Whasome’s Dreck (OFFICIAL SHAMELESS BOOK PLUG TRAILER)

RETURN 

TO

GAPESIDE!

📘

Whasome’s Dreck 

is a short parody of Dawson’s Creak…

Written in 

blood

🩸

and set on 

fire 

🔥

📘

Available from…

&

Even New England cool cats dig Whasome’s Dreck! 

😼

Photo courtesy of Fred’s Book Boutique

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Click for more shameless book plugs… 

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channel freakboy: POPULAR (1999-2001)

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This post is part of The Mismatched Couples. Blogathon, hosted by Barry of Cinematic Catharsis & Gill of Realweegiemidget Reviews! 
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created by Gina Matthew’s & Ryan Murphy 

With my apologies to Buffy and Dawson, out of all the WB series I watched back in the day, POPULAR was and still is my favorite!  This two season wonder was co-created by Ryan Murphy, the mind behind AMERICAN HORROR STORY and SCREAM QUEENS, and his twisted touch is present, especially in the first season.  The setting is Kennedy High School, where teen-angst is on display with a wildly satirical bite to its bullseye truth. 

Team Brunette

It’s sophomore year for Sam McPherson, a brunette reporter for the school newspaper, and she is ready to make a fresh start.  She even encourages her widowed mom Jane to go on a singles cruise.  Meanwhile, Brooke McQueen, a blonde cheerleader captain, says farewell to her divorced dad Mike as he heads off on a business trip.  This lack of parental guidance provides the perfect opportunity to throw the first party of the year, thus securing and reinforcing the social hierarchy at Kennedy High.  

Team Blonde

Brooke is on top of this pecking order with her two main cohorts, cheerleader co-captain/manipulative witch Nicole Julian and ridiculously rich southern transfer/possible psycho Mary Cherry.  Also at Brooke’s disposal is her  jock boyfriend/aspiring musical thespian Josh Ford and his jock friend/aspiring white rapper Michael ‘Sugar Daddy’ Bernardino.  Sam rules the area between popular and unpopular with her hardcore activist friend Lily Esposito and her singing-dancing-wants to be a cheerleader friend Carmen Ferrara.  Also at Sam’s disposal is Harrison John, her supportive guy friend/golfer.  Meanwhile, butt bolo and forged doctor’s excuse seller Emory Dick unofficially heads the bottom of this Teen Beat cover model heap with chess aficionado Freddy Gong and the Tuna twins, inappropriately oversexed April and dirt eater May.  This unpopular quartet may be more entertaining than most of the main characters. 

Chaos erupts at Brooke’s party when Sam and her posse crash, but they aren’t the only uninvited guests.  Mike and Jane show up together with a bombshell.  These two available adults bumped into each other at an airport lounge, started talking and Mike decided to go on the cruise with Jane.  Now they are engaged!  If the parental units officially merge, Sam and Brooke will become sisters, a repugnant thought to both. 

Teen war is hell

Brooke sees Sam as an intrusive wannabe who stirs up trouble with condemning editorials on the jock and cheerleader culture.  Sam sees Brooke as a stereotypical superficial teen who only cares about being popular.  How do these two smart young women handle impending sisterhood?  Well, not very well.  There’s an argument over the bathroom sink, a full-on school cafeteria food fight, a scheme to make it appear Mike is cheating on Jane and even a synchronized menstruation cycle smackdown in the girls luxurious lavatory named after actress Kim Novak.  After all of this, Brooke begins accepting the situation, but not Sam, who feels she is losing her mom to Brooke.  In a last ditch effort to stop the wedding, Sam runs away to find Brooke’s mother who left Mike when Brooke was just a kid.  This seems to help Sam understand Brooke a bit better. 

By the first season finale, Sam and Brooke have made peace with their merging families and maybe finally see that they are more similar than different.  Unfortunately, this détente may be short lived as they deal with an earthquake, a cheesy boy band, a terminally ill May Tuna, a double wedding, which includes Delta Burke and Erik Estrada as CHIPS star Erik Estrada, and the class possibly murdering their tough-as-nails biology teacher Bobbie Glass!  It’s a wildly hysterical episode that needs to be seen to be believed and ends with a life-altering wedding crasher! 

Confused yet?

Season Two deals with most of the aftermath of that wild, wacky and wonderful fiasco, but overall isn’t quite as good as the first one.  The WB wanted more “real” teen drama and issues, which meant the satirical elements weren’t as fully blended in with the drama.  Brooke and Sam accept they are now family, of sorts, but continue having ups and downs with each other.  They even compete for the affection of Harrison John.  In my opinion, he plays them both, so they could do better.  The series ends with a cliffhanger over who Harrison chose and if Brooke survived being hit by a car driven by a drunk and vengeful Nicole Julian.  To keep with the blogathon theme, I should note the second season introduced Josh Ford and Lily Esposito as an extremely mismatched romantic couple, with overly serious results.  

