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SMNTY Classics: A Special History of Afterschool Specials · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Andy and Samantha, and welcome to stuff.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I've never told your production of iHeart Radio. I think
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I know the answer to this, Samantha, but I shall
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: ask this question anyway. Did you ever watch any after
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: school specials or were there things on PBS that you
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: were into growing up? Oh? Yeah, I'm definitely one of
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: those that watched Captain Kangaroo a little while Zoo Belie Doe.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Do you remember that? No? No, no, no, no, no,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: that's a fun name. Oh no, that's not how you
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: say it is, Zoo Belie Zoo. There's Ben Vereen who
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: dresses like a cat and they're all dressed up in
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: some kind of like costume. I'll send you a picture.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: And I used to love it. It It came out in
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: six but I watched that as well. Ben Vereen loved him,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: such a great guy. To me, He's right up there
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: with LeVar Burton, who which I also watched Rainbow all
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: of that. I did watch a few after school specials.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: But you also have to remember I didn't have anything
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: but more than like four channels, and that included like CBS, ABC, PBS,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: that's it. We couldn't even get NBC like it was
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: two out of range for us. So those are the
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: three channels that I had, and so I would also
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: watch any of the PBS specials like that's when I
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: watched and Green Gables of course. Yeah, yeah, I was
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: in a very similar situation. We got those channels, and
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: then occasionally we would get NBC, R TBS and every
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: now and then Channel thirty four, which was the Box,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: which is a music video station, but you have to
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: put your hand on the TV and then hold your
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: other arm up there for those moments. But I loved
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I loved PBS. I didn't watch much in the way
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: of after school specials necessarily, but I loved Zoom and
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Wishbone and Reading Rainbow and Arthur, which is why one
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: of the reasons why this has been on my mind
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: because Arthur has been canceled after very like twenty plus
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: years a long time. Yeah. Also, me and my friends
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: spent a long time trying to remember without the Internet,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: who was gay on that show, and it was Mr Rathburn.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Mr Rathburn got married to a man. And I even
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: had the Arthur video game. I absolutely loved it. I
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: remember coming home and like right getting home from school
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: and watching watching that um, but it's something else that's
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: been on my mind too, because here in the US,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: at least, there's a lot of conversation around going back
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: to school and what that's going to look like when
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: you've got a pandemic and a new variant that's really
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: really contagious and children. So I've just been thinking about
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: thinking about this and kind of feeling to static for
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: my days of watching these shows on PPS and being
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: so excited, so excited for them. So yeah, yeah, please
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: enjoy this classic episode. Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: You from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline, and we
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: are talking about after school specials today because you know what,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: it's school time and for some of you it might
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: be after school. And I really, personally, I just wanted
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: to know about after school specials because in my brain
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: they are these KITCHI feel good lesson teaching imparting little
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: videos that we watched now from time to time and say, oh,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: look at Scott Bao, he's too drunk. I don't know
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: that all of them were feel good videos though, well, yeah,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I mean like Scott Bayo in The Boy Who drank
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: too much, was you know, it was pretty it was
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: pretty tough to watch because he did get too drunk.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Or there was the one what was the name of
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the one where he like got all whacked out on
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: drugs and fell in the water or something. I think
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: you are referring to stoned when Scott Bayo smokes pot
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: at school and gets really stoned. Not to be confused though,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: with high school narc which is not Scott star of
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Scott Bayo, but it does deal with marijuana in school. Yeah,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Scott Bayo. A lot of people got their start from
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: these things. Christie McNichol, Rob Lowe and his jaw, Helen Hunt.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: There's one very famous after school special. I don't know
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: the title of it, but it involves Helen Hunt trying
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Angel Dust a k A PCP and then jumping through
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: a window cautionary tail the So before this turns into
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: me just pretending to to be YouTube, just recounting clips
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: of after school specials. Uh, we are talking specifically about
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: ABC after school specials, although CBS also had their form
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: of after school specials. HBO even did similar kinds of
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: after school specials, but they ran on ABC from nineteen
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: seventy two to nine. It was the first network to
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: do this, and the very first after school special was
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: actually a Hannah Barbera animated feature about fictional birds. It
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: was called Last of the Curlews and it was about conservation.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: It kind of reminded me of Dr Seus' Is the Lorax?
