A Very Special Episode Appreciation Thread

Family Ties -- Alex is on speed.

Gimme A Break! - Samantha puts Joey in blackface.

Jo: Sue-Anne's been listening to her Carpenters records all weekend.

Blair: At least she's not listening to heavy metal.

Tootie: She needs some funky albums...like Hot Chocolate, Peaches & Herb or Wild Cherry.

Natalie: That reminds me, it's snack time! (Heads to kitchen.)

Thread closed.

The AIDS kid on Mr. Belvedere.

Wesley gets cornholed by a camp counselor on Mr. Belvedere.

Different Strokes: The bicycle man tries to touch Dudley.

Mama's Family -- One of her friends is illiterate.

Too close for Comfort-Monroe is gang raped in the mall parking lot.

Diff'rent Strokes - Kimberly has bulimia

Growing Pains - DL fave Kristy Swanson tempts Mike with cocaine.

Punky Brewster - Cherie gets locked in a refrigerator.

MAUDE murders her unborn fetus.

Brady Bunch: Bobby feels like he's only a step-child to Carol. Carol says the only steps in the Brady house are the steps that go upstairs to the three bedrooms and two bathrooms (completely inadequate for 8 people).

Full House: Bad Girl Gia tries to peer pressure Stephanie into smoking.

Full House -- Kimmy gets drunk at a college party and D.J. reveals her mom was killed by a drunk driver.

Every episode of "MASH" from Seasons 7-11.

Facts of Life: Tootie goes to NYC alone and is almost recruited to sex work by a hooker with a heart of gold.

Full House - DJ starves herself so she can look hot and skinny in a bathing suit at a pool party. Faints in the gym. Aunt Becky (who has high octane metabolism and probably never had to diet in her life) gives DJ advice on how and what to eat.

Good Times. James dies.

DAMN! DAMN! DAMN! DAMN! DAMN!!!!!

I Love Lucy: Grace Foster comes out as lesbian

Facts of Life: Natalie molested by an attacker.

Leave It To Beaver -

Larry Mondello sings "You Always Hurt the One You Love" endlessly.

Beaver and Gilbert Bates pretend to be grownups driving the car, and Beaver makes Gilbert be the mother.

Golden Girls: Miami's entire medical community tells Dorothy that she's too old and should be put out to pasture already. Finally, finally, someone gives her the correct diagnosis of Epstein-Barr Syndrome (or was it Chronic Fatigue). In today's dollars, that would be fibromyalgia.

Growing Pains - Carol’s boyfriend Chandler dies

ALF: He cares about the environment.

Kate & Allie - Allie finds a condom in Chip's pants.

The Brady Bunch, Jan’s personality disorder comes to the surface when she creates an imaginary boyfriend named “George Glass”.

The episode of Different Strokes where Arnold and Dudley are shown dirty cartoons and almost molested by the creeper at the bicycle shop.

Saved by the Bell- Zack dates a girl in a wheelchair and annoys her with his over the top attempts to look like a disability rights activist.

Tonight, on a very special "Kate & Allie," Allie is stranded in New York with no ID or money and gains insight into the troubled world of the homeless. For more, see Close-Up on page 39.

Beverly Hills 90210 had a bunch of very special episodes like the one where Brandon mentors an abused boy, Brenda has a teen breast cancer scare, David's friend Scott accidentally killed himself with a gun, Brandon and Emily get high on drugs, There's probably others I've forgotten about.

My So-Called Life- Christmas episode involving the homeless teen Angela befriends.

Roseanne - Jackie gets beat up by her much younger beau

Diff'rent Strokes - Arnold and Sam befriend a woman with epilepsy.

R33 I loved Dan wordlessly going over there to kick the shit out of the boyfriend

Wasn't there an episode of Blossom where she got hit by her boyfriend?

On Family Ties, Alex develops an addiction to speed while studying for finals. At the same time, Michael J. Fox is hoovering up all the coke in the world as fast as he can.

Then there was the Family Ties episode with Tom Hanks as the jolly, lovable uncle who is discovered to be an alcoholic when he rummages through the Keatons' kitchen cabinets in a desperate search for vanilla extract.

