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Original Air Date: October 30, 1987 Review completed April 9, 2007 "Reading, Writing, and Rock & Roll" DeBarge is coming to Chicago, and everyone's going... except maybe for Punky, who isn't keen on writing her book report and can't go until she writes it. She attempts to buy a pre-made book report from Spud Blugner, but Henry can't help but notice the rather different writing style and grounds her. At wit's end, Henry sneaks into DeBarge's dressing room disguised as a reporter; the disguise doesn't hold up well, but Henry's appeal convinces them to come visit Punky and convince her to read. Actually, that's a good summary of the way this episode's going to go. Do you like boy bands in general? Do you like the ones from the 80s in particular? In that case, this is the episode for you, because the brothers DeBarge get a massive build-up in the first half of the episode, and the end is nothing but two performances from them (dances to recordings, basically). If you don't like DeBarge, or are like me and have never heard of them before this episode, you may be in a bit more trouble. But let's start at the beginning... In fact, we're going to start at the very beginning, because this is a new season, and we have new titles! They're already a major improvement because the plain, boring yellow text has given way to the multi-coloured squiggles again. However, they're also a bit of a shock because all of a sudden, Punky's looking quite different. Her wardrobe has caught with 80s, er, fashion, and the old pigtails are completely gone (that one floored me the first time I saw it myself). The clips are almost all from the new season, with the poker scene from "Changes, Part 1" being the sole holdover from previous episodes. [I could go into Punky's new look, but in the end, there's not much reason to. It's a bit of a shock at first, but the shock quickly wears off, especially when you start watching and realize that she really doesn't sound all that different. Maybe Season Four will reveal some voice-changing, but right now, it's all cosmetic.] The DeBarge shill starts as soon as the episode does, as Punky puts on one of the band's songs and dances around pictures of the group. She also has gigantic shoulder pads on, something that the episode has a lot of fun with. And that's all I have of note for the opening sequence, so, ah... Uh, maybe I shouldn't do the play-by-play. I'll type some variation of that one sentence fifty times, and everyone reading will want to shoot me in the fingers. Spud Blugner gets his introduction in the first five minutes, selling information and seriously damaging the suspension of disbelief by managing to climb a tree to the second story. Thats'a big meat'a ball. He's actually all right here, even getting in a good line with "The sound of my mind changing!", so it's weird that I ended up wanting to totally throw something at him by his third or fourth appearance in the series. Wait a minute, wasn't the boy who played Spud the one who died young? Aw crap, that's bad karma. Let's move on before the lightning bolt fries my computer. Ay-yi-yi, I never want to see Brandon in 80s hip-hop garb again. The scary part was offset by finding out that Punky chose "War and Peace" for a fake book report. All right, we're on the right track so far, it's some good humour, deep as a mud puddle. Although Punky's a lot louder than she used to be, is it something about becoming a teenager that amped up the "whoa, turn it down a bit!" rating. And here's DeBarge! And here's 80s fashion, ouch! And there's a pretty good joke where they nearly lost one of the guys. And then Henry comes in twenty pounds of black leather. It's like everything you need to know about Season Three in twenty seconds. I'm drawing a blank for comments here. I'll say that DeBarge is a pretty good sport here, acting off of each other well to hide that they're not actors by trade. However, it looks really funny when you view this episode back-to-back with "Accidents Happen". In that one, Buzz Aldrin comes out of nowhere to appear at Punky's apartment, of all places, to give her an important lesson. In this episode, DeBarge... well, I won't make anyone read the same thing twice. At least this time around, DeBarge gets to voice the odd logic train behind such a move. It helps, if just a little. DeBarge also isn't taking themselves very seriously. I give points for that, sure. Unfortunately, maybe they take it a little too loose. The last ten minutes of the show is devoted to performances (give or take), and usually, those kind of sequences go well. Heck, Andy Gibb performed a piano rendition of one of his cheesier songs that was good enough for me to download (thanks to the forum) and still put on my playlist regularly. That's probably what is making me so disappointed to see a pre-taped performance, both times! The worst part is that the first one, after we have just seen DeBarge talking for several minutes, bears only a slight resemblance to the guys' actual voices. C'mon DeBarge, why phone it in now after grinning and bearing the rest of the episode? I don't even like the style of music, so this was one long ten minutes to sit through. And... whoa, whoa wait. That's it. "Performance", "performance", and we're done. Well, that's a fine end to the episode. It's one thing to not like a musical style or particular talent. I'll admit that, on the strength of what I can see from this appearance, I'm not exactly a DeBarge fan. However, two poor pre-taped performances at the end can't have stood well even with fans of the brothers, and I'll back any such fans up as being rightfully pissed. If they had to pre-tape the music, that would have been one thing, but why can't the five singers actually sing at the studio? They're professional musicians; it's not so much to ask! In the end, this was not the best way to start Punky's third season. Punky Brewster did need a episode to grab attention after a year's hiatus, but the DeBarge demonstration backfires in a mess of tape. It isn't a "Just Say No" or anything, but it's also not the punch to announce that Punky's back. Where will that come from? We'll have to see. - Jimmy Vibes * Thank you, retroguy, for being the one who actually pointed that out, AND for being the one to correct me in the feedback thread. The editors have been flogged with sauerkraut for their error. |