Sourced Transcript for BSFC #7: Claudia and Mean Janine
Brooke Suchomel: 0:18
Welcome to the Baby-sitters Fight Club, where the first rule is, you don't talk about Fight Club. Instead, you talk about the Baby-sitters Club series of books by Ann M. Martin. I'm Brooke Suchomel.
Kaykay Brady: 0:28
And I'm Kaykay Brady.
Brooke Suchomel: 0:31
And this week, we are heading back to September of 1987. When a shit ton -- I think that's the scientific term for it -- a shit ton of top notch TV shows from our childhood premiered.
Kaykay Brady: 0:44
I can't wait.
Brooke Suchomel: 0:45
I'm talking Duck Tales.
Kaykay Brady: 0:47
Oh shit.
Brooke Suchomel: 0:48
I'm talking Full House. My Two Dads, which is overlooked, but just has a special place in my heart.
Kaykay Brady: 0:57
My Two Dads?
Brooke Suchomel: 0:58
My Two Dads.
Kaykay Brady: 1:00
Wasn't that an old show?
Brooke Suchomel: 1:01
No, from the late '80s.
Kaykay Brady: 1:03
Wait.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:04
Are you thinking of My Three Sons?
Kaykay Brady: 1:06
Yeah, I guess so. I'm seeing shoes. I'm seeing like dancing shoes.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:11
Yeah, that's My Three Sons. No, My Two Dads, which is the story of a young girl whose mom dies. And she never knew who her real dad was because her mom was sleeping with two best friends.
Kaykay Brady: 1:25
Oh, I remember this!
Brooke Suchomel: 1:28
And so she just ships them to live with one or both of them, like, "figure it out."
Kaykay Brady: 1:34
Damn.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:35
Yeah. So, My Two Dads, a classic.
Kaykay Brady: 1:38
Wait, that was really the plot of My Two Dads? Just, her mom was just a giant ho?
Brooke Suchomel: 1:43
Exactly.
Kaykay Brady: 1:44
It was like, "Well, you know, you got a 50% chance."
Brooke Suchomel: 1:46
Right, right, exactly. So that was My Two Dads.
Kaykay Brady: 1:50
I mean, that's so sex positive. I love it.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:53
Yeah, yeah. And then they all end up living, like, together. The two guys who were hooking up with the same mom, and the kid. They like all live together in a big happy family and you never find out, you never find out which one is the real dad. They get a DNA test, and she like throws it in the fireplace. So you just never find out. Anyway.
Kaykay Brady: 2:16
This is fantastic. I mean, I'm just thinking about My Two Dads, and how that would be received today.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:23
Everything else is being remade. Why not remake My Two Dads, but like you can take it in a whole new direction nowadays, right?
Kaykay Brady: 2:33
Oh, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:33
Just think about the possibilities. Make it, like, My Eight Dads. And they can be from all different walks of life, all different orientations. There's a ton of potential there.
Kaykay Brady: 2:44
I love it. I'm in.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:44
All right. Another one, which if they aren't redoing this, they should, A Different World.
Kaykay Brady: 2:50
Oh, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:51
Premiered in September of '87. And then there are three others that are more obscure that premiered in September '87. One of them was I'm Telling. Do you remember I'm Telling?
Kaykay Brady: 3:03
No.
Brooke Suchomel: 3:04
It was a Saturday morning TV show, a game show for kids where it was siblings instead of, like, The Newlywed Game.
Kaykay Brady: 3:14
Oh shit, how fitting for book seven!
Brooke Suchomel: 3:16
I know, super fitting. And the guy who hosted it, so it was a guy named Laurie who had the most epic 80s perm. It was just a thing of beauty. So that started September of '87. As did She's the Sheriff.
Kaykay Brady: 3:35
Oh, shit.
Brooke Suchomel: 3:36
Do you remember She's the Sheriff?
Kaykay Brady: 3:37
This is kind of ringing a bell. I'm looking this up while you talk about this.
Brooke Suchomel: 3:41
Suzanne Somers.
Kaykay Brady: 3:42
Oh shit! Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 3:44
In syndication. So the plot was she was married to the sheriff. Her husband dies.
Kaykay Brady: 3:50
Oh, how else is she gonna be the sheriff? I mean, you're not gonna vote her into office, for Christ's sake! Let's not- we gotta be in the realm of possibility here!
Brooke Suchomel: 3:59
It's like law enforcement as primogeniture. So yeah, so because she's worried about, how is she going to raise her kids? As if there wouldn't be an insane pension, but whatever. So they just like give the dead sheriff's wife the job of sheriff.
Kaykay Brady: 4:19
Oh my God.
Brooke Suchomel: 4:20
And it's hilarious!
Kaykay Brady: 4:21
Ah, God. All right, so I looked up She's the Sheriff, and I suggest others do so as well. It's a picture of Suzanne Somers in, you know, a nicely tailored sheriff outfit. And she's doing that kind of like 80s shrug, like, "I'm a dumb slut!"
Brooke Suchomel: 4:22
"What do you want me to do? I'm blonde!" Yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 4:33
"I'm a stupid blonde and I'm the sheriff!" Shrug! She's doing the classic 80s shrug. So check it out. Maybe that goes in the show notes. I mean, and her waist is so cinched. She's wearing two belts, in fact.
Brooke Suchomel: 4:56
She's snatched.
Kaykay Brady: 4:57
She's snatched!
Brooke Suchomel: 4:58
She is the sheriff, and she is snatched. Absolutely.
Kaykay Brady: 5:04
All right, sorry, that- what a delight!
Brooke Suchomel: 5:06
No, I mean it is a worthy diversion.
Kaykay Brady: 5:09
All right, so I had a dream the other night that my partner was Private Benjamin.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:14
Nice.
Kaykay Brady: 5:15
All right, so like, I feel like it's in the realm, you know. She's the Sheriff feels like it's really riding on those Private Benjamin vibes.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:21
Yeah, so now I'm seeing what your dream tonight is gonna be. So we've got a preview of that. And then also, Dolly. I did not remember this. Did you know that Dolly Parton had a one hour variety show on ABC?
Kaykay Brady: 5:38
Yes.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:38
Okay.
Kaykay Brady: 5:38
Yes, our friend found all of these episodes on a BitTorrent site and downloaded them all for me. And our favorite one is one where she's singing Rhinestone Cowboy, but she sings it "Cowgirl," and she's just kind of walking around LA in these rhinestoned jeans and huge hair just singing Rhinestone Cowgirl and it's beautiful.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:38
So all of this was going on, on TV, just a plethora of goodness on television. And then in the movies, Fatal Attraction was released in September of '87.
Kaykay Brady: 6:17
Oh, they filmed that at my middle school.
Brooke Suchomel: 6:19
Stop it.
Kaykay Brady: 6:20
They filmed the scenes where they picked up the kids at my middle school.
Brooke Suchomel: 6:24
I'm picturing like a boiling bunny in your middle school.
Kaykay Brady: 6:28
No, it was just like they were filming the scenes with the buses. One time they go to the kids' school and pick them up. But it was like, it was a sensation at my school. People were like, "Oh my God."
Brooke Suchomel: 6:38
I was gonna say, were you there?
Kaykay Brady: 6:40
Yeah, we all had to like run out to the buses.
Brooke Suchomel: 6:45
Wait, are you in- are you in Fatal Attraction?!
Kaykay Brady: 6:50
I have an IMDB page, and it just says Fatal Attraction. I was not in Fatal Attraction, but like a bunch of my friends were and got paid to do it. They got like $100 for the day.
