Remember That One Episode?

Ep 17 Travel Writer Lavinia Spalding Ep 18 Girl Advocate Lynn Johnson

Remember That One Episode?

I spent last weekend with a bunch of ladies in a house on a lake in the hill country outside of Austin, celebrating the 50th trip around the sun for my friend and humor-writing muse, Wendi Aarons. Because everything is bigger in Texas, there were activities available at all hours, from the karaoke mic in the corner to the photo booth in the other corner to the eight kinds of margarita mixes to the eighty-eight gallons of queso.

But the activity that really captivated the group? A little game I’m going to trademark called, “Remember That One Episode?”

It probably started because, in a nod to one of Wendi’s favorite childhood TV show, we staged a group table read of Episode 13 of “Facts of Life.” After a great deal of pre-party jockeying for the role of Blair, we ended up flopped around the living room reading whatever part felt right after so much margaritas and queso – in my case, Mr. Bradley. (Tag line: “I don’t even LIKE cocoa.”)

About five lines into the script our nostalgia turned to embarrassment. The script was, of course, cheesy throughout, but where it wasn’t coded misogyny, it was straight-up racism. When we got to the part where Tootie’s dad suggests she be chained to the front fence to induce her to study harder, the scales fell from our eyes. Whatever the opposite of #WokeAF is, that’s what #FactsOL was.

So maybe we were in the mood to reexamine, when we sat around the patio late that night and started talking childhood tv. “Remember that one episode…” someone would ask, and then this group of forty and fifty-something ladies would try very very hard to remember, each pulling out half-clues to throw into the collective memory stew. The “Brady Bunch” episode with the spider? Check. The “Little House On the Prairie” fire in the school for the blind? On it. Charo’s many, many guest appearances on “Love Boat”? Bingo. Did Peter Brady ever actually date Maureen McCormick? Google Google Google.

It’s a fun game for all, encouraging collaboration, sifting of childhood experiences, a recognition of Gen X commonality in how many kids spent Saturday nights in the ‘70s parked at their grandparents’ house watching the “Love Boat”/”Fantasy Island” Power Hour(s) while their parents partied it up.

How do you know when the “Remember That One Episode” game is over? It happens when you and your fellow players inexorably work your way to the one episode that ALL can remember, with terrifying clarity. I speak, of course, of the November 4, 1978 episode of “Fantasy Island,” called “Let the Goodtimes Roll/Nightmare/The Tiger.” You can forget the rolling Goodtimes and the Tiger: it’s the Nightmare of which we speak.

“There was a terrifying clown. It came out of the closet.”

“Oh my god. And it was on fire.”

“And there was a toy monkey clapping on symbols, remember the monkey?”

“The wooden soldiers came to life and started marching toward the little girl in the bed.”

“Her doll’s face starts to melt!”

“Wasn’t there a giant flaming skull at the end?”

Yes, it’s the episode in which, inexplicably, someone flies to the Caribbean to pay Ricardo Montalban top dolla to reenact a terrifying childhood nightmare in which all her toys came to life and try to kill her. Who hasn’t dreamed of that kind of getaway?

Not only could every woman in the circle Remember That One Episode, they could also cite its concrete, psychological impact – enduring terror of clowns, monkeys, Mexican actors in three-piece white suits.

Oh, for the days that horror movies just played on your prime time TV screen, without that pesky R-rating!

You can accuse women of my generation of being helicopter parents, or policing our children’s media for bias, or being filled with a general sense of rage. But consider that for any of us who were over the age of five on November 4, 1978, “The Nightmare” was likely our babysitter. And we were raised on TV shows where men said things like, “Oh, you’re aging beautifully. For a woman your age,” TO THEIR TEENAGE DAUGHTERS.

So don’t judge. Or we’ll send this guy for ya.