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His name is Speedy , him being a drug addict was pretty much a foregone conclusion. It's like walking in on your ward doing a corpse and exclaiming "Necrophilia Lad! How could you?!" — Superdickery.com, regarding this cover
" Dude, I just realised, this is the one where we learn a lesson!"
" Shit!"
An episode, often in a sitcom, in which the lead confronts some highly emotional or forbidden issue from everyday life. Drug abuse, teenage sex, bulimia... At the end of the episode, the protagonist is Enlightened, and the guest character with the Very Special Problem is never seen or heard from again. Often there is an 800 number to call, should you actually have the Very Special Problem. If the problem involves children in some way (and it almost invariably will), then it may also be promoted as something that "No Parent Should Miss".
There's a certain variety of shows where essentially every episode has a special message, such as Touched By An Angel, Joan Of Arcadia, etc.
Often ends up as an Anvilicious Narm.
Examples:
Live Action TV
- The fourth wall destroying quote above comes from the recent lost episode of Gap, which also served as a take that to all the people who protested against the many many (mostly) implied instances of teenage drug use and alchoholism.
- Popularly attributed to Blossom, which had a lot of Very Special Episodes, promoted as such.
- Perhaps the most notorious show for very special episodes was the WB's Seventh Heaven where for a while, virtually every episode was "very special."
- Diffrent Strokes
- The episode of Family Ties in which Alex loses a friend to drunk driving.
- The episode in which Alex gets addicted to diet pills.
- The episode in which Uncle Ned is an "off the wagon" alcoholic. ("...and now (*sob*) I've hit Alex...")
- An episode of Family Matters involving marrow donation.
- An episode of Family Matters involving both gun and gang violence among youth, complete with PSA from the actors out of character at the end, and a catchphrase ("Squash it.")
- Yet another that deals with police discrimination, where a cop pulls over and unfairly tickets Carl's son because he was a black teenager driving in a white neighborhood.
- And then there was the episode that dealt with black history month, where upon Laura suggesting that a black history class be put into the curriculum, somebody posts a IF YOU LOVE BLACK HISTORY SO MUCH WHY DON'T YOU GO BACK TO AFRICA note on her locker.
- Most ABC After School Specials
- An early example is the "Maude Has An Abortion" episode of Maude.
- The ending PSA about the Very Special Problem was parodied in an episode of Dinosaurs. Robbie and his friend, Spike, find a plant in the woods and become addicted to it; at the end of the episode, Robbie urged viewers "Don't do drugs — and help stop preachy sitcom episodes like this one."
- And the finale itself was a Very Special Episode about pollution, and played it completely straight by having it lead directly to the dinosaurs' extinction.
- An episode of Home Improvement was billed as an episode where Randy might have cancer. Turned out he didn't and the whole thing was a false alarm. He did wind up with hypothyroidism, a thyroid condition that effectively requires a pill a day for the rest of his life.
- In fact, most of the emotional turmoil the characters experienced were, indeed, that he might have cancer, or several other things, and that they simply didn't know. The stress of waiting to find out was the linchpin of the drama.
- Well, that and the parents thought that not telling Randy was the best option. Which then backfired when he did his own research and understandably freaked out.
- And who could forget the episode of All In The Family when that serial rapist tried to attack Edith? Quite a few of you, apparently.
- The episode of Saved By The Bell in which Jessie becomes addicted to caffeine pills, leading to the infamous "I'm so excited, I'm so excited, I'm so... so scared!" scene (may be seen here).
- This is mentioned in an episode of Ugly Betty
- While the episode "The Body" in Buffy The Vampire Slayer is a favorite to some fans, it does fit the Very Special Episode concept, where the death that Buffy must cope with is an everyday-life event that is pointedly not connected to the usual supernatural forces of the show.
- One episode of The Sopranos focusing on the soccer coach of Tony's daughter being a child molester played with the trope, in that given their general treatment of women, Tony and his crew come across as somewhat hypocritical in condemning his behavior—particularly in later seasons, the difference between the way Tony and his crew treat women and the way the coach did is that Tony and his crew wait until they're eighteen. Moreover, rather than the black and white morality of the usual Very Special Episode, the show is typically morally ambiguous, as Tony wants to kill the coach, feeling that he would be less of a man were he to rely upon the legal system to seek justice—and that even if he did, what the legal system would do could hardly be called justice. In the end, however, Tony gets very relaxed on both medication and alcohol, and seems quite content with the idea that "I din' hur' nobody".