Brooke Suchomel: 7:02
Oh God, and $100 when you're in middle school in the 80s?
Kaykay Brady: 7:05
I know! Yeah!
Brooke Suchomel: 7:06
That is like -- think about it -- that is like what the entire Baby-sitters Club got paid...
Kaykay Brady: 7:11
For Kid Camp.
Brooke Suchomel: 7:11
-- to watch 14 children.
Kaykay Brady: 7:15
So no, you just run out to a bus.
Brooke Suchomel: 7:15
These guys just had to run out to a bus. Man. Man, that is a sweet gig. Well, your friends were in the number one movie in America for eight solid weeks, meaning that by the time we get to our next episode, which is going to be set in November of '87, it's still going to be the number one movie.
Kaykay Brady: 7:28
Wow.
Brooke Suchomel: 7:30
It was the biggest global box office hit of all of 1987, which is just so crazy to think that, like, this was the biggest movie in the world. Fatal Attraction.
Kaykay Brady: 7:42
What a piece of trash. It just really shows you how people cherish misogyny.
Brooke Suchomel: 7:46
For real.
Kaykay Brady: 7:47
People love movies where, you know, the actual reality of how things work are completely flipped and like the men always the victims and the women are like crazy predators. I was thinking about this the other day, I had to do a sexual harassment training at work. And every video is like a 25 year old woman hitting on like a 50 year old man. And you're like, "Oh yeah, that's exactly how it happens." Gimme a fucking break!
Brooke Suchomel: 8:14
It's like a Kevin James sitcom. You know? That's not how it works.
Kaykay Brady: 8:18
And people love it!
Brooke Suchomel: 8:19
It's how you wish it works.
Kaykay Brady: 8:20
They eat that shit up!
Brooke Suchomel: 8:22
God. Garbage.
Kaykay Brady: 8:24
Garbage.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:24
God. Garbage. On the flip side, though, The Princess Bride was released at the end of the month.
Kaykay Brady: 8:29
Classique.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:30
And even though that was, you know, just- it did okay, but it obviously became a cult classic when it came out in video. So hopefully that balanced out the misogynistic garbage of Fatal Attraction. And then, in the music world, we enter the 80s teenybopper phase, officially, as Tiffany released her debut album, Tiffany.
Kaykay Brady: 8:55
Oh, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:57
Exactly one month after the release of Debbie Gibson's debut, Out of the Blue. And Tiffany famously came onto the scene by performing in shopping malls.
Kaykay Brady: 9:06
Yes!
Brooke Suchomel: 9:07
Did you see Tiffany? She was out in, like, Paramus. There was a lot of stuff happening on the East Coast, at the beginning.
Kaykay Brady: 9:15
Yeah, I'm sure she was at our local mall, but I could not have cared less. You could not have paid me. You couldn't have paid me $100.
Brooke Suchomel: 9:25
I mean, you wanted Skid Row.
Kaykay Brady: 9:27
Oh yeah!
Brooke Suchomel: 9:27
Because if Skid Row, Sebastian Bach was doing his thing in front of a Contempo Casuals --
Kaykay Brady: 9:32
Exactly! I have taste.
Brooke Suchomel: 9:33
-- you would have been right there.
Kaykay Brady: 9:34
Yeah, no, I just, you know, I violently opposed any of the teenybopper stuff.
Brooke Suchomel: 9:40
Oh, see, this is, this is where we differ.
Kaykay Brady: 9:43
Yeah. Tell me, tell me.
Brooke Suchomel: 9:45
It was like, are you into Tiffany or are you into Debbie Gibson?
Kaykay Brady: 9:49
It's like the north versus the south.
Brooke Suchomel: 9:51
Right. And I liked Tiffany's- like, I loved I Saw Her Standing There and I Think We're Alone Now. Like, the covers that she did, I was super into. Her original stuff, I wasn't as into.
Kaykay Brady: 10:05
I don't even remember a single original song.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:08
Could've Been.
Kaykay Brady: 10:09
Can you sing that?
Brooke Suchomel: 10:11
No.
Kaykay Brady: 10:12
Please? What do I have to do?
Brooke Suchomel: 10:16
"Could've been so beautiful. Could've been so right." That was Could've Been.
Kaykay Brady: 10:22
It sounds like a country song.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:24
Yeah, it kind of was. It was her, like, painful ballad. It was a ballad. It was the ballad. And I liked her upbeat stuff, but it was like, Tiffany...she felt like she was a little trashier than Debbie Gibson.
Kaykay Brady: 10:38
Oh, sure, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:40
And so I was more into Debbie Gibson, because Debbie Gibson was aspirational, you know?
Kaykay Brady: 10:47
"Electric Youth!"
Brooke Suchomel: 10:48
Did you have Electric Youth perfume?
Kaykay Brady: 10:50
I'm pretty sure my sister did and I'm pretty sure I broke it.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:55
I still had it, I still kept my bottle of Electric Youth until I, like, went to college. Just because it was so, I was so freakin’ excited.
Kaykay Brady: 11:03
You were so smitten with your Electric Youth perfume!
Brooke Suchomel: 11:06
I really, really was.
Kaykay Brady: 11:07
What did Electric Youth mean to you? I mean, what does it mean?
Brooke Suchomel: 11:11
It had a very cool bottle with, like, this hot pink spiral in the middle of it that I think was meant to look like an electric coil or something.
Kaykay Brady: 11:19
That does sound pretty cool. What was the perfume like?
Brooke Suchomel: 11:22
I mean, it was what you would expect something that you bought from a CVS in the late 80s for like $5 to smell like. I can remember it probably smelled like floral hairspray.
Kaykay Brady: 11:35
Sure, that's exactly what I'm expecting.
Brooke Suchomel: 11:37
Yeah, as most of them did.
Kaykay Brady: 11:39
Instant headache. You get the headache in the car on the way home before you even crack that perfume open.
Brooke Suchomel: 11:45
Yeah, it was like the Axe body spray for 80s teen girls.
Kaykay Brady: 11:53
That's so brilliant.
Brooke Suchomel: 11:55
So this is when we're entering the phase of classic music that you roller skated to, and sang along to, and performed choreographed dances in your friend's basement to. That is now a thing, now that we are in September of 1987, and I'm very excited about it.
Kaykay Brady: 12:16
Party.
Brooke Suchomel: 12:17
And Tiffany- so they sent her all over suburban America. They called it the quote, "Beautiful You - Celebrating the Good Life Shopping Mall Tour '87."
Kaykay Brady: 12:30
That's so ESL, you know, like, "Number One Party Shop USA Go."
Brooke Suchomel: 12:37
Definitely.
Kaykay Brady: 12:40
Just, it's like a computer came up with that name.
Brooke Suchomel: 12:43
Right?
Kaykay Brady: 12:44
They just fed it lots of data. Say it again, what was it called?
Brooke Suchomel: 12:49
"The Beautiful You," colon, "Celebrating the Good Life Shopping Mall Tour '87."
Kaykay Brady: 12:55
What the fuck? I feel like you could write a dissertation on this title. There's so much there.
Brooke Suchomel: 13:05
It's totally like if somebody said, "Okay, take a bunch of 80s advertising buzzwords. Throw 'em in like Yahtzee. Shake it. Whatever comes out, in the order it comes out, that's the name of the tour of this teenage girl who's going to be doing 20 minute sets in between like Benetton and the ear piercing kiosk." Like, that was what this was. And the crazy thing is Tiffany, this was between her sophomore and junior year of high school.
Kaykay Brady: 13:35
What?!
Brooke Suchomel: 13:35
So Tiffany is the age of Janine in this book.