R31 90210 has them in their high school years, when the show adapted a more primetime soap,/continuing stories feel, they had "very special storylines" on occasion, they dragged on and on for tons of episodes, instead of just 1

Just say Nancy

in season 1 of BH 90210, Kelly's mom Jackie is a cokehead in one VSE, and has her famous breakdown at the mother/daughter fashion show

It's wrapped up by her going to rehab by episodes end

In season 6, when the show was now a serialized/nighttime soap opera, Kelly develops a cocaine addiction after her cheating boyfriend turns her on to it, that spirals; into a bunch of different storylines for much of the season

John Cage - from Ally McBeal - speaks in court about a city's right to hold a candlelight parade in honor of the firefighters the community recently lost....

...weeks after 911.

Complete with Josh Groban lip synching his song "To Where You Are".

R28, meet r6.

Mr. Belvedere had a lot of VSEs, but my personal favorite is the one where Marsha called Wesley a mistake.

R36, yes! He was played by a hot young James Marsden. That show was ridiculous. Mayim is hideous and all the boyfriends she had were so cute. No way that bitchy uggo would pull such fine ass!!

The entire series of Facts of Life is in the very special episode category. Jo fought off date-rape by Blair’s childhood frat boy pal. Natalie losing her virginity. Blair and Jo going back to their respective homes in NYC and find out they identify less with their old friends and thinking than before becoming roomies. List goes on and on.

R37 did you miss r1?

The Beverly Hillbillies VSE where the Clampetts face the truth about their chronic pellagra, ringworm and inbreeding.

Speaking of Family Ties, I resisted it as long as I could, but we've got to go with *the* VSE, "A, My Name Is Alex." You know the one, where Alex's apparently second best friend dies, he has a hard time coping with grief, everyone gets out their feelings about life, death and what makes Alex tick, the second half of the episode is done in an experimental, theatrical style and Michael J. Fox wins another Emmy in the process.

[quote] I loved Dan wordlessly going over there to kick the shit out of the boyfriend

And to buy a bucket of chicken!

Family Ties had its share of special episodes. I remember the one where Tom Hanks played the alcoholic uncle who hits Alex.

Facts of Life - Natalie is the first to lose her virginity, to Snake, who blows her off afterwards because it affected him emotionally. Natalie is told by the others that they are all waiting to give it up on their wedding night, making her feel even worse than she already does.

Monroe’s rape by 2 women in a van on Too Close For Comfort for the win...

[quote]Then there was the Family Ties episode with Tom Hanks as the jolly, lovable uncle who is discovered to be an alcoholic when he rummages through the Keatons' kitchen cabinets in a desperate search for vanilla extract.

To accompany R37’s recap...

California Dreams - Tiffany takes steroids to get an edge on her volleyball team.

Yeah, except thats not what happens R51.

Match Game 76: Dumb Donald is revealed to be a mental retard by a very drunk Charles Nelson Reilly.

Saved by the Bell - Jessie is addicted to caffeine pills.

Hey, has anyone mentioned that episode of Family Ties yet where Tom Hanks play the drunk uncle?

Gee, couldnt make it all the way to R4, could ya, R57.

Sorry, R59, I have link previews turned off, the comment doesn’t have a description and I didn’t click the link so I didn’t know.

I was gonna say Tom Hanks, but I guess I'll say Jessie on caffeine pills. Am I the first one? How about Arnold & Dudley?

Jem and the Holograms had a Very Special Episode about the new foster kid in Jem's halfway house getting hooked on drugs by a schoolyard stud.

Seriously weird episode though its heart was in the right place.

Fun thread!

Didn't All in the Family have a very special episode where Edie was flashed, or almost raped or something? That happened, right?

Home Improvement: Randy might have cancer.

Any of the ones I was in.

The 'Webster' When He Torched The Apartment

Janet getting beat upside her face by her mother with an iron on Good Times. The actress playing her mom was a Method student- so the iron was really hot and did burn Janet severely . The result was a lifetime of nose jobs and stomach staples for Ms. Jackson.

Good Times Christmas episode where cousin Naomi drank everything in the apartment except the toilet water.

5 foot tall, 35 year old Janet Wood is just CRUSHED when she learns she’ll never become a ballet dancer and her instructor was just after her hot bod.

