On January 1, 1996, The Weinerville New Year's Special: Lost in the Big Apple debuted on TV and as of right now, there have been no New Year's special for Nickelodeon shows. The last time I tackled a Weinerville special was a few years ago with the Hanukkah special and if you recall, it's one of the strangest holiday specials I've ever seen. For more details of the special, click here. So, is the New Year's special as weird as the Hanukkah special? How well does it hold up? Let's see and find out.
The story starts off with Marc, Boney, Socko, Pops, Louie, and Captain Bob packing up for a road trip to New York City. While getting ready for the trip, Dottie receives a call from Cocktail Frank saying the bands they hired for the New Year's party have been cancelled and a group of kids are on their way. Dottie calls in Zip to stop them before they leave, but it was too late. Dottie then starts on her quest to let Marc and the gang know about Frank's New Year's Eve party by starting her machine, the A.R.M.S 6000.5. The machine has the power to beam them to any TV so that Dottie can give her message. She first ends up in a TV by a store window. Then she's switched to another TV where two robbers stole from an apartment. She demands them to help her find Marc and the gang and they start dragging it all over the city. Meanwhile, the gang kick Marc out of the van and they separate into various places. Boney wanders around the city, subway, and then dresses like Santa to help a woman receive money for the homeless (but wants to keep it himself), Socko helps a young girl named Jenny play hockey against 4 boys, and Captain Bob entertains a group of kids by the pier. Marc then eventually finds Socko at the toy store and start doing a little shopping.
Meawhile, Dottie is still searching for Marc and the gang, but to no avail. The robbers start getting tired of searching and they return the TV to the apartment they stole it from. She then beams to the large screen at Times Square where the gang eventually see her and head over to the penthouse for the New Year's party. The special concludes with them celebrating New Year's and Boney giving the leftover food to the woman who was raising money to the homeless.
Overall, I have to say that as weird as the Hanukkah special was, at least it had a plot. The plot was practically nonexistent in the New Year's special. There were scenes in the special that showed that there was going to be conflict, but it was pretty much pushed aside. For example, the A.R.M.S 6000.5 can transport her and Zip to any TV, but only until the end they were able to transport to the Times Square screen. Plus, they transported themselves to the party. First of all, why didn't they transport themselves in New York in the first place to look for Marc and the gang? Also, in the beginning, Boney dropped his wallet and it looked like it was going to be some sort of problem in the special. But nope, it was only brought up once at the end when a guest mentioned that he found Boney's wallet and warns him to be careful about losing it. So then what was the point of even showing that scene? It was so unnecessary. While the plot was shoddily written and all over the place with pointless scenes and no direction, the one thing that I can say about it is that it has the classic, corny Weinerville charm that wasn't in the Hanukkah special. It had a lot of cheesy jokes that I couldn't help but laugh at, especially with the Captain Bob segment and the interactions with Dottie and Zip. It felt like I was watching Weinerville.
Overall, if you're a Weinerville fan or a fan of goofy, corny humor, check this special out. If not, then all the flaws I mentioned will distract you from having a good time. This was the only Nickelodeon show to have a New Year's special and I can understand why no one remembers it.
That's all for now. Hope to see you around Old School Lane soon. Happy New Year!
-Patricia
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