way cool?

I have a soft spot for Clarissa Explains It All, as I have for all the mid-90s Nickelodeon shows I used to watch at my grandparent's place in Florida on March Breaks. Clarissa Darling was infinitely more likable than Sabrina Spellman-- she was bratty, sneaky, smart, opinionated, and brash. The show ended in 1994, but apparently a pilot for a spin-off was shot (!!!)...

...and it sucks. Clarissa Now lacks everything good, funny, and neon about the original show, so it's no surprise that every station passed and it's been languishing in a black plastic VHS case ever since. What irks me even more is that Clarissa, like every "independent" teenaged female character to follow in her wake, dreams of being a journalist. I, too, grew up wanting to be a journalist, and now I know who to blame for planting that seed of ambition in my head: the teen girls of TV. Caitlin Ryan. Harriet the Spy. Rory Gilmore. Sabrina Spellman, again. I had to go all the way to first year journalism at King's College in Halifax, all the way to age 19, before I realized that I was better at making up stories than telling truths.

It 's just too damn easy to make your young heroine a journalist--and, in this day and age, when newspapers are shuttering down and MJ degrees are suddenly as worthless as my MFA, it also seems inappropriate. Clarissa Darling might've had a shot at success back in 1995, but she'd be languishing in the publishing world today. She'd probably be writing a blog instead.