Did You Hear What Happened to Andrea?

September 22, 2004 11:18 PM

After School Specials.Is that a Trapper Keeper in your locker or are you just happy to see me? Next month, two volumes of ABC's "After School Specials" will be released on DVD (in DVD sets designed to look like Trapper Keepers). After the first two sets, at least four more will follow. TV Shows on DVD has the names of many the specials ("Schoolboy Father," "She Drinks a Little," "Did You Hear What Happened to Andrea?") to jog your memory. Of course, Jump the Shark has plenty of memories of them, too. And anyone who saw Helen Hunt host "SNL" knows that in at least one (possibly two), she jumps out the window. Those were the days.
posted by GaelFC (19 comments total)

/sets up Trapper Keeper around desk to prevent others from copying comment
posted by yerfatma at 4:13 AM on September 23, 2004

"Yes siree Bob, Helen Hunt jumping out the window is the defining moment of the ABC Afterschool Special. But did you know there are TWO Helen Hunt angel dust movies?!?!?! 1981's "Angel Dusted", which many people think is the one where she jumps out the window, but NO IT'S NOT!!!! The jump out the window movie is 1982's "Desperate Lives"!!! And I should know - I just bought it off ebay!! But has anyone SEEN "Angel Dusted" and if so, what is it like? Does Helen do angel dust in that one or is her character the victim's sister in that one too... Please clear up this confusing mystery!!! Because half the reviews for "Angel Dusted" say Helen takes a hit off a PCP laced joint and jumps out the window... Does she jump out a window in BOTH movies?!?!?! Please help!! But "Desperate Lives" is OFF THA HOOK!!!! "

lol.
posted by angry modem at 4:19 AM on September 23, 2004

JRun errors on both links. Is this site sharing Matt's server?

I fondly remember those afterschool specials, but i doubt i'd buy the dvds. : >
posted by amberglow at 5:32 AM on September 23, 2004

Oh...my...god! I've been waiting for this forever.
I *heart* GaelFC.
And who could forget Jodie Foster in "Rookie of the Year"
posted by FreezBoy at 5:36 AM on September 23, 2004

And Strangers with Candy Season 3 comes out on DVD next week. Coincidence? Or .. not?
posted by mimi at 5:52 AM on September 23, 2004

The best part about the window jump in "Desperate Lives" is that Helen Hunt's character takes PCP that her boyfriend made in chemistry class in 15 minutes.

It also has a great theme song to a Casio demo-style disco beat:

Desperate lives
I'm caught in the middle
Desperate lives
Uhhhhhh HUH!
posted by Mayor Curley at 5:55 AM on September 23, 2004

"Hey! We're out in the middle of nowhere!
And now you're pulling the minivan over to the side of the road!"

"That's because I have something to show you-"

"What? You're not making sense...in fact, you're creeping me out. What could you possibly show me out here in the wee hours of the night?"

"I WANT YOU TO WATCH THE WAVE!"
posted by Smart Dalek at 6:02 AM on September 23, 2004

Also, the guy who whips up the angel dust in chem lab is Grant Cramer, who later plays Sean (famous for burying Lauren Fenmore alive) on "The Young and the Restless." Every Gen X actor was on at least one of these it seems.
posted by GaelFC at 7:09 AM on September 23, 2004

My favorite after school special was, by far, the one dealing with the dangers of autoerotic asphyxiation.
posted by crank at 7:14 AM on September 23, 2004

If these were made in Canada, they'd have to include an ASTAR commercial.

The best after-school/morality/scare film I've ever seen I watched in high school gym class. It was about drinking and driving and featured two couples who were friends. The "good" couple was pure of heart, sober and chaste. The "bad" couple was always making out, smoking, and wore leather jackets. They go out on a double date together, and over the course of the evening the good couple have one beer and decide they'd better leave their car in the parking lot of the restaurant and walk home. The bad couple stay there, get trashed, pile into their car and on the way home...RUN OVER THE GOOD COUPLE.

