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Here we are, a head-to-head comparison of two undersized, perky, colourful kid's show personalities in what could easily be called "The Rainbow Row". "The Colourful Combat". "The [insert another awful colour pun here]". One of these girls shall continue to bring perkiness and cute moments for kids and scarily immature adults, while the other will cry tears of bitter defeat. By the way, the big thing to notice about this column is that it strays a bit from the usual site context to drop into the bright, scarily energetic place known as LazyTown. Actually, as the forumers already know (quite repeatedly), I've actually been quite into that show as of late; I was just making a concious effort to keep it off the Punky Brewster fan site. Well, guess what, inner voice: I LIED, ESSE! Now that I've successfuly ran a few more people off screaming for the hills, let's get to this, shall we? Mostly because I'm running out of snappy intro filler. HOMETOWN ...uh... Do we even know where either of these two originally came from? Punky drove from somewhere in the U.S. and ended up in Chicago, and Stephanie is visiting LazyTown for the summer. (Long summer, considering that Christmas has come and gone.) We could take the ever-popular fan route of using the info behind the actresses, which would give us California vs. New York. Nah. Heck with it. DRAW FRIENDS Oh, wow, this one's a little one-sided. Let's list them out and see why: Punky: Cherie, Allen, Margaux Stephanie: Stingy, Ziggy, Trixie, Pixel, Sportacus Okay, note one thing about Stephanie's list. (Besides the fact that it looks like a 90s remake of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"). Note the superhero on the end of that. Granted, it's a superhero who can't see through really bad disguises and can be killed by sugar, but I don't see anyone on Punky's side who can just do random aerial manuveurs for twenty minutes and then eat breakfast.  AUTHORITY FIGURE Or, the battle of the old men. Whichever you want. So, what this boils down to is comparing Uncle Henry vs. Uncle Milford. Both are given to the occasional speech, both have their share of comical misadventures, and both have their days where a light post could outwit them. However, let's look at two things on the Punky side. One, Punky actually has a healthy respect of Henry, even trying rather hard to escape punishment more than a few times. When does Stephanie even get advice from her uncle? Also, while Henry has the occasional slip, the Mayor needs saving in virtually every episode of LazyTown. Heck, the characters make jokes about it half the time that it happens! Henry has his off-days, but at least he doesn't need a dude in spandex to help him hang Christmas lights.  VILLIANS You could almost argue that Punky would lose this by default, since there's no major recurring villian in Punky Brewster. However, our judges (me and the wall) have decided that Fenster Hall itself comes into play enough to count. So...Fenster Hall vs. Robbie Rotten. Heh. Fenster Hall has a bit of an advantage in that Punky actually dislikes and fears the place. Robbie, wearing a "scary" dinosaur costume no less, gets a blanket thrown over his head by an "eight"-year-old girl. Robbie is also the kind of villian who, on at least two occasions, has made really bad plans based on sarcastic throw-away statements. However, Robbie gets points for attendance (you'll never see an episode without him), and he has tried to off Sportacus a few times, most notably with a soccer ball catapult that nearly plummets him from his Airship. Hmm, how to break this one. Let's try, "image". Fenster isn't quite meant to be evil; just to Punky. Robbie's trying. Trying way too hard, maybe, but that still makes Robbie the bigger villian in the the strictest sense of the word. Although even I'm embarrassed that Robbie frickin' Rotten just won an evil contest.  FASHION SENSE Okay, so Punky has colour schemes that would make a hippie freak out and run. Unlike Stephanie, she seems to own more than three outfits, and in more than two colours.  PHYSICAL CAPABILITY Yeowch, this one is kind of one-sided. Okay, they're both midgets (well, when you account for the fact that the actress behind Stephanie is actually fourteen (!)). Still, Stephanie is the star of a show about physical fitness, dances, and even has an episode where she mimics the aerial manuverability of the high-flying Sportacus. Punky isn't exactly a slob, but she's been shown to be way outmatched in a fight and, to steal Margaux's phrase, "ha[s] the rhythm of a tree stump."  MOTHER SUBSTITUTE Yes, there is one of these on both shows; Betty Johnson vs. Bessie Busybody. Betty is a tough woman, takes charge, raised three children previously, and works as a nurse. Bessie, despite the rumours about her relation to a superhero (maybe a mother?), is most often seen covered in cream and cucumber. No contest.  SONGS You knew this was going to come up. I hardly need to explain this one, do I?  GUEST STARS Guest stars? On LazyTown? Sure, but only if you count that kitten in one of the early episodes. Meanwhile, listing just the famous names from Punky off the top of my head: Andy Gibb (twice!), Marvellous Marvin Hagler. Buzz Aldrin, pre-Full House Candace Cameron. That should do it.  SUPPORTING ROLES Or; people who aren't quite friends, but are still on the show a lot. That doesn't really leave anybody left from LazyTown that we haven't already mentioned. Meanwhile, Punky has as its main recurring examples Eddie and Mike. I think we all know who wins this one. C'mon, who wins with Eddie on their team? You know, the man who once climbed into a furnace?  CONTEMPORARIES Who are these gals sharing air space with? In Punky's case, we can name Webster and Different Strokes (imagine the apostrophe wherever it's supposed to go) just for shows that are in the same vein, never mind other 80s sitcoms. LazyTown ends up in current children's TV, starring aside Dora the Explorer and other bunches of Nick Jr shows. That could be a good debate actually, 80s kid's programming against modern kid's programming, but given the nature of this site, I think our judges have a foregone conculsion.  Uh-oh, dead even and I'm running out of things to match up. Arm wrestling, anyone? This looked a lot easier on paper. "DID WE ACTUALLY DO THAT?!" MOMENTS Punky: Got a whole episode devoted to her first bra and a few-minute segment of said episode throwing around just about every joke name imaginable. (This was before the actress grew breasts the size of your head, incidentally.) Also had an episode about people getting stuck inside refrigerators. Stephanie: Had one spot where Sportacus tried to show everyone what day of the week it was (if you catch my drift). Mmm, tough one, but a whole episode about the danger of the fridge? Man...  CHRISTMAS MEMORIES Punky had three Christmases on-camera; one where she scored five tons of loot (er, presents) and a Santa-rific surprise, one where she stole a scarf and landed her teacher in jail, and one where she discovered some ridiculous sum of money and ended up getting a watch as a reward for returning it. Y'know, that sounds funny when you put it like that. Stephanie got to freeze her butt off (never mind that it was her own darn fault for refusing to change out of that cold-looking dress for one episode) and had a blue-spandexed guy flip his way across Christmas dinner to catch a snowball. Well, okay, Punky had one sucky Christmas. But I think the other two balance things out.  Well, one draw and twelve actual rounds later, who da winner?  Like there was any doubt. |