Kaykay Brady: 13:40
Oh no, I did not- I can't endorse that. That's fucked up.
Brooke Suchomel: 13:44
Yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 13:46
That is fucked up.
Brooke Suchomel: 13:48
Yeah, I think it probably got a little dark there for Tiffany.
Kaykay Brady: 13:51
I mean, "What is Tiffany doing now?" is my question.
Brooke Suchomel: 13:54
She does, like, some sad reality stuff. Like Celebrity Fit Club, Australia's version of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, and Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling.
Kaykay Brady: 14:08
Well, you know, we have Australian listeners, I really hope they're gonna describe- what was that show? Australia, Get Me Out of Here?
Brooke Suchomel: 14:15
I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!
Kaykay Brady: 14:17
[Australian accent] "I'm a Celebrity." That's my Australian. "Get Me Outta Here!"
Brooke Suchomel: 14:22
I know it's a big show in the UK. I think it might have started in the UK. They basically, like, put a bunch of celebrities in the jungle and just kind of see what happens.
Kaykay Brady: 14:32
So it's kind of like Naked and Afraid.
Brooke Suchomel: 14:34
Naked and Afraid meets Celebrity Big Brother.
Kaykay Brady: 14:37
Wow.
Brooke Suchomel: 14:38
Yeah. And then it says that she was in a science fiction movie called Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, which she started in alongside...Debbie Gibson.
Kaykay Brady: 14:51
Shut up.
Brooke Suchomel: 14:52
Uh huh. So we might have to watch that. Anyways, so that's what was going on in pop culture. Also, in literature, the seventh Baby-sitters Club, Claudia and Mean Janine was released. So, back cover copy time, and I quote, "Claudia's sister is mean! She's too busy being smart to be nice." Been there. "Even Claudia's grandmother Mimi can't get close to Janine. Plus, Mean Janine puts down the Baby-sitters Club, and that makes Claudia mad!" I don't recall that.
Kaykay Brady: 15:29
Yeah, I don't remember that happening either.
Brooke Suchomel: 15:31
I think that's a stretch, back cover. "This summer, the members of the Baby-sitters Club are starting a play group in the neighborhood. Claudia can't wait for it to begin. But then Mimi has a stroke and the whole summer changes. Now Claudia has to spend her time Mimi-sitting instead of babysitting, and things with Janine are going from bad to worse. One of the Kishi sisters has to start being nicer, and it's sure not going to be Claudia!" End quote. So Kaykay, as the one of us with a sister, how did the sisterly dynamic portrayed in this book resonate with you?
Kaykay Brady: 16:03
I mean, I thought it was pretty right on about, you know, identity dynamics between siblings. You know, basically what's happening for the whole book is one sister is the smart one, and is going to be a physicist. That's Janine. And so the parents are like, "Why can't you be more like Janine? Janine's so smart, Janine's so this, Janine's so that." And then the younger sister decides, "Oh, I'm the cool one. I'm the one who dresses in cool fashions and stuff like that." And, you know, they kind of really stake their territory on both sides of this, then they kind of constantly snipe at each other. Because, you know, like all people, they're kind of resentful of the things that they don't have. And they don't see the things that they do have.
Brooke Suchomel: 16:49
Right.
Kaykay Brady: 16:50
And I thought it was pretty right on, just the way that it's so all pervasive. And the way that, so the clinical term for this is called "splitting," when parents compare children and sort of fight them off of each other, you know, play them off of each other to get behaviors that they want.
Brooke Suchomel: 17:09
It's called splitting?
Kaykay Brady: 17:10
It's called splitting, yeah. So it's extremely unhealthy for kids and creates all kinds of tension between the kids themselves, and really kind of blocks their connection with each other. And it happens in families all the time, and so that felt pretty true to life. And I felt like she did a really good job highlighting that. I don't know, what were your thoughts about it?
Brooke Suchomel: 17:35
In terms of the sibling dynamics?
Kaykay Brady: 17:37
Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 17:38
It's harder for me to judge, because my brother and I are pretty far apart in age.
Kaykay Brady: 17:45
Yeah, I was wondering if you had a Lucy/Jamie dynamic going on.
Brooke Suchomel: 17:50
Not really, because, you know, I was seven years old when my brother was born.
Kaykay Brady: 17:56
You weren't competing on the same levels for the same kinds of attention.
Brooke Suchomel: 18:01
Yeah, it was more of having to go from being an only child to being a sibling. I was conscious enough, I had established an identity as an only child. And then that identity had to change to "sibling." But I think I was still young enough and impressionable enough that I don't recall it being traumatic. I recall it being fun. Then we were always just so far apart in age that it wasn't like we were necessarily battling over things. Like, I was obviously the older one. We were in different stages of life.
Kaykay Brady: 18:40
There's no way he's beating you at any single game. Not like me and my sister. Let me tell you, knock down, drag out fights over board games.
Brooke Suchomel: 18:49
Yeah. I mean, he probably was able to beat me in any sort of physical task by the time he was like four years old.
Kaykay Brady: 18:56
Right.
Brooke Suchomel: 18:56
You know, so there was that.
Kaykay Brady: 19:00
Oh, I have to share, speaking of sibling rivalry. My sister and I were playing Scrabble once, and she would beat me- so basically, the roles that we played in my family is I was the athletic one and she was the smart one, and we were constantly sort of tweaking each other in these areas. We were playing Scrabble, and of course, she beat me again for like, the fifth time, and I got mad, so I ate the score. I just kind of rolled it up. I ate it. Yeah. I crumpled up the paper and I ate it. And she flew into a murderous rage, and she flung all the fucking pieces off the board, and she started swinging the board at me, like chopping at me, and she cut my arm. I still have a scar.
Brooke Suchomel: 19:45
How old were you?
Kaykay Brady: 19:47
I was probably 11.
Brooke Suchomel: 19:49
So you had, like, pica. That came out. To be just, like, eating paper to own your sister.
Kaykay Brady: 19:56
Anyway, so there you go. Memories.
Brooke Suchomel: 19:59
I think that dynamic, especially now, I don't know what it's like if you're in a family of multiple siblings, so it would be interesting to get that take. But like, you and I, and also the characters, you know, Claudia and Janine in this book, when there are just two of you, I do think that it is pretty common that there is the, "This is the smart one, and this is the athletic or creative or whatever one." That was definitely a thing. Like, my brother was the athletic one, I was the smart one. But like, that kid is actually hella smart, you know?
Kaykay Brady: 20:36
Your brother.
Brooke Suchomel: 20:37
My brother. So it was like, well, he was the athletic one. But he reads all the time. He's really witty and sharp, and smart and funny. But it is, I think, that society- just, that is a common trope that people get put into, even in fictional works, in movies and TV shows.
Kaykay Brady: 20:59
They get put in a box.
Brooke Suchomel: 21:00
You've got the jock and you've got the nerd or whatever.
Kaykay Brady: 21:02
Oh, and the 80s was fantastic at that. That was the 80s. Hello, Breakfast Club. But yeah, you're getting to the heart of why splitting is so damaging, because the kids get a very rigid sense of who they are. And anytime, at any age that you have an extremely rigid sense of who you are, it causes a lot of suffering in your life.
Brooke Suchomel: 21:25
Yeah. And you don't get to see who you can become, you know, as your full self.
Kaykay Brady: 21:32
And everybody's sort of wanting to express that full self, and so they're very resentful that they can't express those parts, and they blame the sibling. Because they feel shut out, you know? Those parts of themselves have to be erased, because "oh, that's the sibling's space."
