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Original Air Date: October 7, 1984 Review completed November 13, 2005 "Lost and Found" Henry wakes up to a sweet greeting of, "We're out of cereal and milk!" So, it's grocery time. After a long day, Henry meets an old friend and goes to the back for a deal... and Punky can't help but think that she's been abandoned, again. Henry catches up with her at the apartment and sets everything straight. "Punky Gets Her Own Room" Punky and Cherie agree; Punky needs a better room than the couch room. Henry, however, is reluctant to give up the only available room; his study. All he'll give is a maybe, citing the time and money it takes. Punky enlists Cherie and Eddie's help to turn the place into a room all her own while Henry is at work... and in the end, even Henry has to agree that it was a good move. Yeah, you'll notice that there's two episodes up on the title bar. This and two other episodes are actually made of two fifteen-minute stories, which were for the purposes of showing in case Sunday Night Football ran long. Remember, original time slot: 7:00 PM Sunday, NBC. There's your trivia quotient for the review. All right, down to the episodes. We'll look at them seperately, because they're clearly seperate stories. (Heck, both of them get title sequences.) But one big point to make; the bundles are actually fairly well chosen, as all three packages have their pairs of episodes based on a common theme. Today's Special is: The Beginning of Punky and Henry. Let's go. LOST AND FOUND: I'm a little on the fence on this story. On the one hand, it's fun watching some parts. Punky fooling the pizza lady with a less-than-clever ruse, Punky's not-so-usual morning greeting, laughing at the poor schmo who made a 20' high stack of balls and expected it to stay, and Henry making a perfect on-side hit with a shopping cart. However, on the other hand, you can really tell that the writers are still getting used to the concept of the half-time sitcom episode. First off, let me just say that the time flies in this story. In the beginning, it's just straight-out fast; the opening set-up at the apartment is around ten lines and about a minute in length. The middle is a montage sequence that jumps every thirty seconds or so, and the sequences after are pretty quick. The only real extended scene is the end, and even that's kind of quick. You half-expect to see ADD credited as one of the editors by the end. But, the fact that we don't focus in one spot for very long eventually makes it a little difficult to follow along. It feels oddly disjointed and, ultimately, too short. I know 'too short' doesn't sound like much of a complaint about a 15-minute story, but most of the other ones manage to feel the right length, in that you see the end and it's like, "Yeah, that's about right." Here, it's, "That's it?" Another thing that could really be a complaint is that the story, not very far from the initial story arc and its serious issues, immediately tackles the abandonment issue and has it take the main focus over an antic-based story. But I go the other way with it, in that I think it's a good thing. First of all, it gets that out of the way so we're free to discover deeper and different plots later on. Also, it helps in one of the big things I love about the first season as a whole; how the overall tone shifts from serious at the beginning to very humourous and antics-based by the end. For that goal, doing this story right after the pilot is perfect timing, and I like it. Another, more definite, complaint is that most of the story feels too generic. Cheapskate grocery shopping, allowance debates, cart racing, parent embarrassing kid... doesn't every kid's sitcom do that? Between Punky's unique outlook and her situation, you'd expect a lot more originality, and it's disappointing to see the writers practically ticking off a checklist as they go. Eventually, episodes more based on the differences from other sitcoms would appear (both about family situations and taking advantage of Punky's bold, positive personality), but there's not even a sign of it here until the end. Ah, the ending. More time could have definitely gone into the ending, what with Punky and Henry sharing a few lines and a brief spit-shake. Writers, if you're going to do a story where you're uncertain about the timing, why not err on the side of the meaningful plot? I can think of a good three segments from the shopping part of the episode that could have easily been cut and not missed in favour of a little more build-up. Acting-wise, there's not much to talk about. Soleil Moon Frye and George Gaynes do fine, even if Soleil somehow sounds younger than in the pilot episodes. And that's all there is; everyone else is near the background or on-screen for, at most, thirty seconds. I like that decision; gets us better accquainted with Punky and Henry as they do the same. Nice. Watch for this episode, it flips by. PUNKY GETS HER OWN ROOM: Here's the good half right here. Overall, it's pretty fanciful; a normal room would be