<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" When you were a kid, you always knew when you tuned in to &amp;quot;a very special episode&amp;quot; or saw the actors introducing themselves with &amp;quot;but I play her on TV,&amp;quot; that things were about to get real. Your mind was about to be robbed of its youthful idealism and handed a serious life lesson. Consider this The Tao of the &amp;#039;90s Sitcoms. 1.Saved by the Belltaught you that sometimes the most dangerous drugs aren&amp;#039;t the ones you&amp;#039;d expect.A lot of sitcoms had the episode where someone has to say no to a joint or cigarette they were passed in the school bathroom. But come on, we all went through the D.A.R.E. program. Saved by the Bell taught us that even the stuff you can buy in stores can be abused, and after seeing Jesse&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m so excited. I&amp;#039;m so scared!&amp;quot; freak-out, we also learned that there&amp;#039;s no shortcut to success. This is also the only episode in which A.C. Slater gets scared. And that means something.      2.The Fresh Prince of Bel Airtaught you that the people you love might abandon you, but the people who truly love you will stick around no matter what.In &amp;quot;Papa&amp;#039;s Got a Brand New Excuse,&amp;quot; the episode where Will&amp;#039;s dad comes back to visit and promises to take Will back with him, everyone cried when Will realizes his dad left without him, turns to Uncle Phil, and, through a cracking voice, asks, &amp;quot;How come he don&amp;#039;t want me, man?&amp;quot; I still cry when I&amp;#039;m at home sick and this episode is on. Just because someone is important to you doesn&amp;#039;t mean you&amp;#039;re important to them. Find your Uncle Phil. 3.Full Housetaught you that looking good in a bikini for Kimmy Gibbler&amp;#039;s pool party isn&amp;#039;t worth jeopardizing your health.Granted, the worst thing that happened in this season four episode, &amp;quot;Shape Up,&amp;quot; was that D.J. Tanner sort of fell off the treadmill because she was woozy, but still. They might&amp;#039;ve have glossed over some of the heavier dangers of eating disorders, but when your target audience is a bunch of kids, this gets the message across. 4. Boy Meets World taught you how to process the unexpected death of a family member.Mr. Feeney taught me everything I have ever learned, including this deep lesson about the inevitability of death. In &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ll Have a Good Time Then,&amp;quot; tough-guy Shawn&amp;#039;s dad shows up to say he finally wants to be in Shawn&amp;#039;s life, but Shawn doesn&amp;#039;t believe him (he probably saw the Fresh Prince episode). Instead, he yells at his dad, who promptly has a heart attack and then dies in the hospital. Even though he wasn&amp;#039;t the best dad, Shawn still had a hard time saying good-bye, and has to deal with the guilt of his last words being mean ones. It wasn&amp;#039;t your fault, Shawn! IT WASN&amp;#039;T YOUR FAULT. 5.Seventh Heaventaught you about everything sad, ever.I&amp;#039;m pretty sure something terrible happened on every episode of this show. It was a whole lot of situational and a little bit of comedy. Lucy had a miscarriage, Anne&amp;#039;s mom died in the Camdens&amp;#039; house while visiting them, and tears flowed freely from everyone&amp;#039;s eyes. What did this teach us? That some people have very sad lives, and we should be nice to them. 6. Family Matters taught you that some things are beyond your control and you have to let them go. When Carl wrestles with the guilt of failing to save an elderly hostage from being shot in &amp;quot;I Should Have Done Something,&amp;quot; we learned that in this crazy little sitcom we call &amp;quot;Life,&amp;quot; some things are beyond our control, and we do the best we can in the moment. We can&amp;#039;t live in the past. 7. Growing Pains taught you about the consequences of drinking and driving. Living up to the &amp;quot;pain&amp;quot; part of its title, we saw the consequences of drinking and driving when Carol Seaver&amp;#039;s boyfriend, Matthew Perry (NOT playing himself) dies in an accident that could&amp;#039;ve been avoided in &amp;quot;Second Chance.&amp;quot; Don&amp;#039;t drink and drive, and also Friends might be an allegory for heaven.  8. Moesha taught you about the threat of date rape. Out of all the sitcoms that go there, this show really, really went there. Granted, the episode &amp;quot;A Terrible Thing Happened on My Tour of College&amp;quot; dealt with her being drugged and nearly date raped, but Brandy taught us that not everyone can be trusted, even people we think we know. Also, I wasn&amp;#039;t allowed to watch this episode because I was, like, 8, and my mom flipped out when the preview came on, but nothing was going to keep me from watching a crazy episode of Moesha so I watched it in another room. 9. Kenan &amp;amp;amp; Kel taught you how to say good-bye to friends. There&amp;#039;s that moment in &amp;quot;Bye Bye Kenan&amp;quot; when Kenan has to move to Montana, and he and Kel are talking to each other on walkie-talkies while Kenan drives away so they can stretch out their good-bye for as long as possible. Suddenly, the distance is too great and you&amp;#039;re just like, &amp;quot;HOW ARE THESE PEOPLE GOING TO LIVE THEIR LIVES WITHOUT EACH OTHER?&amp;quot; Granted, Kenan came back, but everyone has a friend who moved away, and that good-bye might&amp;#039;ve been the last moment you ever had with them, especially if they moved away before AOL Instant Messanger was a thing. Treasure your friendships before you&amp;#039;re left standing in the street with a fuzzed-out walkie-talkie. 10. Doogie Howser taught you that sometimes there&amp;#039;s no right answer. Everyone&amp;#039;s favorite underage doctor had to decide which patient would get a heart transplant in &amp;quot;Do the Right Thing ... if You Know What It Is.&amp;quot; To complicate things, the patient Doogie vouches for doesn&amp;#039;t want to quit smoking. Vinnie sums it up best at the end of the episode when he says, &amp;quot;I thought when you made the right decision, you&amp;#039;re supposed to feel good.&amp;quot; Sometimes you don&amp;#039;t, Vinnie. Sometimes you don&amp;#039;t. Want more from Frank? Follow him on Twitter.  Photo credit: Getty "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/advice/a6732/lessons-from-90s-sitcoms/?src=rss>