#my bestie is talking about how she wishes she could go to a disney channel night

[junco-baby]

disney is so grosssss

how are people my age so into disney when it's such blatant consumerism like the parks just scream "spend your money!!" and that's literally it why do people like this I'm crying pls go to a national park and witness something real in the world I beg

[smartguyreviewed]

1x5 - Don’t Do That Thing You Do

Original air date: April 16, 1997

Alright, Disney. We need to have a little talk.

I take a lot of shit from you in the name of nostalgia. You repay me by selling all of your DCOMs on iTunes but since they are DRM protected, you then make me have to buy third party software to remove said DRM just so I can watch these movies for my own personal viewing. If you’re worried about me selling and distributing copies of your movies to people who also wanna relive them good ‘ole days, stop. People will find a way to pirate your shit regardless and actually have more than what you release. Really, just stop.

You then removed all of the Smart Guy episodes from YouTube so that the only dregs of the show left are sped up, slowed down, or only take up a third of the video player due to copyright shit. You gave me considerable hope when I saw you’d be putting all the original shows and movies (minus In a Heartbeat. Minus The Jersey. Minus The Famous Jett Jackson. Minus Model Behavior. Minus My Date With the President’s Daughter.) on this shiny new channel of yours.

I know you have a problem with misordering episodes, making certain episodes season finales when they shouldn’t be and just not having any general sense of continuity. I am still baffled as to why this episode, episode number 5 is not included in the first season, which is already hella short at just 8 episodes. Disney, do you enjoy making me wonder why I even fuck with you? Once I get a .mp4 file of Johnny Tsunami and maaaaybe Can of Worms, I’m through with you forever.

This one is gonna be long because TJ really pissed me off in this episode. But if you actually read the above, I love you because I’m literally just whining.

In this episode, I will actually feel bad for Marcus. Yes, Marcus, teenage horndog, sexist Marcus will tug on my heartstrings and make me relate to him. I know I give him a lot of shit, but at the end of the day, he’s still a teenage boy. A dark-skinned teenage boy in a family full of gifted and/or capable light skinned people, at that. In this family, guess who is the odd one out, the black sheep? Marcus. Coincidence? I just couldn’t help but notice some things Yvette does (like pursue dance at one point) are encouraged while Marcus’s hobby (music, another art) is constantly shit on by Floyd who wants Marcus to be more book smart. Or how Yvette didn’t get into any trouble for not trying to stop TJ’s party just because Marcus, who is younger than her, was in charge? Just two examples, but you get the point. 

We begin the episode with TJ bothering the big kids while they’re trying to rehearse for the upcoming Battle of the Bands gig. The gang needs cash to continue banding, especially since Mo’s strings are caca. Marcus is certain they will win and as soon as he manifests positivity about his future, something bad happens. Their guitarist breaks his finger. 

Marcus is whining to pops about this little roadbloack when we see Yvette has invited Gabrielle Union back to her place to study in the kitchen. None of that learning crap will be happening right now though, because Floyd has made Gabs wet. She tells Yvette who delivers the most visceral reaction. But Yvette...your dad is hot. And it’s perfectly normal for friends to have crushes on your parents. And you also date older men! Yvette has her moments where I hate her and this is one of them. Instead of just dropping it and continuing to study, she actually throws her friend out! You would have thought Yvette was Floyd’s damn girlfriend, the way she was acting. 

Because every show needs a montage here and there, we are now jettisoned to the garage, where Marcus is auditioning for a new piano player. Spoiler alert: they all reek, except for one guy who clearly must have been on some type of psychedelic drug to audition for a high school R&B band during a federal pursuit. The others were straight duds, including the most aggressive polka musician ever who thought his accordion counted as a keyboard. 

Marcus is fucked. His goose is cooked. His dream is deferred. How the hell is he going to pull a new piano player out of his ass in time for BotB? He suddenly hears someone tickling the ivories and is beyond impressed...and then disappointed once he sees its TJ. Turns out the little guy knows all their songs and then proceeds to explain music in math terms and I pretty much feel the way Marcus does here.

I mean, really, it’s annoying to know that your freakishly intelligent brother is pretty much good at everything, including the thing that you love more than anything. You share a room with this person, you see this person every day at school and you now have to let him in your band because of circumstances.  I do like that Marcus includes the rest of the group in his decision making, even though they really don’t seem to care about its direction as long as they can have sex with all the groupies. 