Brooke Suchomel: 21:47
Right. You know, as you're describing that, it does call to mind some of the things that we see in this book. Particularly, where Janine, at the end, talks about how nobody ever asks her to help.
Kaykay Brady: 21:59
Exactly, exactly.
Brooke Suchomel: 22:01
Claudia resents Janine for not helping out around the house. But Janine says, "Well, nobody ever asks me. If I go to offer to do something, it's immediately like, 'No, Janine has to go to school. She can't help out with Mimi. We're not going to ask her to make dinner, we're going to do it ourselves.'" And so not only are you placed into that box that you're in, but any sort of effort to try to step out, or even widen the box that you're in, is met with some sort of resistance. Because you've been placed in that specific box by the people in your life.
Kaykay Brady: 22:40
Yeah, very well put.
Brooke Suchomel: 22:43
So I found that there were a ton of plots in this book, too. I was trying to boil it down to three plots, and it was a little bit difficult, which is surprising, because I thought the last book was like, there was one plot.
Kaykay Brady: 22:56
Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 22:57
And now we're back to a more diverse book.
Kaykay Brady: 22:59
Yeah. I mean, I had like three plots going, basically.
Brooke Suchomel: 23:02
So what did you have for your A plot?
Kaykay Brady: 23:03
The A plot I said was, you know, the drama with Mimi. Mimi getting sick, Mimi having the stroke, and all of the ways that that kind of tweaks all the dynamics in the house.
Brooke Suchomel: 23:15
And how the family members individually attempt to cope with it, or not cope.
Kaykay Brady: 23:20
Exactly. And it was so sad to me, the way...I felt bad because when the Mimi plot is first unfolding, basically what happens is, Claudia and Janine are fighting. And then Mimi is just like, "I can't deal with this," and goes into her room. And I was like, "Yeah, go Mimi! What a great response," and then boom! She strokes out. And I was like, oh, I feel bad.
Brooke Suchomel: 23:44
Very much like Claudia.
Kaykay Brady: 23:46
Yeah, exactly.
Brooke Suchomel: 23:48
Blaming yourself, blaming your rooting on Mimi for peacing out of the situation for her stroke.
Kaykay Brady: 23:53
Yeah. And then I thought it was really great the way that this book does a fantastic job of showing how children experience sickness and death.
Brooke Suchomel: 24:05
Yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 24:06
It's very rich. And you know, you can really tell that Ann Martin knows children and knows their psychology because, for example, they go to the hospital after Mimi has the stroke and Claudia really kind of freezes up and gets extremely scared of Mimi in the hospital. You know, the way Mimi looks, the way Mimi sounds. And I think that's pretty realistic for a kid. Then also the way that -- is it Jamie that needs to go to the house to make sure Mimi's not there anymore?
Brooke Suchomel: 24:37
Yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 24:38
They tell Jamie, "Mimi's not at home. She's sick. She's at the hospital." And he can't really conceptualize it himself. Like, he has to go see that she's not there. And that also is very right on because kids are very tactile.
Brooke Suchomel: 24:51
Oh, totally.
Kaykay Brady: 24:52
You know, they're not cerebral yet. So that was a very cool part of the plot. And I bet if you were a child dealing with sickness and death, it would be really useful to be reading this book.
Brooke Suchomel: 25:05
Yeah, I thought that it was interesting how you see Claudia, since you're in her head as the narrator, you can see her narrating how she is sort of dealing with it, right? How she goes into Mimi's room for the first time, and it's just...all of the beeping of the machinery, and Mimi is just, like, staring up at the ceiling. And you know, the first time that you see someone you are so close to, and you see them where it's like, that person is not there, you see their body, but like the person itself doesn't seem to be there. It sort of shatters your conception, you know, of all of the connections in your life. And it's the first time that you really come to terms with, not just mortality, because it's one thing, I think, if it's like, well, someone's here, and then they're gone. Like if somebody dies of a heart attack or something like that. But when you see that this person is still alive, but they're not the same person that I knew, I think that that really transforms your relationship with the concept of life. They say right at the beginning of the book, Claudia is now 13. So she says how she's now a teenager. And I think I was 13 the first time that I saw my grandpa, who had colon cancer, we went and visited him in the hospital, and just the traumatic experience of seeing like my grandmother crying, and all of the people not in their normal roles that I was used to them playing, at that same age as, like, you are going through such a dramatic change in your own role. This will come up again, when I was trying to grapple with, what is it that they're fighting? And, you know, ultimately, I thought that it all came back to, first, fighting the familial roles that they've been cast in.
Kaykay Brady: 27:01
Yes.
Brooke Suchomel: 27:03
Particularly both Janine and Claudia. And then also the fact that those roles necessarily evolve with the passing of time.
Kaykay Brady: 27:12
Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 27:13
You know, you're not going to be the baby of the family forever. Or you're not going to be, as you see with Mimi, Mimi is really the homemaker.
Kaykay Brady: 27:23
Exactly, and then she loses that ability.
Brooke Suchomel: 27:26
Exactly. And so, aging, just the passing of time in general, you know, Mimi says three times in the last chapter, "Time is change." She says it three times. And that really calls back to the role that you play in your family and your friend dynamics, all of that is going to change as time passes.
Kaykay Brady: 27:48
Yeah. And also the way that the change is necessary and healthy, even though it's painful. Because you know, Mimi sort of moving on to that next stage of her life and death is also going to force the Kishi parents to step up. Because many times in the book, you know, the mom says, "What am I going to do without my mother?" Or there's some words about, Claudia's mom admits, "We've all gotten really used to Mimi taking care of us."
Brooke Suchomel: 28:19
Mm hmm.
Kaykay Brady: 28:20
So there's also that sense of Mimi sort of playing the parent role in this family. And you know, it's probably going to be healthy to move along so that the parents can fully step into that role. And that also makes change for Claudia and Janine. They're not gonna be able to stay in those rigid, polar opposite roles, either. Everybody's got to move, and everybody's got to change.
Brooke Suchomel: 28:47
Definitely. That's what I had down too as the tool that they're using to fight, really speaks to what you just said, was being flexible in their definition of these roles. "Flexible" comes up a couple of times too. It comes up at the very beginning, where they're describing what I had down as the B plot, which is how the Baby-sitters Club forms this drop-in part time unlicensed daycare.
Kaykay Brady: 29:11
Kid camp! Kid camp. "Unlicensed daycare!"
Brooke Suchomel: 29:17
It's what it is!
Kaykay Brady: 29:19
Oh shit, I mean, are we gonna talk about all the inappropriate age things? Oh man. Okay, so yes, we could talk about the unlicensed daycare, but also, Mary Anne playing a speech therapist and a nurse.
Brooke Suchomel: 29:31
Oh my God.
Kaykay Brady: 29:32
What the fuck?
Brooke Suchomel: 29:34
I know, I had that too. "Mary Anne as a speech therapist = Poor Kids." Mimi gets all frustrated. So this 12 year old girl, reading flashcards to the stroke patient, who just like storms off.
Kaykay Brady: 29:49
Yes. Anybody who hasn't read the book, basically what happens is they make Mary Anne babysit Mimi, who's just had a stroke and can't speak and is very frustrated. And they make Mary Anne go over the stroke cards with her, and I don't know, it's inappropriate. It's a recipe for disaster. They're both set up to fail. And I'm like, "Here we go again."
Brooke Suchomel: 30:09
And the only way that they end up getting through it is Mary Anne's like, "Fuck it. Let's watch Wheel of Fortune." Like, that's exactly what you should have done in the first place.
Kaykay Brady: 30:19
These kids are doing open heart surgery in the next book.
