The Great Computer Caper

This episode is one of my top ten favs from season one. It is known as a crossover episode-in which a character from another show(in this case-Gary Coleman's character "arnold Jackson" from different Strokes)appears in another show. Here, Arnold is a reporter for his school newspaper "the PS 89 weekly woodpecker" Who has somehow found out about his top notch computer skills{keep in mind that this was 1982-Windows and the Internet as know it today was years away}and that he has won an award at a computer camp.

Ricky uses a rather complex code-consisting of a series of numbers and letters-to hack into a military computer file that has blueprints of a fighter jet. Arnold then publishes them in his paper-and is paid a visit by the FBI. They then stow away on a ship that is helm-ed by caption Stark{John Anderson}-he tells them what's it like on the high seas and they decide to go home and face the music-see episode to see how things work out.

This episode is an example of why Ricky Stratton is one of my favorite characters in any TV show-Even though he is very smart-he is not portrayed as a nerd nor a smart Alec know it all. I can not tell you how many TV shows and movies portray computer whiz kids as computer geeks or nerds. This show is a refreshing departure from that.