So now its Mackadocious +TJ and Marcus is doling out the “kicks” to everyone except TJ. But TJ, homie, you just entered the band and your role is to just play the piano, since nobody else is around. This is not the time for you to be trying to get your Regina Spektor on. Play your part! TJ gets upset at this, but once Marcus threatens violence, he immediately goes back to his role.

B plot land is just Yvette pissed off that her friend finds her father attractive. They go to the BotB thing and she even cuts in front of them. Jeez Yvette, chill.

When her bestie leaves a voicemail directed more towards Floyd, although flattered, he has to let her down gently. Yadda yadda, Floyd is about to have that uncomfortable conversation but it’s fine because Gabby met some dude in a black trench coat and needs Yvette to style her hair like Halle Berry’s in the last month’s Essence. Yvette is happy that things are back to normal, at the expense of her lonely father who most likely reveled in that small amount of validation as quickly as it was snatched away from him. Poor Flody. 

Anyways, back to the main arc of the episode. It’s time for the BotB and TJ is still vying for that piano solo but Marcus isn’t budging. This will end well. Once they get far enough into the song, Marcus is about to do his solo. He’s probably thinking that finally, the spotlight will be on him for a change and he can feel like he’s doing something worthy of praise. But this is TJ we’re talking about, and he is a petty little asshole, so he immediately hijacks the show and begins with his piano solo. Marcus looks straight dumb trying to hop back into his own set. So now instead of being a dick and doing the solo he wasn’t supposed to do, he has now embarassed Marcus. His feelings about the situation can best be summed up here.

The next day at school, we see that TJ is still hogging all of the band’s attention. Marcus’s insane level of togetherness right now is commendable, seeing as TJ clearly has no remorse for what he’s done and is now rubbing it in their faces. Just Marcus, though. TJ is a little babe magnet and is now basically getting girls for Mo and Goose to have sex with. Everyone is getting what they want right now. Except Marcus. 

During a rehearsal, TJ moves on to insulting Marcus’s compositions and telling the band that they need something “else.” Marcus has had it and decides it’s time for TJ to go. TJ tries to save his ass by apologizing for something he’s clearly not sorry for after the fact, but the damage is done. Now we all know that TJ is totally one to accept defeat and move on so I’m sure nothing else will come of a rather amicable split.

Later, Kid from Kid n’ Play shows up and offers Mackadocious some moolah if they play again, but with TJ, seeing as Mackadocious has been unwillingly changed to The Band With the Cute Little Kid. Marcus, putting his dream over his desire to teach his little narcissist brother a lesson (just kidding, he wants the money) asks TJ back, but he’s strangely okay with staying out of it. Marcus then grabs TJ and threatens him, calling him a little twerp. This is still funny to me.

Floyd comes in and breaks up the fight and forces the siblings to hash out their differences in a healthy way. TJ says he wishes he could sing like Marcus. Marcus hates that TJ is good at everything. They both apologize to each other and Marcus even asks if TJ wants to rejoin the band and TJ is about to ruin this totally fine moment between them by revealing his evil plan.

After being kicked out of the band, TJ wanted to get even. Instead of just taking the L and moving on, he reached out to Kid and offered some tax code write offs in exchange for promising Mackadocious a lot of money to perform a bogus gig where nobody would show up. Yes, you read that right. TJ wanted to destroy Marcus’s life and possibly crush his spirit to the point where he’d never want to pursue music at all. All because he did something shitty and got punished accordingly. TJ is a petty little asshole. Floyd hears this and allows the beating to continue. Did I mention how much I love Floyd?

Stuff I noticed:

- TJ’s shirt. Where can I find this shirt? Seriously, it’s amazing.

- Oh hi, Christina Milian.

- When TJ is mentioning the name of the band’s fan site, he just says it’s ww.cutekid.com which makes no sense because that’s too general to refer to a band and also sounds like pedo bait. 

[zackmartin]

NO BUT YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW EXCITED I AM RIGHT NOW, like BMW is deadass on the same level as the suite life for me, like I said I bought the whole freaking series on DVD before streaming was even a thing, and some of my earliest memories are legit watching reruns on Disney Channel, and ironically I just did my annual rewatch a couple of weeks ago so I was like,,,,so beyond excited to see you were watching it and like. I know you’re super busy and stuff so I try not to bug you too much but i couldn’t help it in this instance but anyway !!!!

