Date of airing: November 9, 2001 (Disney Channel)
written by: Amy Engelberg, Wendy Engelberg
directed by: Steve De Jarnatt
In which Lizzie McGuire is dating a boy, which could have meant that Larry Tudgeman would have probably been mentioned in the canceled revival series when it came to Lizzie’s past love life, and how her dating career started and where it would have gone in the revival series. Color me shocked that he turned out to be her first boyfriend, because that was not what I would have expected to happen at all. The “first boyfriend” story was a premise I was hoping to see sooner or later, since Lizzie is in a TV age where she is supposed to find a TV boy and realize what TV love is about, and whether or not she is able to date someone without dramatic issues, let alone kiss someone (although it was quite obvious that a full-on kiss would not be happening – on-screen smootches very rarely happen on the Disney Channel), but I was not expecting for the male suitor to be the least popular boy at school.
Who could have known... Larry was the perfect supporting character to be chosen as Lizzie’s date for the episode. He was indeed the weird guy no one liked (but come on, the kid is class president, so someone has to like him), and he was interesting enough to turn out to be a positive surprise, because we all know there is something interesting behind every person you call a nerd in middle or junior high school. You never know if the geeky kid you do not like in school actually leads an interesting and fruitful life at home, has hobbies worth noting (and which could change the world in the future), and lives by a moral code that gives them constant optimism. Okay, I was doing neither of those things during my teenage years while living life as a nerd, so if someone had called me a nerd in high school, they were right not to like me and they were allowed to push the cliched agenda on me that had nerds being idiots and weirdos. Well, no one liked me in high school in the first place, so there is that.
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| She hung up, Larry. You can stop being a weirdo now. |
The episode was good. That Larry turned out to be a nice dude and Lizzie would see that she was entirely wrong about the kid was very much predictable, but I did like that she sort of found a liking to the fake relationship, even if she always wanted to get out of it and move back towards trying to get Ethan’s attention. The half hour could have sprung a fast one though, as there was an opportunity for Larry and Lizzie to become the most popular couple at school, simply because both were somewhat hiding their excitement and optimism for one another while in public (but did Larry really do that?), and were not particularly interested in showcasing their romance to every boy and girl at school, just to collect karma points and give the rumor mill a ton of topics to talk about.
In a way, they could have been the perfect couple because they were not taking that relationship seriously enough for a middle school boy or girl to become popular, and that should have made them popular. Kate probably wanted to see a little humiliation in the faces of Lizzie and Larry, when she came to her with the crush rumor in the beginning, but Kate could have “lost” that episode as well (as she always does when she thinks she has the ammunition to beat Lizzie in something) if she had realized that Larry and Lizzie were somewhat working in front of the curtain (while one of them was planning to break up behind the curtain) and, in fact, gained karma points. And voila, it would have improved Larry’s standing at school and among his bullies as well, which might have been the perfect outcome of the episode, now that we know he can have a good time with a date who did not want to be his date in the first place.
In hindsight, Lizzie never wanted to be in this relationship, but it somehow worked out for the two anyway, as Larry showcased his good side and Lizzie had her first boyfriend and learned what it is like to be in the limelight of romantic affection. Unfortunately, Larry did not learn anything from this short-lived romance and went back to his old shirt and behavior soon after. The Disney Channel does not have a show that developed its characters after all, because that would not make sense for the network.
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| Quickly, call an ambulance! |
Meanwhile, the soapbox story was okay. Father and son teaming up to build a racer was good enough, and there was an idea behind Gordo and Larry joining the boys to build the fastest and hardened soapbox in the world, but it was not supposed to be more than just an idea, especially since Larry disappeared quickly to have a date with Lizzie (would the story have worked better with Larry in it?).
Well, at least there was stunt work in the climax of that story. Color me shocked yet again when I saw that the stuntman in the soapbox was crashing through a window and was supposed to fly through the air after the soapbox crashed into the curb. I do not think I have ever seen this much action in a family sitcom that does not have laughter coming from a laugh track. Respect for the stunt work in this episode and the two stuntmen credited: Larry Nicholas and Clay Cullen. What must it be like to get hired for stunts in a Disney Channel family show? What are the expectations when you get that call in the beginning? Have they talked about it somewhere? Should they guest on Corridor Crew’s Stuntmen React show?
