Eerie, Indiana rewatch 2015: episode one, Foreverware

[froodle]

Rock out your fifties hairstyles, make sure your lids are sealed tight, and enjoy vacuum-fresh food, because the 2015 Eerie Indiana rewatch kicks off tonight with the pilot episode that made half of us afraid of packed lunches... ladies and gentlemen, fire up your DVD players, and let's watch: Foreverware!

Comments

[froodle]

Love the opening to the pilot episode - the dramatic music as Mars goes up tothesecret spot and opens the evidence locker, and then it cuts to the lighter faster-paced upbeat stuff as he goes out and about in Eerie on his paper route.

[froodle]

and then it shows the lawnmower dudes and the gun-toting mailman and it's all, chords! chords! have some dramatic chords! and then the theme tune we hear every episode starts up.

[froodle]

Marilyn takes a bite of the strawberry, makes a face, tells Mars not to eat them... and then puts the half-eaten strawberry back in the fridge!

[froodle]

Jesus, check out Betty Wilson's look of pure rage when Mars is playing with one of the Foreverware tubs, and again when Edgar walks in yelling about leftover stuffing. Police your facial expressions, you crazy bitch! Nobody wants to buy from a judgey judger.

[froodle]

Oh my God, Simon's introductary scene: "I let him hang out because his parents don't seem to want him around." It's dropped in so casually, but it's so horrible when you stop to think about it. He's Marshall's best friend, and even his best friend's go-to description is, "oh yeah, his parents are awful and hate him..." Eesh.

[froodle]

This is my first time watching Eerie on a new TV, and I've never noticed before that Betty Wilson's car has bumper stickers saying "ask me about self-preservation."

Likewise, it's the first time I've been able to read the stickers on the twin's Foreverware beds - love that they actually have the "press to close" stickers in the corner, and that apprently Walt Wilson thought someone would have a dishwasher big enough to load a "people keeper" into.

Also, I really want a Foreverware button now.

[froodle]

The marketing department for the DVDs definitely missed a trick not releasing a collectors edition box set where the case was a Foreverware tub. Maybe we'll get it when the series comes to blu-ray?

[froodle]

If Marilyn had been successfully assimilated into the Foreverware Ladies Group, would she have had to dress only in one colour, and who gets to decide what colour that is?

We mostly see her in blue, but Phylis Stoffer already has that.

What happens if her favourite colour is taken? Do they have a
housewife-off to see who has the greatest right to it, or does she just have to pick from a list of available, pre-approved colours?

[froodle]

I've noticed the plastic covered couch before, but now I can see the lampshade in the background is also covered in plastic wrap. Apparently Betty Wilson doesn't rate fire hazards above dust and staining.

[froodle]

Eight hours a day may keep the wrinkles away, but exactly how much quality sleep is she getting with that fucking tape recorder bleating in her ear every night?

[froodle]

There's something really sad to me about the way Betty kisses the photo of her dead husband before she goes to bed.

I think it's because of that scene in the Teller house when she refers to him as "my late husband Walt" and then mentions that if the lid on your Foreverware isn't sealed tight, the aging process gets accelerated.

Combined with the fact that the twins specifically say that she started sealing them up after their dad died, it makes me think he had some horrible mishap with the People Saver, and that Betty woke up one morning to discover a rotten glob of green goo where her husband had been sleeping the night before.

I'm not saying it justifies everything she's doing, but it does make me feel sorry for her, just a little.

[froodle]

How menacing are the twins after Mars frees them from the Foreverware?

"We'll take care of Mother", intone the dumpy little Norman Batesalikes in unison, smacking their fists rythmically against their palms.

Even Mars is like, "Alright lads, I'm not sticking about just so I can see you punch the shit out of your mum, peace!" as he climbs out of the window.

Fucking hell, boys. I'd tell you to be less creepy, but I've already seen the rest of the series, so I know that will never happen.

[froodle]

Considering Marilyn went on a housekeeping binge towards the start of that episode, the fridge is once again a total disaster by the end of it. Probably because she keeps taking bites out of stuff and randomly throwing it back in there.

[froodle]

Ugh, the grown-up twins. Someone needs to make a gif of them from the end of this episode; the creepy wink at Marshall, the weird smile they give each other after Mars and his mum leave, and the part where they chorus "no, thank you" which has Marilyn going all "DO NOT WANT!" and getting the fuck out of there.

They even hold their hammers in identical poses at the end of that scene, which for some reason really adds to the creep factor for me.

[froodle]

I love Marshall's voiceover at the end - "a kid's got to grow up fast in Eerie, or he might not grow up at all."

I like the way it subverts the usual meaning of that phrase, and how it sets up later episodes where we see that both meanings can totally apply in this town (Devon, Tripp, possibly Steve on the one hand, Janet and arguably Tripp again on the other one).

[diello.livejournal.com]

In the huge gap between my childhood and adulthood, this was the episode I remembered best, especially the line about the Super Sandwich Saver:

"The baloni sandwich inside is as fresh as the day it was made... In 1974."

I must have quoted that line so much, no matter who I gave tupperware leftovers to, no matter whether they knew what I was talking about or not :)

[froodle]

I love that line, the super perky way Betty delivers it and Marilyn's facedrop when she says "...in 1974" always makes me smile.

What I love about this episode is the fact that it's AlLWAYS the one people remember; even if the show name itself doesn't ring a bell, you mention the kids.in Tupperware and they're like, oooooohhhhh, I remember that, what was the show called again?

[diello.livejournal.com]

It's funny - none of the other episodes really stick out to me - like, I remember them, but that one episode. Even the episodes with my beloved Dash X don't stick out like this one :)

[froodle]

In the big gap between watching EI as a baby Froodlet and finding it on DVD over a decade later, I mostly remembered Foreverware, but I also had this really vivid memory of the scene in No Brain No Pain of Marshall standing in an alley and saying "I think it's an antique thing called an eight-track."

Thing is, I didn't even remember it as being from EI, I just remembered that scene and that line. Then when I saw it again, I was like, "Oh, thats where it's from!"

[diello.livejournal.com]

My Sharona!
The mention of music brought another memory to mind: the Broken Record. That one part at the very very end where the dad plays the record backwards only to find the devil is really his voice yelling at his son. I know it's EI, but never think of it as an episode.

[froodle]

Ugh, that episode! So hard to watch, man. Eerie had a few dark moments over it's short run, but that episode was just brutal and depressing from start to finish.