Remember, Remember, Remember, Remember

I recently heard the theme from Fame on the radio, and quite unexpectedly, I was flung back about 25 years. Fame was a 1980 film before it was adapted for the telly in ’82. I don’t remember much about the movie, except the Oscar-winning song and that it was about high school performing arts students, but I absolutely loved the TV show. I’ve probably seen every episode, though it’s been about 20 years since I’ve watched it. But isn’t it strange how TV memories work their way into your subconscious mind and it turns out there’s all this space in your long term memory for an old Wrigley Spearmint gum jingle or the ad for the Pizza Party board game (bunch of fat guys with giant 'staches singing "Par-ty, Pizza Par-ty")? Well, that’s how it is for my brain when it comes to “Fame”. In fact, “Fame” may have been the most important television show of my childhood, and considering that I spent a good 15-20% of my youth in front of a TV set, that equals a pretty heavy influence.

Very often, I think about some random aspect of the show as it connects to my everyday life and I’m amazed that it should resonate that deeply after all these years. For instance, “Fame” was my introduction to anorexia. Remember when Holly the ballerina became obsessed with weight loss and stopped eating and then she went to the psych ward for anorexic chicks and befriended this other girl who taught her how to be bulimic and then that girl died and Holly “saw the light” and decided to eat breakfast and got to go to prom where her AC Slater-looking boyfriend serenaded her with Lionel Richie’s “Hello”? Well, shit, I remember and what’s more, for my whole life, every time I hear someone mention anorexia, I automatically think Holly/psych ward/dead girl/weird boyfriend with big greasy hair.

As an aside, I find it interesting that Cynthia Gibb, the actress who played Holly, also played the starring role in the made-for-TV movie, “The Karen Carpenter Story”. In an industry where most women could qualify as anorexic, how did she get typecast?

Anyway, I think the reason I loved “Fame” so much is that I wanted it to be my life. I wanted to go to the school where there were plausible outbreaks of song and dance in the hallways. I wanted to learn ballet from Clair Huxtable’s sister (Debbie Allen) and play the cello with the girl from Footloose (Lori Singer). If I could have been anyone on the show, I would have been Nia Peeples’s Nicole, because she had cool hair and was adopted, which struck me as sort of exotic. I last remember Nia Peeples hosting “Party Machine,” a late night dance show that followed Arsenio Hall. And just like Arsenio, I haven’t heard much of her since then.

But getting back to “Fame,” one of the things that made it really cool and more than just a teenybopper musical was the fact that it took place in New York in the ‘80’s, and boy, was it skanky. The neighborhood was rough, drugs and crime were everywhere, racial tensions were high. But against this dirty backdrop – which seemed to include a lot of grungy sets and costumes, as if, in my sister’s words, the show had been shot through a haze of Murphy’s Oil Soap – these kids worked their asses off pursuing artistic dreams. My young mind found that pretty fucking poetic.

One thing that really confused my young mind was when I would tune in for a new episode and instead, there would be one of those “The Kids from Fame” concerts. Apparently the actors went on tour, singing and dancing the show’s most beloved numbers. I felt a little cheated when that came on, though I always enjoyed it. Still, I found it disconcerting that, even though the actors were essentially singing and dancing in character, they were announced by their real names. When I would watch the next episode a week later, I found it very difficult to suspend disbelief because I had just seen the actors performing as themselves and now I was supposed to believe that Nia was Nicole and Janet Jackson was Cleo.

Speaking of Janet (Miss Jackson, if you’re nasty), this was her last TV role before she became a musicale superstar. Not only was she “Fame’s” Cleo, she was also Charlene (a.k.a. Willis’s girlfriend) from "Diff'rent Strokes" and Penny from "Good Times". Who can forget Penny, the little girl whose mother beat her with a hot iron? That “Good Times” wins second place for Most Fucked Up Sitcom Episode Ever*, and certainly many of us thought that Janet would be hard-pressed (ha ha) to surpass that performance. By the age of eighteen, she was a veteran sitcom actress and maybe no one expected her to be more than that chick from TV who is also Michael Jackson’s sister. And now, the emergence of her very boob is enough to send middle-America into hysterics. Who knew?

I guess that watching Janet rise to such stardom was like seeing the “Fame” dream come true. And I suppose that being famous was very appealing to me as a child. Now, I tend to think that being famous is mostly a pain in the ass, but I love the idea of being able to live and breathe your artistic pursuit. And I can’t think of any other television show that so impressed me with that notion. Not even Star Search.

*The first place winner is the “Diff’rent Strokes” when the boss of WKRP tries to drug and molest Arnold and Dudley.