Teen Angel

This was on of my favorite TV shows when I was growing up and I was extremely disappointed when it was canceled. This show did not deserve to be canceled and was among the most popular of the TGIF line-up. Later I found out the reason this show was canceled.

Corbin Allred, who played Steve, is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and at the time of the shows cancellation had turned 19 and decided to serve a mission for his church. Without the main character the show could no longer continue and was therefore taken off the air.

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-Sorry for the random periods, I had to make the comment longer to submit it...

teen angel was exactly what it was supposed to be: a fun 30 minutes on Friday nights, on a channel that devoted Friday night's early prime time hours to programming for young watchers. since we had children in that category, we, as parents watched or listened to most episodes. many episodes had laugh out loud moments. our favorite? the science class with the talking frog! that was tremendously clever. the voice used was genius. we had quite a laugh! the science teacher was a hit too. it was fun seeing marcia-marcia-marcia, all grown up since her '70s Friday night "family show" days. of course the star, steve or corbin allred was great casting too! so all in all, we would have happily supported another season of this clever program.

I remember liking this show, and despising "You Wish". I think I was 11 at the time, but I thought it was really funny. At least the main plot was original... I know I used to quote a few lines from it with a friend, but I'm not sure if I'd still think it was funny if I saw it now. We used to watch it at her house on Friday nights along with Boy Meets World, and make sure not to watch anything else on TGIF. This show didn't last too long... maybe it was bad, but the 11 year old me didn't think so.

At the time the show was on i was seven and it was hilarious. HE DIED FROM EATING AN OLD HAMBURGER! that was hilarious. all the people making fun of it are old and I'm wondering what they are doing watching old shows from TGIF? The acting was your standard teen sitcom, not superb but well enough for the younger kids to believe the story. the jokes were fine, once you grow up,they seem trite but i assure you they were funny at the time ( it was the 90s!!) It was edgier than Sabria, and a few double ententes slipped through the strict TGIF censors. Some day, they will put the show back on the air in the us and all of the 90s generation of kids (us!) will remember how funny the 90s television was. (corny but fitting to the shiny bright times highlighted by the spice girls)

Just as I thought Friday night TV wouldn't get any better in 1997, I was channel surfing and came across "Teen Angel." I thought to myself, "Oh, this is probably going to be another one of those kiddie-coms with 'dumb' humor in it" (think "Full House" and "Family Matters"). Not so in this case: "Teen Angel" was indeed funny, and (unlike those other two shows) it managed to be without having to beat you over the head to get a laugh. (I was in my late 30's when "Teen Angel" first aired.)

As with a few other IMDbers, my favorite episode had to be the fourth one in which Yeardley Smith (the voice of Lisa in "The Simpsons") was the science teacher and Tim Curry was the voice of the frog; what was especially funny in this episode was when the frog did his Rex Harrison impression from "My Fair Lady" and when the teacher screamed, "All right! Anybody who doesn't do the dissection gets an F!" to the class. The eighth one, in which Steve tries out for the lead in the school play (with a Kool-aid commercial parody in between the action), is my choice for the runner-up. I have to force myself to save those two episodes for when I have a not-so-hot day so I can laugh my brains out when I watch them again! (The only two episodes I wasn't crazy about, however, was the one where Marty gives Steve a singing voice so he could be the lead singer in the school choir, as well as the one where Steve was forced to take his younger sister Katie on a camping trip.)

Just as I was beginning to enjoy "Teen Angel," in February 1998 ABC unceremoniously yanked the show, with the lame excuse it was "on hiatus." Then three months later, "Teen Angel" reappeared in reruns, so, remembering what somebody once said in a Chicago Tribune TV question-and-answer column:

"If you want to save it for posterity, you'd better videotape (this show) yourself before (it) vanishes forever."

I also figured it'll be a miracle before Disney/ABC either syndicates the reruns (fat chance, since only 16 episodes were produced; in order for any network series to qualify for syndicated reruns, there has to be at least 95 episodes made. Sadly, "Teen Angel" also didn't achieve any kind of cult following like "Bosom Buddies" and the Classic 39 episodes of "The Honeymooners" did, thus precluding any chance of this program joining that exclusive club of one-season wonders in Rerun Heaven as well) or releases them on either VHS or DVD (even fatter chance; VHS tapes were still popular in mid-1998 but were to be eclipsed by DVDs four years later, about the time the current trend to release box sets of TV shows on DVD began).

So, I DID videotape ALL 16 episodes of "Teen Angel" in the summer of 1998 when they were repeated before they "vanished forever." I remember I even made a special trip to visit my family in Davison, Michigan one Friday just so I could videotape one of those episodes; the Detroit ABC affiliate, WXYZ-TV, Channel 7, blithely denied everybody of said episode that week - airing a boring locally-produced sports special during that time slot - while the Flint ABC affiliate, WJRT-TV, Channel 12, which itself had just been purchased by Disney/ABC, DID show it, so now I have every episode of "Teen Angel." As I said in another posting, thank the Lord for network-owned TV stations, as well as having relatives in the right place at the right time.

So I've had the show "for posterity" on VHS tape for the last 9 1/2 years, and now - to ensure even longer "posterity" - I recently transferred all 16 episodes onto a DVD, so I can enjoy them ad infinitum. As I said before, who knows if and when Disney/ABC will ever put "Teen Angel" on DVD commercially?

And now, 10 years later, what does ABC air in that time slot on Friday nights? ADULT GARBAGE! (I would explicitly name the show currently occupying "Teen Angel's" former slot, but said program has developed a "following" among today's teens - very sad - so, as the saying goes, some things are better left unsaid. Ironically, that show, like "Teen Angel," is also produced by Disney/ABC under their ABC Studios banner.)

Whatever happened to ABC's commitment to good, clean family entertainment on Friday nights?