Season Finale Welcome

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Hello, and welcome to the tenth and final episode of this season of You Can Call Me Karen. This week we explore the phenomenon, the social phenomenon that was PGIF. Or thank goodness it's funny for those who conveniently forgot to that. There's so much that we uh explore here on our walk down memory lane. And for those millennials like us that got to experience this in real time, it was just a perfect moment in history where families came together around their single television on a Friday night and watched truly uh family-friendly TV together. Things like Family Matters and Sister Sister, Boy Meets World, Step by Step. So many hits that we discuss. And also an interesting little tidbit of Family Matters being a spinoff of perfect strangers, which was new to a lot of us, or all of us maybe. But I do make my final shameless plug of the season for Jessica to be the new Karen. And we will continue, uh, I will continue to solicit your feedback and suggestions for you can call me Jessica. I don't know. I'm just trying it out. Anyways, thank you again for listening. Please enjoy the final episode of the season, and we will see you all soon.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

Today we are going back to the era of blankets on the couch, pizza rolls in the microwave, and nowhere else you need it to be. So imagine that it's Friday night and the moon is right. We're gonna have some fun and show you how it's done. Am I right, gals? How are you doing? Hey Steph. Hi. Hey Karen. Hi. This is our last episode of the season.

SPEAKER_03 2:34

Oh my gosh. Hey, Craig.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

How'd we get here? It went by so fast. What did we do? Um, I'm so excited to jump into our topic today. But before we do, uh, and now how we started here on You Can Call Me Karen.

Calling Out The Art Form Hot Take

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Oh, you calling Karen.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Um, I can go first. Okay. My Karen this week is mostly just because I keep seeing stuff about it on social media, but um Timothy Shamelei. Timothy Shamalai. Shalomet?

SPEAKER_02 3:13

I believe it is.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

I know exactly what I'm about to say. I do, I've seen it on threads. Yeah, and like I don't know who he is, kind of at all. Like, I think I know that he's dating one of the Kardashian people.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

That is correct.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

That's all I know. But he said that ballet and opera are dying art forms.

SPEAKER_03 3:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

And he needs to come before the congregation because I was I saw someone's um kind of talk about it from the fact that you know, art, it was talking about the messaging behind whether it's profitable and how you know America always wants to place like you know, profitability or like our capitalist culture um wants to put profit profitability on art. And you know, and obviously I'm a dance teacher, so to say an art form that is kind of a big part of the program that I teach um at my studio is is dying, is like you know, it's like and ballet extends so far beyond you know, performances on stage, like it some people just take ballet, like just to train like the base for so many not even art forms, but sports. Yeah, like muscle, yeah. So he's my week.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

Heavy sigh. I totally agree, and I think it's a larger conversation around like technique and patience, and like you can get very muscular doing ballet, like some of the strongest strength, yeah, people are ballerines. Not to mention like men started out as ballerina's correct, like like it was mostly men in the beginning, and I feel like there's just this shift to like toxic masculinity of like get in the weight room and like you know, and like lift weights and do heavy and boo-boo-boo. Um, although actually maybe I take that back because aren't a lot of men starting to do Pilates? Are they? I think so.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

And I think it's And I feel like I feel like messaging around exercise, especially towards women, is that we really should be lifting heavy. Yeah. Yeah. But I know what you're saying. It's like the ballet, you can kind of dismiss it as you know, delicate and dainty, but it requires so much athleticism and strength.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

And yeah, and finette, like I just feel like I really struggled in ballet, and that's why I wanted to take other dance forms, but in order to understand, I feel like the other dance forms, I had to have an understanding of ballet. Like, yeah, and I feel like that's what we're kind of seeing as a conversation in the dance world, too, is that like that fundamental teaching of ballet is getting a slightly washed down. Steph, please correct me if I am wrong. I am totally open to being corrected. But I feel like it's similar to what we say with writing. Like, in order for me to write poetry like really well, I have to know the rules of like writing and mechanics so that I can then break them. I feel like it's the same, like with this. Like, I have in order to understand like hip-hop, not maybe not hip-hop is not the best example, but like in order to understand, like like being contemporary, yeah. Like I have to understand ballet, like and I know this isn't about ballet, he said opera and all that other stuff, but I just feel like from a dancer's perspective.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Ballet and opera, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so and I feel like really strong studios. When I say strong studios, I'm talking about competitive contemporary jazz where like they have you know a lot of great turn and lead technique and all that kind of stuff. They ballet is probably a big part of their training. So, but I think because of social media and like the quick hits and like viral dancing and stuff, like maybe it's not popular. I know, like, you know, the students at our studio is like ballet, you know, I gotta not that they don't love it, but it's like the it's the tedious, it's the work, it's the heart, you know, it's the work. And it doesn't replace, I think what's um becoming really popular now, too, is like um cross-training and yoga blocks and like different um exercises that mixes in Pilates, and students think that we can replace ballet with some of these exercises, and you just cannot like the rotation, the turnout, the extension, the um lengthening, the balance, the control, like that really can um really only be trained in a ballet class. I feel like I kind of get I've always grown up as like ballet is the foundation of like everything. Um, and that is actually maybe a whole episode in itself, yeah um, because of white supremacy and that ballet, there's like African route to most dance and the dismissiveness of like that dancing, it ballet became like the proper. And so they kind of just one of those things that we corrected in 2020 was like that we shouldn't really say ballet is the foundation of all dance. Um, it it could be foundation of technical dance, maybe of contemporary, of like definitely some lyrical. I feel like I need to do some research, but yeah, um that's good.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

