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Parker Lewis Can't Lose The Complete First Season - Film Freak Central
August 25 2009
It's the cool uncle of "Malcolm in the Middle". It's got "Scrubs" among its progeny, and the '80s teen comedies of Savage Steve Holland somewhere back up the line of descent. It may have single-handedly established the swoosh-smash-zip school of sitcoms, festooned with sound effects, inner monologues, and discursive daydreams. If it wanted, "Parker Lewis Can't Lose" could claim "Family Guy" as a descendent, for the way it appropriates "Parker"'s absurdist jump-cuts to tangential situations.
"Parker Lewis Can't Lose" also holds obvious parallels with the late John Hughes' Ferris Bueller's Day Off, to the point that it could reasonably be accused of plagiarism. There's the syllabic similarity in titles. There's the undermining little sister (Maia Brewton) who wants her untouchable sibling brought to heel. There's the recurring chka-chkaa music cue that could come straight from Yello. Finally, there's the protagonist archetype of a popular teen who's got the whole situation wired. In Parker's case, it's literal: from a hidden video bay above the school gym, our hero (Corin Nemec) and his "best buds," rock aficionado Mikey (William Jayne) and geek manservant Jerry (Troy Slaten, the love child of Lukas Haas and Harold Ramis), monitor the halls of Santo Domingo High School via closed-circuit video and hidden microphones. It's a fantasy of how you thought you'd navigate high school when you were in sixth grade, and a reminder that illegal surveillance can be a tingly rush if you're the one doing the watching.
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