This Article Originally Ran On Blumhouse.com
Pretty much from the moment the first A Very Spooky… went up, I started getting people recommending I do Punky Brewster’s two part epic, “The Perils of Punky". Somehow, even though I was the perfect age for Punky Brewster, I was never into the show when I was a kid. I dug Punky’s style, very TV safe pop punk with the different colored shoes,one pant leg rolled up, and the vest with various light up buttons. She was cool, there was no doubt about it, but I have no memory of watching the show.
If you don’t know Punky Brewster, it was pretty much an 80s version of Little Orphan Annie. Punky’s dad walked out on the family, then her mom left her and her dog, Brandon, at a shopping center. Alone and afraid, Punky and Brandon found an empty apartment in an old beat up apartment building and started living there. Henry, the manager of the building, finds Punky and Brandon and takes them in. Punky fills in a place for Henry, a vacant spot in his life since his wife died, and Henry becomes a parent to Punky. All nice nice. As far as I can tell, the show wasn’t about magic or monsters, though there was also a cartoon, It’s Punky Brewster, where she had a magic pet, so I suppose the world that Punky and her pals lived in had some kind of magic in it. It sure does in this two-parter.
I’m going to be straight with you, the first part of “The Perils of Punky” is full on crap. It isn’t funny, it isn’t exciting, and it isn’t all that useful. In the 22 minutes of blandness, there are maybe five minutes of needed exposition to understand the point of the story. My guess is that “The Perils of Punky” would be too long for a single episode, but not long enough for a full two parts, so part one is filled with time waster. Seriously. Big time time waster moments. There’s 30 seconds where the kids clean themselves off in silence after they get dusty. There’s a five minute montage of everyone playing random games at the campsite.
I should fill you in, huh? The story starts with Punky, Henry, and some of Punky’s friends going off camping. Punky’s friends include Cherie, Cherie’s grandma Betty, Allen, and Margaux. Cherie is, I think Punky’s best friend who wears an awesome headband. Allen is a wanna be tough kid who probably gets beat up a lot, based on his wearing a sweatshirt with the arms cut off. Margaux… I hate Margaux. I don’t know why any of these kids would hang out with her, and I don’t know why she is on this camping trip. She doesn’t want to be there, and as far as I can tell, Punky, Cherie, and Allen don’t want her there. She’s prissy, pissy, and shitty. There’s something about the character, at least in these episodes, that makes me wonder if Wes Anderson didn’t partly base Margot from The Royal Tenenbaums on her.
Anywho… Henry, in what is a really bad idea, decides to let the kids go off to find wood for the fire. Margaux doesn’t want to go, already worried that she didn’t bring enough moisturizer, but the other kids force her. Sure enough, they get lost in the woods because they are SEVEN YEARS OLD. Who in the hell lets a group of seven year olds run off into unknown woods?! What the hell, Henry!?
While lost, Punky points out that there are a lot of dead trees in the forest. No one else gives a crap because they are lost, but Punky is kinda obsessed with it.
The kids find a cave and Allen decides to go in. Not wanting to split up, Punky, Cherie, and Margaux follow. And Brandon. This poor dog. I really feel bad for this dog, but we’ll get there soon enough. Inside the cave, the gang finds a fire already going and a cave painting of three little girls, a little boy, and a dog. They quickly figure out that the painting is them, but instead of freaking out, they decide to sit by the fire while Punky tells a them a ghost story.
Punky starts to tell her story, but gets cut off when a few Native Americans, or to be more exact, a few guys dressed as Native Americans, show up. These guys look like they are coming straight off the F Troop set. Their faces painted brown. I suppose this was right at the end of that period where it was still “OK” to do that kind of thing. After all, this is when Iron Eyes Cody, the famous Native American who cried when you littered, was all over TV, and he was really an Italian cat named Espera Oscar de Corti, so racial sensitivity hadn’t quite become the norm for family programming.
The Indian Chief explains to Punky that his tribe has been waiting for her for over a year. The forest is dying, and only she can save it by defeating the evil spirit Owa Tagoo Siam. The Chief tells Punky and her pals about the last time Owa Tagoo Siam tried to destroy the forest, and how Princess Moon stopped him with the power of love (in the distance you can hear Huey Lewis call his lawyer).
Figuring they have nothing better to do, Team Punky heads further into the cave. The path behind them closes off, which seriously seems to freak the dog out. The kids are all fake screaming while Styrofoam rocks fall from above, but the dog Brandon looks honestly terrified. I mean, Brandon is a dog, he has no idea what is really happening. Poor pup.
That is the end of part one. The whole cave thing? That happens in the last five minutes. Everything before that is painful. To be honest, as the first part was ending, I was starting to put together a list of people I would berate for suggesting I watch this episode, starting with my sister. That was when this flashed on the screen.
What in God’s name is that?! How is this for kids!? I needed to know, so I jumped into part two right away.
“The Perils of Punky” part two is honestly terrifying. The whole episode is like Return to OZ meets Shelob’s lair in The Two Towers. It's filled with insanity, and I don’t want to waste more time before I get to it. The show sure doesn’t.
