SVK #55 - The Jessica and Elizabeth Show
There’s a lot of wtf in this one.
The twins get their own TV show. I want to scream every time the twins are on tv for some reason or other, or in a movie or two because the lack of continuity makes me cry! They’ve been on tv so many times and they ALWAYS forget. And Elizabeth ALWAYS frets that she’s not really into this tv star thing and she’s never done it before and I ALWAYS start to mentally recite the number of times I can recall them doing something like this. Except I've never read The Boyfriend Game, but I assume it happens.
I really shouldn’t care as much as I do.
But maybe Elizabeth’s I’m-not-used-to-this woes are justified in this one, I can’t think of any major TV appearance that happens before this.
Oh, the cover. This is apparently the Sutton’s living room. Orange and white striped wallpaper, a grey and orange couch, and red and purple cushions. Ouch. Maybe Alice should have helped with the interior decorating. The Suttons could have enjoyed a Spanish style, split level living room! But, to be honest, I’ve owned this book for over ten years and this is the first time I’ve ever really noticed the horror of the room. Because your eyes go straight to the horror on the TV screen. First of all, it’s bad enough that the cover artist was so lazy that, instead of making an original TV-show-esque picture, they just flipped and recoloured the logo picture (do they think kids are stupid? The logo picture is RIGHT ABOVE the tv screen). But they recoloured it badly. Their faces look weird and mask-like and they have hardly any skin tone! Especially compared to the logo, which is quite cute. And they couldn’t even be bothered to recolour Jessica’s shirt as well as Elizabeth’s. How unbelievably lazy and crappy. And I don’t think you can tell in the scan, but you can see a very clear outine around the twins, that just screams “ORIGINAL BACKGROUND COLOUR!!” I could do a better job. In fact, I think I will. Just to make a point.
See? That took hardly any time at all. Significantly less time than writing a recap. Shame, cover artist. Shame.
Onto the book. The think I like about SVK is that the identical-but-so-different is out of the way really quickly and obviously. We launch straight into it, and it’s easily skippable with an obvious ending point. Liz is narrating this one, by the way.
Mrs Otis announces in class that Sweet Valley Cable is looking for a second or third grader to host an afternoon kids talk show. Why did nothing cool like that ever happen at my school? Probably the same reason why I never found a haunted necklace or became bff with royalty. Anyway, Alice drops off the twins, Lila and Ellen at the audition (um, I sure hope Ellen’s parents and George are aware of this). Jess, Lila and Ellen go to fix their hair while Elizabeth hangs out with a girl called Jane, who’s an audition veteran. The producer Linda rocks up, who’s your stereotypical brusque no-nonsense TV person.
The audition is weird. All that happens is that she gets their name, phone number and takes a photo of them. Um, pretty much everything I learnt about being on tv comes from these books so the basis of my knowledge is not reliable. But… they’re auditioning to be tv hosts! Shouldn’t she at least chat to them, find out if they’re somewhat articulate? And lots of kids have things like stutters or lisps, or aren’t as confident in front of a camera as they are in front of one person. You need more than a name and a phone number to deduce this! And she wants a magically talented 7 or 8 year old to carry an entire tv show! She should do more than this! Sigh, this is the first of many times I will remind myself that Sweet Valley does not need to make sense. Elizabeth thinks it went badly, and is relieved. Oh, and we find out that the TV station is a really small cable channel that hardly anyone gets. No wonder Linda’s so grumpy, her job doesn’t seem too great.
Um, this next bit is also ridiculous. Alice answers the phone, says “it’s for you, girls!”. Elizabeth takes it, and it’s Linda telling them they’ve got the job. It’s a live half hour show, three days a week. Starting tomorrow. No rehearsals (“rehearsals make you stiff”). And Linda tells them to think of fun things to talk about. So… the tv studio planned nothing? They basically left a pair of seven year old girls responsible to come up with half an hour’s worth of interesting stuff three times a week. And it wasn’t even originally going to be twins! It was originally only one host before Linda remembered that the Wakefield twins do everything in this town. A seven year old giving a self-prepared monologue for half an hour? It suddenly becomes almost reasonable that Linda skimmed past Alice to talk to only seven year old Elizabeth. Apparently Linda is going to call Alice to discuss it later. Why not now?! Why is Alice not demanding to know what kind of TV station is giving work usually tackled by a team of paid, professional writers to two seven year olds? WHY?! THIS MAKS NO SENSE.