Let's add that into our episode notes. But I feel like that's why I was hesitant to stay saying, like I was like, wait, this doesn't feel right. Like I'm I completely that's not really right. Um, so thank you for you know putting that into like fresh perspective for those of us who are not consistently in the dance world. I also think um there's something here because you had said about like for capitalism for gain, and I think there's something here of like the audience and like teaching our kids how to sit through in um performance. Uh I took Millie and one of her friends to see Alvin Ailey right down the street here. They were they came on tour, and she and her friend were sitting there, and the whole time they were like so confused because they're like, You mean there's no talking? There's no scene. They're like, all they do is this. And I was like, that's ballet, right? So it is our responsibility as adults to like take them to that kind of art form as well, if we want to see this continue to be something that we consume, or else the kids are gonna want that quick fix, like you said, of social media bites and grabs and constant simulation and noise and speaking and plot, like through what's always being explained to them. And uh, I feel like, yeah, that's a deeper conversation, but that is what clicked for me too of like my experience taking my daughter to the ballet and her having no understanding of what was going to happen. Love

Train Seat Drama And Karen Justice

SPEAKER_02 10:16

that. Karen, who's your Karen of the week?

SPEAKER_03 10:19

Um, this conversation has taken like uh made me think of a bunch of other Karen's that I would like to call out right now that are in our government. But I'm gonna keep it lighter because I don't feel feel like bringing myself down. So I'm gonna keep it on the trend of all of the recent social media Karen's that we have called out and bring up this one that I saw on I don't know, Reels. I think that's the only thing I really engage with social media-wise. And it was a little bit of a confusing video, so it like cut in kind of mid-action. It was clearly in the Northeast, and people were on a commuter train um home after work. And there was like somebody who worked for the train who was like trying to ask this woman to get off the train, and she was like pleading her case. And essentially she was saying, like, this man came and sat by me. It was a it was a white woman complaining that this man came and you know, like forcibly made me move, essentially. They were sitting like in one of those seats that faces each other, you know, and they were they both had an empty seat next to them and they were facing each other. Um and the man was a black man, and so she was making her case, and very quickly, basically, the entire train who was like involved in this episode were like, No, you had your feet up on the seat and refused to let this man sit down, and you know, and then he finally just sat down because there's no open seats, and you're the problem. And there was like a woman who was saying this that was kind of like off the camera, and the the Karen in this story was like, Okay, Karen, to the woman who who stood up for the man, and everyone else, like in unison, was like, You are the Karen. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing! Like the world, anyways, I think that's when I knew I had to change my name. It's time, as it's written literally across my chest right now. Um, but it was very, I felt like it was very uh season four ending, you know, in interaction. And let's and then the video ended with like her standing up and being escorted off of the train.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Justice.

SPEAKER_03 13:01

Oh yeah, they're curious. Yeah, literally everyone like you could hear it, it was wild. So that's amazing. Those New Yorkers don't mess around, that's for sure. And we now have the language for this. I'm sad that Jessica doesn't seem to have taken off though.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

You know, I'm not sad because it is always Karen. No, it is Karen. Um I have not seen that reel actually. Me either. I've not seen that. I wish you would have came with it so we could watch it because I'm sorry. I wanna I want to hear everyone in unison come me to collectively and say, You're the Karen. I feel like that would be a good instead of Steph's outro to the Karen story.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

Oh my gosh, you're the Karen.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

I'll have to try to find it.

SPEAKER_03 13:52

We'll have to try to find it. Yeah, we'll have to try to find it.

SPEAKER_02 13:56

Um, all right. Yes, that is a great ending for season four.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

You just heard our Karen stories, but we can't be the only ones. If you've had a Karen or Chad encounter or confessional, you've been a Karen yourself. We'd love to hear from you. Wherever you listen, click on the link in our show notes and text us your Karen stories.

Why TGIF Felt Like Magic

SPEAKER_02 14:23

All right, if you didn't understand my intro, then you're definitely not a millennial. And if you did understand my intro, then it's time for you to schedule that colonoscopy, babe. Because today we are discussing the Friday night TV programming that lit up our little preteen hearts 37 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Stop it out, get out of town. I will not I'm sorry, I don't know that quote.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

Was there something Karen?

SPEAKER_03 14:59

No.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

What are you talking about? I just okay. Well, I'm gonna okay, carry on. No, by all means, what are you talking about? Get out of town. Okay, just so you know, um Steve is going to lose his mind when he hears this episode because his favorite TGIF show was Perfect Strangers. I was gonna say it's like Perfect Strangers, so it's Balky. Okay. And he also, when I told him that that was a possibility for this week's episode, he asked if he could guest this episode be simply for perfect strangers because he's obsessed.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

And he knows that we that was the show that was like least watched by Dan.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

Yeah, it was over. It was almost over by the time I started watching TGIF.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Couldn't be less interested in Wow. Sorry, sorry, Steve. Sorry, Steve. Well, it's a good thing for you to join us. How old how old is Steve?