difficult to do in the half-day that two kids and a klutzy superintendant have, let alone the marvel of painting and design that they end with. But, as I pointed out in "Punky Finds a Home, Part 3", realism isn't necessarily part of your balanced Punky experience. Besides, it's cool. The bare plot is downright simple; Punky wants room, Henry doesn't want to give it up, Punky does it anyway. Kind of the ultimate application of "it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission." Really, though, it's a great plot for a short story; one that needs no compression and is easy to balance, and one where you can make the end result justify any filler segments that come up. Not to mention that it plays well to the character's personalities, showing Henry as very private and eventually open to good reason, and Punky as straight-forward and never taking 'no' for an answer. Sounds like the characters I've come to know over the last three-and-a-half episodes. Hey, look at this, Cherie gets to re-appear. 'Bout time. According to most of the interviews on the Season One DVD set, it wasn't the original intention to feature Punky's friends all that much, which is a really odd decision on a show featuring a brightly-natured extrovert. (Look it up.) Fortunately, someone in there thought better of it, and we the viewer can see the results quite nicely. Punky needs somebody to play with (and off of), and Cherie would be an obvious choice, no? Eddie is here too, and despite my usual feelings about the character, he's done very well here. I think the main reason is that he's kept mostly in the background and kept busy, rather than focusing the whole scene on him and his humour. Yeah, more than a few of his moments seem forced (nice 'stumble' into the wall!), but they pass quickly, and the dosage of Eddie seems to be just enough. Heck, they even have a plausible way of putting him into the end of the show, and even seem to be close to giving him a personality and everything! Sadly, it won't last, and you'll want to off him almost as bad as Henry does in the next few episodes, but at least we got one good episode out of the mook. One more thing before I get to the big finish: I love the way they do the room-building montage. It looks to me like they had two sets for Punky's room; the finished one, and a temporary one to pose as Henry's study. After clearing the furniture, take watered-down paint and have the kids go nuts. It wouldn't surprise me if I learned that the montage was improvised; it looks very natural, with the children running and painting every which way and making a cracking mess. And the best part? They look like they're having some fun. As I've seen time and time again, the best way to stage something is to make it real. Well, I'm pretty sure "building" the room was real, and watching the end result is downright cool. Now, for the big finale, what the entire episode builds to; the room itself. The audience gives it a hand on the show, and I couldn't help but think that it was kind of cool myself. Essentially, it's a kid's dream bedroom (slanted slightly towards the girl's point of view), with colourful scenes painted along the walls and floor and all of the furniture either brightly coloured or improvised in a way that would make Trading Spaces proud. Everyone who's ever seen this room (and not outright hated the concept, but I don't want to hang with those grumps anyway) has their favourite touches, and I'm no exception; that flower cart bed kicks incredible amounts of butt. Also, the window is nice, with the sun painted on the window itself and a starry moon painted on the shade. And yes, that is meant to be an in-joke on the name "Soleil Moon Frye", one of several that will happen throughout the series. Now, look at that. I just spent a full paragraph going description-crazy over a kid's bedroom from a TV show. Sure, I'm an easy mark, but I think that that is the kind of build "Lost and Found" was capable of; a full fifteen-minute build-up to a final moment. Also, it says that the writers definitely earned their pay for this story; good writing should build to a point and have that point pay off. We have that here. Good, good stuff. Acting...oh yeah. Well, okay, so Soleil Moon Frye and Cherie Johnson don't really have to act for half of the story. And Eddie Deezen...well, I covered him. That means that Soleil and George do the heavy lifting in the last sequence, and as usual, they work well together and let that make the difference. It's all about if Punky and Henry can actually be believable in the series, and those two have been doing a great job at it. Nothing overly taxing, mind you, and we're not talking Shakespeare, but it works, and that's all we need here. Punky Gets Her Own Room; proof that the fifteen-minute story can work, the introduction of a cool set in a good way, and an enjoyable experience. Check, check, and check, and this time we don't see the writers ticking it off. - Jimmy Vibes Do the first click Do the second click Plus, the title sequence that appears only for this episode |