Date of airing: June 1, 2001 (Disney Channel)
I was thoroughly impressed with this episode. Not only was this a lounge/jazz/swing-friendly half hour that dealt with a few Frank Sinatra-ish songs and the 1960s Rat Pack “movement” (of which I am also fond of, even though I do not dress like that because I do not have the finances to buy those kinds of fancy clothes), but its episode title cleverly dealt with Gordo’s replacement hobby about flying planes, giving it a bit of a double meaning while also emphasizing the Rat Pack style of music, which may turn young kids into cool folks if they go for it. Who knows, maybe some junior high schoolers found Frank Sinatra’s music after watching this episode and tried to emulate Gordo’s hobby here, and who knows, maybe the entire school was suddenly obsessed with good, old-style music. It is a shame though that cheap replacement music had to be used for this episode, as I can imagine that getting Rat Pack music was expensive, considering the producers already got a Destiny’s Child song of all songs.
By the way, the actual music replacement for this episode was somewhat funny. “Survivor” by Destiny’s Child was used during Matt and Lanny’s montage of trying to crack a couple of world records – a song that could not be used for the streaming version on Disney+ due to music licensing and all that stuff. Instead, the episode used replacement music in the style of Rat Pack music, begging the question if that was a happy accident or if the producers in the background decided to fix one of their subtle mistakes. Using contemporary pop songs of the time is certainly quite clever, but “Survivor” was not fitting at all into the theme of the episode, even if it was used for a wholly different storyline.
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| Matt is losing all the air out of his body. |
Anyway, this episode was great, easily the best of the series so far. I loved that the kids were facing a theme only reserved for the adults of people, and I loved that they loved it. The lounge dance night could have been part of the entire third act to make me even happier and to get the teens dancing to lounge music, and it can be said that the writers not only created a good episode about something the Disney Channel audience would not have a single clue about, but the actors also looked pretty good in their 1960s dress-up, no matter how low-budget the show was. Seeing a bunch of middle school students dressed up like this dancing to jazz and swing music and having fun for once almost gets me enraged in jealousy, because I would have loved to have that kind of dance party during my high school years in Germany. We never had dance parties in the first place, so maybe that seems to be an American high school thing only. There is still hope left on this planet, especially since nothing bad can be said about lounge and jazz music. That is the best there is, especially when it is mixed with electronic elements. Electro Swing might be my favorite music genre ever, and I do not even know any artists in the genre, with the exception of Caravan Palace.
I also loved how this episode turned serious when Gordo was conflicted about how his newest hobby was being mainstreamed by the entire school. All this time I was thinking that Gordo could not have done any better, as he was giving great and wonderful culture to the brains that only listened to Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera (and Aaron Carter – rest in peace, you beautiful human being), but since Gordo is a kid himself, he could not stand that he had a hobby everyone else shared with him, and all he wanted was standing alone in a sea of awesomeness, essentially making him a kid who wanted to be by himself, being the only one loving a certain thing at this very moment. The moral of the story is: If you like something, you have an opportunity to make new friends if others like that thing as well.
I have no clue if that moral was intended by the writers, but it made Gordo a character with depth in this episode, especially when he was confronting himself over whether to love what he loves or continue to be the kid who wanted to be seen having a unique hobby only he can talk about, so he does not have to play with anyone else, since no one would understand what he is talking about. That story also put a more meaningful definition to Gordo’s friendship with Lizzie and Miranda, and for the first time, I started to believe that Gordo and Lizzie could be coupled up romantically any time now. Because that is what I saw when Lizzie’s inner monologue blamed Gordo for the girls not having fun at the dance.
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| Those are t(w)eenagers with a fine sense of fashion. |
Meanwhile, Matt’s story was meaningless yet again. Sometimes it is better to just forget the kid ever exists and focus on what Lizzie is going through, and not unlike this episode, sometimes it is better to just move on to the next topic. But because Matt’s story was the last element to be talked about here, a simple moving on is out of order. One thing has to be said about Lanny though: Was the kid scared when Sam was talking to him because all Lanny knows is racism from white people? Am I too politically minded to not see anything else in Lanny’s appearance in this episode, considering he never spoke a word? The "He Who Must Not Be Heard" trope in action, ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between. Also, are Sam and Jo able to call into Guinness to tell them that there have been two kids who just broke the record at failed attempts at breaking a record? Otherwise, Matt is going to be pissed when he does not find his name in 2002’s edition of the Guinness Book of World Records.