SPEAKER_01 16:08

He is like my age, I think. Yeah, he's the same age as Karen. So uh what 412?

SPEAKER_02 16:17

42. Okay. Because I feel like that's a Luke show, too, and he's 47. I feel like that was like more like older millennial. We'll get into

The Origin Story Behind TGIF

SPEAKER_02 16:26

it.

SPEAKER_03 16:26

But Steve is an old soul.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

So we're gonna deep dive into TGIF and not just the shows, but the whole world that built it and the world that eventually took it away. The sociologist and me just like really loved doing this research, so I'm excited about it. Um, just to recap us a little bit, TGIF was ABC's Friday night programming block that premiered September 22nd, 1989, a year after Good Morning Miss Bliss. It was the sitcom. I'm sorry, it was sitcoms, it was family. It was the reason you did not leave your couch between 8 and 10 p.m. The name technically stood for thank goodness it's funny.

SPEAKER_03 17:08

What? What? Yes. Also, can I interrupt for just a second? Because you said eight and ten, but it was seven and nine for me. Oh. Do you remember when like you remember when TV would be like um this Friday at 9, 8 central? I was always central. I see. I'm like, what are you talking about? It's central time. I was like 8 and 10 of late. And I'm like, oh no, it was seven to nine for me.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

I was like, what kind of geeky behavior is this? I get it. Okay, she's in Chicago.

SPEAKER_03 17:50

Yeah, I was like, why am I a nerd for that? That's just my lived experience. I know. I'm like, I will, I thought you were trying to prove a point that you went to bed earlier or something. I probably didn't, but I probably did as a result. Um I can't believe that though. Thank goodness it's funny.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

Yeah, thank goodness it's funny. Um, because they did not want to get sued by TGIF, the restaurant. Oh, the restaurant came first? Yeah. What is wild, right? I know. So um anyway, we'll come back to that because this guy, Bob Iger, is uh one of the big roles in that, and he's also in the lore of this TGIF story. So um we'll come back to like all of the inception of it all. But um what was your first TGIF show? Like the one that made you realize Friday nights were like they hit different.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Okay, so my first isn't the one that like ended up being the show that made me think that Fridays hit different. So my first I really got into, I guess, would probably be Full House. Yeah, but the show that like I was sat for was Family Matters. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

I was just clarifying, did you say the show that you were sad for or the show that you sat sat for? I was sat okay, Monty. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

You've been out because I mean I do work with a lot of middle schoolers, so I heard it in that response.

SPEAKER_03 19:34

I this conversation will be helpful for me because I don't remember, I don't have like clear memories of exactly what was Friday night, like which shows exactly were Friday night, except I'm pretty sure step by step. Step by step, I was gonna say, yeah. Yes. Um, but like Family Matters was like I loved Family Matters so much. Um and Full House. I forgot Full House was part of that lineup. Oh, I know.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

You know, which is weird. Yeah, I know because I feel like the shows swapped in and out, like so because like I don't think Full House stayed popular, I feel like so.

SPEAKER_03 20:18

It didn't really matter what day of the week I was watching them, they were just so popular. If they were on TV, I was gonna watch them, if that makes sense. But like step by step for me was like clearly that happened on Friday nights. And Boyd and Girl.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

Yeah. So we'll talk more about like the swelling in and out because I think that that's like also a part of this story. Um, but step by step came a little bit later, but Family Matters and Full House, I believe, were part of the original like core shows. So let's get into the lore of TJIF, okay? Um, and I'm gonna have you guys read a little bit too here to break up kind of this like long rabbit hole that I went down, but because it was it was very fascinating to me. Like it it feels like um I was telling Rick about this, it feels more like it. Maybe this is an early confessional, but it feels more like an outlier story, like that book, Malcolm Gladwell's book about outliers, about just like timing and like coming in at the right time and when society was going through a shift, than it does about the actual sitcoms that were a part of the programming. But maybe that's something we can like talk about later. So um going into the 80s, family sitcoms were everywhere. We see shows like Family Ties, Growing Pains, Who's the Boss, all scattered on TVs across the week. So a writer and promoter at ABC named Jem Janek, I think is how you say his last name, had a thought. What if you put them all together? He grew up watching the wonderful world of Disney on Sunday. Nights and was inspired by that rare moment when TV inspired the whole family to sit down and watch the same thing. This is like a big clue, right here. Sitting down together as a family and watching the same thing. He wanted to recreate that feeling. So he brought the idea to Bob Iger, who was then the president of ABC, and they landed on Friday nights because there were already other things happening on Monday and Tuesday. And then if I remember, this is a core memory of mine. On Sundays, they had that special programming. That's where like I remember the American story of like Michael Jackson always being played. Like um, there was a couple other ones on Sunday night that like were like Sunday night like movies that like networks that we like set for, I feel like as a family to watch. So so Friday night was open. Okay. So the anchor show was already there, which was perfect stranger. Shout out to our boy Steve. Move that to Friday nights in March of 1988. It wasn't a massive hit. Sorry, Steve, but it had exactly the right tone: light, funny, the whole family could watch it. And that became the blueprint. So, Steph, can you read this quote from this article I pulled up called The Origins of the TGIF Friday Night Lineup article?

