Strange Bedfellows

If you’re caught up with BSCC episodes, it’s a very special Christmas episode, delivered to you hot and fresh on Christmas day! If you’re not caught up, and you’re listening to this at any other time, sorry about the weird Christmas episode randomly thrown into the middle of your feed! We hope it gets you into the Christmas spirit, even if it’s, like, May or whatever. We’re doing something new this week and watching an episode of a TV program instead of reading a book. But not just any TV program, HBO’s The Baby-Sitters Club TV program! And not just any episode of said TV program, but the "The Baby-Sitters Club's Special Christmas”! Say hello to your friends! Merry Christmas! Whatever!

Music Credits:

"Say Hello to Your Friends“ written by Glen Roven

Thanks to original Baby Boy Scott Lamb for the intro music!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s a time of rebirth in Stoneybrook, Connecticut. Out with the old, in the with the new. Dawn is dead and gone, and in her place, a new sitter must rise. And with a new sitter comes a new baby to be sat, this time in the frightening form of a video/VHS/well/water demon named Drusilla Destiny who Jack and Tanner are definitely going to keep an eye on. Sweet Pete also introduces an incredible new character called Abby Stevenson and she’s an instant favorite, but she comes with a LOT of baggage, and even though she claims to be from Long Island, her origin remains frighteningly unclear for the time being.

Music Credits:

Thanks to original Baby Boy Scott Lamb for the intro music and Superbrat for the outro music.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get your tissues ready and put your crying hats on, Baby Nation, because this one’s a sad one! Set during the First World War, "Farewell, Dawn" follows the fortunes of the American paramedic Frederic Henry and an English nurse named Catherine Barkley. Against all odds, their love blossoms as the bombs and shrapnel explode around them, but they are ultimately doomed, not by the destruction and war where their love was born, but the quiet, aching stillness of solitude where it will eventually die. Actually, that MAY be the plot of Farewell to Arms, but it is very difficult to tell the difference between these two heartbreaking classics of American literature. Suffice it to say that Dawn is gone, and we’re just going to have to pick up the pieces and move on without her. At least Claudia was wearing something fun this week!

Music credits:

“Reversion,” by Myuuji

“Don’t Leave Me,” by Lionel Schmitt

“Jane’s Lament,” by EMSonora

“Overture,” by Lionheart

“Supersonic,” by Rob Gasser

Thanks as always to original Baby Boy Scott Lamb for the intro music, and to Superbrat for the outro music.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Extra long episode this week, Baby Nation! Tanner is back from a week in Germany, and for some reason, the boys thought it’d be a good decision to do a late night record while Tanner was still reeling from the effects of jet lag, so Jack has a really hard time keeping this one on the rails. There’s A LOT of singing. Too much singing. Sorry for all the singing. Stacey (with a soft ‘c’) or Stacey (with a hard ‘c’) (we’re not sure how it’s pronounced) has a run in with some bad girls who invite her into the seedy underworld of dingleberriness, and once it starts, the red, red wine never stops flowing. Also, we’re calling Robert the Brewdoggy now, and Stacey Sweet Toots McGill.

Music Credits:

Thanks to original Baby Boy Scott Lamb for the intro music and Superbrat for the outro music.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What seems at first to be a very straightforward “paint-by-numbers” installment in the sitterverse (yawn: the sitters hold a day camp for some of their charges) turns out to be an intricate, surprising, and genuinely frightening origin story for Mary Anne Spier herself. As the boys pick apart the strands in this delicate tapestry woven by Ann M. Martin and the great Nola Thacker, they begin to wonder whether they’ve uncovered something that none of us were meant to know. Because this one goes all the way down, Baby Nation. All the way. Down. Some completely unwarranted and baseless slander of the fine city of Cleveland in this episode, which is still nowhere near as offensive as how many total minutes it takes Jack to get through one two-clause sentence about the B-plot of this book. Put your tinfoil hats on for this one, Baby Nation, because you’re gonna need ‘em!