Brooke Suchomel: 30:24
Unlicensed. But yeah, it calls back how, you know, Janine is like, "Oh, so it's just like a drop-in daycare." So they're talking about that, and Janine gets very robotic. I thought her robot language is over the top where she asks about Kristy moving, quote, "How does your agency plan to function once your founder is residing in a different district?"
Kaykay Brady: 30:49
Yeah, her voice is funny. I'm not sure I buy it.
Brooke Suchomel: 30:53
Yeah, I don't quite buy it either. But Claudia talks about how basically, well, they're just going to be loose with it. And they fight about like, well, is it "flexible," or is it "loose," whatever, but it comes down to that flexibility is the key, in the definition of the roles that you play and then the ability for family members to kind of shift and move between them. So Claudia learning how to cook, Janine stepping in at the end as a caretaker for Mimi, even with the Jamie and Lucy thing, because I think that that is also the other main plot of the book, is the exploration of dueling sibling rivalries.
Kaykay Brady: 31:30
Exactly.
Brooke Suchomel: 31:31
You know, Jamie shifting from- he goes back and forth a lot. There are times where he's very affectionate with his sister, there are times when he really resents his sister. I thought that was really true, too, for a kid his age.
Kaykay Brady: 31:43
I totally agree. I thought that was really well done.
Brooke Suchomel: 31:46
So I think that that sort of flexibility and being willing to sort of step outside the role that you have traditionally played within your family dynamic, is really the key to dealing with, quote, "time is change," as Mimi says.
Kaykay Brady: 32:03
So true, beautifully said.
Brooke Suchomel: 32:06
So what did you think about the daycare? Let's talk more about the inappropriate...
Kaykay Brady: 32:11
First of all, I love that they have an intern training with them.
Brooke Suchomel: 32:14
Oh, yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 32:15
They're 12. They're like 12 and 13. So what does that make the intern, nine?
Brooke Suchomel: 32:19
I think Mallory is 11 now. But that's another thing for her, too, right? It's a very small thing, but at the beginning, you know, when they go around, and they go to the Pikes with the flyer, and Mallory comes to the door. And then she walks away when she realizes like, oh, it's for the little kids to come. And she's too old to be a little kid, but she's not old enough to be in charge. And that is really difficult time to figure out where you stand in things.
Kaykay Brady: 32:54
Yeah, and that's a real time of change that is extremely painful.
Brooke Suchomel: 32:58
Yeah. So I think Ann M. Martin did a good job with, like, it's not just Mimi, and it's not just the Kishi family that is in this sort of liminal state.
Kaykay Brady: 33:11
Everybody is.
Brooke Suchomel: 33:12
A lot of different characters in this book, yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 33:14
Except for Jenny Prezzioso. What the fuck is with this kid? So we talked about Prezzioso in the past. She's just this weird non child that dresses --
Brooke Suchomel: 33:28
"Non child," I like that.
Kaykay Brady: 33:29
-- that dresses in really fancy clothes and is just a brat, basically.
Brooke Suchomel: 33:35
She's kind of like if Chucky were a porcelain doll.
Kaykay Brady: 33:40
Kind of like Bride of Chucky cleaned up. Is that what you're saying?
Brooke Suchomel: 33:46
Right, right. A young Bride of Chucky. Yeah, I think it is, again, going back to, it's a child who was brought into this world to be an object.
Kaykay Brady: 33:58
To be an ornament.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:00
Right. And so then if this child is not allowed to do normal, childlike things, that's when you get a non child, I guess.
Kaykay Brady: 34:11
Yeah, she is a non child. Janine is kind of a non child too.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:16
Yeah. I like how the playgroup snack was canned juice and saltines. I just had to make a note of that. It's like, "That's what $3 a day gets ya. Canned juice and saltines in the backyard."
Kaykay Brady: 34:27
As the 80s goes, that's about as healthy as it gets, you know? And our younger listeners need to know, they didn't hydrate you in the 80s. It was just like, "You're having heat stroke? Too bad, so sad. You'll get a juice box at lunch, my friend. And, you know, you can run around with your beet red face until then." We didn't hydrate.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:51
It is kind of interesting, though, that Jenny Prezzioso and Janine seem to have similar challenges connecting with their peers.
Kaykay Brady: 34:58
That's true.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:58
There is another sort of mirror there. Janine, it seems, you know, is on the spectrum, and so there s that going on. And then Jenny is just, she's been raised to be a bit of a monster. I thought it was interesting that Karen Brewer, who is an absolute savage. She's savage.
Kaykay Brady: 35:20
We need a T-shirt. "Karen Brewer, Savage."
Brooke Suchomel: 35:25
Savage. How she sees Jenny, immediately sizes her up that she doesn't like her.
Kaykay Brady: 35:32
Oh, I was gonna ask you if you had any kids like that in your life.
Brooke Suchomel: 35:38
What, just size up that I didn't like this person?
Kaykay Brady: 35:40
There was a moment where they see each other, and they just, like, immediately don't like each other.
Brooke Suchomel: 35:46
Oh God yes.
Kaykay Brady: 35:47
Yeah?
Brooke Suchomel: 35:47
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I still do, to this day, size people up pretty much immediately. Like, "Ehh, I don't like that one."
Kaykay Brady: 35:53
But I interrupted you. Keep going. Keep going.
Brooke Suchomel: 35:55
No, no. But how she is just- Jenny is on her nerves. And so she's just like, casually as she walks away, "Watch out for the monster." Just ice cold. And she's referring to her own brother.
Kaykay Brady: 36:11
She's working. She's working it.
Brooke Suchomel: 36:13
She's savage in multiple directions. I'm telling you, watch out for Karen.
Kaykay Brady: 36:18
I'm hearing a lot of respect for Karen Brewer in your voice.
Brooke Suchomel: 36:22
Yeah, I mean, not respect for the fact that she is absolutely into Q. But as a child, I like that she's working the system in a way that benefits her.
Kaykay Brady: 36:34
These are high-level mind games. It's very impressive.
Brooke Suchomel: 36:37
Really, and she's, like, six. Which is...yeah, watch out for that one, for sure.
Kaykay Brady: 36:44
I love it.
Brooke Suchomel: 36:45
With the daycare, too, I love how the kids traumatized a dog into a bath.
Kaykay Brady: 36:51
Oh yeah, shit, I forgot that was in this book.
Brooke Suchomel: 36:53
Ugh, more of the poor dog trauma.
Kaykay Brady: 36:55
I was gonna say, you know, they're cruising for a bite. Good lord. I mean, we're both total dog lovers. And all I could think when reading this book was, this is when a dog attacks. It's basically, what, like 15 kids? 14 kids? Chasing this dog around the yard, cornering this dog, and forcing it into a tub.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:15
Literally throwing it into a tub, and then afterwards, painting its nails. Braiding its fur. I mean...
Kaykay Brady: 37:23
The 80s dog abuse continues in this series.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:27
God, poor dogs. We don't deserve them.
Kaykay Brady: 37:30
You had to be a really good dog to make it in the 80s.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:34
Survival of the fittest. That's why dogs today are just...actually, maybe dogs were assholes back in the 80s? Only the best ones survived.
Kaykay Brady: 37:42
Well, yes. I'm saying, you know, there's so many dogs that would have been in that circumstance and then would have been immediately put down.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:49
Right.
Kaykay Brady: 37:49
So basically, only only the friendliest of the friendlies could possibly survive that.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:54
Mm hmm.
