we finally see the Ice King communicating to only himself. In the videos, he is stripped of his posturing and planning, and is purely himself. We see him for who he really is: a very lonely, very deluded man with magical powers and no concept of responsibility or morality. Meanwhile, the Ice King tries to get into Finn and Jake’s treehouse, not to attack them, but because he wants to hang out with them. He goes about trying to watch the tapes with them in the wrong way – because he is deluded – but he genuinely desires to spend time with them – because he is lonely.

If “Holly Jolly Secrets” ended before the final reveal, our conceptions of the Ice King would be changed, and it would be a fun Christmas episode, featuring ugly sweaters, living snowmen, hot cocoa, and a few good friends spending time with each other. The first three quarters of the episode is full of silly humor, friendship between Finn, Jake, and their sentient video game console/VCR/alarm clock BMO, and Ice King-induced winter hijinks. Then the episode’s tone takes a sharp left turn, and we get our first glimpse of just how emotionally affecting Adventure Time can be. We get our first glimpse of the world before “the Great Mushroom War,” and it is a tragic look indeed. The Ice King’s origins are revealed, and it puts many of his darker behaviors in twisted context. At no point does Adventure Time use the revelations of the episode to excuse Ice King’s bad behaviors (keep in mind that he kidnaps princesses on the reg; in one of his tapes, he considers kidnapping Wildberry Princess as if he were thinking about his grocery list). Instead, the revelation is handled much like a family would treat a revelation about a family member; the characters feel empathy for the Ice King rather than sympathy. The revelation provides insight into Ice King’s bad behavior, but it doesn’t excuse it. And in their empathy, the characters decide to set aside one day every year to hang out with and feel empathy for “the biggest weirdo in Ooo.”

Like it or not, Christmas often requires us to spend time with people who annoy or anger us just as often as it enables us to spend time with our friends and loved ones. The Ice King reveals himself as something akin to an embarrassing uncle, someone who makes problems for Finn and Jake and does things that makes them cringe. But they can’t escape him because in his twisted way, he likes them and wants their company and approval. And they’ll never be rid of him because he is no longer a cartoonish villain to be beaten, but a tragic figure worthy of pity. A tragic figure worthy of pity whose darker impulses must be stopped, yes, as even in this episode, he turns to anger when he doesn’t get what he wants. But Finn and Jake will never see him the same way again. Merry Christmas, Ice King. You have received the gifts of humanity and depth.

Andrew Daar is an attorney and comedy writer in Chicago. He has written pop cultural and legal analysis for websites like This Was TV, Sexy Feminist, and Bitch Magazine.

Tags: "Holly Jolly Secrets", Adventure Time, Guest Post

Comments Leave a Comment
Categories Festive Rewind
Author Emma Fraser

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TV Ate My Wardrobe

Festive Rewind: Beverly Hills 90210 “It’s a Totally Happening Life”

Festive Rewind: Parks and Recreation “Citizen Knope”

Festive Rewind: My So-Called Life “So-Called Angels”

Festive Rewind: Adventure Time “Holly Jolly Secrets”

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