after-school specials
Didactic youth television
After-school specials were television movies or programs aimed at young audiences, typically airing in the afternoon when children returned from school.
They addressed serious topics—drug abuse, bullying, teen pregnancy, divorce—with earnest moral lessons.
The term now often appears ironically to describe anything heavy-handed or preachy in its messaging: That presentation felt like an after-school special about workplace safety.
- teenagersPeople aged thirteen to nineteen
- educationalPromoting knowledge or skill
- sociodramaTherapeutic group role-playing
- moralityRight and wrong principles
- episodeSerialized content unit
substance abuse · drama · peer pressure · teen pregnancy · latchkey kids · programs · coming-of-age · consequences · adolescence · cautionary tales · television · youths · heavy-handed · friendships · public service announcements · values · lesson learned · rites of passage
- kids' programmingcartoons, Saturday morning, animated series, Saturday cartoons, tween shows
- Kids TVSesame Street, SpongeBob, Arthur, Rugrats, Clifford
after-school specialspopcorn movies
Entertaining, undemanding cinema
brain candy · exploitation films · slasher movies · guilty pleasures · schlock
after-school specialsThe Wire
Covert listening device
The Sopranos · literary fiction · art house films · nuanced storytelling
after-school specialsmidnight movies
Films shown very late
cult films · punk rock · counterculture · indie films · art house cinema
after, school, schools, schooling, schooled, special, specials, specially, specialty