After School Special

“ABC Afterschool Specials” was the umbrella show name for various educational shows that were shown in the afternoon, occasionally.

The American Broadcasting Company coined the term After School Special with a series of made for television movies, usually dealing with controversial or socially relevant issues, that were generally broadcast in the early afternoon and meant to be viewed by school age children, particularly teenagers.

CBS distributed its own productions as the CBS Afternoon Playhouse.

Every thing about this movie is run-of-the-mill and formula based but when you factor in the target audience then the formula assures a decent product.

Writing could have been way better in both the emotional and the comedy scenes but the emotional scenes were badly handled.

CBS had a program called Famous Classic Tales, which aired Australian cartoons that were adapted from literature books.

NBC also had afterschool programs under the umbrella title Special Treat.

It aired for more than 20 years providing a monthly dose of drama to pre-teens and teens during the school year in the hours after school before dinner.

In junior high no one can hear you scream.

However in view of the recent movies I automatically reduced my expectations and expected nothing more than a few laughs a bunch of hot nude women and nothing out of the ordinary.

The specials were TV movies that explored the angst and problems that real kids experienced.

Decent performances are given from everyone but Tom Arnold was completely wasted in this movie.

Other similar programs included the ABC Weekend Special.

Stars included Ben Affleck, Heather Langenkamp, Jane Kaczmarek, Brandon Cruz, Christopher Knight, Melissa Sue Anderson, Kristy McNichol, and Scott Baio, and my favorite Lance Kerwin.

The jokes were formula based but some of them were hilarious and continued in the gross tradition of others, the monkey mating scene, the hairdresser scene, the 2-3 hilarious porn shoots were too good and make this movie worth the rent.

A few people who stood out in this movie were Daniel Farber and Horatio Sanz as the hilarious Vic Ram-a lot.

Some of the known young stars of the times appeared including some who are stars now.

The series came to an end as Oprah Winfrey took over the time slot on many stations in the early 90’s.