Music credits:

“Silly Fun,” by Robert Austin

“Lavender Town,” by Myuuji

“Dead Silence,” by Myuuji

“Love Potion,” by Fasol Prod

“Link,” by Jim Yosef

Thanks as always to original Baby Boy Scott Lamb for the intro music, and to Baby Bee Wolfkiller for the outro music.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To really get this week’s episode, you’re going to need to remember a lot of the plot details from Inception, and you’re going to need to know A LOT about the short lived meme that was Dawn Siff’s Vine video resume. Oh, you’ll also probably want to have heard at least a few episodes of This American Life. So, a lot of prerequisites for this one, but it’s really worth it. Claudia gets a radio show on WSTO, Tanner delivers some very interesting factoids about terrestrial broadcast standards, Jack goes about six segments deep at one point, and we get a very special visit from a character we haven’t seen in quite some time who is taking some time off from blipping through spacetime.

Music Credits:

Thanks to original Baby Boy Scott Lamb for the intro music and Superbrat for the outro music.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There’s a ding dang civil war this week, Baby Nation (we’re saying “ding dang” now, apparently), and it looks like the beautiful friendships that we’ve been following for 83 books so far are starting to fall apart at the seams. We always knew that something was going to be the catalyst for the BSC apocalypse we witnessed in this book but never in a million years could either of us have predicted that it was going to be Mary Anne’s pajamas. And to make matters worse, the civil war between the baby-sitters isn’t the only war brewing – there’s the terrifying battle of the ghosts and spirits referenced in the title, the internal crisis of faith that Dawn is undergoing, and a bit of a "war of words” (if you’ll indulge me) between our hosts about whether or not Ann is explicitly referencing the Marvel Universe in this text (she is). Stick around for some seriously glorious antics from Alan Gray and the debut of a brand new song from Superbrat.

Music credits:

“New Dawn,” by Rise Studios

“The End,” by MotionRide

“Phantom Phone Call,” by Superbrat

Thanks as always to original Baby Boy Scott Lamb for the intro music, and to Superbrat for the outro music.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ding Dong, Baby Nation! The witch is dead! Which old witch? Stacey McGill, that’s who! This week Stacey gets into a big fight with all the other members of the Baby-sitter’s Club and they finally do the right thing and cut her loose. And, listen, Tanner isn’t here to say that he told you so, BUT HE TOLD YOU SO! Other talking points include whether or not pineapple is an appropriate topping for pizza (it’s not), a new light-bringer pulling the strings in Stoneybrook, and something else that seemed notable… I can’t quite remember what it was now… I was so distracted throughout the episode by the cooing and crying of a newborn baby that I’m having trouble recalling what the last big piece of news was. Oh well! Guess you’ll have to listen and find out for yourself.

Music credits:

Thanks to original Baby Boy Scott Lamb for the intro music and Superbrat for the outro music.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Looks like we’ve got a Troublemaker gumming up the works this week, Baby Nation! But who, or what, is it? Surely it isn’t sweet, innocent leukemia survivor Danielle Roberts? Might it somehow be that bad, negligent babysitter Stacey McGill? She has been acting VERY strangely of late. Or, and just hear us out here … is there ANY chance that it could be ‘90s Canadian rap and reggae artist Darrin Kenneth O’Brien (aka “Snow”)? Probably not, frankly, but your boys are willing to consider all the options. Including the troubling possibility that we’re dealing with something even more sinister. That the nefarious troublemaking duo Ann M. Martin and Nola Thacker are forcing us to confront … The Nameless Shadow That Devours Us All. Whatever it is, there’s only one thing we truly can be sure of this week: This is all Jessi Ramsey’s fault. And we have the receipts to prove it.

Music credits:

“A Matter of Honor,” by ThePrimeCronus II

“You Gotta Have Theremin and Ukulele,” by Squidlord

“Time Police,” by ErikMMusic

“The Prophecy,” by Fox Beat

Thanks as always to original Baby Boy Scott Lamb for the intro music, and to Superbrat for the outro music.

Summary

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, after father of three Jack Butler loses his job at the Ford Motor Company, he is forced to become a stay-at-home dad when his wife, Caroline, takes a job as a high-powered executive at a prestigious ad agency in Detroit. No wait, that’s the plot of 1983’s Mr. Mom. Shit. Uh, well… pretty much the same thing happens in this book, except it’s Watson Brewer, and he doesn’t lose his job, but he does have a heart attack. (He's fine.)

Music Credits:

As always, special thanks to Baby Boy Scott Lamb for the intro music, and to Superbrat for the outro music.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices