Misremembering 'Cool Girl' Ginger Foutley

Am I the only one who thought As Told By Ginger was about a red-headed fashionista with an answering machine?

When I was a kid, summer was peppered with things to look forward to. There was farm camp, during which I spent much of the time huffing and puffing self-importantly because no one would believe me that the goat named Princess was pregnant (she wasn’t). There were constant bike rides to 7/11 to load up on Slurpees and running through cold sprinklers in bathing suits — something all our parents managed to convince us was a really good time despite it now being my worst nightmare. And of course, there were weeks spent at my grandparents’ house upstate where, if I showered quickly enough between my afternoon lake swim and before dinner, I could catch a few glorious minutes of cable television (something I wouldn't have at home until a few years later). 

While there were many shows that captured my attention at that young age, there was only one I associate so much with my grandparents' television because it always aired at just the right time: As Told By Ginger on Nickelodeon. I remember thinking how cool Ginger was with her flared pants and barrettes in her hair, lounging in her room after school with her friends who always seemed to be at her house. When they weren’t there, they left Ginger voicemails on a machine she had in her room as a middle schooler. Can you imagine? 

Feeling nostalgic recently (and perhaps bitter over the fact that I was still paying for Paramount Plus despite there being no news on the Criminal Minds reboot season two front because my fiancé needed to watch soccer or something), I clicked on As Told By Ginger. I was curious if Ginger’s cool factor held up. If you remember this show at all, you probably know what’s coming. 

The entire premise of As Told By Ginger is that Ginger is not cool. In fact, the show is really trying to convince us that our red-headed heroine and her friends are losers who want nothing more than to be popular and liked by “it” girl Countney Gripling. Ginger’s group includes Macie Lightfoot — who I think we’re supposed to laugh at because… she has glasses and seemingly asthma (?) — and the talkative, bubbly Dodie Bishop. Just take the pilot: Countney’s having a birthday party and Ginger somehow gets invited. She and friends put their heads together to figure out what Ginger could possibly get as a gift for someone so rich and pretty. Courtney's BFF Miranda manages to convince them to steal a sign outside of a bank that the birthday girl could hang in her room, and then gets Ginger arrested and tells everyone she robbed a bank (which is soooo Jenny Humphrey coded).

Perhaps I should have expected on my rewatch that As Told By Ginger, which first aired in 2000, would not actually make Ginger cool. It’s rare for a child’s show to focus on someone who isn’t an outcast. From Jimmy Neutron to Even Stevens, kids TV usually runs with the idea that being yourself is much cooler than being popular. But there are so many characters I remember as they were like Hilary Duff in Lizzie McGuire. Yes, I was impressed that she had friends like Gordo and Miranda, the confidence to tell Kate to F off and the cute looks and charisma to get Ethan Craft’s attention every once in a while. But it was also clear I was supposed to think she was some kind of social pariah, and I was happy to play along.  

Why did they make Macie Lightfoot (right of Ginger) look 65 years old? The girl had it hard enough as is

When it comes to As Told by Ginger, however, my memory was so flawed. OG YWSW-ers will remember when I revisited Courage the Cowardly Dog and found that it was just as terrifying and absolutely off the walls as I recalled from my youth. So how could I have been so wrong about Ginger Foutley?

It’s impossible to watch television in a vacuum, and it’s amazing how the frequency or the time a show aired on television colored not just my experience watching it, but my perception of it years later. It was a treat to watch Ginger, and so my itty bitty brain morphed her into something she wasn’t: cool, calm, collected — everything I wanted to be. This certainly isn’t the only show in which the characters likely benefited from their limited (at least to me) airing schedules. I very rarely saw Hey Arnold but when I did, I daydreamed about having his bedroom — one that was bigger than any NYC apartment I’ve ever lived in and had sky lights  — and someone who was obsessed with me enough to make me a literal shrine à la Helga G. Pataki. These two factors alone made Arnold cool, but I just Googled the premise of that show and it’s “The adventures of Arnold, a fourth-grader with a football-shaped head who lives with his grandparents, Phil and Gertrude, in the city of Hillwood.” Babes, I hate to break it to you. Arnold was a loser, too. I could only catch Recess on Saturday mornings, and so, to me, that was a cinematic viewing equal to The Breakfast Club. A few years later, I could only see reruns of What I Like About You if I raced home from volleyball practice and had finished my homework already. That made me think there was no greater thing in life than to be Jennie Garth and Amanda Bynes’ characters, living in the city with their sister, dating boys. (To be fair, these two really were cool. But perhaps not the goddesses I made them out to be in my head.)

The least realistic thing about Arnold’s bedroom is the assumption that a teenage boy is taking care of houseplants

 On the other hand, shows like Full House were seemingly inescapable. No matter how cool those hot dads were, I hardly cared about them. They were too easily attainable. (A curious thing to say for someone who watches Law & Order habitually since you will never find a hotel room, gym or airplane in which that show is not playing, but it benefits from the fact that I can’t watch too many without being convinced everyone I know has someone locked in the basement). The Simpsons and Friends never really stood a chance, and that’s no fault of their own. They may be beloved and have clearly stood the test of time, but if Homer or Chandler and the crew were constantly available during my TV time, I didn’t want them. 