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Uh yeah, it was. It was all about these birds
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: called the Curlews, and it won an Emmy in nineteen
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: seventy three for Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming. My father
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: would just say it was a liberal agenda movie. It
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: was a liberal leg because it taught kids empathy and
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: they learned about college and environmental problems. I mean, he's
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: a man who can't sit through Wally Hippies. Yeah uh yeah.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: After school specials, even though we might snicker at them
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: now a little bit because they might seem a little
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: bit cheesy, perhaps through our are now nine o two
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: and oh jaded lens, they would go on over their
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: lifespan to Garner eighteen Daytime, any Emmy's, three Blue Ribbons
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: at the American Film Festival, and a Peabody Award. So
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: you would think that, you know, having won all these awards,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: that they would have been. They must have been really
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: popular from the get go. But according to producer Martin Tay's,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: who did a lot of these episodes, most of the episodes,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: advertisers were not excited about these these shows. They did
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: kind of touch on a lot of racy topics, and
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: they were very They were a radical departure from a
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: lot of the TV shows that were on at the time.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: But critics loved them. They loved this series, and they
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: actually pressured ABC affiliates to take it more seriously. Well, yeah,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: because this was the first time that a network devoted
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: that kind of prime time specifically to teenagers. Because if
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: we look at TV when this is going on, remember
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: they were launched in nineteen seventy two. We have Happy
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Days comes on air in seventy four, ninety eight, Mr
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Rogers sixty nine, Sesame Street comes around seventy three, We've
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: got Schoolhouse Rock, and then because it's awesome, we must
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: mention it Reading Rainbows, Hello, I should do an episode
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: just on reading. Should But but those were all targeted
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: toward younger audiences. So the after school specials were really
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: an attempt to to educate how this it's adedutainment, uh,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: toward teens, and so they did tackle those tough topics
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: like teen and adult alcoholism, homosexuality, teen pregnancy, drug abuse,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: domestic violence, STDs, teen suicide, child molestation. Um, also divorce,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: such as one of my favorite after school specials, My
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: dad lives in a downtown hotel, which happens when bou
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Bridges and his wife get divorced and Billy, their child,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: has to go visit bou Bridges in a downtown hotel. Huh. Yes, well. Um.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: In an episode of NPRS on the Media which aired
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: in June two thou five, they took a look at
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: these these wonderful episodes of learning, and they quoted Chicago
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Tribune media writer Maureen Ryan, who said that it just
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: seemed like there was much more of an air of
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: exploration in terms of topics that might now today be
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: considered inappropriate for kids or young adults. Yeah. I feel
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: like parents are very sensitive about what their kids watch.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: But these were these were these were learning tools. And uh.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: They point out that while these after school specials may
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: have been melodramatic, they acknowledged that there was more to
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: adolescents than sock hops of happy days. Yeah, these were
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: happening in an interesting time because there's sort of sandwiched
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: between on the one side, this moral panic about television
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: becoming more sexualized and violent. There were all of these
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: UM stories in like Time magazine and Newsweek talking about
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: connections between violence on television and rising rates of teenage
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: violence UM, and also concerns fueled by the Cold War
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: about whether or not kids were being adequately educated this
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: new and younger generation. But then on the other side,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: you do have the opening up of uh. You know,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: it's the swing in seventies, So you have the publication
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy of uh, everything you always wanted to
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: know about sex, but We're too afraid to ask. Two
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: years later, the Joy of Sex comes out nineteen seventy three,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Our Bodies Ourselves. You have drug culture going on UM.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: So you have sandwiched in the middle of this these
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: after school specials that we're trying to appease the moral panic,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: the need for a desire for education on the boob
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: tube that's coming down from from parents, and also addressing
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: these very real issues that teams are confronting. Yeah, and
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: this is referred to as the turn to relevance for
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: TV because you have commercial TV that people are all
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: up in arms about. It's all sexy times and violence,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: but it's becoming more socially conscious to sort of become
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: an educational tool for young people. And this is all
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: talked about in a study from Julie Allman talking about
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: how adolescence was sort of redefined during this time as
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: just a period in your life to all of a sudden,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: now it's something to overcome. It's a disability you have
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: to get over well. And you also have to take
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: into account the changing family dynamics that we're going on
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: as well, with more mothers working outside the home. So
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: you have all these latchkey kids all of a sudden,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: you've got divorce on the rise. And again because of
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: the lack of supervision, perhaps from both parents working. Uh,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: you have youth TV intake becoming less supervised. So you
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: mentioned producer Martin Toss. Uh. He decided with these after
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: school specials that he would draw from popular adolescent literature
