Saturday, February 23, 2013

The Funny Stuff: Raising Hope(2/19)



Ahhh, this episode was great!!  Tons of laughs, and lots of puns, plus class difference between the Chances and Sabrina without feeling shoehorned.  Lets jump right in.

It’s Arbor Day, and the Chances are getting ready to celebrate it with Hope for the first time.  Sabrina is very excited to learn they celebrate Arbor Day, and Virginia delves into all the holidays they celebrate:

-Presidents Day, which included a shower of chocolate coins, special food, and their favorite show, Beverly Hills 90210
-Groundhogs Day, where they dug holes and filled them with treats, had special food, and watched their favorite show, Beverly Hills 90210
-And finally, Arbor Day, where they got baby trees and hung treats all over them, and Papa Woody came to visit, finishing with special food and Beverly Hills 90210

Sabrina is fully in for the fun tradition, until she finds out that the Chances dug up the trees from a park for the Arbor Day tradition, and then burned them on Chinese New Year, when they were good and dry.  She is NOT impressed with this, seeing as she was the one who planted those trees for Arbor Day in the first place.  Sabrina doesn’t want Hope celebrating this tradition, and forbids Jimmy from letting her.

Sabrina shows Hope her meaning of Arbor Day, including tree planting, leaf rubbing, and edutanment video watching.  That night, thought…

Sabrina was visited by the ghost of Arbor Day!  AKA Luke Perry, and it is awesome.

They visit the past, and he shows Sabrina that Virginia and Burt used the lesser holiday traditions to make up for the fact that they couldn’t give Jimmy all the awesome stuff for Christmas, but could give him the best Presidents/Arbor/Groundhog Day ever.  Sabrina is chastised, and the move on to…

The present has a bummed out Burt and Virginia, missing a kid to celebrate Arbor Day with.  Jimmy is a sad sack too, reading an Arbor Day story to Hope, but reminding her it’s only a story, and that she won’t really wake up to things growing on trees.  Sabrina is chastised again, and they move on to…

The future, where Hope is a teenager, and has all sorts of toys.  But Jimmy is bald and stressed, Sabrina is wrinkled and stressed, and Hope just wants to spend time with her overworked parents, who don’t have time to spend time with her.  *tear*  Sabrina is dually chastised, and we head out of dream land.

Sabrina doesn’t want to end up like that, so she races to the park to pull up saplings for Hope to celebrate Arbor Day, and totally gets arrested.  Whoops.  It’s okay, though, cause Jimmy got a tree for Hope, but instead of letting it dry out, they planted it like Sabrina wanted.  Aww.

This episode literally had me rolling practically the entire time.  So. Many. Puns.  I almost couldn’t handle it.  I also liked the combined traditions story, even if it is bordering on TV Trope status.  And Hope?  Is freaking adorable.  “TWEE!”

I got several funny lines for you, too:

Virginia, when Maw Maw pulled out a Votes for Women banner: “That’s for Susan Banthony’s birthday!”
Jimmy, explaining Arbor Day’s mascot: “Papa Woody—the famous spirit of the forest who pitches his tent deep in the bush!”
Virginia, naming President’s Day’s special food: “LBJ sandwiches.”
Virgina, naming Groundhog Day’s special food: “6 more weeks of wieners.”
Burt as Papa Woody, after Jimmy makes a wish: “and I’m sure he wishes you were good at throwing footballs, or chewing with your mouth closed!”
Luke Perry as Papa Woody:

No comments:

Post a Comment