How The Baby-Sitters Club tackles social justice issues without veering in Very Special Episode territory

Vulture

"In the 1980s and ’90s, sitcoms aimed at teenage and preteen audiences gained a reputation for dealing with the ripped-from-the-headlines issues affecting young people at the time — like drug abuse, teen pregnancy, and drunk driving — in hokey, ham-handed special episodes," says Ashley Fetters. "What often lent these special episodes their characteristic corniness was the conspicuous absence of the humor that viewers tuned in for in the first place. But The Baby-Sitters Club, a throwback of sorts to the golden age of kids’ sitcoms like Boy Meets World, Full House, and Saved by the Bell, pulls off a rare feat with its two episodes about inequality, social justice, and civic engagement: the educational, topical storyline that doesn’t feel uncharacteristically somber or didactic. 'Hello, Camp Moosehead! Parts 1 and 2' are two genuinely special episodes that never veer into Very Special Episode territory, and according to the writers, that’s partly because they didn’t set out to write an episode about social justice. Rather, they set out to create characters who speak, think, and act like the socially conscious preteens of today and then built storylines around what they believed would be their characters’ natural instincts."