- Friday Night Lights had a Very Special Two-Parter about racism that was actually very good and realistic. The racist coach even gets some amount of pity from the show as he privately admits to struggling with his own prejudices.
- A fourth-season episode of 24 had Jack Bauer hiding out in a gun shop owned by two foreign immigrants, who make light of the fact that they were patriotic and wanted to serve for the good of the American people. This episode also featured a PSA by lead actor Kiefer Sutherland, who made light of the discrimination faced by Arab and East Indian residents living in America, a situation caused by 9/11 and the War on Terror.
- Literally, EVERY EPISODE of the Degrassi Junior High / Degrassi High / Degrassi The Next Generation franchise is a very special episode. From abortions to suicide to events ripped from Canadian headlines to rape to lesbianism to abuse to unwanted pregnancies to neglected friends to pedophilia to online stalkers to self-worth to HIV/AIDS to environmental awareness... it's all here. In fact, the "Degrassi Classic" franchise emphasized this in a series of short documentary features co-produced by the Canadian government called "Degrassi Talks", in which cast members talked about disturbing events that happened in their lives. 7th Heaven doesn't have s#$@ on this.
- Exception: Seinfeld is known for having never had a Very Special Episode, and just never being that sentimental in general.
- In fact, the rules the writers set for Seinfeld are "No hugging, no learning".
- From around the third or fourth season onwards, every other episode of MacGyver was a Very Special Episode.
- One unintentionally hilarious episode involved black rhino poaching in Africa. It starts out with a warning for the squeamish that they would show a "realistic" depiction of a rhino involving blood (it wasn't too convincing looking), then after the regular plot (basically just Strictly Formula MacGyver), Richard Dean Anderson gives an out of character speech for nearly a minute about the dwindling population of the black rhino. Most people were just laughing hysterically at it.
- Boy Meets World had a couple of these.
- The Drew Carey Show parodied this with "A Very Special Drew."
- Waterloo Road does a few of these, complete with the phone number to call at the end of the show, but the acting is generally good enough to get away with it. The first season's Very Special Episode about homophobic bullying was nominated for an award by a major gay rights organisation.
- Sesame Street's Very Special Episode dealing with the death of Mr. Harold Hooper, which was ENTIRELY justified as the man who played him also died. Not a shred of Narm this time, this Very Special Episode headed straight into Tear Jerker territory.
- Anyone else remember the episode of Mr. Belvedere where one of Wesley's classmates contracts HIV?
- During a AIDS/HIV awareness month on American television, Star Trek Enterprise aired an episode in which T'pol, the catsuited Vulcan first officer, entered an unprotected Mind Meld with a rogue hippie Vulcan (played as an Anvilicious sexual metaphor), a scene which veered into Mind Rape territory, and as a result, T'pol contracted a rare Vulcan neurological disease that... oh forgot it, she got Vulcan Space AIDS. I Am Not Making This Up. Not that this disease was ever brought up again after that episode.
- It was, twice. First, T'pol mentions to her fiance that she is "ill", in an attempt to get him to forget about marrying her. Later, she explains to T'pau that she won't meld because she has Vulcan Space AIDS, and doesn't want to spread it. T'pau explains that she can cure it.
- Not to mention the extremely anvillicious episode where Phlox tries to get information about the disease from Vulcan medical authorities, who essentially refuse because of the strength of their prejudice against mind melds. Quite the most illogical behaviour I've ever seen from Vulcans, notwithstanding the later multi-part Retcon explaining why something is rotten in the state of Vulcan.
- Walker Texas Ranger takes these to their extreme. There are several episodes about racism, one about AI Ds, and an episode about sexism where they even had a normally tolerant character act out of character just to hammer the point home.
- Kyle XY had one about tolerating gays. See Fiction Is Not Fair.