[quote] 90210 has them in their high school years, when the show adapted a more primetime soap,/continuing stories feel, they had "very special storylines" on occasion, they dragged on and on for tons of episodes, instead of just 1

I remember the storyline of Valerie being exposed to HIV and waiting for her test results had a VSE feel to it.

Lucy and the Pitbull aka The Death of Fred Mertz.

Tonight, on a Very Special Happy Days... Fonzie gets his library card.

Two VSEs involving pills:

1. Mary Tyler Moore: addicted to sleeping pills. Lou has to intervene and stay at Mary's apartment through the night b/c she finally feel asleep while resting her head on his shoulder.

2. Golden Girls: very unbelievable episode involving Rose, of all people, addicted to some kind of rx drug. Dorothy would have been more believable as a secret pill popper.

R67 The actress who ironed Janet Jackson on "Good Times" was Chip Fields the mother of "Facts of Life's" Kim Fields. Thus proving that "Very Special Episodes" are genetically inherited.

In honor of the late Gregory Sierra:

All in the Family -- local nazis paint a swastika on the Bunker front door; Archie debates with a JDL type over "going to war" on his behalf. At the end, the JDL type is killed by a car bomb outside the home.

(The first VSE I remember seeing)

The banned Hannah Montana ‘Oliver has diabeetus’ episode. Disney never aired the original cut in the US because some viewers in Europe were angry about a few of the jokes and felt it was somewhat insensitive.

Saved By The Bell - there's no hope with dope. The actor who played Johnny Dakota looked like an early 90s porn star.

The kid with AIDS on Mr. Belvedere is now a woman.

Saved by the Bell-Zack finds a guy washing up in the bathroom at the mall. In the meantime, he starts hitting on a girl he meets. Turns out the girl he’s hitting on is homeless and the guy in the bathroom is her dad. After acting like a douchebag to the girl and her father they’re invited over to his house to celebrate Christmas.

Come to think of it, I think all Saved by the Bell episodes were VSEs.

[quote] The kid with AIDS on Mr. Belvedere is now a woman.

Maybe she can be on the next season of the Saved By the Bell reboot.

Most of Little House on the Prairie:

Caroline's baby dies;

Mary goes blind;

Mary's baby dies in a tragic fire;

Albert is dying

Forgot one:

Albert's girlfriend is raped and dies

Full House-Stephanie finds out that a classmate is abused by his father.

The Jeffersons - Florence reveals that she's planning to kill herself.

Saved by the Bell: - College Years: Slater is experimenting with fingering Zack's ass and ends up fisting him when Screech trips and falls against him.

The one where David and Tommy get caught.

Punky Brewster - Punky and Cherie have to take drugs to going a club

Saved by the Bell when Jessie Spano becomes a stripper to get money to feed her speed addiction.

The annual SVU episode in which Olivia is raped, almost raped, kidnapped, held hostage, or some combination thereof.

Very special episode, Datalounge division: the JonBenet episode of Law & Order with Lizha.

R70 except that was one of the season ending cliffhangers for season 8 and we had to wait until season 9 to see if she tested positive or not

She didn't but it led her to confessing to David that she had killed her rapist father in self defense and had made the homicide scene look like he killed himself....

It was all told over multiple episodes and all serialized and one story lead to another

so not VSE at all

very soapy though

Especially when Valerie than began seducing and sleeping with her new stepdad to get back at her mom for turning a blind eye to her husband raping his daughter, leading to Valerie also confessing that she killed her dad too to her mom and her mom divorcing her new husband after finding out Valerie was fucking him and then going to press murder charges against Valerie

This is Us- stupid episodes set during the pandemic

The Fresh Prince of Bel Air - Will gives Carlton speed to enable him to handle his busy schedule of work and studies. Carlton is found out when he goes uncharacteristically wild at a party and collapses. Will gets a severe scolding from his Aunt and Uncle.

ER

Dr. Greene misdiagnoses pregnant woman and she dies of eclampsia.

Downton Abbey

Harley Street Doctor misdiagnoses Sybil and she dies of eclampsia.

Tootie is picked to be photographed by a guy who is basically a child pornographer. Mrs. Garrett calls him out on his bullshit.

