"Perils Of Punky" Wrecked My Brain

The things in my life that skeeve me out make no sense. I have moved dead bodies, washed puke and blood off my shoes from working at a hospital, mopped blood and spit from the floor of a porn shop, and ate hash browns with soy sauce when I was little. The last one I cant remember why I did it. Pretty sure I threw up soon after. I watched a lot of stuff I probably shouldn’t have when I was little. My parents didn’t filter what I watched so I saw Hellraiser, Friday The 13th, and all kinds of B movies that were rated R. None of these bothered me as much as an episode of Punky Brewster.

Prepping my adult boner for childhood fears.

This two part episode called “The Perils Of Punky” fucked up my young soul and I still don’t know why. I was thinking about this episode since its close to Halloween and looked up the plot and cant recall half the shit that happened. I just have flashes of my brain going “I don’t want!” at various images of fucked. This aired in 1985 so I was the perfect age to have parts of my spirit chipped away at.

Though I know what happened after reading up on it I’m gonna go based on what I remember from my youth. There were some Injuns involved. Punky and her friends Cherie, Allen, and Margaux head into a cave after Brandon runs into it. Nope. I thought Brandon was an awesome dog but there’s no fucking animal I’ll chase into a cave.

Monsters greatest fears? Giant pink hats.

At some point they come across some cave drawings and Cherie, being the Blacker, should automatically be like “Oh, fuck this!” and start running for the exit. So of course they continue walking. Why come?! The drawings looked exactly like them…if a child drew them. There is no way this ends well. Punky, though a lovable scamp, is an asshole at times. If she were your kid you’d probably drop her off at the supermarket you found her at. She starts telling ghost stories because the best way to calm down a group of terrified kids lost in a cave is to tell them scary stories.

Oh, hell naw!

Some Injun dude shows up out of fucking nowhere and tells them about an evil spirit on the land because the kids still have color left in their faces and don’t look quite scared enough. He tells them that being nice and shit is the way that the spirit was stopped before. Wait. How was it stopped if its still a threat?! I guess me and Mr. Native American have different definitions of the word “stopped.” 

"Oh, don't mind me. I'll just stand over here being 'stopped'."

They end up at a spider web and I don’t remember how but they get stuck in it. Mind you, this is the biggest spider web ever made. Stevie Wonder would be able to see this. So these losers get stuck in the web and I’m just waiting for the spider to show up. I don’t even have a fear of spiders but with a web that big you know its gonna be huge.

"Hey, where'd this come from?!"

Punky and her dog Brandon end up beating the spider somehow. Likely with the ability of Punky Power which was a real thing. It was the 80’s version of Special Needs Strength. If you grew up in the 70’s you probably shouted “A hope and a hey and a hope shah nah!” like Pippi Longstocking and woke up in the hospital because you just did something stupid.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKKK!!!

Punky’s friends start disappearing or something and their faces start popping up in the wall of the cave. I think this is the part that fucked with my brain the most.

That is of course until this happened.

Then this.

Man, fuck this. There are times in certain movies like Resident Evil where things are so jacked up that you need to just quit. You’ll never be the same after something like seeing your friends zombie’d into walls or turned into skeletons. Your brain breaks. So Punky ends up fighting the monster and its like a sparkly blanket which is laughable until you see that it has goddamn knives for fingers. Knives! She beats it by being strong…I think.

He wants to braid your hair.

I don’t even remember how they got out of the cave or anything. My brain stops at that point. I read that they did make it out and continued to cause childhood trauma with the Challenger Explosion episode and the one where Cherie got stuck in a fridge.

Instead of my pants.