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Original Air Date: April 28, 1988 Review completed April 14, 2008 "Crushed" While Cherie and Margaux are taking quizzes from a magazine, Punky is dropping tools on boys' heads. Kevin, the unfortunate victim, turns out to be a well-muscled and electronically savvy young man of the type that Punky goes nuts over, and she goes so far as to pluck her eyebrows and make cake for him. He doesn't seem to notice the unusual attention until Punky awaits his third appearance with a candlelit dinner, and even then, his girlfriend has to tell him. Being a decent guy, Kevin braves Henry's wrath to try to console Punky, and manages about as well as anyone could in the situation. Punky decides to hold off on love for a while after that experience. It's a beautiful day out, the air and review dates have almost synched, and I am in serious trouble. The viewing has been wrapped up, and I now have around 1000 words to kill on something that barely registered, critically speaking. I don't mean that it was bad. It wasn't classic, but it wasn't bad. It's just in that critical dead zone where everyone does their jobs competently and, while the writing doesn't stir you to nominate for a Pulitzer, it doesn't do anything bad either. I like watching these episodes for the entertainment of it all, but how do I write about it? I will never write a running diary. But this is going to be really close. Here's something I haven't mentioned yet: Badly piped theme song. Actually, I mentioned as a possibility back in Season Three, but I can now confirm that there was some bad mixing on the theme during the transfer (or a major mishap with the tapes) because my headphones are not subject to the same benefit of the doubt as my small, mono TV speaker. I hope it's not an ongoing thing, though hints from the forum say that it is. Oh boy. That's not heartening. The brief lead-up snippet with Cherie and Margaux has taught me something: Someone, somewhere, has thought about braiding a guy's leg hair. Yuck. Wait, is that even possible? My gorilla-like hair level says no. I can get a little mileage from the first appearance of our familiar-ish guest star. Fun fact of the day: Dan Gauthier bears a strong resemblance to Mark-Paul Gosselaar. Well, a slightly older-than-the-one-at-this-point Gosselaar. He also has the last name of a gospel singer, but I don't think anyone's going to get that joke. Actually, hah, this guy sounds like a gospel singer, with his high-ish voice. Also, some of his rather naive mannerisms, but we'll get to that later. Between Kevin appearances, most of the fun to be had is in the details. Sugar Beasties becomes by far the longest running gag in the series by appearing again, and this time with what looks to be a Burger King promotion on its box flap. Punky gets bashed three times for wearing an orange outfit, which is truly strange after 8 years of 80s fashion and 4 years of Punky. And after way too many closeups from earlier episodes, I had to laugh at Punky being the one to pluck her eyebrows. Have you seen Henry from the older episodes? He looks like a dang penguin. The.... whatever one has that big fringe that looks like eyebrows. Yeah. That one. Oh yeah, and Betty appears. For like two minutes. She's the one feeding Henry a lot of straight lines. Sorry, Betty fans, but maybe next time. On the other hand, angry Henry was strangely funny. I laugh at death? Back to Kevin, I have just two things to wonder about this guy. One, how exactly did he explain to his girlfriend about his side trip to drop off the antennae? It doesn't look like he lives in the building, so the question of what he was doing in their backyard to get clocked off the head in the first place does come up. Then he completely misses Punky's attention seeking for much longer than any reasonably intelligent human should, to the point where his girlfriend has to spell it out. I know, obliviousness helps the plot along. Seriously, though, buy this guy a clue. "Strictly electronic relationship" is a great name for a band. I have nothing deep to write before or after, but it needs to be said. "I like you as a friend," makes an appearance here as well, and apparently it stings with women too. The ending was the only part that gave me real meat to chew on, though not in a good way. For one, that out-of-nowhere story with Henry and the school nurse was paperclipped to the script. It's so out-of-place that I'm not sure I could accept that the paper was the same type as the rest of it. The really weird part is that the last few lines are almost a direct echo of "My Aged Valentine". Yes, I already caught one episode borrowing from that script, but at least "Crushed" doesn't steal a format and a dream sequence. It does, however, borrow very much from the end dialogue about Henry being Punky's Valentine/crush. I will grant that it's a bit sad to even remember that far back at this point in the game, bur darnit, sad nitpicky statements are a golden example of what we do here. Cue a sad but wiser Punky and we're done here. That is all that can really be said in summary. Some parts cribbed a little bit, but there's little to talk about otherwise. It's a fine example of episode to watch, I just wish it had left this writer a little more to write. At least the fanboy quotient will be low. - Jimmy Vibes |