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Yes.

Interstitial Hosts And TV Continuity

SPEAKER_02 23:19

It's in red for you.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Thank you. Another important part of Perfect Stranger and TGIF has to do with the word intersex. Intersexuals. Intersexuals programs are short programs that air between movies or big events. They are also used on TV to connect two segments together. Think of Kang and the Kodus, the aliens on the Simpsons Treehouse of Horrors Halloween episodes, or how Michael Eisner would appear during Sunday night Disney programming. The best way to think of people in Intersitials is as hosts or MCs. Perfect Strangers had been doing this for years. Larry and Balkie would appear in character for these interstitials as far back as 1987. Then when they moved to Friday nights, the intersitials went with them, and Larry and Balkie would essentially be the hosts for the first season of TGIF. They could introduce the shows, tell you what to expect in that night's episodes, and then check in as the night went on. It seems like a simple idea now, but was an accidentally smart move as it gave more continuity throughout the entire programming block. These little segments would also tie in the holidays, specific themes, and be used to introduce future new shows.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Yeah, yeah. Makes sense, right? Like I totally forgot that that was their role during Friday nights, but that is like how it was almost like a um performance or showcase or whatever, you know, and they were like come in and like interject in between each. And I felt like now when I read that, I was like, okay, now TGIF is really like it provided the texture of like, oh, this is what that programming structure meant to me as a little kid, you know.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

Yeah, I forgot that I never really thought about it, but it's brilliant because then you're like, when one show ends, it you're not done watching. Yeah. They keep you, you know, they're like, and now you're like, oh, right, we're not done yet. We need to stick around for this.

SPEAKER_02 25:29

Like for act two or you know, act three, right? Yeah, it's brilliant.

Family Matters And The Urkel Takeover

SPEAKER_02 25:33

Then Family Matters arrived September 22nd, 1989, spun directly out of Perfect Strangers. So, how funny is that that Steve and Steph met through these two shows, the spinoff Perfect Strangers. It was always destined to be. I didn't know this. So the elevator operator Harriet Winslow from Perfect Strangers Building, and her husband Carl, played by Reginald Val Johnson, who had literally just played a cop in diehard, and their family, this was the like premise of the show. It was supposed to be a one-off appearance by their dorky neighbor, Steve Urkel. Um sorry, my daughter is calling me. And should I cuss her out like my mom would do if I called her during work? She knows this, that I'm working. Oh my god. Also, her father knows that I'm recording. Sorry. Okay. Gentle parenting.

SPEAKER_03 26:38

I was like, there was a big part of me that's like, oh my god, something is gonna be wrong. And Manny's like giving us this whole thing about I'm so glad it was just there's this roller.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

No, nothing, no. She that would never she would never think to call me if something was wrong. Just so you know.

SPEAKER_03 26:59

Oh, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

Okay, so one-off appearance by Steve Urkel turned into 20 million viewers an episode. Wild by the early 90s to sorry.

SPEAKER_03 27:12

I I have questions. Oh my gosh, Urkel was like just supposed to be a random thing. He was the entire show. Yep. Yeah, oh my gosh, it's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

If you ever watched, I've seen like interviews or like discussion, like it caused tension on set because it was supposed to be not really his show or his debut. And so, like, the like Juliel White didn't really get along well with the actors that played the Reginald Bell Johnson and all that kind of stuff because everything kind of centered around Urkel after a while. Yeah, black on black crime. It was black on black crime. First appearance.

SPEAKER_03 27:51

No, but like what then what do they do? Because I imagine they had other episodes already recorded and had moved away from that character. So did they have to like go back and re-film everything, you know?

SPEAKER_01 28:05

I think the new season, they just realized what they had with Urkel, so they kind of rewrote and revamped like the follow-up season and just knew that they needed to like bring him in. And then as the seasons went on, it just the the center just became.

SPEAKER_03 28:26

Yes, incredible. Oh my goodness. I'm gonna have to go back and watch that, I feel like, in order now to see how that happened. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:35

Um, I really want Miles to be Steve Urkel for Halloween.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

That would be amazing. We we taught him, did I do that? Oh my god, a couple weeks ago, and he's so cute. All right, moving on. So by the early 90s, TGIF had fully arrived. And Karen, I'm gonna have you read something in a second. So if you're not in the document, um, you're not there. I gotcha. Okay,

Comfort Food TV And Family Memories

SPEAKER_02 28:59

great. Um, so it had a new intro, new theme song, actually, two theme songs, which was unheard of for a programming block. And the timing was genius. Teens and preteens aren't going out on a Friday night, but they're also not going to bed at 7:30 either. So the 8 to 10 p.m. window or the 7 to 9 window was late enough to feel like a privilege, and early enough that parents let it happen. So, Karen.