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: and keep tabs on publishers weekly to essentially see what
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: the kids were reading and the format the shows similarly
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: or even directly from these young adult novels. For instance, Uh,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Francine Pascal, who wrote the Sweet Valley High series. Um,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: she had a novel, The hand Me Down Kid, turned
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: into an after school special in nineteen eighty three, and
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: it's all about how a younger sibling is sick of
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: getting hand me down, so she steals her sister's bike.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: But then of course that bike gets stolen lesson learned
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: about stealing. Well, then what happened? Uh, well, and then
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: I guess she's fine with taking hand me downs. I
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: have a feeling at the end, she gets a new
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: outfit because generally there is some kind of need that's satisfied,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: you know, and the good feels okay and well a
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: lot of one of the points that they bring up
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: about this whole series is that there aren't miracles in
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: these shows. That oftentimes when these horrible things happen, whether
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: it's oh my god, I don't get a new outfit
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: or whoops, I got my girlfriend pregnant, often these are
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: things that the kids themselves have to deal with and resolve,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: and and they don't just like magically, you know, like
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: an episode in Full House just magically get resolved in
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: thirty minutes, right. They have to undergo some tough circumstances
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: in order to reach the other side, and a lot
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: of it is about, yeah, the kind of the pluckiness
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: of youth and having to overcome peer pressure or just
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: general loneliness and angst. Although Elman, whose thesis we've cited,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: did take issue with how gender shakes out a lot
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: of times in the after school specials um she points
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: out that topics are often focused around male protagonists to
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: begin with, because of the notion that girls are gonna
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: watch something about boys but not vice versa, and a
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: lot of times, if a female protagonist does have a problem,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: it usually required a male love interest to come along
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: who probably had already dealt with a similar kind of issue,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: to guide her to the solution. Whereas when the tables
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: were turned and you have a boy who's trying to
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: overcome something the women or the women, it's the girls
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: who are still kind of relegated to the side just
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: to be caretakers but not necessarily catalysts for change. Yeah.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: A lot of her study does touch on divisions of
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: gender and able bodied nous and what that means as
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: far as heteronormativity and traditional masculinity and femininity. Yeah. She
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: essentially uh makes the point that able bodied nous is
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: used as a kind of UH symbol for heteronormativity because
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: you have this arc of uh. You know, you start
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: out with some kind of handicap and a lack of
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: love interest, and as someone will overcome some kind of
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: uh disability, then the love interests will come along, so
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: you have them able bodied and hooked up by the end,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: sort of linking those two things together. Yeah, she calls
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: this a rehabilitative approach in representing teen problems and addressing
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: teen viewers, and really, like I mentioned earlier, talks about
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: overcoming disability and defines um adolescence as what you're you're
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: not being able bodied, you might even kind of have
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: a disability, and so this whole thing becomes a developmental
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: stage defined by exposure to and weathering of the dysfunction.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: And speaking of heteronormativity, UH. Sexuality was something that did
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: come up in a number of after school specials, and
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: there were some that that dealt specifically with teens um
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: coming out. But A Reese over at auto straddle dot
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: com talks about the HBO slash Canadian Cable Company special
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: The Truth About Alex, which is it's not an ABC
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: after school special, but it's in the same vein of
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: these after school specials and again starring Scott Bayo. I
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: love that this episode could just be co titled Scott
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: byes Uh, and she writes, for many young homosexuals, the
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: truth about Alex was the first time they saw themselves
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: on screen, and that was profound enough and positive. But
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: the real lesson of the film hides behind the ostensibly
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: decent portrayal because outside of those things, the survival of
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: coming out of the closet and an eventual acceptance from
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: a handful of family and friends, the life of a
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: gay person was seen as a relentless and destructive battle
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: against the world. If you come out, be prepared for
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: everything to unravel around you. So it is sort of, um,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: it's a positive, but still with these negative attractors of saying, hey,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: be brave, young person and be who you are, but
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: still be ready for a lifetime of hill exactly. She
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: goes on to site some episodes that focused particularly on
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: young gay people in high school. There's seven CBS school
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Break special What If I'm Gay, where friends this guy's
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: friends find his gay porn collection. It ended up being
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: nominated for three Daytime Emmys and actually one one um
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: in there was another CBS episode called Other Mothers and
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Meredith Baxter was one of the mothers and she ended
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: up coming out years later. That was recently, right, It
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: was just like two years ago or something. Other Mothers
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: was in when she came out. Uh that yeah, I
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: want to say it was two thousand three. Uh. And