Kaykay Brady: 37:55
Yeah, that's really all I had on kid camp. But I did have another- I don't think this was in kid camp, but in the sibling rivalry, I love how Nancy Drew is considered trash.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:07
It makes no sense.
Kaykay Brady: 38:08
And it's not in the library. What are they talking about?
Brooke Suchomel: 38:11
It's like Nancy Drew as banned literature. It's like Nancy Drew is friggin' like Anais Nin or something like that. God forbid anyone read Nancy Drew. Her mom is a librarian and goes so far as to not stock Nancy Drews in the library.
Kaykay Brady: 38:30
Yeah, nonsense.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:32
I don't remember Nancy Drew being controversial in any way.
Kaykay Brady: 38:34
No.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:35
It's like the only thing that they want Claudia to do is read, like, physics textbooks.
Kaykay Brady: 38:38
Well, this is what I thought. Maybe this is kind of like Ann M. Martin's childhood or something, where, you know, maybe she had a really strict parent and Nancy Drew was considered racy or not academic enough or something. I guess I could see that in super patrician blue blood families on the East Coast, where you're like, that's trash, you know, read Homer's Odyssey. I could see that.
Brooke Suchomel: 39:05
I mean, that's a great way to make sure that you raise a child that hates reading. It's a good way to make sure you raise an illiterate child.
Kaykay Brady: 39:14
Exactly.
Brooke Suchomel: 39:15
Yeah, that part is a little odd to me, and it makes me want to do a little bit more research to find out what the deal is with Nancy Drew, because these books reference children's literature constantly. There are so many books referenced, and so it's clearly coming from a place where Ann M. Martin obviously loves to read. She's writing these books in a world where everyone loves to read. What is it about Nancy Drew specifically? I don't know. And how the fact that poor Claudia has to stash it away with her junk food.
Kaykay Brady: 39:46
Crazy.
Brooke Suchomel: 39:47
It's like, way to make your child feel guilty about the most innocuous things. You're giving that kid a serious complex for no reason.
Kaykay Brady: 39:58
Yeah, I wondered...for a second I was like, maybe it's supposed to be cultural? I don't know. I really couldn't come up with anything.
Brooke Suchomel: 40:06
They don't care that she's got a Guinness Book of World Records.
Kaykay Brady: 40:09
Right.
Brooke Suchomel: 40:09
So it's not like, you know, it's all highfalutin' literature.
Kaykay Brady: 40:13
Oh, and you know, Claudia is definitely cruising for a drug problem with her stash spots and her art scene attitude and her banned books. I don't know, I just see Claudia in New York City in 15 years with a heroin problem.
Brooke Suchomel: 40:31
Well, as she says on page eight, "Stacey's from New York, where it's okay to be wild."
Kaykay Brady: 40:38
That's right.
Brooke Suchomel: 40:39
"I don't think anyone from New York could ever be blah."
Kaykay Brady: 40:45
That's where you're wrong.
Brooke Suchomel: 40:46
Do you agree with that Kaykay? I can think of some really blah people from New York. Like, real blah.
Kaykay Brady: 40:52
Well, but New York City...
Brooke Suchomel: 40:53
Like, have they met Bill de Blasio?!
Kaykay Brady: 40:55
He's tall and boring. But he is married to a lesbian. Which, I don't know, that kind of is not blah.
Brooke Suchomel: 41:02
Well, that's the New York in him then, I guess. That is his "It's okay to be wild."
Kaykay Brady: 41:07
I don't know. There is always something inherently interesting and funny about New Yorkers to me, but I don't know, that's probably just because I'm from New York and they crack me up. I remember moving to California and just...I miss, like, New York white people. 'Cause New York white people are Irish, they're Italian, you know, they have some form of, like, white ethnicity. And when I moved to California, and I was like, what's with the white people here? Like they're all named "Jessica Smith."
Brooke Suchomel: 41:26
"Dawn."
Kaykay Brady: 41:38
"Dawn." They eat nutritional yeast. They're really fucking boring. But I remember going back home after a few years living in California, and I was on the plane, and there's this guy sitting next to me. And he's just talking and he's like, "Yeah, so my wife, she gets this little dog, and I didn't want a little dog. I wanted a huge pit bull or something, but she gets this little dog, and I fucking love that thing! It's like, fuckin' whaddya call it, a schnoodle." Anyway.
Brooke Suchomel: 42:09
New Yorkers are delightful.
Kaykay Brady: 42:11
So like, that is a boring New Yorker. That's like a ho hum New Yorker.
Brooke Suchomel: 42:16
Right.
Kaykay Brady: 42:17
And that's so fucking funny and interesting.
Brooke Suchomel: 42:19
Yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 42:19
But I don't know, I'm from New York, so of course that guy crawls right into my heart and I'm dying. But who knows? Somebody else could be like, "That guy's boring." I don't know.
Brooke Suchomel: 42:30
So maybe you stand by it.
Kaykay Brady: 42:31
I guess!
Brooke Suchomel: 42:31
That nobody from New York could ever be blah.
Kaykay Brady: 42:34
I mean, I'm really processing this live, so I'm moving through it. Okay. I think if you were sort of an Upper East Side wealthy New Yorker in the 80s you may be blah.
Brooke Suchomel: 42:48
Yeah, I think Stacey's mom is blah.
Kaykay Brady: 42:50
Right. So it's possible, right? But I think to me, it's very, where do you lie socioeconomically? Because, I don't know, working class New Yorkers are fucking hilarious.
Brooke Suchomel: 43:01
It's true.
Kaykay Brady: 43:01
I mean, I can sit and listen to them read the fucking phone book. I mean, they're great.
Brooke Suchomel: 43:06
One of my favorite moments in all of my work travels, I'm pretty sure I texted this to you as soon as it happened, I was staying at the DoubleTree on Staten Island.
Kaykay Brady: 43:14
Oh God, you and the trash. That's where they put the trash, Brooke!
Brooke Suchomel: 43:20
So, DoubleTree on Staten Island, getting my continental breakfast in the morning. And I don't know what was going on with the people behind me, it was like a whole rowdy crew of, you know, they had like the full-on accent, which I won't besmirch New Yorkers by attempting to impersonate, and this guy just said, "So I took half a Viagra and I walked down Second Avenue in sweatpants." I had to text you immediately. I was like, this is maybe my favorite work breakfast moment.
Kaykay Brady: 43:55
Okay. Okay. Here's what I really think. They buried the lede of this book. The lede being, the Pikes go down to the Jersey Shore, and they're gonna bring Mary Anne and Stacey with them.
Brooke Suchomel: 44:12
Well, they didn't bury the lede, they're leading you into the next book.
Kaykay Brady: 44:15
Shut your mouth! Okay, so I was so excited. I thought they were just gonna dangle that and leave it.
Brooke Suchomel: 44:21
No no no no no.
Kaykay Brady: 44:22
We get to go to the Jersey Shore?!
Brooke Suchomel: 44:24
Oh yes you do. Sea City, here we come, next
Kaykay Brady: 44:28
Oh my God, I'm so excited. I was like, you know, we need a whole book series that is like a Jersey Shore Baby-sitters Club offshoot, and there's like a Carmela. They befriend somebody, her name's Carmela. There's a Vinny, there's gotta be a Vinny.
Brooke Suchomel: 44:49
Oh, man. I mean, I have zero Jersey Shore experience.
Kaykay Brady: 44:53
What?!
Brooke Suchomel: 44:53
And so I'm gonna be real excited for your take on this book.
Kaykay Brady: 44:56
I'm so excited to share that with you because we were trashy Irish people, we either went to the Irish Alps, if we could afford it...
Brooke Suchomel: 45:06
Which is?
