90s
Comfort Food Binges
by Kristin Battestella
Don the baby doll dresses, velvet
chokers, and butterfly clips – it's time to crank up that noisy
modem and unwind with the raunchy humor, steamy action, and wholesome
cowboys of these nineties comfort shows!
Married...with Children – “Whoa,
Bundy!” From the ironic Frank Sinatra theme and Buck the Dog
nabbing his five bucks to Psycho
Dad and The Verminator,
this 1987-1997 Fox sitcom was like no television show before it. The
raunchy may be tame now, but it's fascinating to see how the unhappy,
cheap, pathetic spin upended sitcom tropes and twee television
cliches with a little help from Polk
High and scoring four touchdowns in one game. The First
season starts mild enough, but the betamax, mouse in the house
extremes, and overdue 1957 library books escalate to wedding rings
lost down a stripper's pants and unsatisfied in need of batteries
taboos. Seasons Two and Three shockingly address periods in “The
Camping Show” and scandalous lingerie for “Her Cups Runneth Over”
yet the so-called lost episode “I'll See You In Court” isn't so
pearl clutching today. Many of the series' most memorable episodes
come in Season Five with the “We'll Follow the Sun” Labor Day
premiere summing up the torment of our working man before the
baseball twists in “The Unnatural,” Peg redecorating the bathroom
for “A Man's Castle,” the Allante of “Kelly Bounces Back,”
and the stolen trophies in “All Nite Security Guard.” Pamela
Anderson thrashing on the fantasy bed, the dollar on a string at the
nudie bar, barbecues cooked with a dead aunt's ashes, the super
market shenanigans of “You Better Shop Around,” and the inability
to remember an old song in “Oldies but Young 'Uns” make up for
the terrible Top of the Heap
backdoor pilot and the falling flat “It's a Bundyful Life.” The
departure of Steve Rhoades and the introduction of Jefferson D'Arcy
marks an obvious turning point as Season Six struggles with poor
pregnancy plotlines and disjointed fun in episodes like “Kelly Does
Hollywood” and “Al, Bundy, Shoe Dick.” Of course, that first
half of Year Six is retroactively written off as a dream, and “The
England Show” didn't need to be three parts, dragging the then
weekly before the Season Seven premiere introduced the disastrous
Seven character and tired money or insurance schemes. “Peggy and
the Pirates” is fun in of itself, but the subsequent “Go for the
Old” is a better example of the demented Bundy brand alongside
Vanna White's propositioning for Al and the orgasmic speeches of
“Banking on Marcy.” Boudoir Peggy billboards and an accidental
circumcision bolster Season Eight while “Ride Scare” tackles
environmental hypocrisy with the show's particular brand of humor –
and Seven missing on the milk carton. The “I Want My Psycho
Dad” two-parter addresses
viewer complaints and cancel culture before we knew what it was to
blame entertainment instead of bad parenting, but Year Nine's weekly
gags run thin with clip shows, failed college spin offs, and
preposterous celebrity stunts. Downright mean racism, sexism,
homophobia, and fat shaming make for numerous wrongs, and rather than
subverting sitcom tropes, the later seasons are fantasy parody with
outlandish self-hype and dated of the moment references. The
disastrous attempt to build the reincarnated Lucky a doghouse in “Al
Goes to the Dogs,” NO MA'AM's bid to become a tax exempt church,
and Christmas phone sex with the unseen Grandma Wanker in “I Can't
Believe It's Butter” start Season Ten well, but by the Final
season, it's clear the show has run out of ideas. While it's a pity
there's no properly wild Newhart
style finale, the shear amount of episodes here makes for the perfect
turn off your brain background and chill nostalgia.
Pacific Blue – Today it's
tough to believe cops on bikes at the beach could run for five
seasons with one hundred and one episodes, and the 1996 Pilot
immediately makes me feel sixteen years old thanks to trick bicycles,
neon graffiti, and rollerblading culprits. Beach volleyball, bikinis,
surfing, and sun kissed music montages rift on Baywatch amid
too cool for school bike patrol quips and lieutenant Rick Rossovich's
Top Gun cred.
Early guest kitschy matches the X Games style chases, stunts, and
wheelies well filmed with low angles, zooms, up close adrenaline, and
so fast it must
be slow motion strobe. The intense up, up, up action lets viewers
forgive the feeble reasons why our bike police solve crimes.
Boardwalk crowd control, sure, but undercover for robberies and vice?
Would we watch horseback mounted police galloping in cinematic
formation and leaping over the inferior cop cars to nab dangerous
drug dealers? Bomb threats, nude beach protests, and preposterous
bike to helicopter shenanigans aside, the First
Year ironically offers timely police shootings, brutality, and
racism. Traditional A/B even C plotting, however, mixes the good with
run of the mill cop plots and tired Vietnam vet gone bonkers tropes.