Was that the same one where Tootie was almost lured by a hooker with a heart of gold, or was it a different episode?

[italic]Gimme A Break![/italic]: Samantha tries to get Nell and the Chief's attention during a fight by using a racial slur and then stealing the squad car.

They forgot this in the blackface episode:

Nell: I can't believe that I would live to see the day when you would use the word n----r.

Sam: That's horrible. I would never say that.

Nell: Well, you might as well have. That's what you did by putting Joey in blackface.

[quote] Tootie is picked to be photographed by a guy who is basically a child pornographer. Mrs. Garrett calls him out on his bullshit.

That rings hollow after [italic]All in the Family[/italic] showed Baby Joey's penis.

Good Times had a ton of VSE. I still remember the one where they invite one of their poorest neighbors over for dinner, and they are scared to eat the dish she brings because there were rumors she ate cat food.

R94, different episode. Tootie's encounter with the child pornographer was "Pretty Babies", an indirect attack on the Brooke Shields movie "Pretty Baby".

R97, the Good Times VSE leaned surprisingly heavy into humor. When Gertie the neighbor brought meat loaf to the Evans, the dinner scene was pretty histrionic as everyone assumed it was made of dog food.

DRAKE & JOSH: S04E11, ‘Josh Is Done’ (aired 2/11/07)—in order to get a night of passion out of a pretty local girl who has caught his eye, slutty bisexual polyamorous high-school dropout Drake Parker neglects his long-suffering and academically-gifted boyfriend Josh Nichols, and in so doing forgets Josh’s imminent 18th birthday. When Josh’s birthday arrives with no present, no party, and no well-wishes from Drake, Josh takes this oversight—the last straw—to heart, and decides to break off his intimate relationship with Drake to spend their last year of high-school as roommates only. After just a week of estrangement, Josh’s standard of living improves noticeably, with Drake’s usual free and easy comfortable lifestyle quickly degrades. Without his partner’s support, Drake becomes non-functional, barely-verbal, and inconsolably depressed, pushing him to realise how much Josh’s love means to him and how greatly dependent he is on Josh. To apologise and perhaps win back his lover, a dejected and lonely Drake has to overcome his natural selfishness and nonchalant attitude, and pull out all the stops to prove his commitment to his relationship with Josh....

R87 Jessie was hooked on ‘caffeine pills’ lmao

Every episode of The Facts of Life was very special. Unless they were traveling abroad.

R76 couldn’t they just have consulted Nick Jonas about it?

"Seven Little Indians" was most definitely not a VSE of FoL.

"Dippity Doo'ed"

Designing Women: AIDS is killing Tony Goldwyn, and he asks the ladies to plan his funeral.

Golden Girls: Rose thinks she might have gotten AiDS from a blood transfusion.

[italic]Silver Spoons[/italic] had some doozies. The two I remember most of all were an episode with Meeno Peluce where his father hit him. He and Joel Higgins were on [italic]Best of the West[/italic] together in the 1981-1982 season along with the late Leonard Frey who was stuck on some orangutan show at the same time.

The second one I remember is Alfonso’s dyslexia diagnosis from special guest star Bruce Jenner, who should know a thing or two about getting things backward.

Trying to recall whether MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE ever had one, but I don’t think it was that type of show. The humour was too dark, sophisticated and clever to need that strain of schmaltz.

Unless ‘MORP’ counts? It’s the episode where Malcolm protests against his school prom, and creates an alternative for all the Krelboynes, only for the movement to swell and turn Malcolm into a tyrannical leader of a rabble of dissatisfied losers without a real worthy cause. Iirc it had a downer ending that made it feel a little VESPE-ish.

[italic]The Jeffersons[/italic] turned a flashback episode into a very special episode about the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the subsequent riots Lionel almost joined.

AVSE of Bewitched...Samantha accidentally turns Uncle Arthur STRAIGHT. He falls in love with Serena...Hilarity ensues.

[quote] The kid with AIDS on Mr. Belvedere is now a woman.

Then what’s Danielle Pintauro’s excuse for not admitting she am woman?

A very special episode of Alice.

Edith nearly raped All in the Family