- What, nobody's thought of Law And Order and all of its' spinoffs? Particularly Special Victims Unit, Very Special Episodes are seen all time.
- Jack & Bobby had an episode where Jack's ex-best friend Matt (who was only in this one episode) committed suicide. Through flashbacks in Jack's memory, the reason for Matt's suicide was revealed to be that Matt was gay, and in love with Jack. After confessing his feelings to Jack, the two eventually parted ways. Later, when Jack talks to Matt's parents, he finds out that Matt had tried to come out to his mother, but she had rejected him. At the end of the episode, there is a hotline number on the screen for LGBT teens who are depressed or suicidal.
- In a notable subversion, the TV show Titus framed every episode as a Very Special Episode, most notably because of the subject matter (drugs, suicide, abuse, cheating, and insensitivity to others were common in the series). However, because they then took to the other extreme of the VSE, the subject matter was always presented as humorous and without redeeming qualities (people very rarely learned a lesson that was really worth learning). And it worked.
- West Wing had one immediately after 9/11, where they dealt with a potential terror attack on the White House and debunked a lot of the myths floating around in the weeks after the attacks.
Western Animation
- Static Shock had many Very Special Episodes, including "Sons of the Fathers" (focusing on racism), "Frozen Out" (focusing on homelessness), "Jimmy" (focusing on school violence), and "Where the Rubber Meets The Road" (focusing on dyslexia).
- This troper found some of these episodes to be quite good, namely the ones with the two dads and the kid who took a gun to school and shot the main character's best friend. But he still lived
- Mercilessly spoofed in Drawn Together, in an episode appropriately named "A Very Special Drawn Together Afterschool Special". Started as a roleplay by the housemates to help Xandir decide how to inform his parents of his homosexuality, the effort quickly derailed, which resulted in nearly all of them getting killed by the end of the episode.
- Also lampshaded in an earlier episode: ("Hi, I'm Toot Brownstein... In this episode, we awkwardly dealt with eating disorders.")
- A well-done example is the Gargoyles episode "Deadly Force", in which the dangers of playing with a loaded gun are looked at in-depth, including a graphic description of the path the bullet took inside the victim's body. The message may have been too good, however. It's usually omitted from reruns on the Disney Channel for being too violent.
- More Anvilicious was the episode concerning illiteracy—though pretty justified by the fact that the gargoyles came from the Middle Ages, where the ability to read was very uncommon.
- Also, Gargoyles bucked the trend by showing aftereffects in later episodes. After "Deadly Force", Elisa spent a few episodes on crutches and was later shown carefully locking up her gun instead of leaving it out. The author character introduced as part of the literacy episode has made some appearances since. Broadway, the Big Eater gargoyle who got into reading has become quite the fan of Shakespeare. Just look at that moment when he describes the Eyrie Tower Castle's kitchen, and then his eyes really light up when he describes the library. He was also the one who accidentally shot Elisa with her gun, and he gets very angry when he encounters criminals using guns.
- An ABC special called Cartoon Allstars To The Rescue where cartoon characters from Looney Tunes to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles try to teach a child called Mikey about the dangers of marijuana. Ludicrously. the point that breaks Mikey, other than his addiction forcing him to steal from his little sister and his family worrying about him, is that marijuana will turn him into a green-skinned zombie; it's quite obvious where Mikey's priorities are, and it's made even worse when you consider most marijuana users aren't, y'know, zombies. Stupidest of all is that cartoon characters who really have no business knowing about drugs are the ones preaching to Mikey, such as Huey, Dewey and Louie of Duck Tales, Alvin And The Chipmunks and, of all people, the Muppet Babies. And seeing Bugs Bunny talking about a joint is really quite a childhood-killer.
- Captain Planet is pretty much one big Very Special Show, telling children to not cause pollution (despite rarely going into why people polluted in the first place). However, it had particular episodes that focused on more down to earth problems that children, teenagers and young adults may face. One of these was a drug episode "Mind Pollution" where Linka's cousin gets addicted to a designer drug called "Bliss" created by Verminous Skumm (who appeared to specialize in "pollution of the body" in the show, so to speak). Another episode was about AIDS, involving Skumm spreading lies about a young AIDS sufferer such as the virus could be contracted just through casual contact. The former episode is at least somewhat notable for breaking the Never Say Die rule by having Linka's cousin die from overdosing on the drug... Then again, the fact he leapt through a glass window and sliced his arms, causing him to bleed profusely on the floor might've had something to do with it too.
