S04.E12: Snow Day 2017.01.11

[mojoween]

Adam and Barry learn something new about Murray while Erica's college application has a surprise for Beverly.

Pretzels in milk?  What the hell Murray?

Barry was wearing a vintage Eagles jacket or at least a reasonable facsimile and I appreciate that.  I also love that they tried to show Adam wearing freaky freezees even if you could tell they weren't quite the real thing.

Little things like that are why I love this show because they are they are right in my wheelhouse.

I said to my husband that I have never once touched the thermostat in my parent's house and to be honest I'm not even sure I know where it is.

I have the theme from "Great American Hero" in my music library and am not afraid to belt it out at stoplights.

[Matt K]

8 minutes ago, mojoween said:

I have the theme from "Great American Hero" in my music library and am not afraid to belt it out at stoplights.

I never saw the show so it kept making me think of Seinfeld where George does a version of it for his outgoing message on his answering machine.  

 

Otherwise an okay episode although I thought Ericka's essay was a decoy at first.  

[dcalley]

37 minutes ago, mojoween said:

I also love that they tried to show Adam wearing freaky freezees even if you could tell they weren't quite the real thing.

I had no idea what you were talking about, which surprised me, but I'll give myself a pass because I grew up in Texas.

[mojoween]

Oh whoops I got the name backwards.  But holy moly that ad gave me the warm fuzzies!

[Skyfall]

Bev has been extra annoying and extra needy this season to the point she's eating up the show.

Edited January 12, 2017 by Skyfall

[Texasmom1970]

The better get Erica and Barry off to college soon. With his growth spurt Adam is looking as tall if not taller as them now.

Love Pops having two dates in one night. True to his martini drinking, suave tack suit wearing self!

[Michel]

"A vampire draining my . . . sprite?"  It was a simple line, but Wendi delivered it with such great hilarity.

Very disappointed not to have had an RLS, though.:(

Edited January 12, 2017 by Michel

[tennisgurl]

Do not be too disappointed, Pops. Your my hero. 

[msani19]

Only really just started watching the show this season and then watched a lot of the episodes from the previous seasons. While I enjoy it because of the 80s callbacks, Beverly being the overbearing, smothering mother is too much. Even if it's real, I'm finding it hard to tolerate. 

[estellasmum]

28 minutes ago, msani19 said:

Only really just started watching the show this season and then watched a lot of the episodes from the previous seasons. While I enjoy it because of the 80s callbacks, Beverly being the overbearing, smothering mother is too much. Even if it's real, I'm finding it hard to tolerate. 

This a million times. I feel like this season she repeatedly more than other seasons keeps doing all these ridiculously annoying, embarrassing, smothering things that go way too far over a line and then guilts the kids (and by extension the audience) into forgiving her at the very end because she's just worried about the kids being grown up and feeling pushed out of her life. I don't forgive her or find it entertaining. If it weren't for my kids' desire to watch this show (they think Murray and Barry are the funniest characters out there on TV) I'd be done.

[Lawgiver]

Yet again, this show brought up amazing nostalgia for me. My school was almost never closed for a snow day, and we would listen in vain for our school number to be called. In fact, this is the first year that KYW, the station which used to broadcast the numbers, will only be publishing them on the web. Texts and emails have killed another institution. 

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/weather/End-of-an-era-KYW-ends-broadcasts-of-snow-day-school-closing-numbers.html?shw&mobi=true

 

Also, we could never touch the thermostat, it was kept at 60. If we complained of the cold, my mother would say, "Put on *another* sweater."

Edited January 12, 2017 by Lawgiver

[proserpina65]

I missed 90% of this episode because I kept dozing off (not a comment on the show, only on how tired I was last night), but I loved George Segal's Circus of the Stars footage.  I remember watching that one even though I wasn't a regular viewer.

I did wonder how the theme from The Greatest American Hero ended up in my head later - thanks to you guys, now I know.

Edited January 12, 2017 by proserpina65

[Guest]

1 hour ago, msani19 said:

Only really just started watching the show this season and then watched a lot of the episodes from the previous seasons. While I enjoy it because of the 80s callbacks, Beverly being the overbearing, smothering mother is too much. Even if it's real, I'm finding it hard to tolerate. 

Oh good, someone else doesn't love Beverly.   I just don't know anyone at all like her so I don't find it funny.  She seems to have top billing, too.  I think the Adam and Barry actors/characters make the show.  And George Segal.  

[Shermie]

I think the actress does a good job with the character, but Lordy I hate Beverly. Just a terrible person, and I know some have said such mothers exist but I've never met one remotely close. The trope is getting tiresome too - Beverly inserts herself inappropriately into her child(ren)'s lives, they get angry and push her away, she sulks and says it's because they're growing up so fast, they soften and say it's okay. Lather, rinse, repeat. Any teen I know with a mother like that would be on the first bus to any college across the country the day after high school grad.