That perceived scarcity didn’t only work in regard to airtime, but also when and where I watched them. I loved House because I only watched it in my friend’s basement, since her parents didn’t seem to care what we did during a playdate (yes I’m saying “playdate” because we were much too young to be watching House). Even as I got older, that scarcity of a show gave me rose-colored glasses about the content. I never stayed up late enough to watch hours of MTV’s Next unless I was sleeping over at one particular friend’s place, and so watching someone like Staci (age 18, nicknamed “Hippie,” afraid of goats¹) go on five blind dates was worth the bloodshot eyes I’d have the next morning. 

You can’t make this stuff up

Given all this, it makes sense that Ginger — saved for those early summer evenings when I was sun-kissed and likely heading to the ice cream store after dinner — was somewhat of a cartoon idol. 

Now that I can watch any show at any time via one of the many streamers burning a hole in my wallet, TV, in many ways, is much less exciting. Limited options meant I would have to work with what I was given, exaggerating what and who was on TV to meet my highest expectations. So perhaps it wasn’t just my soft and squishy frontal cortex that convinced me That’s So Raven’s Raven Baxter was the fashion icon of our generation or that Addie from Unfabulous was going to be the next Taylor Swift with that little acoustic guitar on which she strummed, at most, four chords. Now I’m older and more cynical in general, but I often wonder if having unlimited options of what to watch at any moment has also contributed to the lack of spark, or delusion as some might call it, I used to feel towards characters that weren’t actually written to be my idols, my sun and moon. After all, I’m still susceptible to immortalizing a coveted television time slot. HBO’s Sunday night drops are all the more exciting because I have to wait a week and know that around the country, my friends and strangers on Twitter are awaiting the same episode. A watch party for The Bachelor can trick me into thinking I won’t lose my mind from hearing them say “journey” or “right reasons” one more time. 

But with every type of show available to me at every moment, television has become more like my morning oatmeal — something I look forward to but make as part of my routine in a zombie-like state — as opposed to those summer Slurpees, which were special treats. 

---

B Plot

Question: What show were you not allowed to watch but would always sneak?

Mallika: I don’t think I was explicitly ever told to not watch Judge Judy but it was implied. How could I resist though? People re-enacting their Tupperware fights, exes duking it out over chickens and candy vending machines, the judge constantly interrupting them to say things like “Do I look like an idiot to you?”… gold. It made me ultra prepared for when my “legal ethics” class in high school took a field trip to Manhattan to catch a live filming of The People’s Court with Judge Marilyn Milian (yes, this is true). Also this is the face of any of our parents if they knew we were watching A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila:

Rachel: For me, it was a mountain of shows. And I didn’t have to sneak so much as wake up at 6 a.m. and knock on my older neighbor Kimberly’s back door until she finally woke up and groggily let in a 9-year-old me, wide-eyed and ready to consume the Nutter Butters in her parents’ cabinet and unfiltered television access. God bless us both. I would flip the channel usually between TBS where I’d watch blocks of Dawson’s Creek and then Saved by The Bell, to the more unsavory Vh1, which offered treats like Flavor of Love and does anyone remember Andy Dick’s reality show The Assistant where he made a bunch of randos sleep on the floor in his mansion and compete for the grand prize of… working for him? Probably at 60k a year? 2004 was wild. Nothing I remember watching at that age was necessarily sanctioned, but my parents weren’t very protective over the remote and maybe they should’ve been… then again I would not be the woman I am today had I not watched Busy Phillips throw up drugs on Michelle Williams in the warmth of not-my-family’s living room while the rest of that household lay fast asleep.

---

C Plot

Three stars (this is generous to one of those people in particular) of This is Us are reuniting for a rewatch podcast called “That Was Us.” We’re torn about this because while it could be fun, we really want Mandy Moore and Sterling K. Brown to be doing something else with their time — filming, perhaps, or we would settle for a joint album release? But alongside Chris Sullivan, they will be revisiting all six seasons of the beloved NBC show starting next month. If the Instagram posts promoting the podcast are any indication, it could be a little chaotic, which we love. (Why did Mandy chime in here with “all together” like that? What’s Sterling doing at the end?) We were going to make a joke about how this show literally just ended but apparently the finale premiered two years ago… news to us.

Megan Fox finally addressed the backlash Love is Blind’s Chelsea Blackwell got for saying people always tell her she looks like Fox, and the actress said what the brave viewers among us have been saying for months: Chelsea DOES look like Megan Fox! Leave that poor girl alone, or Jennifer Check is coming after you.

The internet’s boyfriend Logan Lerman is, unfortunately, obsessed with Nazi shows that are not exactly our cup of tea. We will eventually find out if his new Hulu miniseries We Were the Lucky Ones co-starring Joey King is worth watching, but even if it’s not, we will forever be in the series’ debt for Lerman’s most recent press tour. For whatever reason, Lerman seems to be opening up in a way he hasn’t before, talking about swapping child star horror stories with King, his sweet Central Park proposal and getting emotional over the internet’s pure love for him. Between his junket circuit and Dev Patel constantly fielding questions about his time on Skins AND the Challengers press tour…. the girls are happy.

1.  Yes, a real contestant whose third fact was “lit her house on fire when she was six.”