Boy Meets My Foot (in his hole).

I remember watching Boy Meets World as a teenager. It was a show that was alright to watch when your mum was eager to see the news. It mostly revolved around Fred Savage's less iconic wee brother trying to get buzy with the yummy Topanga (hubba hubba). It was vaguely enjoyable after a day learning things at school, you could easily just sit and zone out while it went about all quirky and cool and failing miserably. It was tolerable, and maybe even a slight guilty pleasure. What it wasn't, was a show that educated and helped me deal with issues.

That's why out of all the episodes of the show the one that sticks in my mind is the one below:



What happens is that Sean (Corey's dickhead mate) and Corey get drunk at a party. Corey stops because they puked and stuff, Sean however is now reckless and out of control. He shows up pished out of his face to school. No one smells it off him (because it's television). He insults beloved teacher Mr Feeney (Kit from Night Rider) who is imparting knowledge, gets told to get out to fuck.

Corey takes him home where they argue. Sean's 2D brother shows up and they fight about how their dad was a drunk (a-ha! Now we're getting to the root of the issue!) Sean's girlfriend shows up with Toganga (oo la la) and Sean's girlfriend tries to be understanding but Sean violently assaults her (oh! He's a violent drunk!) This is made much worse by the fact that she's the show's token black character so he comes off as a bit of a racist too. His girlfriend handles her abuse with grace and tells him she'll be back with some of her mates and a lead pipe. Sean sees that his nasty drunken ways are going to get him the kicking of his life and so he quickly gets dried out and apologises to everyone. Including Mr Feeney who as the pedagogue figure should have done a little more than the fuck all he did (he's probably tired after seeing how saving Hasselhoff's arse week after week led to fuck all).

Anyways his girlfriend's mates still fuck him up but then they get back together (although he's more subdued).

The problem with this episode is that it tried to be all advisory for its audience, and most of its audience didn't want it's advice. It also gave it in such a cackhanded way that reduced the issues to nothing more than something you take the piss out of with your mates. I'd like to hear the statistics on how many people who watched that show realised they had an alcohol problem like Sean. I'd guess not one. Epic Fail. Boy Meets World? What a fucking waste of my teenage life? I should have skived off school and went to the arcades to play tuppeny nudgers and had fights at the bus station instead of running home to see it.

I Remember Dawson's Creek

I was going to do this blog all about various aspects of pop culture that clutter my head up when I should be thinking of "deeper" things. It seemed like an easy place to start to talk about Dawson's Creek. There's one school of thought that if you lived in Dawson's Creek, Pacey would have been the only one you'd have gotten on with. I however believe this isn't so. So to disprove this I went on youtube looking for the clip where Pacey names his boat "True Love", because let's face it, it's a very empty barrell you're scrapping the bottom of if you want to hang around with a guy who names his boat "True Love". Asshole.
Let's imagine you're at the boat launch. Pacey saunters up with the rest of the witless asshole gang. Dawson's there with his big oompah loompah head babbling on about some pish movie and how it reflects on the essence of everything his life has been leading up to til this point or some other vague pish that's designed to keep the hard on he doesn't know how to use yet at bay. Asshole. Joey's there wittering on about Xanu or some other bag of balls and Jen's there, well doing nothing, because they never really figured out how to give Michelle Williams something decent to do. Oh and Jack's there, being gay, because they never figured out how to develop his character either.
So you're there and your mate Pacey smashes a bottle of champagne over his boat and says "I name this boat True Love" and gives a half assed look of dejection at whatever Dawson's Creek lady he couldn't get it together with. And you're there trying to find someone in the crowd to share a "what an asshole?" look with. All you can find, however, is the rest of the Dawson's Creek gang beaming with pride and love at Pacey and his badly named boat.
You see, Pacey seems vaguely alright when you only see him for an hour a week, but if you were round the guy all the time you'd see him for what he really is.
It's at that point you realise that you're an asshole too because you've been spending time wondering what it would be like living on Dawson's Creek. Asshole.
Anyways, yeah I found the episode and here's the bit where they name the boat but I'd really forgotten what a moaning heap of shit it really is. Everyone there just loves being a wanker, they roll around in it all gleeful at what a load of balls they've just said.

How the fuck I made it through one episode now escapes me but there was a time that the Dawson's Creek gang were like old friends, albeit friends I was glad to have because it made me feel superior during those long dark hours of "teenage life".