Erica's hair is just ridiculous. It's so smooth and pretty, like she stepped out of 2017. She has long hair, how hard is it for the show's stylists to tease it and frizz it up? Or just give her a wig. As a cool girl in the 80s, her bangs would have been sky high, and her perm on full frizz. The same for Barry - where is his mullet? It doesn't have to be extreme, but every guy's hair in that era was longer at the neck. Look at any show or movie or yearbook from 1985 on (which is what "the 80s" really means, style-wise) and that's what you'll see. It's jarring in its inaccuracy, especially when they always have Bev in her Farrah flip and bejewelled sweaters. Barry's clothes are pretty accurate, but Erica could walk off the set into the real world, and she'd fit right in. It ain't right.

[Mabinogia]

Erica would have fit right into my high school experience from 1985-89. I get more of a Pheobe Cates in Ridgemont High vibe. TV fashion of the 80s wasn't entirely reflective of what people actually looked. I think she looks extremely appropriate for the time period without being a cliché. Same for Barry. Yes, there were kids with overteased hair or ridiculous mullets (no one in my school though.) but she's more between preppy and trendy.

I used to live for snow days when I was a kid. Oh, the joy of hearing your school called out on the radio. And the agony if you just missed your letter (they went alphabetically where I was so if I missed the C's I'd have to wait until they came back around again! It was rough in the 80s kids! You have no idea with your internet and your weather apps!).

I didn't like the storyline with the dad. IDK I found it uncomfortable for me personally. Of course my mother would have hauled off and smacked me if I'd acted like that so maybe I'm jealous they got away with it.

The "hero" storyline wasn't quite right either. I don't for a second think Bev is really Erica's hero and thought, as someone else mentioned, that it was a fake letter meant to get Bev off her back so she could work on a real letter. And yes, the Smother stuff is getting tiresome. Bev can be pretty funny but OMG she can be overbearingly unpleasant to watch as well. They just need to tone it down.

Oddly, despite not really liking the two main storylines I did like the episode. I'm not sure how, exactly, but I did.

[MortysCleaningLady]

I loved the real video from the family -- Murray in a camel dress coat; that's so 1980 something!!

[Traveller519]

Get. My. Pants

[Skyfall]

Looks like this is the Hate on Bev thread now! Hopefully they tone her down some. This show is about Adam not Bev!

[Matt K]

5 hours ago, Winston9-DT3 said:

Oh good, someone else doesn't love Beverly.   I just don't know anyone at all like her so I don't find it funny.  She seems to have top billing, too.  I think the Adam and Barry actors/characters make the show.  And George Segal.  

I don't like Beverly either but part of that is she's exactly like my mom.  So the "everyone placates her feelings" just kind of pisses me off.  That said the actress is funny in the role.

[partofme]

4 hours ago, Shermie said:

 

Erica's hair is just ridiculous. It's so smooth and pretty, like she stepped out of 2017. She has long hair, how hard is it for the show's stylists to tease it and frizz it up? Or just give her a wig. As a cool girl in the 80s, her bangs would have been sky high, and her perm on full frizz. The same for Barry - where is his mullet? It doesn't have to be extreme, but every guy's hair in that era was longer at the neck. Look at any show or movie or yearbook from 1985 on (which is what "the 80s" really means, style-wise) and that's what you'll see. It's jarring in its inaccuracy, especially when they always have Bev in her Farrah flip and bejewelled sweaters. Barry's clothes are pretty accurate, but Erica could walk off the set into the real world, and she'd fit right in. It ain't right.

Thank you so much for saying this.  This has always been my problem with this show.   Erica does look very 2000's, there is nothing 80's about her hair or style.   I don't know why they don't make her wear a wig.

[lh25]

16 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

Erica would have fit right into my high school experience from 1985-89. I get more of a Pheobe Cates in Ridgemont High vibe.

One thing I like about reading here is learning how things were different for us all in the 80s.  She wouldn't have fit in at our school, we did the frizzy perms and what we called "mall bangs"

Edited January 13, 2017 by lh25
Spelling matters!

[Mabinogia]

We had some of that too, but, like any era, there were different looks. I was more an Erica. Kind of trendy but not totally trendy. I wore the sweater dresses and bright colors, but never did the big hair or mall bangs. We had one girl in middle school who did the full on Madonna with the half lace gloves and all. But she was the exception. Most of us were pretty average looking. It was a small city in New England, don't know if that makes a difference. One town over, however, OMG you could poke an eye out on the Aqua Net hair do's!

[Guest]

17 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

Erica would have fit right into my high school experience from 1985-89.

Maybe that's part of the difference.  I graduated in 83 so your experience is years later.  

I'd never even seen a straightening iron until the 90s so I googled and that was when they got popular, after the big-hair heyday of the 80s.

Remember what a style icon Rachel in Friends was?  I remember in the pilot she had big curly hair (see below) then soon after, maybe immediately after, the show began making her hair smooth and straight and then the zeitgeist got 'The Rachel' cut.  That show started in '94.  I think her shaggy cut below was a bit behind the times then but it's very 80s to me, and her subsequent ones very 90s.

 

What's funny, too, is when you mentioned Phoebe Cates in Fast Times, I thought, "Oh right, she has smooth hair like Erica's."  But it was maybe just smooth for that time because it was fairly 'big & bangs-heavy', looking at it now. 

