Mickey Got It Right.

A while back Kerri pointed out an episode of Hannah Montana that focused on Type 1 Diabetes. I suppose focus wasn’t the right word since Mickey embarrassed himself with the garbage they were about to publish. I found the full episode in 3 parts on youtube and can confirm it was pathetic.

The character of choice, Oliver was newly diagnosed with Type 1. Instead of telling Miley or Hannah or whatever her name is, he chose to hide it. A natural feeling. And I guess her reaction was just as expected: Lil Miss Achy Breaky and her minion turned into the food police.

Now here’s the fun part. In the original version Oliver is referenced as “sugar boy”, becomes lost in a haze at the sight of anything sweet, is subjected to humiliating public scrutiny by Hannah and her sidekick and performs a laughable rap at the end of the episode about how he can lead a normal life with Diabetes. George, he is not.

The rewrite however was a much better attempt. No “sugar boy”. No sugar haze. Hannah still acted like food police, but the actual implementation of police-ness was much more tasteful, assuming there is such a thing as tasteful food police. Speaking of, they actually used the phrase “food police”. Bonus point. There was a PSA-style segment at the end (thankfully no rap), a kind of “what I learned” moment from all the principal characters and a 12-15 second title card: “learn more…www.jdrf.org“

As much as I detest that 26 minutes of television I subjected myself to, I think they resolved the issues from their first attempt. So it wasn’t a total waste, and I’m glad they got things right. Considering the reach a show like that has (why is beyond me), it’s important that they get it right. Glad they did.

Now let us never speak of this God forsaken television show again.

Agreed?