SPEAKER_03 29:29

Sure. Um, even though we were getting older in the later 1980s, our traditions stayed the same. The ritual of Saturday mornings would soon move to Friday nights. The content changed, but the experience didn't. It was about regularity and consistency. Friday really was the perfect night for this programming block. There is a freeing feeling about Fridays. It's when you can finally sit down and breathe after the week. No matter how bad the week may have been, Friday was there waiting for you, as was this beloved television institution that gave some constancy to our lives. Ultimately, TGIF was comfort food. You had your blankets, popcorn, drinks, and pizza. All the elements were there, including the content, to create an at-home, cozy experience. It seems weird to say, but there was a feeling of safety with TGIF, and maybe that's what the real appeal was. Families could watch together, and mine certainly did. There weren't a lot of things on TV that kids, parents and kids could watch together and both enjoy. TGIF, with its very deliberate format and presentation, created a sense of community, and that's a powerful thing. You may have felt like the shows centered or catered to you, your sense of humor, and your own sensibilities. You probably felt like you knew all of the characters on each show and that you were being invited into their living rooms each week. The story of TGIF is really the story about our beloved routines, rituals, and traditions. We started the decade with our Saturday morning cartoon tradition and ended the decade with a new Friday night ritual, TGIF. It's about the power of our traditions and the people we surround ourselves with. You may not remember specific episodes of TGIF, but the memories exist in the tradition and the people we share it with. Ultimately, it's the feeling that remains.

SPEAKER_02 31:29

That was so delightful. You read that so beautifully, too. I I just I thank you. I've been practicing reading. You're doing great, kid. Um, so a couple of things I want to pull out from that. One, did you guys watch as a family, or was this a solo couch situation for you? Steph, I see you nodding your head.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

We watched as a family.

unknown 31:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Yeah, we did too. Yeah, we always um ordered Pizza Hut and um would watch together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

Yeah, that was my next part of the question of like what were you eating? Where were you sitting? Is there a specific sensory memory attached to Friday nights for you? So Pizza Hut, where did you sit? Were you on the floor? Were you on the couch? Like what was going on?

SPEAKER_01 32:16

Definitely on the couch. We all had like, you know, my my brother and I like I had a we all had spots on the couch too. So like you know, I just remembered like you're in my spot, you know, like that kind of that kind of thing. And um, something that we were allowed to do on Friday, um, was just kind of stay up and like we would be allowed to like fall asleep on the couch and like stay downstairs. So like that was like our favorite and like yeah. So Friday nights, like we would be able to like stay up late, we could sleep on the couch, and we didn't have to this is gonna sound gross, but we didn't have to take a bath, like yeah. So we you know, because we were my parents were really strict about like the routine, and um, we aren't weren't allowed to watch much TV, so we were only really allowed to watch like one show each night from like 8 to 8:30. Our bedtime was 8:30 for a really long time. So um, like I remember when I was in middle school and I was like, mom, like 8:30. Okay, like I'm 12, you know, and so um, so she bumped it to nine. So Friday night being allowed to stay up late, like they weren't strict about getting our homework done or anything like that. It was just like my favorite.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:47

So you popped so many memory bubbles from me there, but um, we definitely watched it as a family. I don't have quite as specific memories about like I don't think we definitively ordered pizza every time or anything. I'm sure I was half the time just like rolling around on the ground while everyone was sitting on the sofa watching. That sounds kind of appropriate for me. We had this Afghan that my mom made uh that was brown and orange. They probably still have it somewhere. It was one of those like zigzaggy ones, anyways.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

Oh my gosh, yes. Guys, yes, stop it.

SPEAKER_02 34:28

I wish I had brought mine. Um my grandma made this for me. Our blinkies made blinkies on the couch.

SPEAKER_03 34:35

Yeah, I made this one.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

You did. Karen, I still have the one that you made me when you um had your ACL surgery.

SPEAKER_03 34:42

Yeah, I have to. Oh, so rude. I don't have a blinky from Karen. I mean, I can make you one. It's been a minute, but I can figure it out. I would love that. Just tell me the colors you prefer in all my spare time.

SPEAKER_02 34:56

Green, green, and brown, and white, and tan. Um okay, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 35:02

Yeah, but yes, I remember snuggling up with that Afghan for sure. And um, all my favorite TV shows. It is interesting as we're talking about this, how there's so little content today that behaves the same way, like sitting down to watch a TV show with Maxwell that we both enjoy feels impossible.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:29

And we need to go back and watch this stuff.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

Yeah. Yeah. I think that this kind of conversation is gonna lead a little bit more into that, and that's like the outliers thing that I think I was referencing in the beginning. But one thing I did want to comment on real quick is a story about the strict like routine, weeknight routine in the house. I start shutting down a la casa de rosa at 6:30, like dimming lights, like our nervous system needs to like regulate, you know. And so um we have this saying that I picked up from my mom and the bedtime thing, right? Like, even Brielle, like like we we monitor her screen time, her screen time shuts off at like I think 10 or 10.30. We like recently went to like 10 30, I think, because she's gonna be in ninth grade, and I feel like okay, that's like okay. But anyway, so but I have this saying that I picked up from my mom, my mom of the kitchen's closed, like the kitchen is closed, like I'm done cleaning up, like I'm done like with messes, like I don't want to do any of that anymore. So a couple months ago, she was on a FaceTime call with her friend, and I guess it was like 10 o'clock, and her friend's dad made her a quesadilla, and Brielle was like, Andy, what is going on? Why are you eating a quesadilla right now? And her friend was like, because I'm hungry and my dad just made it. And Brielle's like, but isn't your kitchen closed? Anyway, we don't play about we don't play about the weeknight routines, you know, like it is like we next day is a work day, we gotta start early. Like, come on.

