Tuesday, October 3, 2017

1987 The New Adventures of Beans Baxter - A Nightmare on Beans' Street

The New Adventures of Beans Baxter is an adventure/comedy television series that originally ran between 1987 and 1988 on the Fox television network. It was created by Savage Steve Holland, who also wrote and directed most of the 17 episodes that were actually produced and aired. The show revolves around the spy activities of Benjamin "Beans" Baxter Jr. (Jonathan Ward), a Kansas teenager who just moved with his parents and younger brother (Canadian actor Scott Bremner as Scott "Scooter" Baxter) to Washington, D.C., as part of his father's reassignment as (Beans assumed) an employee of the US Postal Service. Beans witnesses his father's (presumed) assassination via a bomb placed in his postal vehicle, then gets hired by the mysterious "Number Two" (Jerry Wasserman), an agent/second-in-command of The Network, a secret spy agency.

The main nemesis of The Network is the evil organization UGLI (the Underground Government Liberation Intergroup), headed by the equally evil Mr Sue (Kurtwood Smith). Beans has many adventures while his mother (former 1950's child star Elinor Donahue from Father Knows Best) remains completely oblivious. Beans' ultimate goal is to find his kidnapped father (Rick Lenz) who is being held by enemy agents. The series also starred Bean's friend and classmate nicknamed Woodshop (Stuart Fratkin), and a beautiful student nicknamed "Cake Lace" (Karen Mistal) whom he later becomes attracted to.

The Halloween episode aired October 31 1987 and was called A Nightmare on Beans' Street. It's about a deadly pumpkin that is unleashed by Mr. Sue (Kurtwood Smith) and the evil Pumpkin Princess (Francesca "Kitten" Natividad) on Halloween. Lots of fun Halloween scenery in this episode, the opening scene reminds me of The Adventures of Pete and Pete Halloween episode and the deadly pumpkin reminds me of the killer pumpkin in the 2015 anthology horror movie Tales of Halloween.



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