Donzerly Light: Learnings from T.V.

I’ve learned a lot of things throughout the course of my life. These columns may lead you to believe that that is not the case, but trust me when I tell you that I know stuff. It’s not important stuff, but it’s stuff and I know it.

Most of it isn’t the stuff that I learned from teachers, but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t play an important role in my educational journey. Take for example my second grade teacher, Mrs. Thompson. She told me and the rest of our class that using the word “cop” when you’re referring to a police officer is disrespectful. She also told us not to complain about the heat on one particularly hot day in her classroom because she was wearing panty hose, so there was no way that we were warmer than she was.

So I guess where I’m going here is that I learned a lot about Mrs. Thompson’s opinions when I was in second grade. I remember her as a nice lady, despite her heat-shaming me with panty hose, but I cannot think of one other thing that woman taught me. There must have been some math in there, right?

Books are traditionally well known for being useful when you’re trying to learn new information. And, up until fairly recently, you could usually count on the contents of a book to be reasonably true or it would be labeled as a work of fiction. Do you remember in 2003, when James Frey released a book called, A Million Little Pieces, and he told Oprah that it was all true and then it turned out that he was lying and it was not all true and then he had to go back on Oprah’s show and she gave him a pretty hard time about it? I always wondered why he didn’t just say from the start that the book was a fictional story that was based on some actual events in his life. I mean, I guess he probably wouldn’t have gotten to go on The Oprah Winfrey Show twice, but he also wouldn’t have had his ass handed to him by Oprah on TV either.

So let’s regroup. Learning is fun and the physics of panty hose is a scientific mystery. But the real reason we’re here today is so I can tell you what I learned from the greatest source of knowledge that the world has ever known: television.

Television is great and it’s informative. It’s not perfect (How many hours of The Today Show do we really need? I would say it’s however many hours we have now, minus one.), but who is? “Not James Frey,” is what Oprah would probably say.

With that, here are five perfectly imperfect things that I learned from television (and one movie).

• Don’t hide in an old refrigerator (Punky Brewster): This episode started out with so much promise. It featured my favorite way to participate in hide and seek – watching other people do it. Punky and her friends are having the time of their lives until Cherie hides in an old refrigerator that’s just out on the streets and she gets trapped. For someone who had never considered hiding in an old appliance while playing hide and seek, this episode of Punky Brewster stressed me the fuck out and certainly made me feel like I had barely escaped the clutches of death. I really thought I had been through something after watching this show and I agree with the conclusion that you have surely drawn: the refrigerator episode of Punky Brewster was my Vietnam.

  
  

• Drinking a bunch of water right before a meal will make you fill up faster, so you can keep your eating disorder going strong (The Secret Life of Mary-Margaret: Potrait of a Bulimic): This was a TV movie that starred a young Calista Flockhart as the title character who is not only bulimic, but a teen model as well. In the 90s, those two things were basically the same job. Trying to separate them would be like saying you’re not only a bus driver, but that you also open the bus doors. If memory serves, Mary-Margaret was discovered in her local shopping mall by a model scout and if that isn’t an enormous red flag, then I would like to know what exactly a model scout hanging out in a mall would have to do to make an authority figure start asking questions. Would the model scout have to be walking around the mall pantless? Is that what it would take? Anyway, the pressure to be thin is too much for Mary-Margaret and she starts up with the bulimia, in addition to the aforementioned belly-full-of-water-before-dinner trick. She got busted when her parents discovered the glass jars of puke she was hiding in her room. It’s tough to hide several glass jars of puke and no one knows that more than a teen model from the 90s.

  
  

• Cocaine is all over the place at college parties (Growing Pains): On this episode of Growing Pains, Mike Seaver, played by the teen model scout of Christians, Kirk Cameron, and his two friends, Eddie and Boner (that is actually the character’s name) find themselves invited to a college party. When they show up, they meet two women who attended the same high school as them. When they ask these two women why everyone is going to the bathroom in groups, the women explain that it’s because this party is absolutely packed with cocaine and the only place you can do it is in the bathroom. What if I just wanted to pee? Is there a different bathroom for that or do I have to be labeled a cokehead because I stayed hydrated today? As you probably already guessed, Mike doesn’t want to do cocaine so he goes home. Since it’s after curfew, his dad is waiting for him and he spills his guts about the cocaine because I guess he’s a narc? I don’t know why else his dad would need to know that information. I mean, it’s not a good reason for being late.

  
  

• You can’t shower right after getting a perm (Legally Blonde): When Legally Blonde was first released in theaters, I had no idea that Reese Witherspoon would one day win an Academy Award, become a film producer and, most importantly, start her own book club for people who think that Oprah’s book club is just too much, you know? I should have seen all that coming though because when she called Linda Cardellini’s bluff on the witness stand, it was the perfect intersection of brilliance and genius. You see, Chutney, played by Linda Cardellini, said she couldn’t be the murderer because she was in the shower when the murder took place. But Reese Witherspoon’s Elle Woods knows that you can’t shower and wash your hair right after getting a perm or your perm will shout, “Not today, muchacho!” in a problematic Hispanic accent and you’ll be back to straight hair almost immediately. I know Reese Witherspoon didn’t write the movie, but her acting made me believe in the power of shampoo again.

  
  

• AU is the symbol for gold (The Facts of Life): I don’t know most of the symbols on the periodic table. I know the big guns. Water is H2O. Carbon dioxide is CO2. Potassium is K, and I assumed they named it that because there is a lot of potassium in bananas and bananas are worse for you than ketamine, a conclusion brought to you by the same people behind the findings of the panty hose heat theory from my second grade teacher. In a season four episode of The Facts of Life, Tootie helps Natalie remember the symbol for gold on the periodic table by telling her that if a mugger took your gold watch, you’d yell at them as they ran away, “Aye! You!” and AU is the periodic symbol for gold. I challenge anyone who thinks TV is bad to watch this episode and if you still think TV rots the brain, then I’ll agree to disagree because I’m not going to get into a whole thing with some a-hole. I mean, this is science come to life. Mr. Wizard could never!

Takeaway Quote of the Week

“More students have a better knowledge of pop culture than of the Constitution?”

Charles Bowen, who seems like he’d be a chill hang, and who might feel differently if the Constitution was made into a TV show.

Heath Smith is co-host of Fuzzy Memories, the podcast that celebrates the good, the rad and the fugly of the 80s and 90s. He was once asked by a cast member of MTV’s Road Rules if he was from Puerto Rico. In his free time, he enjoys Mariah Carey a normal and healthy amount. For a good time, follow him on Instagram.

Why "Donzerly Light"? Heath says: In elementary school, I thought "donzerly light" was part of the lyrics of the national anthem. I didn't realize that the actual words were "dawn's early light." I just assumed "donzerly" was an old-timey word that meant "majestic" or something like that. My middle school social studies teacher, who thought I was trying to make a joke with “donzerly,” would be 100% irritated by naming my column this way, and that makes it even better.