Vote for why you think it jumped
Never Jumped
Helen Hunt dives out the window
Recycling (same storylines)
The Boy Who Drank Too Much
Death (Last of the Curlews)
Shark Bytes
These "specials" were insufferable to me as a kid. The producers never had a clue what the life of a teen or pre-teen was all about, or about how to communicate to that audience.
These shows typically were either nauseatingly preachy or tried way too hard to seem "cool" when they were obviously tools of the always un-cool grown-up establishment.
Sigh. Adults and their silly ideas....
These shows typically were either nauseatingly preachy or tried way too hard to seem "cool" when they were obviously tools of the always un-cool grown-up establishment.
Sigh. Adults and their silly ideas....
I remember these "specials" as shows with depressing themes, and were an introduction to political correctness for kids. This stuff would have been better suited to PBS. And I hated how the shows would pre-empt the syndicated re-runs that most children would have prefered to watch.
My most prevailing memory of this series is the movie about the girl on angel dust jumping out of the window, and then later in the movie the girl and guy are in a convertible and they drive off a cliff, and as they're going over the girl is saying (with a huge smile on her face) "WHEEEEE!"
My whole eigth grade class (and mind you, I'm 37 now!) watched a lot of these on "free days" in social studies, and we always laughed at the Ballpark Franks commercials, when the hot dogs "plumped when you cook 'em" and the sides of the grill bulged out. Why I still remember that, I don't know...must be all the angel dust...tee hee hee!!!
My whole eigth grade class (and mind you, I'm 37 now!) watched a lot of these on "free days" in social studies, and we always laughed at the Ballpark Franks commercials, when the hot dogs "plumped when you cook 'em" and the sides of the grill bulged out. Why I still remember that, I don't know...must be all the angel dust...tee hee hee!!!
I never liked these shows, especially the CBS Schoolbreak special because it pre-empted my two favorite shows as a kid "Leave it to Beaver" and "The Munsters".
So many of these movies brought up some incredibly relevant topics. Does anyone remember the one about the teen girl making a short documentary about her city's homeless population(no mean feat in those pre-YouTube Times!)- and discovers that this one homeless woman clutching what appears to be a baby is her own mother whom her father and aunt had lied to the girl about being dead?! It turns out the mom's 'eccentric' behavior spun out of control soon after the girl's birth and the dad divorced her and raised the girl solo faking the mom's death instead of fessing up- and he never provided an adequate explanation as to why he allowed the mom to become a homeless nut case! It also turned out that the 'baby' was actually a doll that the poor homeless woman had convinved herself was the girl herself who'd never grow up and would never be taken away from her! It seemed they got the mom some shrink to help her at the end but I remember wondering how the girl would ever believe anything her dad said again- and wouldn't spend the rest of her life worried she'd fly off the deep end like mom had. Anyone know movie's name or any of the performers?
I have been looking all over for a copy of this. I used to show it to my classes yearly but, my copy of it is long gone somewhere. If anyone has it, would you mind making a copy or let me know where I can buy it? Thanks!
I'm responding to "Ima Dork" back in July, and to "Joy" in June....Yes, I actually had "My Past is My Own" on VHS (I taped it myself), but I can't find it. I'm distraught! As a teacher, I used to show it to my students every year for Black History Month. The kids all had the same reaction that "Ima Dork" had (by the way...LOL on the name!)I've been googling sites, and looking on ebay, amazon, etc... I can't find it for sale. Joy, where did you get the DVD? I'd love to know. By the way, it is a "CBS Schoolbreak Special." Please help, if you can! Thanks
I loved the ABC Afterschool Specials. Remeber Jodie Foster when she wanted to play baseball? The parents were brutal. Lance Kerwin was a regular fixture also. I think ABC and Oprah should apologize for taking these shows away from us. I think they played until the mid-90's. I was 30 and I still watched.
Thank God for the "N". Long live Degrassi!!!!
Thank God for the "N". Long live Degrassi!!!!
Holy.Freaking.Crap...'The Last of the Curlews???...That was my earliest TV memory of seeing 'high' TV drama(being 9-years-old at the time,BTW)...I don't remember exactly what happened in it ,but I do remember having feelings of utter sadness that I never felt before from a freakin' KID'S SHOW!!!...but,unfortunately,I also remember the Scott "Give me Drugs" Baio's episode as well which was probably a JTS-ish moment as well...but it was before "Happy Days",so I'll give him some slack.
Chachi,Chachi,Chachi...
Chachi,Chachi,Chachi...
If you ever get a chance to see A HOME RUN FOR LOVE (now on the DVD as Thank You Jackie Robinson) it'll bring a tear to your eye.
Stoned with Scott Baio (one of the best) was an ABC After School Special. Who could forget the girl named Felicity. Felicidad means happiness in spanish.
Does anybody remember an episode from 1989 called, My Past Is My Own. It starred Whoopi Goldberg. I know it was a CBS Schoolbreak episode, but I guess I'll bring it up anyway, primarily because, same difference. It's the same sort of concept.