Bad ass bike perspectives or chip on the shoulder at demeaning the
unit attitudes change as needed – interfering with grizzly murders,
on the job injuries, and previously unsolved angst. Sexy male and
female partners live on the edge in the bedroom and on the beat, but
the stepped out of the shower and into the skimpy towel nineties sex
scenes are so innocent and the work versus pleasure moves hot in one
episode then cold across seasons. Girlfriends are assaulted for the
man's revenge, which gets dropped in favor of skateboarding villains
of the week. Third season women in the military, school shootings,
hate crimes, and homophobia are decent but too many basketball plots,
undercover romance stings, drug heists, and foreign intrigues get
repetitive. A Baywatch
crossover with Carmen Electra makes one wonder why this series wasn't
deliberately created as a tandem franchise, but when episodes get
serious with deposition style frankness, it's silly thanks to the
thongs everywhere. The overlong episodic seasons short change the
self-aware knowledge that the public hates doughnut eating, pension
waiting, Rodney King beating bullies in blue; cops are framed,
suspended, arrested, and/or vindicated all in forty-five minutes.
Despite quality strides – and shout outs to fellow USA nineties
treat La Femme
Nikita, which
our cops watch faithfully – deaths and Vegas weddings lead to a
huge cast changeover for Season Four with uneven introductions and a
too crowded ensemble. Now that they wear pants more often than bike
shorts, the eye candy and desperate need to be seductive goes
overboard thanks to obnoxious attitudes and falling flat flirtations.
Maybe saucy maybe not roommates, date rape, and porn stings are not
endearing, and repeated pregnancy scares get old alongside the
contrived rookie mistakes and eye rolling bad behaviors. The new
~edgy~ players spend more time rough housing off the book for
personal drama while never identifying themselves as cops. Female
boxing stunts, Hawaii stints, film noir styles, and even occult
episodes are so far removed from the original if thin premise, and
serious internal affairs plots or real time kidnapping hours jar with
boardwalk kids shooting themselves out of homemade cannons. Everyone
is so angry and unlikable, and rather than some adrenaline fueled
fun, the last year and a half is a chore to finish. They barely even
ride their bikes! Fortunately, antennas, clunky mobile phones, giant
projector televisions, 28.8 modems, video dating services, and
Walkmans with real headphones provide bemusing chuckles to match this
perky, entertaining patrol.
Snowy River: The McGregor Saga
– Although this 1993-96 Australian television series is based on
the same Banjo Paterson poem as the 1982 The Man From Snowy River film,
it is otherwise unrelated to the movies, forging its own path with
rival ranchers and gold claims. Brother versus brother and secret
family histories clash in First season arcs amid railroad intrigue,
kidnappings, banking schemes, dynamite, and shootouts. Soon to be
famous faces like Hugh Jackman (X-Men)
and guest stars such as Dean Stockwell (Quantum Leap) tackle
desperate drives, stampedes, big cattle barons, Aboriginal issues,
and racism. Although
more masculine adventure than crusade of the week a la Dr.
Quinn, Olivia
Newton-John (Grease)
and Tracy Nelson (Father
Dowling Mysteries) delight
as strong women in multi-part episodes addressing abuse, voting
rights, and women in the workplace. Episode of the week changes in
the Second season, however, are hit or miss when guest plots leave
less room for the regulars. Then
tame unchaperoned kisses aren't so scandalous and over the top chip
on the shoulder scowling wears thin fast, but the older couples are
charming alongside former flames now widowed back in town and good
old fashioned duels. One off entries are great when the regular cast
developments stick, but pacing suffers when two or three unrelated
stories compete per hour. Romance resets and supporting townsfolk are
dropped or forgotten, and the Third season goes downhill with cliché
husbands back from the dead, orphan boy obnoxiousness, and even the
old blind for an episode requisite. It's also odd to see Guy Pearce
(Lockout)
as a background player with little to do until the series realizes
his worth in later seasons. Walking skirts, women's vests, and cameo
jewelry look the period part, and those save a horse ride a cowboy
nineties looks are ironically turn of the century appropriate, but
the big hair strays into Dynasty
goes
west Glamour Shots. The interiors are small, but the western
dressings match the muddy, authentic outdoors and picturesque
photography. Intriguing
opportunities in the shortened Final year get done in by weekly
derivatives and too many cast departures, and chasing
episodes on The Family Channel back in the day probably hindered
Snowy River's
popularity
stateside. However, with
only sixty-five episodes and various streaming options today, it's
easy to marathon the Down Under Lonesome
Dove entertainment.
It's mature without being tawdry, family friendly without being
juvenile, and perfect for a wholesome Saturday Night.
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