The kids go deeper into the cave, and I’m not 100% sure, but it looks like they may be on the cave set from the Star Trek episode “Devil in the Dark”. Everything is clearly made of rubber and Styrofoam, but it all feels real creepy. It reaches new levels of freaky when the gang comes across a wall that has arms and legs sticking out of it. Soon enough, a head pops out of a rock to reveal that the body parts all belong to one man, a man who has been stuck in the cave for so long, he has forgotten his own name. You may recognize the actor, Vincent Schiavelli, who played the angry train ghost in Ghost, along with an endless list of great character actor roles. The guy is a great actor, and he’s kinda wasted here. Still, you feel for him, his body broken into pieces - Punky comes to call him Mister Pieces. The gang leaves Mister Pieces behind and moves on to the next area of the cave.
As they make their way, that gang passes by the Eye of Sauron and throw a rock at it. Then they move on. They find what I can only call Liberace’s tomahawk; a shining silver tomahawk covered in red and blue rubies, sitting on a platform spewing out pink smoke. Punky considers taking it with her, but decides to leave it behind when they wonder if it may be the weapon of Owa Tagoo Siam. As they leave the room, the tomahawk lifts into the air and follows behind them.
In the next room, Team Punky is met with a giant spider web blocking their path. They find a hole in the web and make their way through. At this point, a giant spider jumps out of the shadows and onto Punky. Her three comrades all jump back, directly into the web. They struggle to get free as the spider lunges onto Punky, it’s sharp fangs inches from her face. Everything starts getting real trippy with shots switching from normal to inverted colors. This spider is going to kill Punky, but lucky for her Brandon comes to the rescue. Brandon bites the spider in the face, letting Punky get away. As Brandon battles the spider, the Liberace tomahawk appears before Punky.
Punky takes the tomahawk from the air and, in slow motion, drives it into the spider’s back. Blood explodes from the spider as Punky’s pals watch in horror. The spider bursts into flames and vanishes. Punky collapses. The web also explodes, and Punky’s pals are freed.
All of this is too much for Margaux, who has a nervous breakdown. Margaux sits, eyes open but looking at nothing and, emotionless, says to the others, “I can’t take anymore of this. I’m a delicate person, you know. I have bird bones. Tweet. Tweet. Tweet.” Margaux then literally fades away as her friends watch. Cherie and Allen are done, they want out of this. Punky convinces them that the only way to get Margaux back is to find Owa Tagoo Siam and defeat him. Moments later, Allen vanishes, then Cherie. Punky is left alone with only Brandon the Wonder Dog to help her.
As she makes her way through the cave system, Punky finds Allen’s face formed into a rock. Allen cries out for Punky, and she runs. As she freaks from that, Cherie’s disembodied head, with glowing red eyes, comes out from the dark, then Margaux’s skeleton shows up to do a little dance. Punky escapes the monstrous versions of her pals and finds a place to catch her breath. Here, she has a vision of Henry and Cherie’s grandma. They are sitting in lawn chairs discussing all the things they can do now that the kids are gone forever. You can feel Punky’s heart breaking, but after a moment, she figures out that what she is seeing is fake - Henry loves her, she knows he does. He would never stop looking for her. Owa Tagoo Siam is trying to trick her, but Punky won’t fall for it.
This plan having failed, Owa Tagoo Siam turns Brandon the Wonder Dog into a giant skeleton dog. Punky spooks out and runs away from her once true pal. She comes to the end of the cave and finds Owa Tagoo Siam, who looks like if the Mothman fell into a Bedazzler factory. To be honest, the effect is really cool, considering this was a TV show from the 80s. It looks creepier than any CGI monster I’ve ever seen.
Owa Tagoo Siam attacks Punky demanding that she give in to her fears. Just as Punky is about to call it a day, the spirit of Princess Moon shows up and reminds Punky that to beat Owa Tagoo Siam, you must use love. Punky understands, and she is no longer afraid of the evil spirit, she feels pity for it. Owa Tagoo Siam will never know the kind of love Punky gets from her friends and from Henry. As Punky explains that humanity, in general, is filled with love, the spirit screams in pain before exploding.
Cherie, Allen, and Margaux all reappear, along with Mister Pieces, and we get one of those wavy fades as everyone hugs. Now we see the truth - Punky and the gang are all still sitting around the fire, the whole thing was the scary story Punky was telling them. Just as she finishes, Henry and Cherie’s grandma show up. Happy to be found, the gang all leaves. Punky turns back to the cave and says goodbye. The spirit of Princess Moon appears and thanks her. IT WAS REAL.
Punky, in the canon of the show, saved the forest from an evil spirit. Her friends were all killed, then brought back to life, though they seem to remember none of it. I’m tempted to watch the next episode just to see if Punky mentions anything about how insane her life is now that she knows that magic is real, but I’m betting this is like in The Simpsons when the real Seymour Skinner showed up only to be forced out of town with a new law that if anyone ever mentions his existence in the town of Springfield, they will be put to death. In other words, I’m sure this was never mentioned in the remaining sixty episodes of Punky Brewster.
I can’t express just how terrible the first part of this two-parter is, and at the same time, I really think you should all check out part two, if just for the crazy spider fight. I can’t imagine a kids show doing something that crazy these days. Sadly, you can only find the episode in 480p; I’d love to get a better look at the spider puppet, it looks awesome.
Part two is hurt by the filming style, though; they continue to use the standard 3-camera sitcom format, even though it is clear the show wasn’t filmed in a traditional sitcom setting. It's hard to create mood when you’re using the same three camera angles over and over.
The episodes can be purchased digitally through Amazon for $2. Just skip part one.