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Original Air Date: November 3, 1987 Review completed June 4, 2007 "Tons of Fun" Henry's niece Louise comes to visit, apparently carrying much more weight than she used to have. She handles the reactions with worryingly good humour at first, but eventually confides to Punky and her friends that she really needs to slim down. Punky organizes an extensive (and exhausting) weight-loss program for everyone, but Louise ends up gaining weight, which no one understands until Punky catches her red-headed with a midnight snack that could feed Guam. Punky chews her out for putting everyone's best intentions to waste, and a shamed Louise takes the point to heart. Four months later, she makes a return visit, having successfully lost a great deal of weight. And so, that brings us to today's subject, which is the obligatory episode about being fat. I've seen the same plot in other sitcoms, cartoons, comic strips; heck, I've even got one of my older books on my bookshelf that almost exactly matches the summary plot twist for plot twist. Punky can't really add anything to the basic plot because abandoned childern don't really factor into major weight gain unless you're getting into disorders involving depression. That means that this episode will have to live or die on the strength of the acting and dialogue. After the last two episodes, that is not a comforting thought. This episode raises a question right from the get-go: How is Cherie not amusingly overweight herself? How often do we see her pigging out on this series and still be rail-thin? A better question in all of this may be, "What kind of point is this to start on?" Okay, more relevant point: "Second cousin twice removed" is a neat way of getting around the question of "Why haven't we heard about Henry's family member before?" Well, are expositioned about, anyway. The opening dialogue isn't too bad, but the opening exposition is about as smooth as passing kibble pizza. Now it's big guest-star reveal happy fun time, and... yeowch, the yellow outfit for Louise is eye-poppingly bad. I know it's intentional, but this is above and beyond the call of duty. I should inform everyone at this point that it's a fat suit within all of the yellow, not a fat actress. I have nothing official to back that up with, but the end of the episode gives a pretty good hint. That, and every outfit she wears is full body. One sign that we'll be in more comfortable territory for this episode: "And for your service to the Crown..."? Sarcastic Henry! How I've missed you, my man. It tends to be a sign of above-averageness (is that even close to a word?) when we get Henry tough and zingy. Though you wouldn't quite know that if you took the next line from the adults into account. Garbanzo beans being wet macadamia nuts? Henry's reaction says it all. Who wrote that? Up to the treehouse, where I just realized that all of my notes for this part are about Margaux's appearance. Mostly in the form of, "Margaux's been slimed! Jimmy's got his nostalgia kick for the week in!" On a more serious note, one part that genuinely confused me: Was that meant to be a fake mask, or is it just bad production values? Eh, I shouldn't really be complaining. Any part that contains a line like, "Your nose came off!" is all right with me. Note that I haven't written anything yet about Louise's contribution thusfar. Well, picture every fat joke ever made and you'll pretty much get the gist of the first six minutes. Most of them are being made by the girl herself, so I wasn't terribly surprised to her about her aching unhappiness about her weight. I ranted like heck at Henry being dense as a brick back in "Bye Bye, My". Same deal here, once you substitute in everyone else ever. Jeez, people, at least two of you should know great deals about putting up a false front. One quick, outside-the-narrative note to make here is that Margaux seems to be becoming more and more of a walk-on part. There, one of your running themes for the season. Watch for it more and more; she virtually never lasts for a full episode, and indeed, you can see most of her work in an episode in a single extended scene. Back to the story, nice you to volunteer everyone for the diet in abesntia, Punky. And what a diet it is too. Mung beans and salad (and diced soya cubes)? I would guess that diet substitutes weren't anywhere near as varied in the 80s, but my own "diet substitutes" are more along the lines of such exotic things as large salads and wheat bread. How about even just leaner meats? Plenty of exercise seems to go into the diet too. Like exercising your memory. Mrs. Wapperman seems to have changed position from across from the backyard to underneath the Warnimonts. Not something that most people would rememeber, sure, but it's something that becomes much clearer to those with DVD sets. Or a nut trying to write about the episodes in sequence. I suppose there's bigger fish to fry, like the way Henry just suddenly popped up from leaning over to look at Betty's weight to standing upright about a foot away. Whoops. The karate pose in giant fuzzy slippers is a Photoshop waiting to happen, and it leads to a scene that is not much less important, even if you can see it coming from a mile away. (Sly fat jokes, Jimmy? No...) Yep, diet-cheating. And what a diet cheating it is... is there any conceivable reason to have (...quickly counting...) about eight boxes of snack cakes in one house? The talk that follows is mostly what you'd expect, save for a couple of odd points. How does Louise know that Punky is popular? I almost thought that this may be a sly promotion along the lines of Eddie and Mike, but I don't think even this writing crew would go that route. Though it would explain the line, "[Punky Power] is a lot of things." It's a catchphrase, not the Force. Or is it? This episode has, when viewed straight, one boring plot. I wrote almost entirely in tangents in the main body of the review because you really don't me to cover the essentials on this one. Add the odd joke about sleep-eating and take a minute to think about the ways you could write a fat person on a sitcom. There, that's the meat of this chapter. The truly memorable things here are the little touches added to distract from the cookie-cutter main course. It's not a truly great story, but it succeeds in doing something that the previous episodes couldn't, and that's get Season Three off to a proper start. Still, put in the context of a season, this is but an appetizer, and the main course is on its way. - Jimmy Vibes |