Hold Me
Remember Webster, that sitcom from the mid-80's? Had an adorable black kid adopted by white parents, basically just a rip-off of Different Strokes? Even though it sucked I always watched as as kid and remember it being...I don't know, cute. Harmless. The kind of fluff that I loved to zone out on at the time. Anyway, I found a description of the show on Wikipedia and it turns out that the series was a bit more...shall we say nuanced...than I had realized. The synopsis starts out innocently enough:
"The show, set in Chicago, revolved around Webster Long, a seven-year-old African-American orphan...whose biological parents were recently killed in a car accident. He is taken in by George Papadopolous...and his wife Catherine...a blue-blooded socialite with no housekeeping skills whatsoever."
Well okay, dead parents, that's a tad morbid, but the racial component, the socialite wife...come on, those are classic sitcom elements. Wackiness is sure to ensue. The synopsis continues:
"The move to the home was caused by Webster burning down the family's apartment with a science kit in his closet."
Er. Dead parents, arson. Still, it's a sitcom, the overall tone is supposed to be light and whimsical. Right?
"The show also delved into more creepy matters when it was revealed that the new home has a secret passage way behind a clock and that a full size female doll is kept in a room in which a young girl died."
What the fuck?! A dead girl and a female doll?! What kind of fetishistic bullshit is that?! Oh my god!
Well, I know I'm traumatized. Turns out one of my favorite childhood shows is really some kind of S & M, David Lynch nightmare. Hoo. Anyway, here's the Webster link, read it and weep.
"The show, set in Chicago, revolved around Webster Long, a seven-year-old African-American orphan...whose biological parents were recently killed in a car accident. He is taken in by George Papadopolous...and his wife Catherine...a blue-blooded socialite with no housekeeping skills whatsoever."
Well okay, dead parents, that's a tad morbid, but the racial component, the socialite wife...come on, those are classic sitcom elements. Wackiness is sure to ensue. The synopsis continues:
"The move to the home was caused by Webster burning down the family's apartment with a science kit in his closet."
Er. Dead parents, arson. Still, it's a sitcom, the overall tone is supposed to be light and whimsical. Right?
"The show also delved into more creepy matters when it was revealed that the new home has a secret passage way behind a clock and that a full size female doll is kept in a room in which a young girl died."
What the fuck?! A dead girl and a female doll?! What kind of fetishistic bullshit is that?! Oh my god!
Well, I know I'm traumatized. Turns out one of my favorite childhood shows is really some kind of S & M, David Lynch nightmare. Hoo. Anyway, here's the Webster link, read it and weep.
posted by Samwick @ 5:28 AM
5 Comments:
At 10:55 AM,
Impulsivecompulsive said…
Speaking of traumatized by what you thought was innocent entertainment: I saw parts of Milo and Otis yesterday. Remember that? Cute little cat and dog doing cute little cat and dog things while people voices are dubbed over? Yeah, not so much. Apparently it took four years to film, and as far as I can tell, most of that four years was spent finding replacement cats after each preceeding cat got slaughtered.
We actually flipped to the credits to see if they had the, "No animals were hurt in the filming of this production," disclaimer, and you bet, it was altered slightly, to, "Handlers used the utmost care in dealing with the animals..." Right. Sick a flock of seagulls on a cat, then toss it in the middle of the ocean, with utmost care. Stick a cat up a tree with a bear, then poke it with a tazer until it freaks out with utmost care.
Oddly enough, they didn't include any special features on the making of the movie.
At 8:07 PM,
Samwick said…
Ew, that is even worse than the Webster thing. And why did they even bother saying, "Handlers used the utmost care", that only makes what happened more obvious. Their disclaimer should have read, "Oops". It's quite sad. You mentioned that they had to replace numerous cats...what about the dog? Why did the cat have it so much worse? That indicates there might have been some kind of pro-dog bias at work here.
At 9:39 PM,
Impulsivecompulsive said…
I didn't see the whole thing, so the dog(dogs) might have gone off the deep end too, but as far as I could tell, they pretty much kept the torture to the cats. Dog vs. fox, skipping happily. Cat vs. waterfall, not so happy. Dog vs. turtle, not too exciting. Cat maimed by flock of seagulls, extreme close up version to prove cat's agony and confusion...WTF?
You may be right. I'm thinking the producer was a dog man, with a personal vandetta against the felines.
At 11:44 PM,
Snave said…
Ya think that's bad... Ya ever see "Marathon Man"? Sir Laurence Olivier, nothing at all like a dentist in real life, ACTUALLY DRILLED on Dustin Hoffman's molars, with NO ANESTHESIA!! Hoffman was in severe pain for the better part of a month after that film was made.
Just kidding.
That's a shame about Milo and Otis, I love that movie. I guess many good things CAN have a dark side... I never watched Webster or Different Strokes or any of the shitcoms from the 80's.. or any of the ones from the 70's or the 90's, or any of the current ones. If it has a laugh track, forget it unless it's Monty Python or Benny Hill! Heh!
The last shitcoms I enjoyed were the ones from the 60's I used to watch as a kid, like Andy Griffith (the sex scenes with Barney Fife and Aunt Bee were amazing), Green Acres (I love that episode where Eva Gabor catches Eddie Arnold having oral sex with Arnold the Pig!), the Beverly Hillbillies (especially the one where Jethro and Ellie Mae get it on) and Petticoat Junction (old Uncle Joe wasn't movin' mighty slow when all three of the girls found his bedchambers in that one hilarious episode where he had the heart attack!)
MASH? Sorry. Hot Lips never got it on with Radar, and Jamie Farr never got it on with Alan Alda. CHEERS? Sheesh, what a limp show. FRASIER? Sheesh, what a limp-wristed show.
You can have your "Two and a Half Men", just give me my "My Favorite Martian"!
At 12:33 AM,
Sheryl said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Post a Comment
<< Home