While I cry and cry at the implausibility, the twins go to the park to tell their friends, who give them some boring sounding things to talk about. Lila and Ellen are jealous that they didn’t get the part.
Oh, and the show is called It’s the Jessica and Elizabeth Show! and the exclamation is included when you say the title mid sentence. Annoying. The superfluous “it’s” also bugs me. And it’s quite a mouthful. Nowhere near as catchy as The Amanda Show. By the way, every time anyone ever mentioned The Amanda Show, I totally thought of this book. Just because of the titles.
At the taping, Jane’s there as the understudy. Linda doesn’t explain much to them. She just sits them down on a set, pins microphones to their clothes, says they’ll be running a phone number on the screen for people to call in, and explains she and Jane won’t talk once the show starts and they’ll write on cards to communicate (“Um, you guys do know how to read, don’t you?” asked Linda. This is an example of something that YOU SHOULD CHECK FOR IN AN AUDITION. This show seems so unbelievably suspect. I feel like it’s a front for some kind of illegal activity. Alice and Ned should be looking into this, but who am I kidding.).
The show starts and the twins don’t realise. Because LINDA DIDN’T TELL THEM THINGS THEY SHOULD KNOW. Like how to tell that the camera is on. But they get back on track and talk about all the things their friends suggested… and it only takes ten minutes. “Twenty minutes to go!” says Linda’s sign. Elizabeth is shocked.
“Well, it took an hour to write… I thought
it would take an hour to read.”
The twins flounder helplessly for a few moments (what did you expect, Linda?) before they’re told to take a phone call. And it’s some little girl called Mattie asking them where they go to school. Okay, the first thing you learn about internet safety at school is that you never tell anyone what school you go to. Somehow I think it’s a similar protocol on tv. Urgh, this station is so seedy. The caller is probably some kidnapped little girl being kept in the dank cellar by the executive producer, making the call at gunpoint. Apparently there are three more calls. Poor kids, trapped in the cellar.
Show’s finished! Linda tells them they sucked. WHAT DID YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN? YOU GOT A PAIR OF LITTLE KIDS TO WRITE AND PERFORM AN ENTIRE HALF HOUR OF TV BY THEMSELVES AND EXPECTED IT TO BE WATCHABLE. Okay, that is the final outburst on this subject, I swear. I’ll assume from this point on that you get it. Jane tells them Linda’s exaggerating, and that it was pretty good for a first time. Alice takes them to Amy’s house (where a bunch of kids from school watched it, because Amy’s reporter mum is apparently the only person who gets expanded cable and, thus, this channel). Everyone’s happy for them, except Lila.
The next day, they get a bunch of attention at school and Jess tells Liz that people expect tv stars to act different (ie better) from everyone else. Liz is hesitant, but agrees when Jess points out she’s been right about everything else so far. So Elizabeth starts acting like a brat.
The next day, everyone’s over the novelty of the twins being on tv but the twins aren’t over themselves. They act superior and bug everyone. And apparently they have a classmate called Kisho Murasaki. Gee, I wonder if he’s Japanese. They should have called him Japan McJapanerson.
Cut to halfway through a taping. Fifteen minutes to go and they’re out of things to talk about. Liz suggests taking a phone call, and Linda’s all “there aren’t any!” which I guess is supposed to suggest the FOUR calls they got during their first show were legit. Whatever. Linda holds up a card suggesting they talk about their friends, so they talk about how Lila’s all rich. After prompting from Linda, Jessica says that Lila still sleeps with a night light. Thus begins an on-air bitch session about Lila, and then Todd. Linda’s all thumbs up. Seriously, how is this possibly good tv? No wonder Linda got them to think of their own content, the best she could come up with was gossip that excludes the entire demographic except for the few kids in the twins’ class at school. Lila calls the show, she fights with Jess. Todd calls the show, he fights with Liz. The show ends, and Linda’s all “that was awesome! Our ratings will be great!” …really, Linda? Really? A poorly organised show on a nothing channel where the content was totally exclusive to one class at Sweet Valley Elementary? Just… I… I give up. I really do. The twins are satisfied, but Jane’s worried about their friends being mad at them.