Kaykay Brady: 45:06
The Catskills.
Brooke Suchomel: 45:07
Okay.
Kaykay Brady: 45:08
They used to call it the Irish Alps. There used to be these camps you could go to, it's kind of like Dirty Dancing, but we went to the Irish version. And it was just, like, a lot of step dancing and, you know, lawn darts.
Brooke Suchomel: 45:21
Did you step dance?
Kaykay Brady: 45:22
I was forced to step dance.
Brooke Suchomel: 45:25
That was the role that you were cast in for your family? You were the dancer.
Kaykay Brady: 45:30
We all had to dance. It was sad. And then there was also a beauty contest, which I would not participate in, because it was just, like, poor girls having to parade around in their bikinis in front of grown men.
Brooke Suchomel: 45:42
Like how old?
Kaykay Brady: 45:43
Like 12.
Brooke Suchomel: 45:44
No!
Kaykay Brady: 45:45
I'm telling you, we need to have my sister on as a special guest because she did participate in the beauty contest.
Brooke Suchomel: 45:51
She did it?!
Kaykay Brady: 45:51
And she is, like, scarred to this day. Anyway...
Brooke Suchomel: 45:54
That's not okay.
Kaykay Brady: 45:55
We either went to the Irish Alps when we were rich, which was not often, or we went down the shore and like, played miniature golf and got sunburned for a week.
Brooke Suchomel: 46:06
Yeah. I think the Jersey Shore equivalent, at least where I'm from, in Iowa is the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri, which they call the Redneck Riviera. And they, like, embrace that term. So yeah, you go to a big manmade lake, and you stay in basically a motel on the lake, and everybody goes into the dam area and goes to tacky touristy T-shirt shops and gets fudge and stuff like that.
Kaykay Brady: 46:34
Salt water taffy? Oh wait, I guess not salt water...
Brooke Suchomel: 46:36
No no, yeah, they do taffy there. Yeah, definitely. Get taffy at Ozarkland, and then -- that's what it's called -- and then you go kart racing. And I always wanted to go, they had what was called, like, Hillbilly Town.
Kaykay Brady: 46:51
Oh, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 46:52
Hillbilly Town or Hillbilly Land. It was like a permanent carnival that was just set up in. like, an old Kmart parking lot.
Kaykay Brady: 46:59
Wow.
Brooke Suchomel: 47:00
Yeah. I don't think we ever went to it, but I remember getting, like, the little flyers and I always thought that that sounded so cool.
Kaykay Brady: 47:06
So like, there were rides and stuff?
Brooke Suchomel: 47:09
Well, yeah, like carnie stuff.
Kaykay Brady: 47:10
I was gonna say, I mean, how extensive could it be in a Kmart parking lot?
Brooke Suchomel: 47:14
Yeah, not very.
Kaykay Brady: 47:15
All right. So you have some Jersey Shore-like experience.
Brooke Suchomel: 47:20
There's probably a lot of similarities. The demographics would be very different.
Kaykay Brady: 47:24
Yeah, basically, there wouldn't be Italians.
Brooke Suchomel: 47:26
Like, there was no Vinny and Carmela. Yeah. Yeah, I would have loved a Vinny or Carmela. No, it's more like, you know, like a Jim Bob and Pat.
Kaykay Brady: 47:34
Oh my God, I'm so excited.
Brooke Suchomel: 47:36
So yeah, the next book is going to be, I think we're gonna have a lot of fun things to discuss.
Kaykay Brady: 47:42
It's gonna be so lit.
Brooke Suchomel: 47:43
Before that though, what was your most 80s moment in this book?
Kaykay Brady: 47:47
Well, Trivial Pursuit.
Brooke Suchomel: 47:48
Yep.
Kaykay Brady: 47:49
Ding ding ding.
Brooke Suchomel: 47:50
Aka The Trivia Game. Clearly they couldn't get clearance to say "Trivial Pursuit."
Kaykay Brady: 47:55
Well, they do that everywhere, right? Like, they couldn't say Ocean City, New Jersey. So what did they call it? Sand...Sea City?
Brooke Suchomel: 48:03
Sea City, yep.
Kaykay Brady: 48:03
And like, you know, they never say actual towns in Connecticut.
Brooke Suchomel: 48:07
Except for Stamford.
Kaykay Brady: 48:08
Right, yeah, exactly. I was thinking the same thing. Why is Stamford the one town that they actually...
Brooke Suchomel: 48:13
Ann M. Martin had an in with the Chamber of Commerce, I don't know.
Kaykay Brady: 48:17
She's wheeling and dealing on the inside.
Brooke Suchomel: 48:18
It's all promotional assistance for Stamford Connecticut.
Kaykay Brady: 48:20
Damn. Yeah, so I don't know. We were not fancy enough to be doing Trivial Pursuit. You know, obviously I liked Trivial Pursuit when I go older. But, you know...
Brooke Suchomel: 48:20
It's like all I did.
Kaykay Brady: 48:23
Well, I was gonna say, you know, listeners do not know this, but Brooke is like a trivia titan. Like, don't step to Brooke for a second on trivia. She will slay you.
Brooke Suchomel: 48:49
Here's the thing, though. This is space in my brain that could be used for more lucrative endeavors.
Kaykay Brady: 48:56
Well, better- you know, it's like, I can still remember the Molly McButter ad.
Brooke Suchomel: 49:01
Oh yeah!
Kaykay Brady: 49:02
That's sitting in there, and like...
Brooke Suchomel: 49:04
Do you want to sing it? "Molly McButter. Molly McButter."
Kaykay Brady: 49:09
So what I'm saying is, you not only have the trivia stuff living in there, you also have Molly McButter. All I have is Molly McButter.
Brooke Suchomel: 49:18
No, you've got like every quote that's ever been said in any movie of all time.
Kaykay Brady: 49:25
That's true. Song lyrics...yeah. So I'm just saying, don't shortchange your brain because I find it very impressive.
Brooke Suchomel: 49:30
Well, I felt a little bit attacked in this book when Claudia says of Janine, quote, "What did she do, memorize all 5000 game questions?" And...I did that.
Kaykay Brady: 49:42
Yeah?
Brooke Suchomel: 49:44
I literally, when my mom would go run errands or stuff, I would take a box of Trivial Pursuit cards with me and just read them in the car. But here's the problem -- a lot of my trivia knowledge is based in the 1980s, so I've got a lot of answers were they're no longer applicable. You could ask me these questions, I would give you the wrong answer, because the USSR does not exist anymore.
Kaykay Brady: 50:07
Right.
Brooke Suchomel: 50:08
You know what I mean? So it was very...Trivial Pursuit was very much of a time and place. Like, there is something very, very 80s about that focus on trivia. Again, I thought it was interesting that both Trivial Pursuit and the Guinness Book of World Records were mentioned, like, at the same time in the same scene, because those two things had a moment in the 80s.
Kaykay Brady: 50:29
They did, they did.
Brooke Suchomel: 50:31
Did you read the Guinness Book of World Records? Like, would you get into that when it would come out?
Kaykay Brady: 50:35
My neighbors were really into it. I never had it. I never read it. But I was aware that a lot of the boys that I hung out with were obsessed with it. You?
Brooke Suchomel: 50:45
Oh God yes. It was like the book in the library that everybody would want to check out.
Kaykay Brady: 50:49
So interesting. It really makes me think, what would you be like, if instead of a pack of Trivial Pursuit cards and a Guinness Book of World Records book, you had a phone?
Brooke Suchomel: 51:01
Oh, I would be a different person.
