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Original Air Date: December 3, 1987 Review completed December 17, 2007 "Help Wanted" Punky is at the restaurant, celebrating the beginning of summer but lamenting that she won't get to go to canp due to lack of funds. By coincidence, however, Henry's only worker quits on him, giving Punky an idea. Henry is reluctamt to take his daughter on as an employee, but finally relents and gives her a chance. Her first shift couldn't go worse, however, and she is quickly fired. A hurt Punky wages a silent war with Henry until Betty forces them to talk again. Henry, remembering his own tough father, agrees to give Punky another chance if Punky will be more willing to learn first and work later. That paragraph is so bloggish it should be accompanied by a "Current mood:" tag and one of those horrible emoticons they use, but it has a purpose. I'm going to be throwing around some crabby lines that may sound like they've been becoming cliches for relying on if I'm stuck for review material. Not in this case, though. I'm not crabby right now, nor bitter, maybe a little bit funky. It's more that, in writing play-by-play, there's just a few things that look lazy. I gave chances, I chuckled. It just isn't enough. Certainly, I grinned at the first bit, which for those of you who have been looking ahead will lead fairly directly into early Season Four. "Going to Camp" is the trip they're talking up here I do believe, which even means that the two seasons are going to run right into each other time-wise. Trying to make timelines for Punky is not generally recommended (just try to work one for "Fenster Hall", I dare you), but this is one instance where such a thing will work out very nicely. Also, the return of Punky's Pizza... but where's the gumball? M&Ms actually don't sound too bad on a pizza, certainly better than the Oreo pizza Domino's has come up with recently in the U.S. (I swear that this is true.) Then again, this was the 80s, when blue drinks were still rare. Maybe too early. For the second week in a row, the main activity elicts sympathy in me, especially for poor Stanley who was pretty professional under the circumstances. Thankfully, I haven't met anyone as bad as Punky at their job yet, so that's one instance of art imitating life I'm glad to miss. That response backfires this week though, as the sympathetic part is much shorter here. More on that later. First, though, I'm going to get my only major nitpick out of the way here. I have a whole list of things I noticed, mostly from seeing the operation of the restaurant, but eventually you figure out that the writers did not and will not intend the restaurant scenes to be realistic. So all of those little things will vanish into a cloud of proto-nerdrant because to pick all that attention is a waste of my time and your attention. Seriously, though, did anyone at any point in this episode think that Punky's job isn't legal in the first place? This isn't a case of a couple of years, the girl is ten years old and would in no way ever be considered a legal employee in America. Of course, a nit like this is something that cannot be picked without turning the episode into a pile of loose debris. Maybe he could bluff in front of an inspector, but what if one of those angry customers decided to take action? Okay, that one's cheap, but I find it cheap right back that the topic isn't even hinted at. Henry was pretty mad at Punky at one point in the episode; why couldn't he have pointed out in his own defense that she shouldn't have technically been working there at all. That brings up another can of worms altogether, one that I feels the episode botches in a big way. Yes, Henry is a jerk at a few points in their feud, but at the beginning he's more or less completely justified! He risks legal trouble and bad customer reaction to give his daughter a job, and she messes up in a big way. Yes, she was in over her head and could only have prepared so much, but some of her decisions are so counter-intuitive that you just can't believe she's doing anything less than trying to get fired. I've been the new person in a service job, and yes it is sheer hell for the first few busy days. But there's a line you don't cross. Punky's yanking chairs and hurling burgers across the room, and then the episode (and Betty) take her side. What?! Betty soon regains her composure and comes back from this boo-boo to totally rule again, but the episode doesn't really recover. Henry exhibits odd behaviour in this too, though, as he stays very mad for little reason long afterwards. He knew what the problem was (see his "my father..." story from episode's end), but he dealt with it in the worst way possible. Oh yeah, there's also a running gag of (spring-loaded, but sshhhhhh) exploding napkin holders. The episode even ends on a shot of every holder in the place going nova at once. How does a napkin holder do this, exactly? And why do we get to see this multiple times? Thinking of the napkin gag, though, is what led me to the problem in the central conflict and thus the episode. It's all lazy writing. Lazy, lazy, lazy; the cause of why "sitcom writing" has become a somewhat insulting term for the quality of a work rather than a term for a general style. The concept for the episode was to get Punky working at the restaurant so she could cause chaos. That was done, but that doesn't make for a very long episode nor contains any major type of conflict that generally makes up written work. So the writers introduced a greatly simplified study on how father and daughter working together can be bad, discarding whatever wouldn't work with the previously written material. Then they needed a quick punch-up gag to lighten the mood occasionally, so hey, exploding napkin holders! Who cares how it works if it looks funny? No one will ever think of how it's all supposed to work, right? Give me a break. Even a kid can figure out when something is thrown in for the sake of it. Heck, even ten-year-olds when I was one could grasp when a show wasn't making sense, never mind the ones now with computers and higher curricula and what have you. The kid's stuff that underaged adults like myself remember tends to look good even to adult eyes revisiting it years later. The real dogs we find in articles or whatever, look up information on, and then remember why we don't remember it. I swear that made sense. Hmm, I broke the play-by-play. I don't suppose there's any strong objections to that, especially as it all plays out in a manner you'd expect. The ending is actually ambigious on whether Punky still has her job or not, but given that other episodes put her as working Punky's Place, I think that answers the question. And once again, Betty actually kicks butt and takes names in this episode, a fact I bring up twice because I promised to hype Betty more. Deservedly so here. I want to believe that every episode has its promise, but sometimes the writing fails to meet it. That's the case here, with continuity to make your eyes pop and a topic that could have delivered. Sadly, some lazy choices on the scenes don't complete that delivery, but the promise was there. I admit to not being much of a fan of the way the general story is going, but if the surrounding stories start picking up strength in light of the small hopes here, I may be kinder. There's no automatic fails in Punky, because just about anything can work... if the work was put in. - Jimmy Vibes ADDENDUM NEWS FROM THE FORUMS: "Wait, the what?! "I suppose we should also mention Soleil’s mother putting in a cameo as a diner." The feedback thread for the reviews spawned this quote from forum member "meister" (if that is his real name...), thus pointing out something rather important that I missed. Really, really badly missed. Needless to say, this one sent me scrambling for the DVDs again, and then calling for screenshots as my computer has no DVD drive or capability to hook to a TV. "CrestfallenXYU" responded very quickly to the call, providing a series of shots to show that this was actually one of the more visible parts of the scene, and not exactly a one-second shot in the background. All I have to say is "Whoops". Big thanks go out to meister and Crestfallen for their efforts in getting the elder Mrs. Frye on this page.      |