So some fussy lil’ girl got in my cute face last week and dared — she dared! — to suggest that I have no credentials to be writing an advice column. This is ironic because if she had asked me for some advice, one nugget of wisdom that I would’ve bestowed upon her would’ve been to shut her yapper before she sasses someone with a weekly column. A weekly column which I’m not afraid to use when pulling a Blair Waldorf — ruining my enemies with scandalous gossip!
On an unrelated note, Ayisha’s boyfriend dumped her so he could wait for his dream girl. Only three years till Miley is legal!
But many of you might be asking, where does this super socially savvy kid get his vast amounts of knowledge? Certainly not from actual experience, because I hate people, leave my G-chat on invisible at all times and always answer every phone call with, “You’re wastin’ my minutes!” before hanging up.
Anyway, the answer is television. Everything I need to know I learned from television. Some people, they learned everything they need during kindergarten, but I went to public school. The only thing I learned in kindergarten was how to make a shiv out of Legos and how to nap with one eye open. Anyway, come, my merry companion, and let’s frolic through some educational programming and the lessons learned.
1. “Saved by the Bell”
There was once an overachieving girl named Jessie Spano. Jessie had a lot of pressures: Jessie had to get into Stanford, Jessie had to perform with Kelly and Lisa at the Max, Jessie had to keep her pants waistline 15 inches above her waist — oh 1990s fashion, you were Lisa’s forte, not Jessie’s. Then you might suggest, “And then she developed that pep pill problem, right Steve?” False, junior!
Pep pills always make for a hilarious, thin — added bonus! They’re appetite suppressants! — good time. No, no, my ignorant reader. Pep pills were the solution. The problem was the whole subplot of Kelly, Lisa and Jessie doing a music video to The Pointer Sisters! Do you even remember that hot mess? Neon spandex, mirror walls everywhere and terrible karaoke-style singing. Poor Jessie, at least she got to be in “Showgirls.”
Sure, the liberal media paints this episode as a PSA against pep pills, but sleep is for the weak! If Jessie hadn’t been peer pressured into karaoke, she never would have had that “I’m so excited I’m so excited I’m so scared” breakdown. That was karaoke-fueled insanity, not over-the-counter drug-fueled insanity!
Lesson learned: Karaoke is the devil’s iTunes playlist.
2. “Doug”
Lots of people think “Doug” had one of those will-they-or-won’t-they first-season-of-The-Office’s-Jim-and-Pam-type deals with Doug Funnie and Patti Mayonnaise, but you’re just a silly rookie. I spent a lot of time with 1990s Nickelodeon — heck, I even liked Disney’s update on ABC, “One Saturday Morning” — where, it should be noted, Patti also had a pep pill problem — so I know that Patti and Doug actually went on a date.
Or was it a date? It all started when she awkwardly asked him to the movies, then he suggested what other friends to invite and she said it could just be them. Then there was the drama of holding hands, paying for her movie ticket, blah blah blah. Long story short, they almost kissed but never defined the relationship. Doug taught me to define the relationship pronto, and if you read my Valentine’s Day love advice column, you know I seriously stole every piece of advice from this 11-minute cartoon.
Lesson learned: If you’re expecting first base, better DTR.
3. “Friends”
I mean there are like 300 episodes — I better have learned something from that show. For instance, I learned that people get desperate and make mistakes, sexual mistakes, at weddings. I mean, come on, Monica was way too good for Chandler.
One episode that had a lot of lessons was the one with the trivia — technically titled “The One with the Embryos.” But I don’t care about that borefest subplot fabricated to cover up Kudrow’s real-life pregnancy, so we’re talking about trivia here.
You could say the lesson was that men are better than women, because Chandler and Joey won. I won’t say that; I’ll just point out that men are smarter than women, and I have standardized test scores statistics to support that. The real lesson to learn is to gossip about all your friends like there’s no tomorrow. If Monica and Rachel had done their womanly duty better and knew all the horrible secrets of their male rivals, then they would’ve known such gems as Chandler’s fear of Lord of the Dance Michael Flatley and his flailing legs — and won the game.
Lesson learned: Know all your friends’ secrets and tell everyone on a case-by-case basis.
4. “Even Stevens”
The one good thing Disney Channel ever had going for it was this show. Maybe “Lizzie McGuire” was OK, and “Phil of the Future” was fine, but only because the star of the latter, Ricky Ullman, became a YouTube celeb later with a bunch of foul-mouthed rap videos, and I like watching him back when he acted half his age for Disney dollars.
Anyway, “Even Stevens” was swell, but it really hit its stride when it copied “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” — I swear I’m not emo, I’m just very (pop) cultural — and made a musical episode. Sure, none of them could sing — except Ren aka Christy Carlson Romano who later played Belle on Broadway — and they just hired random extras to do the hard dancing, but it taught us, and more importantly, Disney, a very important lesson: Musicals in high schools are a good idea. Four years later... “High School Musical.” Also Ren’s song “We Went To The Moon In 1969” taught me a little bit of history, against my will.
Lesson learned: “High School Musical” 1, 2 and 3 are the three best movies ever.
5. “Boy Meets World”
Feeny taught me so much, even if he did once go against the Geneva Detention Convention when he locked the kids in the room for detention. Anyway, remember that episode with Jennifer Love Hewitt cleverly playing Jennifer Love Fefferman — she was sleeping with Eric in real life at the time — when the school was turned into “Dr. Feeny’s House of Horrors”?
Well, it was a precious pastiche of self-aware horror movies with hilarious murders — stabbed with pencils and scissors, crushed under books in the library, a robed murderer — I’ve tried to kill people while wearing a robe and it’s not easy, pal — and of course, learning how far all the “Boy Meets World” characters have gone in the sack. As Shawn reveals, only virgins survive horror movies. Corey thanks Topanga for saving them. Eric says he’s dead. And Shawn will “get as sick as you can without actually dying.” And am I the only one who cried when Feeny died? But then got grossed out because you realized that means he wasn’t a virgin? Ew! He’s old!
Lesson learned: Have sex and die.
Steve’s column runs weekly Fridays. He can be reached at s.austin@cavalierdaily.com.
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