Over the past couple of days, I’ve been watching some episodes of Silver Spoons I have on VHS (though I’ve queued up the first season DVDs in Netflix). Seeing it again reminds me why it was one of the best 80s sitcoms aimed at younger viewers.
Obviously, the train track running through the living room was awesome, as were the video games. But beyond those obvious things, were the completely random and impossible things they’d throw into the plot of any given episode.
For instance, in one episode, Arnold Jackson (yes, in character) visits Ricky to do a story about him for the school newspaper. Ricky shows off his massive computer skills (with great screenshots) and breaks into a government computer and pulls up a classified diagram of a stealth fighter. Arnold snaps a photo of it and publishes it in his school paper. Two bumbling FBI agents come to the house and Ricky and Arnold overhear them comment that this is “a crime punishable by death.” So the two kids do what any kids would do in that situation.
They run away and try to get a job on a freight ship. Wonderful absurdity!
In another episode, Ricky gets Menudo to perform at his house party by sneaking into their hotel room and convincing them. Lots of cheap, stereotypical jokes are made. In the same episode, Edward Stratton III brings home a robot that tries to grope Kate. And Menudo rides the train into the house.
Can’t top that.
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