Yeah, like no offense to GMW or anything, but the only thing that really kept me coming back to that show was the characters themselves and the relationships, but since it was a reboot, I was obviously sort of comparing it to BMW and just. It can’t compare. And I had a hard time really getting into it (there’s so much of it I still haven’t seen 😬), and I don’t really fault them for it because I know they fought all the time to do the storylines they wanted to do, but I really wish it could’ve been an ABC show like BMW was or at least had been allowed to be on another channel outside Disney Channel because I really believe being severely limited by a disney filter is what kept it from being able to reach the same level BMW was on. (also, I won’t forgive them for what they did to a few of my beloved BMW characters, but that’s a discussion for another time)

Literally the writing on this show is so wonderful and so good I don’t even know how to describe it, like they do the whole “life lessons” thing so well that it doesn’t come across as like, preachy? or sorta cringey?? Like, in comparison to the old school Saved by the Bell or the old school Full House (not that I don’t love both, but if you watch it in 2021, both shows sort of come across as very cheesy/cringey or severely out of touch) and while I’m not going to pretend like everything in BMW aged well, it still pretty much holds up. And it has SO much heart, it’s no wonder that I still revisit it at least once a year. AND THE CHARACTERS, like I know some people that watch/rewatch it now find Cory kinda selfish and whiney and while I can see their point, I don’t find myself being severely annoyed by him or hating him in comparison to other characters from my childhood that I now can’t stand. I won’t name names, you know exactly who I’m talking about alskdjf like, I just feel like his worst moments served a purpose? the whole point of the show was showing things from his perspective as he learned about the world, so I feel like watching him at his worst was just watching him grow and learn. Like, I’m not excusing everything he did, he could be a real bitch when he wanted to be, but I don’t hate him,,, if that makes sense.  But maybe I’m just looking at it through rose colored glasses alsdkjf

I revise my previous statement just to say that Cory/Shawn/Angela/Topanga are the ot4, literally no one is doing it like them, dream team, truly iconic, legendary, the way I love them all. Idk if you gotten to Angela yet, but you will LOVE her.

dlfkjasldkf Shawn Hunter, giving me gender envy before I even knew what gender envy was. Also, I’m pretty certain Topanaga was my gay awakening ALSDKFJLSKD like, I just remember being like, 10 and watching the episode where she cuts off her hair and goes to the salon to get it fixed and she just walks out the salon and 10-year-old me was immediately just like 😳👀 lskdjflskd And I always credit zack for being the blueprint for my favorite character type, but I think that credit should go to Eric, because even though Shawn is and will always be my absolute favorite from that show, I think it’ll come as no surprise that the blonde, bisexual, dumbass was my bestie from the beginning

Anyway, I love this so much and i love you so much, and you know I’d never pressure you, but if/whenever you want to throw your thoughts at someone or if you get the urge to liveblog in someone’s inbox you know where to find me, and i’d be beyond thrilled to hear every single thought 💕💕

Okay I’m sorry to be annoying but BMW is my THING, like I own the whole series on DVD and I rewatch it at least once a year but anyway if Cory and Shawn don’t make you crazy enough, once you get to the point of Jack and Eric (if you aren’t there yet) it’ll make you even crazier because they are boyfriends and they are blatant about it, it literally makes me feral. (Like, I guess Shawn and Cory are kinda obvious about it too but the best way I can describe is they’re like a soulmate-type couple and Jack and Eric are like “what if we kissed?? haha jk jk unless…..👀”) Also, hi. I love you 💕

hi i love you SO much 🥺🥺🥺 nikki you could literally never be annoying. also i am so freaking pumped to hear this cause like i vaguely remembered you talking about it but i wasn’t sure but like…ITS SO GOOD!! i genuinely was expecting to maybe like it as much as i liked girl meets world and possibly less but the writing has genuinely floored me and blown me away in…the best possible way. like no offense to gmw but it does not hold a candle to this show. all the characters and character dynamics are so well written? shawn and cory and topanga own my entire heart????? i’m going insane cause like…finding a show w this much heart and good development was like all i wanted for SO long. also gender envy is stored in shawn hunter.

i’m skipping around a lot so i can get to the plots faster so i’m just about to watch the last ep of s4!! i’m REALLY excited to meet jack and angela; i’ve heard so much about them and i cannot!! wait!!! i will definitely be throwing my thoughts at you once i get to the jack/eric stuff because ahhh i’m SO excited!! anyway i love this show and also i love YOU so much mwah mwah i hope you’re doing well