Satire is a serious business 

Since POPULAR mostly exists in a hyper-reality bubble and is a Ryan Murphy production, the acting ranges from sincere to over the top and women have the best roles.  Carly Pope (Sam) and Leslie Bibb (Brooke) give solid lead performances.  Sara Rue (Carmen) gives the series a relatable heart.  Tamara Mellow (Lily) is believable as a feisty activist.  Tammy Lynn Michaels (Nicole) and Diane Delano (Bobbie Glass) are incredible as they portray often brutally ruthless characters with vulnerability beneath the hard surface.  Props to Adria Dawn (April Tuna) for plunging full-throttle into awkward outcast geekdom!  Oh, and I must not forget the familiar faces who pop up as parents.  Peggy Lipton is aloof perfection as Brooke’s mother.  Alley Mills is sweet and understanding as Harrison’s mom.  Delta Burke is phenomenal as Cherry Cherry, the sharped-tongue beauty queen mother to Mary Cherry! 

Were  you scared I forgot Mary Cherry?

Speaking of Mary Cherry, i was obsessed with this southern fried psycho diva back in the day and I still am!  She carries around cyanide and vials of E. coli in her purse.  She longs to be a mismatched couple with Joe, her nickname for Harrison John.  She will do ANYTHING in her pursuit of fame, including lip-sync to “Rock Me Amadeus” by Falco.  She will even dye her golden tresses the color of dung, and get possessed by Barbra Streisand, just to prove popularity isn’t about hair color and to feast on a lobster.  Ok, fine!  I’ll just say it!  Forget about Sam and Brooke!  Watch POPULAR for Leslie Grossman as Mary Cherry and the tragically too few appearances by Delta Burke as Cherry Cherry!  You will NOT be disappointed! 

Webbed fingers won’t fix themselves 

In conclusion…
I think POPULAR still holds up 20-some years later.  It’s funny, it’s daring and ultimately there is a heart beating underneath, even during its crazier moments.  So if you’re looking for a different kind of teen comedy-drama with mismatched couples, POPULAR may be the series for you! 

Thank you for reading or listening to my half-blind words. 

(SIDE NOTE: click the pic ⤵️ to read about a very POPULAR book…)

Freak Out, 
JLH 

P.S. click the pic ⤵️ for a different WB series from another blogathon… 🛸

P.P.S.  Obsessively maladjusted fans, like me, will notice how I mixed and matched POPULAR character and actor names to create Leslie Johns and Joe Grossman in STURGEONS! 🤓📗

freakboy on film: MEAN GIRLS (2024)

It’s been a long January with sub-zero arctic temps and a less than stellar paid STURGEONS book promo.  I obviously needed to get out of the house and out of my mind for a bit.  The cinema has always been my home away from home, so I grabbed my mad scientist glasses and walked to my town’s 3-screen theater.  I could’ve checked out THE BOYS IN THE BOAT, but I knew it wasn’t a sequel to THE BOYS IN THE BAND.  THE BEEKEEPER was also playing, but despite the look of the poster, I knew it wasn’t a spin-off of the CANDYMAN franchise.  There was only one film left and I was one of 5 people who caught the Sunday musical matinee of MEAN GIRLS. 

freakboy confessions…
The only things I remember about the original, non-musical 2004 film of the same name is it starred Lindsay Lohan and I thought it felt like a watered-down version of HEATHERS.  That being said, the only thing I knew about the new version was that it’s a musical based on a stage musical, which I heard about at exactly the same moment I heard about the new film.  Whatever, don’t look at me that way!  You know as well as I do that unless they turn John Waters’ DESPERATE LIVING or Andy Milligan’s FLESHPOT ON 42ND STREET into gleefully inappropriate musical extravaganzas, I really don’t give a flying fluffernutter what happens on Broadway!  

Anyhoo, I assume the 2024 version of MEAN GIRLS follows the basic plot of the original.  New girl at school befriends social outcasts but also draws the interest of the popular clique.  Social outcasts convince new girl to infiltrate the popular clique for revenge purposes.  New girl falls for the ex-boyfriend of the popular clique’s leader, culminating in magnificent musical mayhem! 

Yes!  It’s true!  I seriously enjoyed this version of MEAN GIRLS!  I laughed out loud!  I tapped my feet to the beat and may have engaged in some neck-dancing!  In my opinion, the main source of my enjoyment was the energy this film radiated!  I mean, I fully expected glittery confetti to explode from the screen during the deliciously manic “Revenge Party” scene!  

This emotionally charged teen-angst energy is why I am down on my knees (shut up!) and begging stage play scribe/screenwriter Tina Fey to give CARRIE: THE MUSICAL a fresh coat of verbal paint and get directors Samantha Jayne & Arturo Perez Jr. to helm a cinematic disco bloodbath spectacle of this alleged Broadway misfire!  I get thrill-chills just imagining what this terrific trifecta of a team could do with “The World According to Chris” and the title song!  They could inject a MEAN GIRLS energy into CARRIE and probably get me thrown out of the theater when I would start emphatically singing along while having a filmgasm! 

