YouTube
It would just be too easy to make a drug joke here ...
The Cosby Show, “Theo and the Joint” (S1E17 – Hulu)
Blossom, “The Joint” (S2E3 – YouTube)
7th Heaven, “Who Knew?” (S2E4 – Hulu)
Basically the exact same episode served three different ways – Mom and/or Dad finds a j-bone in the house, but they don’t know which child it belongs to, which leads to a lot of hand-wringing about parental responsibilities and the imminent threat of things that you’ve read about in the newspaper. All three episodes are epic bummers (the 7th Heaven episode about broken family trust is only resolved when the parents eavesdrop on their child’s prayers), although at least Blossom brings a touch of self-aware ribaldry to its dreary message-mongering. The lessons are all the same, though: prison-warden parenting works; drugs are literally being forced on children at school; there is a direct line between smoking your first joint and selling your ass for a single hit of crack; and so on.