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: then there was an HBO episode called More Than Friends,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: the coming out of Heidi Lighter. I think that's how
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: it's pronounced. But yeah, So there was a focus on
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: gay and lesbian students, but like Kristen said, there was
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: still the downside of you have a lot of junk
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: to deal with. Well, it was similar to to how
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: sex was dealt with, especially when it comes to STDs
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: and unintended pregnancies. Because this is going back to Elman's
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: paper and television in new Media. She talks about how
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: while yeah, sexteen sex was depicted a lot, but STDs
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: were always um depicted as some kind of punishment, a
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: moral punishment for promiscuity, as was accidental pregnancy. A lot
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: of time saying like hey, well you know you can
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: do this, but if you aren't, you know, monogamous, you're
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: gonna get a horrible STD and terrible things will rain
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: down upon you. Yeah. This is part of what she
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: called medicalized entertainment, which was a style of literary slash
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: televisual narratives that emerged around this time to basically transmit
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: images of medical knowledge and often disability for public consumption.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: So here you've got this this health issue. Um, let's
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: let's teach you about it in kind of an entertaining
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: way so that you'll know more about it and hopefully
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: avoid it. Yeah. I mean, I will say, like, um,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: considering the time that these were on the air, and
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: considering how how new it was and how revolutionary was
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: that this was the first time that the teen experience
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: was really being valued and portrayed on television, I think
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: that you have to to take after school specials as
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I I think that they were a
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: good thing because they did portray all of these different issues,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: even though they might seem kind of kitchen now, um,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: not the issues themselves, but how they um came across.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: And it would be interesting to see like if obviously
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: after school specials don't really exist today in the same format,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: but how we might deal with them differently. But I
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: guess maybe we don't, uh, we don't need after school
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: specials anymore because a lot of these issues have been
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: mainstreamed into prime time dramas or drama tase comedies like Glee.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: You have things like nine O two and No Going
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Back in Time a Little Bit, which came out first
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: in October of nineteen ninety. You have The O C
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Dawson's Creek, all this other stuff where they interweave these
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: kinds of UH issues into incredibly dramatic plotlines. Dawson's Creek,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: you learned that the brunette is always the one that
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: you trust. You don't ever trust the new blonde who
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: comes to town. And I also think a really good
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: thing about these episodes, like Christen said, even though they're
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: a little cheesy, um, they do feature a lot of
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: different kinds of people, a lot of different young people
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: of different ethnic backgrounds, ages, family situations. And Elman says
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: that this whole imagined coming of age as a process
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: of developing liberal individualism by offering lessons in tolerance, so
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: showing different types of people on one what they go
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: through instead of just maybe your run of the mill
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: happy days cast. Yeah. And I think one of the
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: great things too about after school specials um as opposed
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: to are in comparison to the kinds of teen dramas
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: that we see on TV today, is that, especially when
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: it comes to their economic backgrounds, it was a lot
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: of lower middle class, you know, everyday kids just going
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: through life, whereas a lot of times now what we
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: see you turn on Gossip Girl and it's all, you know,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: fabulously wealthy kids. Even the poorest among them is clearly
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: obviously incredibly wealthy. Um. And so a lot of it's
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: more like stylized, and even the middle class is portrayed
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: to be like far above the actual living standards of
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: the current middle class. Yeah. Well, one thing that definitely
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: was not stylized at all is a show that I
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: watched in my eighth grade. I guess it was maybe
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: our break period or something, and that's to gret see
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: junior high. Yeah, if there were, I mean, I gotta
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: say that I in home school, I did not watch
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: The Grassy. I've heard about Degrassi for a while last year.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: In fact, a friend of mine who really has a
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: love for uh eighties and nineties culture asked me about
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: it and I was like, yeah, I mean, I've just
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: never seen it and she was like, you gotta watch
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: the Grassy Did you which version did you watch? Because
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: there's like fifty I started from the beginning of the
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Grassy Junior High and Caroline, I didn't leave my room
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: for a few days because I got I got hooked.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: I was twenty six years old on a Degrassy Junior
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: High marathon. Yeah, well they are. I just remember thinking
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: when I was watching them in classic, this is is stupid, right, guys,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: this is so wow. I can't believe they're actually talking
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: about this. Yeah, they hit all of the kinds of
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: issues that after school specials did, but it was somehow better,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: I feel like because they just pulled in actual kids
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: from the neighborhood, like the clothes that they wear were
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: closed from their closet and de Grassy Junior High and
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: the Grassy High ran on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation CBC
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: from seven to and then there's Degrassive, the next generation,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: not to be confused with Star Trek correct that started
