slightly too “normie” (for lack of a better word) for my muppet tastes but i can’t deny the fundamental appeal of a show where third string weirdoes like zoot and lips are headliners.
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My girlfriend considers Anne of Green Gables one of her childhood favorite stories, so for her birthday I surprised her by reading the entirety of the first book, and we watched the 3-hour made for Canadian television adaptation, which you know is pretty good if you can get into period pieces, stories with orphans and whimsical children. Then we watched the sequel to that film, which is based on a few books in the series that neither of us have read, and it ended up being just as good though with more early adulthood drama which we appreciated.
So after that I was researching all the various adaptations of the books, because honestly I was starting to become a fan. There’s a World Masterpiece Literature adaptation done by Studio Ghibli based on the first book. A 1930s black and white film starring an actress in the role of Anne Shirley, whose actual name is Anne Shirley. And then there is actually a third film by the Ken Sullivan production company who made the two movies we’ve watched that was released ten years later, and seems like fun fan fiction about what if Anne was a nurse during World War 1.
I then learned that between those two films was seven seasons of a slice of life television show set in the town where Anne of Green Gables takes place, focusing on a new young girl, and filled with vignette stories about people who live in Avonlea.
It’s just called The Road to Avonlea and I have been making do a toe dip into the series to see if it may have a similar bucolic whimsical appeal as the first film, despite all the vocalized skepticism of my gf. But my strength is waiting. It’s such a show for babies. Like, the two movies we’ve watched–heck, even the novel–there’s an appeal there I can channel into an earnest kind of recommendation. But this show… it’s so BABY.
We took an edible and after checking out the latest episodes of Maisel this weekend, I latched onto this energy I felt and enthusiastically said “lets give it another chance!!! Maybe it won’t be another episode about a special little girl who fixes everyone’s problems, who was such a good soul to be tricked into giving someone else’s horse carriage to a thief because the man had to jump from a bedroom window when the door was allegedly busted, and so she had to form a magic lantern show to make up all the money he stole that was to go to the public school library?” Maybe it matures as it gets further along in the season and it won’t be a show for babies anymore… I hit play.
and burst into laughing tears at every shot of children running through tall grass in long dresses with dogs and white picket fences. it’s just such a show for babies!!! The plots are insanely predictable but we like to speculate about them into absurdity, like the main perfect girl, Sarah, in this episode may befriend a vicious dog who then shows it’s even more cantankerous owner that it is good to have friends, who then donates a fortune to a much needed charity fund. Sarah, in this episode, is the sole person to escape a burning building, and then bravely determines to go back in and rescue others with no one other than the dog from the last episode. etc. etc. Sarah and her friends go out on a boat in this one, and accidentally discovers a rare kind of iris, which she wears in her hair, and tips off a young scholar working in Avonlea to complete their thesis work that proves the beauty of coastal Canadian islands and also improves treatments for scarlet fever.
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I was not sure how my (future) wife would get along with my childhood best friend the first time they met. He is a professional jiu jitsu fighter/trainer raised by communist defense attorneys and at the time smoked weed constantly and had visibly missing teeth, and they ended up bonding over their love for Anne of Green Gables. I can’t even remember how it came up in conversation but I’m so glad it did.
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It seems like a story that Canadians are truly proud to have part of their literary culture! And I think it’s worth being proud of, there’s good stuff about it.
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None of us are Canadian or had any idea we would one day live here! But now that we do I would love to go to that town. Maybe we could convince him to come up to take the trip with us
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I wonder what’s it’s like now, nearly thirty years later since the end of these movies and shows. It could be a real headtrip for them if it still looks super 19th century at all.
also this dude is the general store owner in the show and it always thrills me to see him
PEI is real nice, you should visit
sarah polley was a much more valuable contribution to this backwater’s cultural scene a decade ago but who isn’t that true of
Man, I grew up on Road to Avonlea. When I was, indeed, a baby, I loved it. Haven’t tried watching it in a long time. I can fondly remember a lot about the characters, actually, though my memory’s got this gloss of nostalgia that I can’t really see around.
It was the same company, Sullivan, that produced the TV movies, and I’ve also watched those both in recent years. They’re really good. The first actually works better for me than the second, but they’re both good and, damn, I realy love that first one. Fond memories of a party 15 years ago where two of my best friends swore to be “bosom buddies” as we got drunk on the closest thing we could find to currant wine. As a bonus, love how a couple of the Kids in the Hall show up.
An interesting thing about the TV show is that Sarah Polley quit it in 1994, at 15, as a result of her political awareness and activism and the show’s new involvement with Disney, who started financing the show and, she said, making it dumber and more simplistically family values-oriented.
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Another interesting bit of trivia here is that the actress changed her stage name to Anne Shirley after she did the role.
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Oh yeah me and mom watched a lot of Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea and Avonlea (I guess maybe it broadcast in some places with a shorter title? Same show though).
i always felt like dr. quinn medicine woman was like, a girl show for women if that makes sense. i don’t mean that in a patronizing way either, like csi is a boy show for men, right? something something vibes based reasoning
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Idk I feel like all the people I know who are super into this show and similar ones are women. Melissa watches like, all of them. CSI, Criminal Minds, NCIS, you name it.
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24 is totally a boy show for men… or maybe a man’s show for boys?
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Jesus, just reminded me of The Man Show
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yeah the only people in my orbit who are into the csi-type shows (aka “murder shows”) are women. especially middle-aged women. at one point, my mom was actively watching like 7 or 8 new episodes of various murder shows a week
i watched every single episode of dr. quinn medicine woman with my family on saturday nights while eating pancakes. i was so into it.
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still my primary association with Jimmy Kimmell
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same! i think it’s funny how memory holed that show has become
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oh yeah good point, i think of it being gory and full of gadgets but it’s really just Magic Sherlock Holmes
24 is a show for people with brain worms, and it turns out most of the us had brain worms post 9/11 for like 8 years. i watched a lot of 24 lol
is brain worms a gender?
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hey everyone remember when jimmy kimmel did blackface to do an impersonation of karl malone
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