What Are Friends For?

ABC Afterschool Special Season 8-Episode 7 was directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal and features Dana Hill, but is a hopelessly amateurish effort. Pretty pre-teen and her newly-divorced mother relocate from New York City to Southern California, where the girl is befriended by the misfit kid next door who has no friends, tells tall tales, and is into witchcraft! Adapted from the book by Mildred Ames, the acting here is second-rate--including by the typically reliable Hill--and is not helped by Gyllenhaal's constant close-ups and creepy/voodoo undermining (what were '80s kids meant to take away from a shot of an antique doll submerged in blood-red water?). Lessons to be learned: when parents divorce, they don't divorce their responsibilities towards their kids; also, being loyal to a friend who is untrustworthy makes you look bad, so turn them in!

After School specials were Hit or Miss affairs. Usually when you watch an old one now (And you CAN, for now they are finally for sale at AMAZON. Yay!) you find yourself thinking "Hmmmm. That wasn't as good as I had remembered.") WHAT ARE BEST FRIENDS FOR is actually pretty darn good. There's a new girl in town named Amy and she's moving into an apartment with Mom who just recently split up with Dad. Amy has decided to give Dad the cold shoulder, hide away his picture in cold storage and refuse his phone calls and such. She meets Michelle Mudd (Dana Hill), a girl her age whose parents are also divorced. Because they both children of divorce ( a point that is driven home to be so out of the ordinary that these two girls are a rare breed shunned by the rest of the kids. This was the '80s. People weren't as divorce happy as we are now) Michelle tells Amy they have to be friends. But not just friends. Best friends bound by a voodoo pact,an exchange of jewelry and an oath of loyalty. So now whenever Michelle sees Amy talking to other kids she freaks out screaming "Loyalty" this and "Loyalty" that. Michelle gets weirder as the show goes on. She starts out meditating and chanting and lighting candles and such. Then one day Amy walks in unannounced and catches Michelle doing a weird voodoo ritual in her bathroom dressed in a voodoo priestess cape and kabuki style goth make-up (probably from those late 70's Do-It-Yourself KISS make-up sets). It seems that when Michelle doesn't like someone (Like Dad's new girlfriend!) she does voodoo to try to wish them away. This, I would imagine, would make it hard to break off a friendship with the girl since I'm sure if you upset her she would be putting the black magic towards getting even with you and making your life a living hell. As weird an After School Special as your likely to ever see: Watching Dana tiptoe down a corridor and sneak into Amy's apartment in goth gear with a mysterious bundle of newspaper in her hands freaked me out a little, and my daughter was glued to the TV set! Check it out.