With the Friday Night Fights on holiday hiatus this week I decided to take a look at some intros. Punky Brewster was one of those sitcoms you either liked or you didn’t. The story follows a spirited girl named Punky who is abandoned in a store by her mother. Instead of being picked up by social services she hides in an abandoned apartment until the curmudgeon who lives underneath catches her. Instead of turning her over to social services (I swear the pattern ends here), Henry adopts her and her dog, Brandon (the real life dog of Punky’s portrayer, Soleil Moon Frye), and hilarity ensues.
The series ran on NBC for two seasons, and even did a show about the Challenger explosion (although I clearly remember being home when it happened while in the show they were at school watching it). Despite good ratings and being a hit with kids they cancelled it. A few years later, Punky’s early teen years were captured in two syndicated seasons before disappearing for good.
You may be wondering how the intro can be in both Favorites and Not-So-Favorites. That’s because there was ANOTHER Punky Brewster series.
The intro I’ve chosen comes from season 2, the last of NBC’s run.
The theme song, “Everytime I Turn Around” (written by Gary Portnoy, who sings the song and is mostly known for the theme to Cheers, and Judy Hart Angelo, who doesn’t and isn’t, duh) is kind of catchy and fits the tone of the show. Live-action intros don’t have the same flair as most animated shows, but they manage to find clips to show off the show, the characters, and some of how the show works while still identifying the actors and actresses involved. (However the kids who play Margeaux and Allen are left out, and Allen would leave early in the first syndicated season. He and Cherie had the first interracial romance that I can recall that didn’t involve some commentary on interracial romance–AT ABOUT 10 YEARS OLD! Why can’t stories with adult interracial romances work like that? And we see the characters meet.)
In season one, when Punky and Henry are watching TV at the end of the intro they had this rather poorly drawn cartoon that was similar to the one seen here. The change for season two, done by Ruby Spears because they were doing a Punky Brewster cartoon for NBC’s Saturday Morning lineup, is simply better drawn although that’s one weak bark on Brandon’s part. I’ve seen some articles (including the Wikipedia article linked to in the first paragraph) refer to the cartoon as It’s Punky Brewster, but I never saw “It’s” in any title, including the one VHS tape I have of the show. As for the intro…well it’s surprisingly meh for the concept.
Yes, the cast they had wasn’t enough. Instead they had to add a magical creature named Glomer (voiced by Frank Welker, whose in 95% of the animated series ever produced for the US I think), who never shows up in the live-action series so I guess he made it home eventually. 🙂 The show followed the kids attempts to hide Glomer from Henry (all the kids, Henry, and even the dog were voiced by their show actors, and I don’t recall Cherie’s grandmother ever appearing in the cartoon) while having wacky adventures. It was OK, but nothing all that spectacular.
The intro is also nothing spectacular. The song isn’t as head-sticking as its live-action counterpart, and there are a few times that you can’t even hear what the singer is singing. Also, I can’t tell whose perspective the singer is supposed to be singing from. The first two lines follow the visual as Punky meets Glomer and seems to be from Punky’s point of view. Then the line goes “and a lot like Punky”. Is Punky supposed to be talking in third person now? Then it seems she’s back to Punky talking about how she wants to be friends with Glomer. I don’t follow.
The animated series ran for two seasons on NBC (starting in season two of the live-series) and is available on the DVDs of the live-action series. It’s nothing spectacular, but as a bonus feature it’s worth giving a look if you already have the live series.
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