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: in two thousand one. But you found some, uh, some
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: differences as to specifically because it was broadcast in Canada,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: about why they could tackle some of the issues that
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: they did more freely yeah, well, I guess I never
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: thought about the differences between Canada and the US as
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: far as like cultural taboos and things like that, because
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: I just don't think of our countries as that different.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Maybe social input, maybe they are, um, but yeah. Linda Schuler,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: who's the producer, said that Degrassi needed to be more
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: entertaining than an after school special because it was all
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: about finding the authenticity of these characters voices and emotions,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: about really tackling issues that kids were taught king about,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: and that came into play when they had an episode
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: about abortion, because there wasn't really an issue in Canada
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: about airing this episode. It was like, Okay, well, this
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: is something that kids are worried about, this is something
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: that happens in society, let's talk about it. But it
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: was actually pulled in the US because the the network,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: the N I don't recall this network or anything, but
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: the n actually refused to air the abortion episode, and
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: so The New York Times ended up writing a piece
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: on it like, oh, Degrassis tackling society's last taboo, and
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Schuler's response to that was basically like, well, it's not
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: really our last taboo. Um, it's just a different national context.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: And so there's this book called Programming Reality Perspectives on
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: English and Canadian Television that said the Degrassi went places
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: that American TV was afraid to go, and that that
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: national context really does affect what type of stories can
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: be told on TV. Yeah. I mean, I gonna say it.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: If it's a contest between ABC School Specials versus Degrassi,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, hands down, it's Degrassi. Anyone who out there
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: is not watching this might get me on another Degrassi kick.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying, you've got to go home right now
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: and watch it. Yeah. Um, Well, there's also the issues
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: we haven't really talked about girls and feminism and how
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: that's presented on these shows. Kristen Pike for an essay
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: in Girlhood Studies, which is a journal, she did an
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: analysis of episodes featuring tomboys and explored how these after
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: school special circulated ideas of feminism and femininity two young viewers,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: and her study demonstrates how these after school specials targeted
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: girls through images of female progress and independence while simultaneously
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: cautioning them about the dangers of women's lib So it's
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: the same kind of thing that we talked about when
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: they featured gay students on these episodes, It's like, okay, yeah,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: go be yourself. Go be it could be a strong woman,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: a strong young woman, but but you're you're kind of
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: a tomboy and you're different, and yeah, there could be consequences.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Be prepared. Yea. And they said she said that, uh
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: the series trend of taming tomboys, so like, oh, you're
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: a tomboy, but now you found a love interest, so
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: everything is better. Um, it's actually connected to the backlash
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: against women and gay rights movements. So did this help
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: TV hurt TV element in her studies so that it
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: rehabilitated TV's image that now kids have something productive to watch,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: more constructive? Um, you know, maybe portraying sexual issues as productive. Sure.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, though, I feel like there
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: was somewhat of a drop off because you transition from
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: after school specials really into not to I know, is
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the is the biggest thing to pick up from that? Um?
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: So I don't know. I'm curious to hear what other
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: people who might have watched more after school specials at
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: the time when they were airing. In parents today who
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: are concerned about TV programming what they think about it,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: And I don't know, maybe or maybe if it's if
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: it's a moot point that we shouldn't be so concerned about,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: like what kind of education kids are receiving from television
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: rather than you know, education that they are receiving from
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: school and books and other outlets like podcasts. Um, but
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: I think that. But I'm glad that we took this
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: look inside of after school specials, inside of Scott Bo's career. Yes,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: because I really I didn't know where they came from.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: So so that's where. And they're not from a stork.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: They are from the brains of ABC and producer Martin Toss.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: So there we go. And I think you know, folks
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: out there, if you would like an episode completely devoted
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: to Degrassi, I wouldn't be remiss, but I would have
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: to go back and do a lot of homework. Yeah,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: but let's maybe just go watch on let us know
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: if you want that, though we could do it. I
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: really just want an excuse to watch more Degrassi because
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I still haven't seen the next generation. I digress, So
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: any after school special letters you have to send our
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: way mom. Stuff at Discovery dot Com is where you
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: can send them. Now, before we get into listener letters,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: I do have a quick message for you from Netflix,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: which is partially responsible for bringing you this episode of
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Stuff Mom Never Told You, And it is the perfect
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: time to talk about Netflix. Because we are talking about
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: after school specials. We've ticked off a number of our
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: favorites and if you would, for instance, like to take
