Usage
The "very special episode" is occasionally billed as "an episode your family can't afford to miss", again dramatizing the importance of the episode by insinuating the issues presented represent mandatory viewing for the responsible parent and child. Often the "very special episode" concerns a moral issue.
The term was generally used in reference to sitcoms as a way of highlighting that the normally light hearted show would be dealing with a more serious topic.
Sometimes, as in the NBC sitcom Blossom, the network wanted to find a way to warn viewers that the upcoming episode will be about a serious issue without directly putting a "parental advisory" message.
Television websites such as Television Without Pity and jumptheshark.com deride the phrase. In an episode of Friends, Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry) mocked the ubiquitous NBC commercials that popularized the phrase ("A very special Blossom"); Perry himself appeared in "a very special episode" of Growing Pains earlier in his career, playing Carol Seaver's teenage boyfriend who dies of injuries sustained in a car accident after a night of underage drinking.
Diff'rent Strokes featured some very special episodes that involved child molesting, pedophilia, hitchhiking, kidnapping, epileptic seizure, bullies, racism, bulimia, drunk driving and drug abuse.
The popular sitcom Seinfeld, famously "about nothing," was also diametrically opposed to very special episodes. The on-set motto among writers and cast was reportedly "No hugging, no learning." One writer commented, "There will never be an advertisement for 'a very special episode' of Seinfeld, for its humor is of a more practical and parodic nature." In fact, by the end of one episode, Kramer tells Jerry, "Well, at least you learned something." Jerry replies, "No, I didn't."
The award-winning PBS children's program Arthur has had many very special episodes, which covered such subjects as divorce, the loss of a pet, cancer, dyslexia, asthma, head lice, and one episode that was made in response to the September 11 attacks.
Read more about this topic: Very Special Episode
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