The Day My Kid Went Punk
I missed this Afterschool Special growing up, but it’s truly a (temporary spray-on hair color covered) gem. I highly recommend it.
Terry, the leading man, transforms instantaneously in an airport bathroom from an awkward orchestra geek to the world’s most innocuous punk. Is the resulting appearance-based prejudice he encounters a warning for parents to keep their children from going down this “bad” path, or a commentary on a shallow, judgmental society*?
*They make a point of having Terry save the day for a sad little girl with leg braces…by somehow materializing a doll with identical leg braces…while at a horse stable, after her mother is denied permission to just “strap her to a horse.” I’m not kidding.
Only one thing is certain: the special is entirely ineffective, and quite marvelously fails, at any of its possible aims. In other words: watch this ASAP.
SheWalksSoftly 
November 23, 2014 at 9:13 pm
This was hysterical. Holy crap! They sure foist such glaring “suspensions of disbelief” on us–but what I found fun is that they actually are making a case for “judging a book by the cover” in such a bizarre way. “A Ziggy Ziggy Sputnik look a-like.” VERY watered down look alike. lol. Was 1982’s Sigue Sigue Sputnik still in the collective conscious by 1987, or did this sit in the can for 5 years until ABC decided it could be shown without causing an uproar? THANK YOU for turning me on to this.
November 24, 2014 at 5:24 pm
HAHAHA…I actually commented, while watching this, “I’m surprised this woman knows Sigue Sigue Sputnik!”
November 24, 2014 at 7:18 pm
Brilliant minds think alike, but somehow I managed to come up with that, too. My cousin bought me their cassette, unsure what music to buy a punk.
Glaring issue–“punkers.” I detest that word like nails on a chalkboard.
Difference between Punk and New Wave (old joke): New Wavers still love their moms and take out the trash.
February 5, 2015 at 1:28 pm
I saw this when it originally aired! And probably many times more back in the day. You see, I had a big crush on Jay Underwood (star of ‘The Boy Who Could Fly’ and other minor made-for-tv movies in the ’80s) so it was unavoidable. He was dreamy, but played a rather unauthentic punk.
No matter, this afterschool special actually made me want to break out and it influenced me to be subversive!
February 8, 2015 at 9:44 pm
Wow! Amazing to hear a real life story of an unauthentic punk inspiring an authentic punk. 🙂