I mean, drinking and driving is bad, but the sight of the bad couple getting out of the car, falling to their knees and screaming "WHHHYYYYYY??????" as the police sirens on the soundtrack got louder was comedy gold. Anyone else seen this, and if so, know what it's called? I'd love to see it again...
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:25 AM on September 23, 2004

Card Cheat: I don't know yours, but there is a very similar one (not an After School Special, but one of those driver's ed movies) called "The Last Prom." In it, two very '70s couples (although the one I remember is from 1980) double-date for Prom...then they skip out to one guy's van and drink beer like it's going out of style...then they decide to drive at 90 mph through the town's one tunnel, which has ONE LANE, and of course meet a car coming the other way. In the last scene, the cop throws a bloody corsage back into the car. (Amazon offers this and other school movies, which is pretty funny.)
posted by GaelFC at 8:52 AM on September 23, 2004

PCP that her boyfriend made in chemistry class in 15 minutes.

Well once you're on that junk you do see an incredible increase in productivity.
posted by Peter H at 10:01 AM on September 23, 2004

I think the only one I ever saw had Will Wheaton in it - but I have no idea what it was about.
posted by jb at 11:33 AM on September 23, 2004

I'm laughing too hard to make a real comment.

I love morality plays wherever I find them - After School Specials, Jack Chick tracts, 40's era posters on the importance of hygiene - it's all good.
posted by orange swan at 12:00 PM on September 23, 2004

I'm so happy.

Not to self-promote, but my band does a song about my favorite after school special, starring my favorite after school star, Scott Baio. Here's a link to the mp3 of a mediocre recording if anybody's intersted:

http://www.xs-for-eyes.com/Stoned.mp3

I'm almost afraid to see it again. I'm pretty sure a lot of the stuff we built up about it was mis-remembered.
posted by lumpenprole at 12:38 PM on September 23, 2004

Sadly (maybe), after looking closer, it looks like Stoned is not on the set.

The story behind our writing the song goes like this. When I was in high school, we watched that special. And in it, Scott Baio gets 'stoned' and accidently clocks his brother in the head with an oar while he's swimming. His brother was going to be an olympic swimmer or something and now he can't because he almost drowned and that did something to him, I can't remember because I was 'stoned'. So the next scene is Scott sitting tearfully next to his brother's bed, and he confesses like this:

'*cry**whimper* I was STONED!!!!!!!!!'

So for the next few years my pals and I would always use that in conversation. Like:

"what did you do this weekend?"

'*cry**whimper* I was STONED!!!!!!!!!'

Great times.
posted by lumpenprole at 12:50 PM on September 23, 2004

We never had movies like this back in the UK. The closest I remember was when British Rail sent a retired train driver to our school to show some slides designed to persuade us to not play on railway lines.
The slides were deliberately pretty horrific shots of what happens on being hit by a train, but the way it was done had us stifling our hysterical laughter:

Retired Train Driver (RTD): this is Tony, a normal 15 year old kid who thought it would be clever to lark about on the train tracks
RTD: this is Tony AFTER A TRAIN RAN OVER HIS HEAD!
(sudden rush of first and second years for the bathroom)

RTD: this is Phil, a responsible married man who had four children but who decided to take a short cut over the railway tracks.
RTD: this is Phil AFTER A TRAIN RAN OVER HIS HEAD!
(further rushing to bathroom by audience)

Hilarious stuff, although none of us ever got hit by a train after seeing it.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 1:07 PM on September 23, 2004

Thatwhichfalls, your films sound a lot like the shorts shown on "Mystery Science Theater," especially "Days of Our Years" and "Last Clear Chance".

In one, after the two idiot kids are hit by the train, the cop walks up to one of their survivors and the Bots say something like "Can you identify this bucketful of your brother?"
posted by GaelFC at 1:28 PM on September 23, 2004

I may have to get these. I read many of the books some of these specials were based on. (Dear Lovey Hart, I Am Desperate and The Pinballs.

I think almost every teen star of the 70s and 80s was in one of these. At least it seemed that way!
posted by SisterHavana at 1:45 PM on September 23, 2004