102 - Attack of the Killer Parents

104 - Couples

Episode 103--"housewarming"

Writers Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick Director John Pasquin Air Dates 10/13/87, 8/2/88 Guest Stars Faith Ford as Janine; Tom O'Brien as Dave Firland; Ian Rabson as Jerry Stahl; Bill Kalmenson as young ad executive; Mel Berenson as older ad executive; Mary McKuen as woman party guest Synopsis Michael decides to throw a house warming party for all his business connections and then has an ulcer over the needed renovations.

Old screen capture from a VHS tape New screen capture from DVD Sound wavs from this episode

(Sorry folks, I have to do this one from memory)

Michael decides it would be a good business move to throw a huge house party and becomes knotted up over the trouble, the cost, anxiety, arrangements, renovations, and his insecurities regarding his career and life. Add to that the fact that Hope was involved with Jerry Stahl, one of the prospective guests, many years ago and it's a nightmare waiting to happen.

Michael has an extended dream sequence in which his friends put him on trial for having been unfaithful to their radical ideals in college (Gary figured prominently in this) and this is somehow related to his current dilemma.

In the end, Michael puts his foot down about the renovations to the breakfast nook, saying he wants to wait and get it done properly the first time, but not until after Dave the carpenter flirted with Hope a little (and Ellyn drooled like a rabid dog at a rabbit breeders convention).

The party goes off very nicely, Jerry Stahl is a dork and Michael has nothing to fear, and the episode closes with everyone gathered in the living room listening to old records.

Michael looked very scrawny in these early episodes, but he bulked out fairly well by the beginning of the next season.

First appearance of Michael and Elliot's mini-basketball game.

Jan took the time to use closed captioning to provide this observation about what was being said at the very end of the episode: "While I had hoped that it was something personal (like Hope complaining that her french braids gave her a headache), instead Michael says 'Jerry Stahl happens to make about 300 thousand a year' to which Hope replies '...he also happens to be a very nice guy.'"

Jerry Stahl is in fact a real person who worked on thirtysomething, writing "born to be mild" and working for many other television shows. He was also a heroin addict, an episode in his life which has been chronicled in the book Permanent Midnight, now also a film starring Ben Stiller.

• Where is all that golden light that shines through the windows in the final scene coming from? I'd rather thought it was late at night, given that it was a dinner party and all.

• Jan has written in to note that palm trees are visible in the background as the birthday party antics unfold in the backyard. Gee, didn't know they had palm trees in Philadelphia!

• "Circle Game", performed by Joni Mitchell (written by Joni Mitchell) from either Miles of Aisles or Ladies of the Canyon, played at the end of the episode as everyone gathers in the living room

Michael wears a solid dark green dress shirt which isn't his usual look. (In all fairness, Hope noted that he'd bought it himself, which was unusual since he didn't shop for himself ever, so that might explain it.)

Michael has a dream of being put on trial by all his friends who are in full 1960s, anti-war regalia.

Analysis

[4/21/99] From Carlos:

"I notice that on the episode House Warming, or wahtever its called, when Mike and Elliot are deciding who to invite for the party, they suggest the name of Cate or Catie Broyles.  Then Elliot goes like: Catie Broyles, didn't she win that Design award? (...) Now she won't even return my calls...  Something like that... :-)

As it turns out, Cate or Catie Broyles is the creator of the My So-Called Life logo [her name appears on the closing credits of this show] and on Relativity, the opticals and the logo design is credited to Broyles/ [something i can't recall the name], which suggests that she was involved in the Relativity logo as well.. So I assume that 30 logo was also created by her, since that's the only reasonable explanation for her name to come out Elliot's mouth...
 

Michael is a good deal more panicky in these early episodes. Also, the tone is set for the friends to be liberal in their social politics. Still, I find it amazing, that in later episodes some characters are violently sanctimonious about the homeless and other issues, yet have such large houses, drive expensive cars, dress as they do, and so obviously enjoy the more material comforts of life. The contrast is jarring and undercuts the supposed sincerity of their beliefs. Maybe the point was to examine the inconsistitences in all our lives, but it still didn't quite sit right.

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The dashed line marks the point where Lisa Stevenson Blackwell's original version of this page ended, and where Bob Fahey began adding material.

Scene edited out in Lifetime version. - Luiza Hirsch (Luiza@gmx.org) has both the Lifetime versions and the unedited versions aired in Germany. She writes that there is "a whole missing scene, over 2 minutes long, around 31 minutes into the episode, right after Michael comes home, feeling beat, and Hope comforts him, with Ellyn looking on approvingly. Hope and Michael are in bed sleeping when Michael is awakened by an apparition of his late grandfather. The dialogue goes more or less like this (this is my re-translation into English so it's not literal):

"At that point Grandpa, who has been sitting on the end of Michael's side of the bed, staring ahead and ignoring Michael, looks at him for the only time, then he disappears again.

Aug. 2009 update: The above scene is restored in the DVD release.

"In a later scene Michael is lying belly-down on that same bed, with his head exactly where Grandpa had been sitting, and Hope scolds him for worrying too much. Obviously, Michael's remark that cossacks could come at any moment and take it all away (which Hope makes fun of, understandably from her WASP perspective) makes no sense if you haven't seen the other scene first. In a way, the root of Michael's Jewish angst is embodied in this scene (a little heavy-handedly, I think). So by extension, this scene is a key to Hope's and Michael's different backgrounds and hence, different ways to feel about life."

Sound wavs from this episode - All sound names starting with "03"

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