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Coleman's avatar

Fuckin A that's very specific Patrick - piano wires and blowtorches you say? If I made that statement to the public I doubt I'd make it home in one piece

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AJ Milne's avatar

Honest, possibly odd reaction to seeing that former ‘Silver Spoons’ kid in this story:

I feel like there was something kinda covertly poisonous about a lot of the ‘wholesome/family-friendly’ 80s sitcoms. That Cosby turned out to be a monster and Cameron pretty fucking awful and screwy too seems all very Stepford, and in retrospect not entirely surprising...

Referencing another I guess (pretty obscure) 80s thing: ‘Synchronicity II’ by the Police. About the actually tortuous horror lurking in a suburban family home, it’s like a lot of them, strangely appropriately, actually were that, only on TV. Deeply dysfunctional, but putting on such a pretty face for the neighbours. Or in this case the viewing audience.

There was one episode of ‘Growing Pains’ where I actually reacted to it in the era, something kinda awful about this. I don’t think I watched the show much, but, anyway: it was this plotline where Cameron’s character was dating this apparently terribly pretentious poet girl who I think is pretty unimpressed with his family. And I remember thinking: this is kinda blatant anti-intellectual propaganda. Anyone into the arts (outside bland commercial television, if that counts), apparently they’re dreadful. In the end he dumps her in some but I love my awful square family thing... And I remember thinking, you know, maybe poet girl isn’t all wrong...

Now and then decades later when I still had cable (I cut the cord quite a while ago now) I remember periodically flipping past various things in the category and just feeling no interest in lingering. Like, yeah, I watched this all those years ago, but that was because there was nothing else on, and it was the common currency. Now I almost get this rash. Like I dunno, I get this uneasy feeling something might be broken here, and I’m staying away.

So that the Silver Spoons kid turns out this way, it’s kinda yeah that tracks.

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