Deep Cuts And Crossover Moments

SPEAKER_02 37:06

Okay. Anyway, so here's where we're gonna look at like some of the other TV shows that came in that kind of surprised me. Karen, you made reference to some of these when you were recalling your um experience with TGIF, but uh we have Boyd Meets World, Hangin' with Mr. Cooper.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 37:23

Yeah, Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Uh these shows knew exactly who they were talking to, and ABC used Friday nights as a testing ground, too. Not everything worked. I did not know this, but one of the shows included in the lineup over the years was Clueless. After the movie came out, they tried to do a clueless series. We all know and love Sister Sister, which I know that one lasted a while, didn't it? Well, I think it went on for us, it went on to channel 20, which was like, I can't remember like the network, but um, it did last on PIF.

SPEAKER_03 37:58

But then I think Yeah, because I watched that for a long time, I feel like sister.

SPEAKER_02 38:02

So I think what you were remembering, Karen, is that like some of these then eventually went on to different networks, but we're talking about ABC's run with these things, so that's probably why it blurs together. Two guys and a girl in a pizza place featuring a very young, very Canadian Ryan Reynolds, Muppets Tonight, and a genuinely unhinged deep cut called Aliens in the Family, produced by the Jim Henson company. I what about Dinosaur? And dinosaur, I the baby, gotta love me.

SPEAKER_04 38:30

I the baby.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

Not the mama, not the mama. Um, so do you guys have any specific episodes that you actually remember, like a plot or a scene? Did you guys even know that Ryan Reynolds was a part of TGIF? Did either of you guys watch that?

SPEAKER_03 38:45

I feel like I've seen random clips of that, two guys, a girl on a pizza place, but I did not know that was ever remotely mainstream.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

So I have two fun uh things. One funny thing that my brother and I used to do because we loved the theme song The Hang with Mr. Cooper.

SPEAKER_03 39:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

And you know, I would stand in front of the TV and like do like this booby scoop thing, like it's like block the TV. Great theme song. We were obnoxious during that. And if thinking of an episode that stands out to me, I loved there was like a crossover episode between um Family Matters and Step by Step. Like Urkel went to the dance with Mark and like taught the Urkel dance, and like he was Yes, yeah, that episode was awesome. I love a crossover episode, like when universes collide, yeah, was step by step Chicago, it was Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_02 39:48

I was gonna say, I feel like I remember it was with Midwest, but I don't remember where. And back then I did all the Midwest to me seemed like the same place.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

Yeah, you know what? I don't really remember how they explained how they explained that that yeah, because they were definitely in Wisconsin. Yeah, and Family Matters was definitely in Chicago. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 40:13

It doesn't matter, it's like our Save by the Bell episode. We're just like, it doesn't matter. We don't need to explain shit to you guys, just believe in, okay? They're right next door to each other, they're actually the town, the next town over. Okay. That's so true.

SPEAKER_03 40:25

They were like, don't ask any questions, nothing to see here. They are neighbors for one week. It's fine. Okay, I have a couple quick thoughts. First of all, hanging with Mr. Cooper, Mark Curry. Bob saw one time in Cleveland at this uh restaurant bar that's like across the street from where the calves play, and he Bob threw up on Mark Curry. What? Genuinely, he got kicked out. Um, so we'll we'll just like let that linger. He'll have to tell that story in a bonus episode or something. I have a lot of memories around Boy Meets World because I I don't believe I looked like Dan. What is her name? Danielle Official.

SPEAKER_02 41:15

Um you get Tapanga.

SPEAKER_03 41:17

But I when I was young, I got to Panga all the time because I had that really thick hair, you know, that was not well managed, I would say. And so people like once that show came out, I can't tell you how many times I recall like people I didn't know touching my hair and calling me to penga.

SPEAKER_02 41:39

I feel like I also would equate your lips to that too. Like she is a very full lip for a white person. And so I can see that. And that's why I put the lip on our social media content. And every signature of like we love you for listening, there's like a lipstick. It's for your lipstick. No way.