In climax…I mean, conclusion… 
The new musical film version of MEAN GIRLS is just what no hot doctor ordered, but definitely what I needed to momentarily escape my possibly imagined frozen wasteland of mediocre obscurity.  Oh, and I know some haters will totally hate me for this, but much like the 2020 musical version of VALLEY GIRL, the 2024 version of MEAN GIRLS surpasses and improves on its source material.  Deal with it! 

Thank you for reading or listening to my half-blind, exclamation mark heavy words! 

Freak Out, 
JLH

P.S.  freakboy confession…
I have listened to the soundtrack to the stage musical of HEATHERS and it was like I had a brain tumor for breakfast.  Even the RIVERDALE episode couldn’t rescue that travesty of teen-angst tuneful torture! 👎
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Speaking of torture, my books are available from an Amazon near you…

channel freakboy: ROSWELL (1999-2002)

 

Hello, my name is John and I’m a teen drama addict.

Oh, I was a hardcore WB network junkie back in the day.  From Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Angel to Dawson’s Creek to Popular to Grosse Pointe, I couldn’t stop!  So it was fate, and absolutely no surprise, that I was in the middle of rewatching ROSWELL when Rebecca of Taking Up Room announced The Fake Teenager Festivus Blogathon!  Thank you for perfect timing, Rebecca! 

Liz and Max

Speaking of perfect timing, Liz Parker (high school science major by day, waitress by evening) is lucky that Max Evans (high school student by day, half-extraterrestrial by genetic design) was at the Crashdown Cafe when she was accidentally shot.  Max used his alien powers to save Liz and turn her life topsy-turvy!  Now Liz, along with best friends Maria (Jetta driver by day, aspiring musician by night), Alex (lovesick goofball by day, suave romantic in dreams), and ex-boyfriend Kyle (former football jock by day turned Buddhist by Zen), must deal with mysterious government agents, out of this world threats and other teen aliens.  Max isn’t the only one in town.  There is his sister Isabel (perfect student by day, Christmas Nazi at holidays), their friend Michael (less than perfect student by day, screw-up by day and night), and eventually Tess (new student by day, manipulator by choice).  The half-aliens were in the infamous 1947 flying saucer crash and incubated in pods for decades, so they carry a lot of baggage and backstory.

Maria and Michael 

ROSWELL aired for two seasons on the WB network and then for one season on UPN.  Both of these networks eventually combined to form the CW.  Anyhoo, the first season is a great mix of teen angst, humor and low-key sci-fi, and I still very much enjoy it.  The second season amps up the sci-fi stuff and isn’t quite as focused, but is still entertaining and better than I remembered.  The third season starts off all wannabe edgy, probably as a result of the different network, but eventually gets back to the heart of the show, which is the complicated but caring relationships between the alien and human teenagers. 

Isabel and Alex 

Speaking of teenagers, while not as painfully obvious as other shows, there are plenty of fake ones to be found.  Shiri Appleby as Liz Parker, Katherine Heigl as Isabel Evans, Brendan Fehr as Michael Guerin, Nick Wechsleras Kyle Valenti, and Colin Hanks(yes, Tom’s son) as Alex Whitman were all in their early 20’s when ROSWELL hit the airwaves.  Depending on lighting and camera angle, they are sometimes believable early on, but one among them is not.  The most obvious fake teenager award goes to Jason Behr as Max Evans, who was clearly 25 during the first season.  However, I must give ROSWELL props for a couple of real teenagers in the cast.  Majandra Delfino as Maria DeLuca and Emilie de Ravin as Tess Harding were 18, though they were in their early 20’s by the final season. 

Kyle and his sheriff father Jim (William Sadler)

Much like other teen dramas from that era, the acting is good but not always great.  The same can be said for some of the storylines.  Though all in all, interesting and likable characters lifts ROSWELL above other teen dramas.  In fact, it was good enough to receive a remake series on the CW titled ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO (2019-2022’, which I also recommend.  No fake teenagers can be found because the characters are all adults, but there’s enough residual teen angst vibe to please fans.  Plus, it has a natural inclusiveness that the original series would have probably not been allowed to explore.  

Michael, Tess, Max and Isabel

In conclusion…

One reason I enjoy ROSWELL, both then and now, is the relatable quality of how the aliens often feel like outsiders.  So, if you’ve ever felt that way or you’re addicted to teen drama like me, then grab some Tabasco sauce because ROSWELL may be the television series for you!  I mean, you can’t go wrong when “Here With Me” by Dido is the theme song! 

Thank you for reading or listening to my half-blind words.

Freak Out, 

JLH 

P.S.  Click the pic ⤵️ for an older post about seriously fake teenagers and the dangers of jazz… 

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After visiting ROSWELL, swing through STURGEONS, an idyllic small town perfect for seeking revenge! 

🏡🏠🏡🏠🏡