YMMV / Punky Brewster

• Fan Nickname: Soleil Moon Frye's high school years were painful for her because of the one given to her by jealous classmates: Chunky Boobster.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Punky getting her first bra would be this when Soleil Moon Frye famously got a breast reduction at 15 because of gigantomastia.
  • Lampshaded in an episode of Robot Chicken: Punky discovers boys and gets Glomer to give her bigger breasts. Soleil even voices the stop-action Punky.
  • Punky has the same surname as the protagonist of Brewster's Millions. Read that book and watch the animated episode "Punky's Millions".
  • Oh, Mandark's personalty is similar to Eddie Malvin's (Funny that they're both are played by the same person).
• Never Live It Down: Punky Brewster, never heard of it. Oh, it's the show whose actress got breast reduction surgery!
  • Try to find someone who can name a single episode off the top of their head besides either the Very Special Episode where Cherie gets stuck in the fridge or the one about the Challenger disaster.
• Nightmare Fuel: The notorious "Perils of Punky" two-parter. No child in their right mind tunes into the afternoon reruns of Punky Brewster and expects to see this. Blam.
  • A bit more subtle, but there were a few angsty episodes that worked a number on younger viewers, such as the aforementioned Challenger episode. The abruptness of the cut in the middle of the latter episode is pretty scary. They're in class with Mike (their teacher) saying, "A lady teacher's going up on the shuttle! I'm going to bring my TV so we can watch!" and all of the kids are cheering. Then, the very next thing we see is Punky rushing into her home crying. Wham.
  • "Urban Fear," an episode about a serial killer making his way through Chicago, causing Punky to fear for Henry's life. The entire episode is much darker than the show's usual output, and they never show the killer getting caught.
  • "The Reading Game" features a cousin of Cherie's, a talented artist named Paula, who Never Learned to Read. This becomes painful when Paula's beloved baby brother Bobby ends up going underneath Henry's sink and drinks some fabric softener. She finds him and calls 911, but is unable to read the warning label on the back of the bottle (which is only made worse with Bobby repeatedly saying "It hurts"). Fortunately, the 911 operator was sensitive to her plight, Bobby ends up being fine due to getting rescued in time after Punky and Cherie return to the apartment during the call, and Paula takes the first steps to begin learning to read, but it's still a terrifying experience for them both. Doubles as a Tear Jerker.
  • Cherie nearly suffocating due to getting trapped in an old refrigerator during a game of hide-and-seek. At one point, she realizes she stuck and begins to bang on the door and cry out in vain for help. Worse, while Allen lied about knowing CPR, when Henry asks him to save her once she's discovered, he can't. She only survived because Punky and Margaux knew it themselves. Just before the final commercial break, an announcer's sudden VO tells the audience "CPR should only be attempted by those properly trained" (which is very true: doing it incorrectly can cause more damage or worse).
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Carmen Finestra wrote four episodes and served as creative consultant. Finestra is best known as co-creator and co-executive producer of Home Improvement.
  • Fred Shafferman co-wrote an episode. Shafferman is best known as co-creator and co-executive producer of Sister, Sister.
• Tear Jerker: Punky pleading for Brandon to pull through in "I Love You Brandon" (and her subsequent empathy for the passing of the dog of a fellow pet owner); Punky's emotional pain following the disintegration of the Space Shuttle Challenger ("Accidents Happen"); her goodbye to Allen in "Divorce, Anderson Style"; Cherie's catharsis upon visiting her parents' graves in "The Anniversary."
  • In the cartoon episode "Punky To The Rescue," tears stream down Punky's face as she feels that "I guess I wasn't meant to have a family" upon feeling that she and the kids will never find Henry who is lost in the swamp.
  • The aforementioned "Accidents Happen" is a big one, especially since it came out two months after the Real Life Challenger disaster, so the trauma was still pretty fresh. On top of that, it was based on Soleil Moon Frye's own reaction to the incident. TV Guide gave the episode a "cheer" in their Cheers & Jeers page for it helping kids to come to terms with the tragedy.
  • "Bad Dog" has a neighbor of Punky's threatening to put Brandon to sleep because he bit her. While she was dead set on putting the action into plan, it soon came out why he did it: she was regularly abusing her daughter, and with the last instance, he tried to stop it.
  • The first episode after the three-part pilot has Punk and Henry get separated while grocery shopping. The absolute panic in Punky's voice is heart-wrenching (and impressive on Soleil Moon Frye's part).
  • It's a small moment that isn't dwelled on, but Henry revealing his wife died one month into their marriage. His unwillingness to truly deal with it is implied to be reason he hadn't felt happy before meeting Punky.
• Ugly Cute: When Glomer turns Margaux's face into a glomley face in "Pretty Ugly" from the animated series.
• Values Dissonance:
  • One of the show's sources of humor was to fat-shame Betty on a regular basis. On top of that, the kids also make some rather cruel jokes about Nell Carter's weight in one episode.
  • In "The Gift," Punky befriends a mentally handicapped janitor. Because this is from The '80s, the word “retarded” was used, as was commonplace at a time. Nowadays, as the word garnered more controversy, it has since fallen into disuse, and people would use more politically correct terms.
• The Woobie: Julie (played by a pre-Full House Candace Cameron), from the episode "Milk Does A Body Good."
  • In "The Search," you just want to cradle Punky in your arms when she tearfully confides to Henry "I want my mother!"
  • Punky, especially in episodes like "Changes." Cherie in "The Anniversary". Even Henry, on occasion.

---