Kaykay Brady: 51:03
And that makes me kind of sad.
Brooke Suchomel: 51:05
Right. Well, that's why I always keep going back, we've said this in several episodes, like, thank God we didn't have a lot of these devices, because it made you have to be resourceful in other ways. And it made you end up discovering interests that, with social media in particular, it figures out what like your top three interests are.
Kaykay Brady: 51:27
Yeah, it delivers it on a platter.
Brooke Suchomel: 51:27
It just keeps on feeding you that, and so you just keep on going down this hole of specialization. Whereas if you just have to make your own fun with the resources that are available to you at any given moment, you end up discovering things that you otherwise didn't know you liked.
Kaykay Brady: 51:36
Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 51:38
So...but like, I don't know what it was, something about reading like, "Oh, who does have the longest fingernails in the world?"
Kaykay Brady: 51:57
I remember that picture.
Brooke Suchomel: 51:59
That picture where they're all curled up underneath?
Kaykay Brady: 52:00
That picture where they're all curled up and yellow?
Brooke Suchomel: 52:02
Yes!
Kaykay Brady: 52:02
I remember that picture. I was so horrified.
Brooke Suchomel: 52:04
Oh yeah. That, and then the tallest man.
Kaykay Brady: 52:08
Yeah, I remember that too.
Brooke Suchomel: 52:08
They had the picture with like the tallest man...
Kaykay Brady: 52:10
And the shortest man.
Brooke Suchomel: 52:11
...and the shortest, standing together. Like, there are these sort of foundational things that you see when you're a kid. And I think every 80s kid remembers those two pictures.
Kaykay Brady: 52:21
That's so funny.
Brooke Suchomel: 52:21
Like, if they have ever seen a Guinness Book of World Records, those are the two pictures that I think stick with everybody. I'll have to put that up. I'll have to post those pictures.
Kaykay Brady: 52:28
No wonder we're friends.
Brooke Suchomel: 52:32
Our shared love of long, curly yellow fingernails. That's what Cardi B needs to do. Cardi B is known for her nails. Cardi B, just give it a moment. Just pay homage to the champion of fingernails, which is that picture in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Kaykay Brady: 52:50
Yeah. I can also see her doing a sort of carnival theme music video.
Brooke Suchomel: 52:54
Yeah, because that's what the Guinness Book of World Records was. Is it was basically like the sideshow from the old traveling carnivals, in book form.
Kaykay Brady: 53:02
Yeah, they're like, "Let's repackage this for a new generation."
Brooke Suchomel: 53:06
Right. Don't have to actually shuttle people around on train cars.
Kaykay Brady: 53:12
Yeah, we didn't have carnivals, we had Tiffany at the mall.
Brooke Suchomel: 53:15
If only.
Kaykay Brady: 53:16
That was like the new carnival.
Brooke Suchomel: 53:17
Oh man. Yeah, I wrote down the Trivial Pursuit and Guinness Book of World Records, and then I also really felt my heart get very warm with the description of the decorations that were done for Lucy Newton's christening party.
Kaykay Brady: 53:34
Oh yeah, like the custom match books or something?
Brooke Suchomel: 53:36
Well, and the balloons and crepe paper. Like, to me, crepe paper is so 80s.
Kaykay Brady: 53:43
What is crepe paper?
Brooke Suchomel: 53:45
Oh, shit! So it's like a roll of paper that is kind of a little bit wrinkly.
Kaykay Brady: 53:50
Oh yeah, okay. You twist it.
Brooke Suchomel: 53:51
And then you stretch it out, and you twist it. Yeah, and then you like tape it up. And you make it into these, like, arches that kind of drooped down and then we would always, for my birthday -- I remember my birthday party, I'd get really excited because you would hang up the crepe paper and then you would tape balloons to it?
Kaykay Brady: 54:09
Yeah, of course,
Brooke Suchomel: 54:10
Like, at the intersections. And then you would have the crepe paper taped at the top of the door so that you would have to walk through the crepe paper. It was almost like a beaded curtain.
Kaykay Brady: 54:21
Mm hmm.
Brooke Suchomel: 54:21
But like, in the best way, you know?
Kaykay Brady: 54:23
Yeah, I can really see you loving that. We have a running list.
Brooke Suchomel: 54:25
I absolutely loved it. I can tell you, like, the specific shade of pale pink crepe paper that they would have used for this, you know, exactly what it is. At the party where in the Baby-sitters Club served as cater waiters. Like, these poor kids. These kids are like —
Kaykay Brady: 54:33
We have a running list.
Brooke Suchomel: 54:25
-- in the town, any odd job, just throw it to the Baby-sitters Club. These 12, 13 year old girls, whatever you need done, they'll do it, for like a buck an hour.
Kaykay Brady: 54:49
Well, here's how you know they were upper class, because they're not making drinks for the adults, which is what I was doing in the 80s. Whoo.
Brooke Suchomel: 54:56
How old were you?
Kaykay Brady: 54:56
I could make a Manhattan at five. Like, get my cigarettes and make me a drink. I mean, that was my primary function until I was probably 10 was just getting adults cigarettes.
Brooke Suchomel: 55:09
So like, you aged out of it?
Kaykay Brady: 55:11
Well yeah! Well then I started drinking myself. I was like, "I'm not giving this to you. This is my White Russian."
Brooke Suchomel: 55:21
Since they taught you before you're even in kindergarten what the proper ratio is of vermouth to whiskey or whatever.
Kaykay Brady: 55:27
Anyway, so as soon as they hit bartenders, I'll be happy. Once they check off bartending.
Brooke Suchomel: 55:33
Totally. So yeah, there was that, and then when they describe the joy of watching a Polaroid develop.
Kaykay Brady: 55:38
Yeah, they spent a long time doing that.
Brooke Suchomel: 55:41
Yeah, and it really...just the way, like, it's one sentence, but, "It was fun to watch each print change from a brownish blank to a clear color photo." And you'd kind of blow on it sometimes and fan it to see it develop faster.
Kaykay Brady: 55:54
"Shake it like a Polaroid picture!"
Brooke Suchomel: 55:56
Yeah! So next we get to travel to Sea City as promised. As it says at the closing lines of the book, "'But I have this funny feeling,' Stacey went on, 'that pretty soon you and I are going to be getting ready for surf, sun, and fun!' 'Yeah,' said Mary Anne enthusiastically, 'Sea City, here we come!'"
Kaykay Brady: 56:17
Oh no!
Brooke Suchomel: 56:22
So I am looking forward --
Kaykay Brady: 56:23
Oh yes.
Brooke Suchomel: 56:24
-- to traveling to the Jersey Shore with you on our next episode, Kaykay.
Kaykay Brady: 56:28
It's a dream come true. I'm so excited. I hope baby Tony's coming!
Brooke Suchomel: 56:35
Baby Tony absolutely lives at the Jersey Shore. Where else? Baby Tony has to live in New Jersey. Isn't that where all baby Tonys live?
Kaykay Brady: 56:44
Yes, and baby Dominics. I met a guy in California a few months ago and his name was Dominic, and I was like, "Wow, I've never met a Dominic in California." He's like, "I'm from New Jersey." So there you go.
Brooke Suchomel: 56:59
Like, "I'm from New Jersey, as are all of my fellow Dominics." So you'll have to tell me next episode if the names that are used in book eight, Boy-Crazy Stacey, are accurate for the place and time.
Kaykay Brady: 57:11
I certainly will.
Brooke Suchomel: 57:13
So until then...
Kaykay Brady: 57:14
Just keep sittin'. [THEME SONG] I'm a celebrity! Get me outta here!