SPEAKER_03 42:01

Wait, it's for me, yeah. Thanks. You're welcome. I love this. I know we're Steph and I are both on this show as well, but like it's nice to be invited in the circle sometimes.

unknown 42:18

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:19

Okay, so I'm gonna move us along because uh I know we have to wrap in a little bit. So I'm gonna pull back the curtain just a tiny bit because there's also like this storyline that um we obviously were not privy to when we were younger. So

Deregulation And The Business Backstory

SPEAKER_02 42:33

because THIF wasn't just a good idea, it was also the answer to a very specific problem with deregulation. So deregulation meant networks could flood kids' programming with advertising. So Saturday morning cartoons were essentially 22-minute commercials for toys, but by the late 80s, the FTC came down hard. Restrictions came back, Saturday morning cartoons started disappearing, and not just because the audience grew up, but because the regulatory environment made them nearly impossible to sustain. Then in 1990, Congress passed the Children's Television Act. Broadcast networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox were now required to air educational programming as a condition of keeping their broadcast license. And advertising during kids' programming was capped, 12 minutes per hour on weekdays, 10 and a half on weekends. Here's the thing nobody talks about. That law only applied to broadcast networks. Cable was completely exempt. So Nickelodeon and Disney Channel could do whatever they wanted, no mandates, no ad limits, and had total creative freedom. So TGIF was ABC's threading a needle. It was family programming that fulfilled a legal obligation and pulled in massive ratings, a creative win and a regulatory win at the same time. That's a rare thing. And it only worked as long as the whole family was willing to sit on the same couch. Okay. I'm gonna skip some of the questions that I had because I I see it percolating and I'm gonna keep going. So uh because this is like kind of the end of the story. So by the late 90s, the pillars were crumbling. Full House had been moved to Tuesday nights, a sign of its own success, but a loss for Friday. Family Matters and Step by Step eventually hopped to CVS, where they both promptly failed. And the shows that defined TJIF were gone or going. But the deeper shift was structural. By the late 90s, most households had at least two TVs. Suddenly, the family didn't have to watch the same thing anymore. Parents could watch HBO in their bedroom, and kids could watch whatever they wanted in the living room. The whole premise of TJIF, everyone on the couch together, quietly stopped being the default. And then there was the vibe shift inside ABC itself. After Disney bought the network in 1995, a new entertainment president arrived named Jamie Tarsus, who'd come from NBC, where she developed the Your Guys' hit show, friends. The FBC mandate also had changed, and edge had become the favorite word in programming meetings. ABC wanted the next friends, cool 20-somethings, not 11-year-olds. So step by step just wasn't it. The teens and young adults TGIF had built its whole identity around were also just leaving, going out, and increasingly going online. Sabrina ended, Boimi's World ended, and Friday nights at ABC became reality TV, like wife swap, extreme makeover, and eventually Shark Tank. Interesting. Very interesting, right? So I guess my like closing question is a couple, but we'll see how many we can get through.

When TGIF Faded And Why

SPEAKER_02 45:43

Um, when did you become disinterested? Like, do you remember the moment TGIF stopped being a thing for you?

SPEAKER_01 45:50

You know, I do feel like like something that hit when you were reading that is like there was a time when we were watching all as a family, but then there was a time where my parents would go up, watch what they wanted to watch on their TV, and then uh my brother and I would watch what we wanted to watch. But I feel like Friday stopped being the thing as far as TV was concerned. I didn't feel like there was anything good on TV anymore, like TGIF wasn't popping, and so what we looked forward to was Saturday night because Nickelodeon had SNCC. Yes, yep, oh yeah, so that was when we would my brother and I would like fine actually agree on something to watch, and and it was like so we replaced Friday with Saturday, and so like all that roundhouse, Are You Afraid of the Dark? That was our jam.

SPEAKER_03 46:42

Are you afraid of the dark? Are you afraid of the dark um yes, yeah? When did it stop? And for me, I I remember similar things, stuff where it's like the shows just weren't really good anymore, but I also think it was perfectly timed with our age. Yes. Like my sister is three years older than me, and so you know, she got to probably middle school and started wanting to be with her friends on Friday nights. Um, and then it, you know, it just me and my parents, I don't feel like we were as committed to all just sitting down and watching it together. Um, and the other thing that really struck me is the one TV thing. Like there used to be one TV, so we had to. It's so funny you say this because I think back to some of the things I watched as a child and think like I would never let my child watch. Like, I remember watching Gremlins when I was far too young to watch Gremlins, and it never occurred to me that we had one TV. So if my parents were like, there's this new movie out, we want to see it. Now my kid is seeing it. There are countless things that I watched that I should have never seen at the age I saw them at. And it's because of that. We only had one TV, so like, yeah, if it was on, I was watching it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:16

That's like the outliers piece of it for me, of like it just came at a time like in between the TV boom and everyone having access to a TV, and right before like cable became.

SPEAKER_03 48:27

And your point, we weren't on the computer, yeah. Yes, yeah, it's all sit around the same TV. It makes perfect sense to me.