At school, they’re shunned. And they act like brats some more.
For the next show, Linda tells them to tone it down because they got a fan letter (LOL!! If you say so) saying that the fighting sucked. The twins start fighting about whose name should be first in the show title, and filming starts while they’re fighting. They calm down for about ten minutes before fighting again, resulting in Linda storming on set, throwing a hissy fit and firing them. You were asking for it, Linda. Prepare more next time. Prepare at all next time. What on earth did she do during the day, anyway? Oh right, silly me, she was probably embezzling money or selling drugs, or whatever it is that this so-called tv station is a front for.
They make up with their friends, happy happy yay. Then they all go to Amy’s house to watch It’s the Jane Show! together. Apparently it’s awesome. She plays a CD of her favourite song. Um, if it’s as unrehearsed as the twins’ show was, that’s probably illegal. But I doubt the crime ring cares too much about things like copyright infringement.
The next day, Linda calls to say, and I quote, “I have a sack of mail here for you girls. The viewers want you back. Be at the studio at the usual time tomorrow!” I’m sick of pointing out obvious implausibility. Especially when it speaks for itself. The twins decline, Jane gets the role, and she calls to thank them for her big break. Her big break. Her big break. HER BIG BREAK. I guess there’s some internal logic there. If there are enough viewers for a sack of fan mail to appear overnight then I suppose it is a big break. Except the sack probably just had another kidnapped child in it.
We conclude with some build-up to the next book, Jessica Plays Cupid. Something about getting a baby-sitter because Alice is working more.
The End! Finally. That sure was painful.
The twins get their own TV show. I want to scream every time the twins are on tv for some reason or other, or in a movie or two because the lack of continuity makes me cry! They’ve been on tv so many times and they ALWAYS forget. And Elizabeth ALWAYS frets that she’s not really into this tv star thing and she’s never done it before and I ALWAYS start to mentally recite the number of times I can recall them doing something like this. Except I've never read The Boyfriend Game, but I assume it happens.
I really shouldn’t care as much as I do.
But maybe Elizabeth’s I’m-not-used-to-this woes are justified in this one, I can’t think of any major TV appearance that happens before this.
Oh, the cover. This is apparently the Sutton’s living room. Orange and white striped wallpaper, a grey and orange couch, and red and purple cushions. Ouch. Maybe Alice should have helped with the interior decorating. The Suttons could have enjoyed a Spanish style, split level living room! But, to be honest, I’ve owned this book for over ten years and this is the first time I’ve ever really noticed the horror of the room. Because your eyes go straight to the horror on the TV screen. First of all, it’s bad enough that the cover artist was so lazy that, instead of making an original TV-show-esque picture, they just flipped and recoloured the logo picture (do they think kids are stupid? The logo picture is RIGHT ABOVE the tv screen). But they recoloured it badly. Their faces look weird and mask-like and they have hardly any skin tone! Especially compared to the logo, which is quite cute. And they couldn’t even be bothered to recolour Jessica’s shirt as well as Elizabeth’s. How unbelievably lazy and crappy. And I don’t think you can tell in the scan, but you can see a very clear outine around the twins, that just screams “ORIGINAL BACKGROUND COLOUR!!” I could do a better job. In fact, I think I will. Just to make a point.
See? That took hardly any time at all. Significantly less time than writing a recap. Shame, cover artist. Shame.
Onto the book. The think I like about SVK is that the identical-but-so-different is out of the way really quickly and obviously. We launch straight into it, and it’s easily skippable with an obvious ending point. Liz is narrating this one, by the way.
