Recently it was announced that Boy Meets World, one of those shows filled with amazingly nostalgic 90's goodness, would be producing a pilot for a spin off. This triggered the need to go watch my favorite episode of that series. Over the course of the 90's, many ABC sitcoms took trips to The Most Magical Place on Earth. (Not happiest, that's in California.) They all packed their bags and headed to Florida and took all of us to the parks with them. So, not only did I feel the need to go back and watch Cory, Shawn, and Topenga's pilgrimage to Disney....I decided to go all out.
Full House was the first to go. One of the biggest pet peeves any Disney fan has when watching these shows, is how many things they're amazingly capable of pulling off and participating in over such a short period of time. And the amazing time travel that they do. Full House is probably the biggest offender of this. Michelle participates in a magical promotion that never happens and becomes Disney World's "Princess for a Day" after Stephanie gives up her spot in line to keep Mary Kate and/or Ashley Olsen from having a hissy fit. Basically she gets three wishes granted to her and gets to ride in that afternoons parade. The rest of the two episode arch shows the family bouncing all over all three existing parks at a ridiculous rate. The other girls get fed up with Michelle's bossy ways, she runs away, they all freak out and look for her. Stephanie's pissed in general but after a heartwarming talk from good ol' Dave Coullier, all is well with the world. They proceed onto the Party Gras parade before the night ends with a cheese covered rendition of A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes from Uncle Jesse. Lets face it. John Stamos was nice to look at then, he's nice to look at now Who cares what he's singing. As a side note, my favorite parts of this episode belonged to DJ Tanner pining over her boyfriend Steve. I had a huge crush on Steve. That DJ had great taste in men. Since Steve initially wasn't invited on the family vacation, DJ wanders all over Disney seeing Steve's face everywhere. On Indiana Jones, Prince Charming...and Aladdin. Inside little Disney joke that I LOVED as a kid. Scott Weinger, who plays Steve, also voiced Aladdin in the film. Seeing him actually dressed up AS Prince Ali himself gave me all sorts of goose bumps and giggles as a boy crazy tween.
Next up was Family Matters. The Winslows accompanied their adorakble and obnoxious next door neighboor Steve Urkel to Epcot where he was going to participate in an amateur inventors contest at EPCOT. I still to this day believe that this entire episode was filmed to promote the death of Communicore and glorify the opening of Innoventions. If you're not familiar with the show, you probably won't follow and I apologize. Steve had invented a "Transformation Chamber" that allows him to transform him into a cooler, more suave version of himself. One that his neighbor Laura is crazy for. She sabotages his invention so that Stefan can stick around. They put the contest on hold and this is followed by a montage of Stefan and Laura making out all over Disney while the rest of the family runs amuck and enjoys the parks. Stefan then proceeds to propose to Laura in the most over the top and ridiculously gouda and brie packed way anyone could ever ask another person to marry them. Seriously, I don't think Oprah would have been able to afford that kind of a set up. Steve's cray cray girlfriend's spidey sense goes off and she flies off to Florida to find her Stevie. Then comes the drama of the Stefan vs. Steven debate and Carl's skillfully timed announcement of his plans to move the family to Florida while riding ToT after falling victim to Disney's special brand of magic. There's also a side story about Eddie and his weird friend getting lost while trying to drive and meet the family in Orlando, but no one really cares about that, lets be honest. In the end, Laura does the right thing, Steve comes back, we all learn a valuable lesson, and they all go back to Chicago and live happily ever after.
This episode does get bonus points, however, for throwing in a few seconds of some PI action.
I'll break away from the TGIFriday theming for a moment to give a shout out to Roseanne. The slow motion shot of the Conners running down Mainstreet is only out shined by Dan's slow motion run back towards the exit when he's informed that they only serve Beer at Epcot. The part with Roseanne and Jackie giving the custodial cast member hell is pretty great too. You can't really go wrong with Roseanne and more than anything that entire episode was just about family fun and what actually happens at Disney as opposed to some ridiculous made up plot like the others. But here i am writing an entire blog post about this ridiculousness so obviously I eat this stuff up with a spoon. You also get Johnny Galecki pre-Leonard Hofstadter. Score.
1996 also brought us a Disney episode of Step by Step but i'll be honest and tell you that I completely forgot that episode existed until I did a little research before writing this. I'd pretty much lost interest in that show at that point but I do remember some weird kid trying to set a record with how many rides he could ride in a single day. Also I think Carol Brady was in it. And Frank's hot surfer dude nephew. And Jason Marsden. Aka Max Goof. Aka another childhood crush. Yeah. That's all I've got for that one. I couldn't find the episode to re-watch so we'll have to make do.
And then there was the episode that inspired this post. After Cory and Topenga call it quits, Cory quickly starts worrying that he's made a horrible decision. Just as he feels the need to right his wrong, Topenga wins a writing contest and is whisked off to EPCOT for some sort of educational experience with a bunch of other winners from their class. Cory's worried that she's going to be wooed away by Andrew Keegan, so he and Shawn follow her to Florida. There's a few things I took away from this episode. For starters, I always wanted to know why it was SO easy for them to just wander all around the living seas all willy nilly. I mean seriously. At one point Dana from step by step is randomly sitting there feeding a dolphin, on hand to teach Cory yet another valuable life lesson. Why is she there? Who knows?! Secondly, I wanted terribly to follow Cory and Shawn's lead and sleep over INSIDE the magic kingdom. Who am I kidding, i'm now thirty years old and i'd still like to pull that off. Lastly, there's the kiss. Forget Scarlett and Rhett, forget Spiderman and Mary Jane, forget Jack and Rose. If you were a teen growing up in the 90's, Cory and Topenga's kiss in front of the Fountain of Nations was probably the kiss to end all kisses. This was the stuff dreams were made of, folks. It still makes me swoon a little. Aah, to be young again.
Lastly, there was Sabrina. Much like I feel the Family Matters episode was to promote Innoventions, I KNOW this one was done to promote the opening of Animal Kingdom. And much like AK, it's pretty ehhhh. Clarissa turns her friends into Zebra's and has to fix things, her aunts hang out with a caveman and play with dinosaur bones, Harvey is magicked into a guide on Kilimanjaro Safaris, and Salem makes a bunch of wisecracks. Everything is fixed in the end, Sabrina passes her witch test, Harvey gets to stop riding past the termite mounds and.....EVERYONE LEARNS A VALUABLE LIFE LESSON! In the end, it's fun to take a look back at things that were a part of our childhood. The hair and clothing alone are worth the laughs you'll get watching. But there's also a look back at the parks in their heydays. It's a little bittersweet to see those attractions that once were. It's almost like looking back on a trip, though. These ridiculous TV families let us in our their vacation. We got to enjoy the parks from afar when we needed a fix in between visits, and all from the comfort of our own living room. Just think of them as a really well done family video from a trip in the 90's. And then thank the lord your family wasn't that sickeningly adorable.
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