Date of airing: August 10, 2001 (Disney Channel)
written by: Trish Baker
directed by: Peter Montgomery
Wait, in the world of American cinema, kids are actually allowed to go into R-rated movies with their parents? I am hearing that for the first time, because I can remember that it was (still is?) not possible in Germany to get into an R-rated movie even with parental supervision, although I am sure sometimes you got in anyway because the box office people rarely do not care about what age you are when you at least look like you are allowed to watch an R-rated film. Then again, I never had the experience of sneaking into an R-rated film during my teenage years, so I cannot even tell if that is a thing or not. I waited until the day after I turned 18 years old to buy the DVD of 1995's BAD BOYS, as the uncut version of it was restricted for people under 18 years of age in Germany. And the cashier definitely wanted to see my ID to check my age back then (I wonder what they thought when they realized that it was my 18th birthday just the day before). Plus, I have no idea how the rules are these days. I have not been to Germany for more than a dozen years, and I tend to not follow what has been happening in that country, especially when it comes to age classification of movies.
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| This is possibly the only gay moment of the entire series. |
The episode was okay. It was just about the R-rated movie the teens wanted to get into, while I was sitting on my bed and waiting for the scene in which Lizzie had to do the Heimlich maneuver, after she said in the beginning that there is no way she will ever apply that knowledge in real life, instantly making it clear that she will be using this knowledge later in the episode. I would say that Chekhov’s Heimlich maneuver has struck again. Oh well, at least the episode had a CPR class and showed kids what to do just in case, while also delivering something of a different moral of the story this time around, because for this episode, the watching audience got to learn how to save someone’s life, and if kids were still interested in it after watching this half hour, they either could have asked their parents for more information or their teacher at school. It is almost like LIZZIE McGUIRE was supposed to be a television show during which you were supposed to learn some stuff.
Still, the scene of the movie attendant choking seemed a little ridiculous and out of place for the genre of this show. Especially since the guy having swallowed the sourball was kind of an idiot for swallowing the sourball in the first place, let alone turning the situation into a Laurel and Hardy sketch show, with a hint of Bud Spencer and Terence Hill “I am going to punch you out by hammering my fist on top of your head” bits. I am pretty sure the Heimlich maneuver scene was built to look like that and make adult audiences remember how comedy in the 1930s worked, and whether there is a good idea in rewatching some of the 1970s/80s Spencer/Hill movies. And honestly, I was thinking way before this episode ever crossed my eyes to start watching them – I still fondly remember that one film with Spencer in which he becomes the protector care of an extraterrestrial kid, and the Hill movie with him as a superhero, except when he sees the color red, has accompanied me during my childhood on multiple occasions.
At least there was some enjoyable fun in seeing Jo and Sam playing with the hearts and minds of the teens by telling them they would like to see the news to check out the weather report. Yes, it was another predictable element of the episode, not unlike the Heimlich maneuver scene, but it was a funny piece of comedy because it happened to be more realistic, as Lizzie tried the hardest she has ever tried something in her life to stop her parents from watching the news and learn of her betrayal and lie. I was certainly amused by Jo and Sam continuing with the joke, stretching it to the absolute maximum and torturing the teens in the process. It may have been one of the best sequences in LIZZIE McGUIRE so far. I found myself almost laughing out loud, watching Lizzie try to keep her parents away from the TV while the parents were just ruthless in the emotional torture of their daughter. This story gave me the idea to play my kid(s) like that as well, in case I will ever have children of my own (the chances for that sink to below-zero regions).
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| No one cares about Matt doing dumb stuff right now. |
And finally, Matt had a story as well, albeit a tiny one. At first, I was a bit creeped out by Jo checking up on Matt’s cargo pants, but it turns out it was just a visual device to create the Velcro wall idea and kickstart the story of how Matt brought a good idea into Sam and Jo’s mind for the school’s carnival. And here I was, thinking that Matt was about to get into trouble for something he did (leaving rotten food in his pants, for example), and Jo was about to become a judgmental mother again. It was one of the better stories Matt was involved in, but sometimes I would not mind for a good Matt-centric story to be the A story of the episode, just so the little brother can turn into a more serious character in this television show, instead of being the most annoying living being on this planet.