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: a trip back in TV time and watch some of
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: the ABC after school specials you can watch on Netflix,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: for instance the one to nine eight two after School
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Specials Edition, which features a young Raw Blow in the
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: after school special A matter of time. Now, if you
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: want to find out a matter of time for what
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: and what young Rob Blow is doing in that after
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: school special, all you need to do is go to
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Netflix dot com because as a new Netflix member and
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: a stuff Mom Never Told You listener, you can get
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: a free thirty day trial membership. Just go to Netflix
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: dot com slash mom and sign up and be sure
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: to use that U r L so they know that
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Caroline and I sent you. Now, this free thirty day
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: trial is not going to be around forever, so do
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: not delay. Head on over to Netflix dot com flash
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Mom for that free thirty day Trial membership. Now back
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: to our listener letters. We've got a let her here
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: from Bree talking about our episode on self harm, and
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: she says she's been in self harming off and on
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: for about ten years um and talks about the addiction factor. Um.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: And I just wanted to read a couple of things
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: in her her letter because we don't have time to
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: read the entire thing. Um. She says. I do agree
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: that the subject is not often talked about because people
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: just think it is an adolescent slash teen white girl
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: problem and then eventually they will grow out of it.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Being an African American woman, I was often told that
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: this was a white problem and that that I should
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: just stop because black people don't cut themselves. Yes, people
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: actually say these things. Also, a lot of people did
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: not believe men harm themselves, but that's also true. I
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: kept quiet about my cutting for almost a year until
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: I can find it in a friend, and it all
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: went down from there. Soon, It's seemed that all of
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: my friends were harming themselves in some ways, and we
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: were all on a path toward death. Thankfully, most of
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: them grew out of it and have found other ways
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: to cope. When they're feeling down. So she also offers
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: some pointers to help treat people who are cutting. If
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: someone is concerned, she says, don't ever take or throw
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: away or hide a person's personal cutting tools, boxes, etcetera.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Doing this seems helpful, but it can break the trust
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: you have with this person, and it could make the
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: person who was cutting find something quick and really sharp
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: to use at the moment, and in their frantic state,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: they could not be as careful and it could end
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: up badly. Also, don't shame them or make them feel
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: like they're worthless. It will be really hard at first,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: and sometimes you might say something you regret, but just
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: take some deep breast and try to focus on the
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: main point. Remember that everyone is different. Don't treat the
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: person as if they were someone you see on TV
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: or reading a book. Remember that you can't force anyone
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: to stop harming themselves. They have to want to stop
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: in order to progress. All that a person can really
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: do is be supportive and know that you're thinking about
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: them and you want them to get better. So thanks
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: to Brief for that insight. And I have a letter
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: from Kristen about our soda pop Cathy. She says, I
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: grew up in Palmer, Alaska, a smaller city north of Anchorage.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: In Alaska, we have many villages, which we call the Bush,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: that are not connected to the rest of Alaska by
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: roads and are therefore only acceptable by airplane or floatplane, boat,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: snow machine, and or dog sled. In these villages, everything
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: is much much more expensive. In two thousand and eight,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: I remember a gallon of gas hitting twelve dollars. I
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: remember learning that in many bush villages, babies, children, and
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: young adults are beginning to experience very serious dental problems
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: because healthy drinks such as water and milk are very expensive,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: but unhealthy drinks, mostly soda, are affordable For women with children,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: These mothers put soda in bottles for their babies, and
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: their children grew up drinking soda as the main or
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: even only, daily drink. That contributes not only to problems
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: you mentioned in the podcast, including weight gain and diabetes,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: but also major dental problems. Imagine the cavities a baby
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: would develop if it drinks solely sugared soda while teething.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure how big of a problem this continues
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: to be in the Bush, but it's an image that
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: has always stuck with me and I wanted to share.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: So thank you for that information, Kristen, and thanks to
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: everyone who's written in Mom's Stuff at discovery dot com
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: is where you can send all of your after school
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: special letters and any other letters on your mind, and
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: also head over to Facebook let us know post the
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: YouTube video of your favorite after school special. There are
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of them up on YouTube, and you can
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: also find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts, and
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: on tumbler Stuff Mom Never Told You dot tumbler dot com.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: And of course you can get smarter during the week
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: by heading to our website, It's how Stuff Works dot
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
• 32:40
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• 32:47
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• 32:50
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