Punky Brewster Goes To A Cubs Game

Unfortunately, I wasn't alive in 1984 and thus didn't have the benefit of parking in front of the TV after Sunday afternoon football to watch the first season of Punky Brewster. Thanks to VH1, I know what Punky Brewster is. And thanks to my girlfriend's eight year old niece, who loves Punky and owns the Complete First Season on DVD, I discovered a gem from 1980s television.
In Episode 8 of Season 1, entitled "Take Me Out To The Ballgame," Punky and Henry buy scalped tickets to the 1984 NLCS at Wrigley Field. The footage is lifted from the Cubs' 13-0 victory in Game 1 against the Padres, including, among other moments, Rick Sutcliffe's home run.
A few things you'll notice about the clip:
1) It describes everything you need to know about an 80s sitcom in seven and a half minutes. Everything from the music, to the nuns, intimidating guy who doesn't look all that intimidating, to their eventual dugout seats really dates this one.
2) Cubs fans were a little less cynical in 1984. Look at the '39' signs (referring to the 39 year drought since the Cubs had last been to the World Series). Nowadays we count down from 1908, the last year we won a World Series, not the last time we lost one.
3) At the 6:40 mark, you'll notice the Padres footage is taken from San Diego's Jack Murphy Stadium and the Padres look to be facing the Dodgers. How does this happen? Did they seriously think the contrast between the padded blue and brick back stop would be easy to gloss over? They probably would have been better off cutting that part out and losing an entire one second from the run time.



I felt kind of bad though. I let it slip that Punky Brewster is actually a grown woman with two children, not the spunky seven year old and possible friend that my girlfriend's eight year-old niece thought she was. To be fair, the same thing happened to me in 1995, when eight year old me found out my potential girlfriend, Shirley Temple, was really 67 years old and had been married twice.
Watching this episode also led me to another unintended consequence: I finally looked up the game logs from the 1984 NLCS. The Cubs outscored the Padres 17-2 en route to wins in Games 1 and 2 (of a five game series, mind you). Then went on to lose their next two by a combined score of 14-6. With Sutcliffe back on the mound for Game 5, the Cubs took a 3-0 lead to the sixth before giving up 6 runs in the 6th and 7th to lose 6-3. Thanks for the reminder, Punky.