- Parodied in an episode of Animaniacs in which the Warners attempt to win an award by shoehorning every social issue they can think of into their next cartoon.
- Let's not even mention practically every cartoon made by Filmation studios.
- Oddly enough, Pinky And The Brain had one about cigarette smoking. It was not very Narm-y, but it was kind of weird to have a Very Special Episode in a show about two lab mice trying to conquer the world. Even weirder was the fact that Pinky was the voice of reason (well, as reasonable as he could get, anyway).
- Nonetheless, the episode's humor and style did not suffer.
- Clone High made fun of the concept by having its episode-end eyecatches for the next ep promote every episode as "a very special Clone High".
- Buzz Lightyear Of Star Command did an anti-drug episode, though due to the show's sci-fi setting the popular genre convention that Radiation gives you superpowers is used as a metaphor for it.
- Tiny Toons had the requisite Very Special Episode, but, being Tiny Toons, they hung lampshades on everything in sight. One Beer sees Buster coercing Hamton and Plucky into a cold one and admitting it's radically out of character for him in the same breath. They proceed to get entirely sloshed on 1/3 a beer each, become smelly, slurring hobos, steal a cop car, joyride it off a cliff into a graveyard, and die. At the end of the episode, it pulls back to the studio as they pull off their "angel" costumes, mention that a very important lesson has been taught, and hope they can be funny again in the next episode. However, it's preceded by an Anvilicious short about smoking that seems to be less about the actual health hazards posed and more about how to harass people you think are doing something objectionable into giving in to your nagging.
Comic Books
- The Silver Age Speedy (later know as Arsenal and later still as Red Arrow) became a Very Special Character for much of his career, starting with a 1971 story in which he became a heroin addict. Despite the Superdickery quote mentioned above, the original story was not especially Narmful, but many of the later ones were. One of the most infamous of these stories was a the Teen Titans 'Drug Awareness issue' mentioned in Pieta Plagiarism.
- His drug abuse is still part of his character—when Speedy lectured someone else (Nightwing, this troper recalls) in a very holier-than-thou way in a recent comic, Nightwing sneered that he was getting advice from a heroin addict.
- The Modern Age Speedy got her own Very Special Issue where she revealed that not only was she a recovering drug addict... she was also HIV Positive!
- This editor has one Very Special Issue of the Robin comic book, wherein Tim Drake talks a kid down from jumping off the roof; it fits well in the story, as Robin himself had recently lost pretty much everyone he ever knew. It even came complete with a teen suicide hotline at the end of the issue.
- DC's fond of these in general, much moreso than Marvel (though they get their fair share in too). DC is, in fact, so fond of the Very Special type that they'll go so far as to introduce Very Special Characters, new characters whose entire presence starts out as an excuse to have everything they're in turn to some extent into a Very Special Issue. Examples include the new Speedy (teen prostitution, HIV), and the list goes on.
- The Amazing Spider-Man had a classic issue where Spider-Man saves a stoner from jumping off a building. Fortunately, it wasn't as narmful as it could be, mainly the result of subplots about Gwen Stacey and Harry Osborn.
- That entire arc is famous for how the Comics Code Authority handled the whole Very Special Episode aspect about drug abuse - and in the process signed their own death warrant. The CCA wouldn't allow even the negative portrayal of drug use, causing Marvel to forgo CCA approval for that story.
Video Games
- Parodied in Sam & Max Season 2: Night of the Raving Dead. The pair film a "Very Special Episode" of Midtown Cowboys in which they confront their landlord about his addiction... but the episode is really a massive product-placement ad, because who wouldn't be addicted to the great taste of Old Gutsmack brand Malt Liquor?
- And then they replace the liqour with cigarettes containing garlic, causing a German vampire who is a big fan of the show to smoke them.
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