Mrs Otis announces in class that Sweet Valley Cable is looking for a second or third grader to host an afternoon kids talk show. Why did nothing cool like that ever happen at my school? Probably the same reason why I never found a haunted necklace or became bff with royalty. Anyway, Alice drops off the twins, Lila and Ellen at the audition (um, I sure hope Ellen’s parents and George are aware of this). Jess, Lila and Ellen go to fix their hair while Elizabeth hangs out with a girl called Jane, who’s an audition veteran. The producer Linda rocks up, who’s your stereotypical brusque no-nonsense TV person.
The audition is weird. All that happens is that she gets their name, phone number and takes a photo of them. Um, pretty much everything I learnt about being on tv comes from these books so the basis of my knowledge is not reliable. But… they’re auditioning to be tv hosts! Shouldn’t she at least chat to them, find out if they’re somewhat articulate? And lots of kids have things like stutters or lisps, or aren’t as confident in front of a camera as they are in front of one person. You need more than a name and a phone number to deduce this! And she wants a magically talented 7 or 8 year old to carry an entire tv show! She should do more than this! Sigh, this is the first of many times I will remind myself that Sweet Valley does not need to make sense. Elizabeth thinks it went badly, and is relieved. Oh, and we find out that the TV station is a really small cable channel that hardly anyone gets. No wonder Linda’s so grumpy, her job doesn’t seem too great.
Um, this next bit is also ridiculous. Alice answers the phone, says “it’s for you, girls!”. Elizabeth takes it, and it’s Linda telling them they’ve got the job. It’s a live half hour show, three days a week. Starting tomorrow. No rehearsals (“rehearsals make you stiff”). And Linda tells them to think of fun things to talk about. So… the tv studio planned nothing? They basically left a pair of seven year old girls responsible to come up with half an hour’s worth of interesting stuff three times a week. And it wasn’t even originally going to be twins! It was originally only one host before Linda remembered that the Wakefield twins do everything in this town. A seven year old giving a self-prepared monologue for half an hour? It suddenly becomes almost reasonable that Linda skimmed past Alice to talk to only seven year old Elizabeth. Apparently Linda is going to call Alice to discuss it later. Why not now?! Why is Alice not demanding to know what kind of TV station is giving work usually tackled by a team of paid, professional writers to two seven year olds? WHY?! THIS MAKS NO SENSE.
While I cry and cry at the implausibility, the twins go to the park to tell their friends, who give them some boring sounding things to talk about. Lila and Ellen are jealous that they didn’t get the part.
Oh, and the show is called It’s the Jessica and Elizabeth Show! and the exclamation is included when you say the title mid sentence. Annoying. The superfluous “it’s” also bugs me. And it’s quite a mouthful. Nowhere near as catchy as The Amanda Show. By the way, every time anyone ever mentioned The Amanda Show, I totally thought of this book. Just because of the titles.
At the taping, Jane’s there as the understudy. Linda doesn’t explain much to them. She just sits them down on a set, pins microphones to their clothes, says they’ll be running a phone number on the screen for people to call in, and explains she and Jane won’t talk once the show starts and they’ll write on cards to communicate (“Um, you guys do know how to read, don’t you?” asked Linda. This is an example of something that YOU SHOULD CHECK FOR IN AN AUDITION. This show seems so unbelievably suspect. I feel like it’s a front for some kind of illegal activity. Alice and Ned should be looking into this, but who am I kidding.).
The show starts and the twins don’t realise. Because LINDA DIDN’T TELL THEM THINGS THEY SHOULD KNOW. Like how to tell that the camera is on. But they get back on track and talk about all the things their friends suggested… and it only takes ten minutes. “Twenty minutes to go!” says Linda’s sign. Elizabeth is shocked.
“Well, it took an hour to write… I thought
it would take an hour to read.”