SPEAKER_02 48:36

And you brought up something that like I didn't look in my research, but was just thinking about with like the problem with Stranger Things is that those child actors also grow up, and their appeal on TV is like you can't keep a young Steve Urkel young, you know? And so that is gonna change when you're like a teenager and you're like, oh wait, he looks like me now, and he might not be like, okay. Yeah, but then he became sponging. I loved those changes. Oh my gosh. Those changes. Yeah. Oh, what a good show. Yeah. So um, anyway, okay, so yeah, let's let's wrap a little bit. Um, I'll just end with like, you know, what I have here in the notes of like what gets me is that TGIF wasn't just a good run for TV. It was built around the idea that we're talking about that family would sit down together and watch the same thing. Similarly to Blockbuster, like when you guys were talking, I was like, wait, I don't really actually have memories of watching this with my family. I haven't memories of watching with my friends' families at their houses at sleepovers because my my sister's 12 years older than me, my brother's six years older than me. So your point, Karen, about the sibling thing, like we weren't sitting down and watching TGIF together. I went to my friend's house, we watched together, and we ate little Caesars. But my family did, we there was a blockbuster literally like two or three blocks from my house, and we would walk down and rent a movie together, and we would watch, yeah, we watched a lot of horror movies. I watched Chucky when I was like six or six years old.

SPEAKER_03 50:21

What the actual hell? No wonder I don't like scary movies.

SPEAKER_02 50:27

So um, yeah, so people, you know, com families commuting together, I think, is that nostalgia that we're really like gravitating to. Um, but now people get their own TVs. Um, I remember when a TV came to my bedroom and I wasn't watching with like the rest of my family. We got our own channels. I remember Snick, all that, Doubledare, Guts, um, Johnny Tsunami, Xenon. Dude, I remember all that stuff, but watching it solo in my bedroom. And so uh TGIF was just a creative genius and a cultural institution. And when the couch stopped being communal, the whole thing came undone. Yeah, dang. Yeah. So what are your confessionals before we wrap?

Nostalgia Confessionals And Season Five Tease

SPEAKER_01 51:12

I feel like I remember, you know, like Karen was saying TGIF's decline kind of like matched our age. And so, like, when I got to middle school, I found a really great group of girlfriends, and we'd have sleepovers and stuff often on Fridays, and then we would start going to the movies, like you know, my school district, there was a movie theater that everybody went to on Friday, and you'd go see a movie, like even if it wasn't good, you know. I just felt like everybody was just all your friends were there, everybody was there, and so like Friday night kind of stopped being staying home, like it started being more like sleepovers and going to the movies and stuff like that. Um, and then like you said, Blockbuster. I feel like trips to Blockbuster when the programming on TGIF um kind of fell off was kind of what we did if we were home, um, was maybe go get a movie together. So, but it does make me sad, you know, like because of social media and like the phones and everything, families or if there's just not that common universal everybody sitting at home eating pizza every Friday night. Like it was just so common, like you know, and you come back to school, like, did you guys watch you know, like everybody did it? You weren't missing anything by doing that.

SPEAKER_03 52:33

You couldn't like today record, I mean, I suppose you could record it with a VCR then, but that you know, you had when TV was on, you had to watch it, otherwise you were missing it. I think we've talked about all of it. That a lot of things that you said that just never occurred to me about why TGIF was so popular and it was exactly the right thing at exactly the right moment in time. Um, and it makes me just a little sad to realize like that time is past, you know. We can try to create it with our families, but it's just not the same. So I guess this is why nostalgia makes me sad all the time. Yeah, oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 53:22

And not millennials like dictating the world, like you know, like it like I feel like TGIF grew up with our age group and it fell off as we became teenagers and had our own lives. Like we really like Saturday morning cartoons, Saturday morning cartoons, TGIF, and then and yeah, and it kind of followed us, so we're basically central, we're main character, we're gonna be aware of the city.

SPEAKER_02 53:47

Yeah, we're the center of the universe that ever existed.

SPEAKER_04 53:52

Period.

SPEAKER_02 53:54

I love that. Um I have a sidebar that we do watch Mass Singer together as a family, we watch Blackish together as a family. Um, and we and Brielle did go back and re-watch Old Full House, and we I would sit down and watch that with her. So there are some things there that we could navigate, but yes, so um okay, so that's it. I um, you know, I do want to bring up the Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel and the cable side of all of this. We haven't even touched that as a whole thing. So, like, what if that's season five? Right? The uh what uh what are what are Nickelodeon and Disney Channel doing while TGIF was happening? I think we should dig into that a little bit more because I feel like this story is just as big and maybe bigger. So you want to do it for season five, guys? I feel like we should.

SPEAKER_01 54:48

We I was a Nickelodeon kid for show. For shout. Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 54:54

All right, it's been a wonderful season. Thank you, Karen's, for listening. We're so um appreciative of our seven listeners. Listen, we're saying no in this season eight. Last season said five. I was reminded that we do have to add um Soya to this list. Dedicated listener. She is a dedicated and loyal listener. Absolutely. She deserves a shout out. So you finally got it, Soya. And you can even ask. Someone advocated for you to have the shout-out. And so here you are. Maybe we'll send you a shirt. Thanks for listening. Big smoochie Karen lips kiss. Hey bitches, that's a wrap on another episode of You Can Call Me Karen. If you liked what you heard or didn't, go to our show page and leave a review. Just know we will call you out. And if unlike my two co-hosts, you find yourself scrolling endlessly on TikTok, follow us in it, you can call me Karen. And if you're still living in the 20th century like a boomer, don't worry. You can find us on Instagram and YouTube, and you can call me Karen and Support. We love you for listening.