I'm Still Bitter: So Weird

One of the best parts about getting old is being bitter and annoying about things from the past that can't be changed. I figure, since I just turned 20, that I should just go ahead and start early.

What am I bitter about today? So Weird. Not the show itself, of course. But rather the sucky third season. You know me and Disney are always in a war - an imagined war - but a war nonetheless. And it seems that Disney can do no right lately because, well...they can't. (No one, and I mean NO ONE who greenlights Camp Rock 2 can ever do right again. It's not in line with the laws of the universe.)

In case you don't know, So Weird was a tv show that aired on the Disney channel way back in 1999. It was about a girl named Fi[ona] (Cara DeLizia) who traveled the country with her rocker mom (Mackenzie Phillips), her brother Jack and some other random people who don't really matter. Oh, except for Eric von Detten who always matters. Anyway, Fi would always run into supernatural occurrences (little girls who were werewolves, aliens, time warps) that helped her connect with her deceased father who was also into exploring the supernatural. Yeah, deep stuff.

When Season 2 of So Weird ended, the show was getting in there. Season 2 was pretty dark, for a Disney show that is. It dealt primarily with Fi finding out that her dad, like her, dabbled in the supernatural. She also finds out this was probably the cause of his death. In the season finale, Fi discovers that her dad's twin sister receives messages from him in her sleep. Fi has some encounter with a demon on a roof and is saved by the ghost of her father. I mean, this really is deep stuff, guys.

Then season 3 comes around, Fi's gone and we're dealing with people getting sucked into pretty paintings. Um, whaaa? What seems to have happened is, even though the writers had a wicked sick third season planned, DeLizia left the show for whatever reason and Disney said "Uh, no" to what the writers had planned. So, DeLizia was replaced with Alexz Johnson (of Instant Star fame) and So Weird got itself a nice, light, happy! tone. Blech.

Now, I happen to like Alexz Johnson and I can't blame her for So Weird's demise. It's not her fault Fi upped and left. But I can blame Disney because I'm in a network blaming mood. *cough*NBC*cough*

If it wasn't for Even Stevens and, yes, even Lizzie McGuire, I would say this was the end of a Disney era. Disney hasn't had a kid-oriented drama since So Weird ended. (Even though it is dramatically bad, JONAS is not a drama, kiddos). Disney has never really been one to push the envelope but they've really given up lately.

Interestingly enough, So Weird is an earlier example of the "special teen" formula of which Disney is now so fond. Except, that time, they were doing it right. Hannah Montana, That's So Raven, JONAS, Sonny With A Chance...they are all so overplayed with their identical storylines and bad humor. Wizards of Waverly Place is actually pretty clever in my book (for another discussion). And Suite Life of Zack and Cody (not that "On Deck" sh*t) didn't pander too much to the "special teen" formula. Plus is was mildly funny when it first started. So Weird happened to be creative and entertaining. Also, the main focus wasn't "I'm a special teen who travels with her rock star mommy. I'm so special!" The show focused on cool supernatural folklore and legend and family dynamics. And it was more than just mindless entertainment churned out for annoying 10-year-olds. It looked like a lot of thought had gone into the never seen third season.

Season 3 of So Weird makes me bitter because it's largely representative of the growing hole in quality television for our precious 9-14 crowd. (Those are made up numbers y'all; I don't know Disney's target audience) Like I said before, I have to forgive the writers because the odds (aka Disney) were against them. But it just gives me more reason to want to give Mickey Mouse a good, swift kick to the gut.

Kids these days need what we had back in the 80s and 90s. Once upon a time kids' tv taught us how to enjoy our imaginations and find the excitement in the mundane of everyday lives instead of sitting around on our bums wishing we were famous pop stars or bad actors. (Yeah, I'm talking to you Nick J.)

And that, my friends, is why I am bitter.

ciao.

P.S. - Happy 18th Birthday, Taylor Lautner! If your parents love you, they've hired you an entourage of big, burly bodyguards and bought you a house with a reeaaalllyy high, electric fence...Enjoy!
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Dear Geocities

Oh, Geocities. How I will miss you. You hosted all my angsty teenage poetry. And now, along with my adolescence, you die. You will be missed, even if i hadn't logged in for years. If only I had that poetry in my hands still. Thanks for all you have done and for keeping me busy when I was thirteen.