The twins flounder helplessly for a few moments (what did you expect, Linda?) before they’re told to take a phone call. And it’s some little girl called Mattie asking them where they go to school. Okay, the first thing you learn about internet safety at school is that you never tell anyone what school you go to. Somehow I think it’s a similar protocol on tv. Urgh, this station is so seedy. The caller is probably some kidnapped little girl being kept in the dank cellar by the executive producer, making the call at gunpoint. Apparently there are three more calls. Poor kids, trapped in the cellar.
Show’s finished! Linda tells them they sucked. WHAT DID YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN? YOU GOT A PAIR OF LITTLE KIDS TO WRITE AND PERFORM AN ENTIRE HALF HOUR OF TV BY THEMSELVES AND EXPECTED IT TO BE WATCHABLE. Okay, that is the final outburst on this subject, I swear. I’ll assume from this point on that you get it. Jane tells them Linda’s exaggerating, and that it was pretty good for a first time. Alice takes them to Amy’s house (where a bunch of kids from school watched it, because Amy’s reporter mum is apparently the only person who gets expanded cable and, thus, this channel). Everyone’s happy for them, except Lila.
The next day, they get a bunch of attention at school and Jess tells Liz that people expect tv stars to act different (ie better) from everyone else. Liz is hesitant, but agrees when Jess points out she’s been right about everything else so far. So Elizabeth starts acting like a brat.
The next day, everyone’s over the novelty of the twins being on tv but the twins aren’t over themselves. They act superior and bug everyone. And apparently they have a classmate called Kisho Murasaki. Gee, I wonder if he’s Japanese. They should have called him Japan McJapanerson.
Cut to halfway through a taping. Fifteen minutes to go and they’re out of things to talk about. Liz suggests taking a phone call, and Linda’s all “there aren’t any!” which I guess is supposed to suggest the FOUR calls they got during their first show were legit. Whatever. Linda holds up a card suggesting they talk about their friends, so they talk about how Lila’s all rich. After prompting from Linda, Jessica says that Lila still sleeps with a night light. Thus begins an on-air bitch session about Lila, and then Todd. Linda’s all thumbs up. Seriously, how is this possibly good tv? No wonder Linda got them to think of their own content, the best she could come up with was gossip that excludes the entire demographic except for the few kids in the twins’ class at school. Lila calls the show, she fights with Jess. Todd calls the show, he fights with Liz. The show ends, and Linda’s all “that was awesome! Our ratings will be great!” …really, Linda? Really? A poorly organised show on a nothing channel where the content was totally exclusive to one class at Sweet Valley Elementary? Just… I… I give up. I really do. The twins are satisfied, but Jane’s worried about their friends being mad at them.
At school, they’re shunned. And they act like brats some more.
For the next show, Linda tells them to tone it down because they got a fan letter (LOL!! If you say so) saying that the fighting sucked. The twins start fighting about whose name should be first in the show title, and filming starts while they’re fighting. They calm down for about ten minutes before fighting again, resulting in Linda storming on set, throwing a hissy fit and firing them. You were asking for it, Linda. Prepare more next time. Prepare at all next time. What on earth did she do during the day, anyway? Oh right, silly me, she was probably embezzling money or selling drugs, or whatever it is that this so-called tv station is a front for.
They make up with their friends, happy happy yay. Then they all go to Amy’s house to watch It’s the Jane Show! together. Apparently it’s awesome. She plays a CD of her favourite song. Um, if it’s as unrehearsed as the twins’ show was, that’s probably illegal. But I doubt the crime ring cares too much about things like copyright infringement.
The next day, Linda calls to say, and I quote, “I have a sack of mail here for you girls. The viewers want you back. Be at the studio at the usual time tomorrow!” I’m sick of pointing out obvious implausibility. Especially when it speaks for itself. The twins decline, Jane gets the role, and she calls to thank them for her big break. Her big break. Her big break. HER BIG BREAK. I guess there’s some internal logic there. If there are enough viewers for a sack of fan mail to appear overnight then I suppose it is a big break. Except the sack probably just had another kidnapped child in it.
We conclude with some build-up to the next book, Jessica Plays Cupid. Something about getting a baby-sitter because Alice is working more.
The End! Finally. That sure was painful.