The audience doesn't laugh at that, but I think it's hilarious. Booo audience. Booo.
Anyway Cory wants to cook his little frozen pizza there, so he plugs in the microwave (Eric had unplugged it earlier) and it shocks him back to the 50s. At Chubbie's, except it's called Slim's back in the 50s. So not only does it transport him through time, but also through space. Okay.
Topanga is also there, but she doesn't recognize Cory. And she looks all 50's and everybody's chewing gum and shit. Everybody goes back to school and Cory meets Shawnzie Hunterelli, an exaggerated 50s version of Shawn. Feeny is pretty much exactly the same, and Turner is basically Minkus. This is probably going to be my worst review ever. There is nothing to talk about.
Somehow, today's topic for discussion is "what will life be like in 40 years", which lets Cory look creative and smart, but that lasts about 45 seconds because now it's time for the "nuclear bomb scare drill" of the day. There are some funny gags throughout this whole scene, but it's really just like "haha what if we were in the 50s look how different it was". In an unusually insightful move, Cory buys all of the currently available shares of IBM. Then we meet 50's Eric who's really smart and doesn't care about girls. WEEEWOOHEEEHOOOOOO IT'S SO CRAZYYYYYYYYYY HEREEEEEEEEEEE
Sigh...
Feeny rushes into the hallway and announces that Russia has just launched a spy satellite. Cory's like "nah it's just Sputnik" which is the opposite of insightful, since now everyone thinks he's a dirty commie.
But Topanga and Shawnzie help him escape. They're oddly okay with some guy they've never seen before knowing a bunch of shit about them, Topanga in particular. He escapes to the place where his 90s house lives, and Morgan treats him like her brother so I guess whatever. Their father is played by Tom Bosley, who is credited as playing himself in the credits, so I don't even know who he is or what's going on. Apparently he was on Happy Days. Anson Williams shows up at the door, and just sort of walks in like "hey I'm Anson Williams who else would I be" and I just understand absolutely nothing about these references. He was also on Happy Days, and that show was set in the 50s, but it still seems like a pretty desperate attempt at some celebrity special appearances.
WHAT IS GOING OOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
At jail, whoever Betsy Randle and William Russ are supposed to be show up. Oh okay they claim to be Cory's parents, but I don't really think your parents can bail you out of being charged with TREASON but whatever. Either way, oh, they're actually Russian spies, which is a throwback to an underdeveloped joke they made at the beginning of the episode.
Topanga and Shawnzie Hunterelli show up and help Cory escape from jail.
WHAT
IS GOING
ONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
WHO MADE THIS? WHO LET THIS HAPPEN!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
So the gang arrive at Shawnzie's secret makeout apartment. Topanga kisses Cory and the audience goes so crazy you'd think they'd never seen it before. Cory realizes that it's better to live in the 90s where there aren't constant bomb scares. Golly. What a revelation. Hey all you people that are like "man I wanna live in Mad Men", maybe you should watch this episode of Boy Meets World, I don't fuckin know.
To help Cory get back to the future, Topanga and Shawnzie decide to take him to see the "Wise Man". Cory doesn't wear the chicken head this time, I don't know why. They find the Wise Man at Slim's, which is very convincing evidence that Slim's is equivalent to Chubbie's in every way except name. The Wise Man is actually played by Pat Morita, better known as Mister Goddamn Miyagi.
His advice is to get shocked by another microwave. EXCEPT THE FIRST COUNTERTOP MICROWAVE WAS INTRODUCED IN 1967, TEN YEARS AFTER SPUTNIK WAS LAUNCHED. But fine, I guess there was some prototyping of large, unwieldy microwaves between WWII and Sputnik, so whatever. It's not like it matters. The same kid who knows how to buy shares in a company couldn't think of that solution? Whatever. Oh okay, Cory says "WAIT IT'S 1957 THERE IS NO MICROWAVE", so that's good at least. The mob shows up to arrest Cory and he hits his head on the wall and wakes up at home.
At first I thought that was just a funny thing for Shawn to say, but then I realized it's a reference to Fonzie, so I don't know how I feel about it now. At least he doesn't try to do the voice, he just kinda says "hey".
During the credits, a power surge causes Cory to lose all his work on his paper. Oh okay, the power surge brought him to the future this time.
Plot: 0 - WHAT THE FUCK IS ANYTHING
Character Development: 0 - They didn't even try.
Humor: 1.0 - Yeah sure whatever.
Life Lesson: 0 - The 50s were worse than the 90s.
1.0 out of 4.0 - An absolute waste of time, but I guess it was pretty funny.
Thanks for reading, see you Friday.
All images used under Fair Use.
Happy Days aired in the 70's and 80's, not the 50's.
ReplyDeleteoh, right, i meant to say it was set in the 50s. lemme fix that, thanks.
DeleteThe Happy Days scene was Anson Williams is amazing dude.
ReplyDeleteThis was like one of the first episodes of the show I ever watched so I'm kinda biased toward it, but it's a really fun ride as long as you're not expecting anything important to happen.
Agreed completely. It helps that Nick at Nite was running a pretty thorough plate of Happy Days when this was on. I can see how if you weren't a fan of happy days that his episode might fall a little flat, but I loved it. Also the entire thing is a fantasy in Cory's head so the producers and directors got to have a little bit more fun with the fabric of reality.
DeleteBeyond that I think the life lesson is more than just "the 50's were worse than the 90's" but really that there are always troubles in life no matter what era you're in, so don't take the good things you have for granted. As for character development I think there's some with Cory and Topanga as their bond strengthens. Plus this is the first episode, in my opinion, where Cory, Topanga, and Shawn seem to act as the trio that they'll become for the rest of the series. Topanga up until here always felt kinda like a guest star, here she felt more integrated with Cory and Shawn.
These kinds of episodes are the epitome of filler and unoriginality. Basically, let's do a flashback to the '50s, reference lots of stuff from a sitcom our target demographic won't understand, and randomly bring in three cast members from Happy Days. Yeah, Pat Morita was a cast member on Happy Days. He played Arnold, the original owner of the place all the kids hung out at. With that in mind, it makes even less sense he's doing a homage to his Karate Kid character in this episode and not his Happy Days character.
ReplyDeletePoor Tom Bosley. He just never was able to get many good roles after Happy Days. He was reduced to cameos like this referencing Happy Days and infomercials.
They didn't give you a whole lot to work with so it's understandable this review is a bit light. Just curious: did they find anything for Eli to do in this episode?
I guess I should have figured Morita was on Happy Days, but that didn't even cross my mind. I guess that makes a little more sense. Eli had like two lines, he was a beatnik at Slim's at the very end. Might have been worth mentioning but I really just wanted to be done... XD
DeleteA thought I had after I posted my other comment: were they trying to compare themselves to Happy Days and insinuate they were the Happy Days of the 90s? Because that could have good connotations and bad. On one hand, Happy Days had some really good episodes the first few seasons before it become The Fonzie Show. On the other hand, it is also guilty of every lazy writing gimmick on the books, and even provided the namesake for some of them.
ReplyDeleteMan, if you hated this one, you really shouldn't look forward to season five, which not only has a 40s plot, but was based on the logic that Salem from Sabrina ate a time ball and it affected every. Single. TGIF sitcom. I think even the producers hated making that mess.
ReplyDelete