This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

Welcome to Nightcall, a production of IHeart Radio.

It's 2.35 a.m. in the abyss, and you're welcome to Night Call a podcast for your strange days and lonely nights.

I am Tess Lynch in Los Angeles and with me are Emily Yoshida and...

Hello, guys.

Hey!

We have started off this year, as you guys may remember, with a spooky fridge.

A tale of a spooky fridge.

And it turns out that getting trapped in fridges, which was something we were all freaked out about at one time or another,

is a shared phobia and also subject of a very special episode of a television show. Yeah, we got a night call that explains perhaps why so many people are afraid of being

trapped in a fridge.

So this email comes from our friend Evan and he writes, Dear Night Call, I was very surprised

when during your recent discussion of kids getting trapped inside abandoned refrigerators,

no one mentioned the very special episode of Punky Brewster, where this happens to Punky's friend Cherry.

Maybe you guys are too young?

I remember watching this when it aired in 1986 and being completely traumatized, which I suppose was the point.

I never tried to hide in any abandoned refrigerators after that. I'm guessing I won't be the only person to write in about this. My wife, who's the same age as I am, immediately knew what I was talking about when I mentioned it. Actually, all I said to her was, on night call they talked about getting trapped in an abandoned refrigerator, and her response was, like in Punky Brewster. But for whatever it's worth, I wanted to bring it to your collective attention. You can watch it here if you dare, and there's even an oral history of the episode online with links. While we're on the subject, can any of you recall very special episodes of sitcoms from your childhoods that scarred you emotionally? All the best from Los Veles, Evan. Wow, what a great night call. Such a good night call. Thank you, Evan. Punky Brewster was before my time. I was too young for Punky Brewster. It was also before my time. I did not get down with Punky. Yeah. Some of these shows, you know, would be in syndication and you would see them anyway. But Punky Brewster I did not ever encounter. Yeah, I feel like, you know, I was familiar with like Pippi Longstocking. Like there was some weird, badly dubbed version of Pippi Longstocking that I definitely watched. Oh, the Swedish movie? That's a good, a good, weird. Which feels like kind of similar. Spunky Orphans. The thing that I was thinking about was small wonder. I was trying

to explain small wonder to someone who's never seen it before yesterday. It's hard to do. I feel like I

only know about small wonder from I love the 80s. Well, there was a crop of like ET inspired shows such as

small wonder and out of this world also. Oh out of this world I watched a lot of. Just a lot of like ET inspired shows such as Small Wonder and Out of This World also.

Oh, out of this world. I watched a lot of. Just a lot of like, an elf. They're kind of like

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