90s Comfort Shows!

 

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.