Love,
Señorita Brownie McTree
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Why I (Don't) Love...

Fun museums.
Apparently if you're over the age of 7 you're not allowed to take part in awesome interactive stuff. Since when is fun and learning only limited to small children?

Granted, at 19 I still enjoy children shows (a problem I hope never gets fixed), but that's beside the point. It seems that all these awesome interactive museums meant for learning have been constructed on the idea that adults will only go with children in tow. Why sirs, you are incorrect. And the people who suffer? So called adults looking for some good clean fun!

Take my latest venture to a fun museum. The Museum of Science in Boston was having an exhibit about mythical creatures. Since my friends and I have a strange obsession with people who loves mythical creatures (you know, the kind that where wolf shirts and jean jackets), we decided that shelling out the 19 dollars for the museum would be fine and dandy.

We go, we pay, we enter. So far everything was pretty cool. They have a lot of "learn by doing things" even a sheep eye dissection you can watch. Since I had already experienced such a dissection in middle school, I was not very impressed. Then there were the monkeys, and the wall o' mirrors that looked like Vanna White's letter turning board. Unfortunately the mirrors were covered by glass, so we could not find out if they, in fact, turned like a game show letter. It was near this wall o' mirrors that we experienced our first sad kick in the ass from children.

In the super duper interactive part of the museum on the second floor, across from the math section (which i truly enjoyed, especially the probability curve demonstration. I'm a dork.), and perpendicular to the wall o' mirrors, there are a myriad of cool things to do. There is a small excavation site where you can brush some dirt and find some shells. The oldest among us was dying for a picture in the site. So, she got in the dirt, brushed some dirt for the camera, and not two seconds after the picture was taken, a little boy in a red shirt turned to her and said defiantly "NO GROWN UPS!" Of course, like all American parents, his mom just seemed to smile at him and let him be. (Don't get me started on American parenting. Maybe another post.) Pretty much, the kid was a discriminating little prick. Okay, prick is a little harsh, but you get what I'm saying. Just because my friend was in the dirt pit for a few seconds, he felt it was inappropriate and vocalized it. We laughed it off and went on to other things.

I wanted to try the spinning wheel activity. This is where you spin a bike wheel really fast then hold it while you stand on a free-moving platform. Depending on the angle of the wheel (either horizontal or vertical) the platform would turn in a certain direction due to the force of the spinning wheel. It sounded awesome. When we got to it, there was a little kid just spinning himself manually on the platform. Cool, i understand the fun in that, but as I stood there patiently waiting for the kid to stop, his male chaperon just stood there once again. I was in a position where it was clear I wanted to try the thing. I even read the little directions sign as an indication that "Sir, I am not creepily staring at your child. I just want to learn some physics." In a matter of seconds, I realized I was not going be given a turn, unlike what kindergarten taught us, and so we moved on to the seesaw.

The final kick in the balls was this seesaw. It was a seesaw built to show how distribution of weight affects balance. You could scoot up closer to the center and back to the edge. There were kids on it already, so we stood beside it and watched. We verbalized how excited my friends were to try the seesaw. We waited. We figured if any of these cool demonstrations were worth it, it was this one. Soon the mother told them it was time to move on, and our chance had arrived. And a millisecond after these kids got off, these other kids rushed in front of us and got on. My friends didn't even have a chance to take a step closer to the seesaw. The kids' parent said nothing just laughed. We were deflated and instead of seeming like pedophiles for the third time in a row, we decided to go to the how cats jump exhibit. Needless to say, there was no line because all you did was jump and read the measurement of how much pressure you put on the ground. It did not make up for missing out on the seesaw.

We eventually moved on to the Mythical Creatures exhibit (which was, surprisingly, the lamest of the exhibits) and the Fear exhibit (which was pretty sweet), both of which gave some sort of compensation for being adults. We even got to sit in a command module replica. In the end, the experience was fun and worth it. But I still am sad that we were denied the full appreciation of the museum because of our age. It may sound dumb, it may sound petty, it may sound like I refuse to grow up (I do, mind you) but I think a special adult night would be cool. No kids, late night, and adults get

a to run wild like the kids we really are. It won't happen, but my only other option is having kids and letting them rule the museum.

Looks like I'll have to stick with watching Yo Gabba Gabba! instead.



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