 

 

Edited January 13, 2017 by Guest

[ByTor]

19 hours ago, Shermie said:

It's jarring in its inaccuracy, especially when they always have Bev in her Farrah flip and bejewelled sweaters. 

Not jarringly inaccurate to me, Bev's hair/clothing is spot on in relation to where I grew up in the 80s (115  miles north of Jenkintown).

I used to think Bev and the swearing being bleeped out was hilarious; now not so much, it's been overdone to the point that it's annoying IMO.

[Guest]

My problem with Bev's hair is that odd mushroom shape they give it isn't a look I recall.  They have it flipping as much UP as back, which gives her an unappealing penis-head shape, to me.  I/we used to do the curling iron or round brush very vertical or even turn it to flipping more down/under at the end of the curl, to avoid that 50s-ish up-flip look.  

[ByTor]

12 minutes ago, Winston9-DT3 said:

My problem with Bev's hair is that odd mushroom shape they give it isn't a look I recall.  They have it flipping as much UP as back, which gives her an unappealing penis-head shape, to me.  

One of my classmates had hair with exactly that shape!  I didn't really like her, so I used to alternate between thinking she looked like a penis, a mushroom, or an umbrella :)

[Guest]

Ha, and I thought you guys would've thought I was nuts for seeing 'mushroom' or 'penis'!  

[Shermie]

Quote

Not jarringly inaccurate to me, Bev's hair/clothing is spot on in relation to where I grew up in the 80s (115  miles north of Jenkintown).

When I said it was jarringly inaccurate, I didn't mean Bev's look. I meant Erica's look was inaccurate in relation to Bev's, since Bev is very 80s looking.

When the curling iron became a thing, many girls had what we now call sausage rolls. The curl back on each side of the face, going all the way down the hair. If you curled it too tight, it didn't feather back, it became a sausage roll. Ah, the 80s!

[Guest]

Those sausage rolls were a sought after look in my high school!  I remember most of the cheerleaders had them around their whole heads.  

I was thinking they should do Erika's hair like Kristy McNichol in Little Darlings (1980) and googled it up and learned that Kristy, Tatum O'Neal (also in Little Darlings) and Meredith Baxter (also in Family with Kristy and then the mom in 80s staple Family Ties) have all come out as gay in the last decade.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  Just thought it was interesting 80s trivia.  

[Traveller519]

The Erica Hair thing has really resurfaced lately. I remember it being a big thing in the early run of the show, and then it died off for a long while and now it's back.

I don't think it's totally out of place. it looks pretty similar to Jennifer Connelly's in "Career Opportunities," or Demi Moore's in "Blame it on Rio"

[dcalley]

Sloane from Ferris Bueller's Day Off:

[AllyB]

Erica is also not that different from how Mallory in Family Ties looked in some seasons. 

Though some of why the show isn't always quite fully 80s may have to do with the fact that the real Adam was a child of the 80s not really a teen. Adam was 13 when the 90s began so the age he would have been when the show began is contemporary to Saved by the Bell (Adam being just months older than Dustin Diamond - the only actor younger than his character) which is a quintessentially 90s show that started in 89. If you watch the real life clips you'll notice that apart from the ones where Adam is a still child, the year timestamp has been removed because they would have been filmed in the 90s.

Edited January 18, 2017 by AllyB

[Traveller519]

No new Goldbergs this week? What I would give for a real snow day!

[Guest]

On 1/17/2017 at 0:17 PM, Traveller519 said:

I don't think it's totally out of place.

I don't think Erika's hair style is totally out of place but I just wish they'd gone with something more iconic, since it is a period comedy.  They do seem to be giving the younger kids a break on that physical stuff, though, and even the Barry actor to some extent.  I do recall having shirts with the cutout sleeves like Erika wore in this episode and has worn in the past, though.  It almost feels like they let the actress have veto power so she never wears anything too silly, like the Madonna-ish getups they put the other teen girl in earlier in the show, and Beverly's silly stuff.  

[QueBueno]

Just got around to this episode.  Did anyone notice, during the "popcorn rebellion" scene with Barry, Adam and Murray in the kitchen , there was a line of pictures on the shelf and a picture of Adam kept disappearing and reappearing?

[xander874]

Quote

Pretzels in milk?  What the hell Murray?

I've noticed that a couple of times now. I'm oddly intrigued.

I'm way behind and just now catching up and saw this episode. I actually enjoyed it, even though the Bev/Erica plot has been done to death. But, as much as I mostly enjoy the JTP and other secondary characters, I did enjoy one that solely focused on the family. I like when Adam and Barry get along. And I laughed really hard at Murray stuck in the show fort. 

[TobinAlbers]

Adam: You're gonna yell at us when we get home, right?

Murray: Yeah.

Adam: (smiles in relief) Good.

I can't put into words why that touched me or made me smile, but it did. I guess it's the comfort and reassurance that our parents will parent us and how weird and scary it is when we don't have that parental direction bearing down on us like a sledgehammer, LOL.