One week in Eighth Grade, I was in Family and Consumer Science. [For all you Generation X memebers, that's the modern-day name for Home-Economics.] Anyway, our teacher put in a tape because we were learning about the meanings of good and bad citizenship. She told us that she didn't know if the tape was a Schoolbreak episode or an Afterschool episode. So anyway, she put the tape in. She sat back down at her desk. She then warned us that it was about rasicm and that the movie was very graphic and that we could turn our heads if it got to be a little too much for us. I raised my hand and asked, not knowing the title of the film at the time, "Is it The Devil's Arethmatic?" To which she kindly replied, "I don't know what that is, but I think you'll like this movie."
The rest of the class and I watched the movie. Something about it made us glued to the screen, but I don't know what it was. I remember the first scene where the aunt [Whoopi Goldberg] is telling the two teens about her trip to India. They don't seem too interested. However, when they go to sleep, she casts a spell on them, [literally] and makes them have dreams where they go back in time to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. During the first dreram scene, they are sitting in what looks to be a church, acting out skits on how to deal nonviolently with the discrimination that they are faced with every day. Their pretending that their in a dner. One guy played the customer. A high-school girl played the waitress. The guy sitting in the chair just tries to order a hamburger. The waitress tells him, "We an't got hamburgers for your kind." To which he politely responds, "That's quite all right. May I please see a menu?" Soon, the other actors in the skit join in on the side of the waitress. [They are just acting, of course, mind you.] Anyway, they start making fun of him. They laugh and call him all sorts of awful, unmentionable names.
Meanwhile, the girls in our class as well as the boys are near tears.
However, us girls are also feasting our eyes on the good-looking male actors of the film, perticularly the actors that play Dexter-Lee and Donnie. Murmurs of "He's hot, he's ugly, he's really cute," go through the crowd.
The movie itself is sad and very dark. It only gets darker. The two scenes that stuck with me the most are: the scene where Dexter-Lee pours a cup of piping-hot coffe on Whoopi Goldberg's scalp. He then burns her face with a cigarette. The other scene that stuck with me the most was the final scene where Whoopi Goldberg is showing the two teens a photo album and the girl points them out. "That's Mike and Donnie." She tells her aunt. To which she replies, "Now how do you know them?" She explains. Her aunt then tells her that Donnie was lynched twenty-four years ago. The niece bursts into tears. It was then that our teacher stopped the tape, seeing as the only thing left of it was the credits. A kid who didn't know what 'lynched' meant asked what it meant. To which my teacher replied sadly, "They hung him." I, on the other hand, already knew what that horrible word meant. Nevertheless, the tragic, heart-breaking ending stuck with me forever all the same. My Past Is My Owm was such a powerful movie. We all loved it! Now I wonder where I can buy it on DVD.
One week in Eighth Grade, I was in Family and Consumer Science. [For all you Generation X memebers, that's the modern-day name for Home-Economics.] Anyway, our teacher put in a tape because we were learning about the meanings of good and bad citizenship. She told us that she didn't know if the tape was a Schoolbreak episode or an Afterschool episode. So anyway, she put the tape in. She sat back down at her desk. She then warned us that it was about rasicm and that the movie was very graphic and that we could turn our heads if it got to be a little too much for us. I raised my hand and asked, not knowing the title of the film at the time, "Is it The Devil's Arethmatic?" To which she kindly replied, "I don't know what that is, but I think you'll like this movie."
The rest of the class and I watched the movie. Something about it made us glued to the screen, but I don't know what it was. I remember the first scene where the aunt [Whoopi Goldberg] is telling the two teens about her trip to India. They don't seem too interested. However, when they go to sleep, she casts a spell on them, [literally] and makes them have dreams where they go back in time to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. During the first dreram scene, they are sitting in what looks to be a church, acting out skits on how to deal nonviolently with the discrimination that they are faced with every day. Their pretending that their in a dner. One guy played the customer. A high-school girl played the waitress. The guy sitting in the chair just tries to order a hamburger. The waitress tells him, "We an't got hamburgers for your kind." To which he politely responds, "That's quite all right. May I please see a menu?" Soon, the other actors in the skit join in on the side of the waitress. [They are just acting, of course, mind you.] Anyway, they start making fun of him. They laugh and call him all sorts of awful, unmentionable names.
Meanwhile, the girls in our class as well as the boys are near tears.
However, us girls are also feasting our eyes on the good-looking male actors of the film, perticularly the actors that play Dexter-Lee and Donnie. Murmurs of "He's hot, he's ugly, he's really cute," go through the crowd.
The movie itself is sad and very dark. It only gets darker. The two scenes that stuck with me the most are: the scene where Dexter-Lee pours a cup of piping-hot coffe on Whoopi Goldberg's scalp. He then burns her face with a cigarette. The other scene that stuck with me the most was the final scene where Whoopi Goldberg is showing the two teens a photo album and the girl points them out. "That's Mike and Donnie." She tells her aunt. To which she replies, "Now how do you know them?" She explains. Her aunt then tells her that Donnie was lynched twenty-four years ago. The niece bursts into tears. It was then that our teacher stopped the tape, seeing as the only thing left of it was the credits. A kid who didn't know what 'lynched' meant asked what it meant. To which my teacher replied sadly, "They hung him." I, on the other hand, already knew what that horrible word meant. Nevertheless, the tragic, heart-breaking ending stuck with me forever all the same. My Past Is My Owm was such a powerful movie. We all loved it! Now I wonder where I can buy it on DVD.
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