I don’t care that the DVD menu says Cookie Goes To The Hospital.
I don’t care that the individual DVD case says Cookie Goes To The Hospital.
And finally, I don’t care that the back of the complete set of The Kids Of Degrassi Street also says Cookie Goes To The Hospital.
The title card says “Cookie Goes To Hospital”, so that’s what I’m going with for the title of this episode.
Speaking of goofs, I neglected to include the shot of Ida looking into the camera in the previous episode, so there it is below
The episode begins by showing us that this is now a series.
As you may have noticed, there are no kids in that screenshot. There are no kids in several black-and-white stills that they show. Apparently all the kids have gone out into the street to pose for the series title card.
This immediately cuts to the street sign that says Degrassi St. The store said De Grassi?
The street was named after an Italian named Captain Filippo De Grassi who emigrated to Canada in 1831. I guess some decided to squeeze the two together and others didn’t.
We are now introduced to the secret club that Ida and some of her friends belong to as of this episode. The conflict is that Cookie would like her doll to become a member. It’s against the rules that could easily be modified.
The rules are cutoff a bit, so I’ll sum them up. It’s a bunch of nonsense to go with the rules they’ll see at the hospital mentioned in the title and the content is stupid as illustrated by one of the rules that members need names that start with an I, C, or N.
Cookie isn’t worried about her doll getting into the club since I guess she forgot about the previous episode where Ida stood by and filmed her doll being taken away by a garbageman.
This opening scene with Cookie does answer the burning question I had after the first episode. Yes, Cookie did have a backup doll. She also informs us that her stomach hurts.
After Ida tells Cookie that her doll can’t join, Cookie leaves her doll in the clubhouse because plot, and Ida goes home to watch what I’m guessing is St. Elsewhere. This episode of The Kids Of Degrassi Street was made in 1980, so that’s the show I’m assuming Ida is watching.
Ida’s mom gets a call. We find out that Cookie had to be taken to the hospital for appendicitis. Ida’s mom says that she should take the doll to Cookie or give it to Cookie’s mom.
Mom, you could get Ida to give you the doll, and then you could get it to Cookie or her mother, being an adult and all. It’s irresponsible as a parent to send your child off to track down a doll, and then have her potentially go to a hospital all by herself to deliver it.
We now cut to Cookie’s dad who will never show up again in this episode because of course he won’t.
Next we meet Trish–one of the two neglectful nurses at this hospital.
During their discussion we find out that Cookie’s real name is Kathryn. In addition, she has no idea why they call her Cookie. I’m going to assume it’s so her nickname meets the club rules when it comes to names.
As for the person who plays Trish, that’s Sue A’Court. She didn’t write this episode, but she will write other ones.
Behind Trish is the first person on The Kids Of Degrassi Street who I can find out went on to do some notable non-Degrassi related things. That’s Sara, played by Nancy Lam. She would go on to be a bit of a celebrity chef.
Trish decides to explain to Cookie where her appendix is located in the best way possible. Cookie thinks it’s in her stomach. Trish corrects her by pushing on it, which in turn causes her pain. Go figure!
Cookie brings up her doll with Trish. Cookie would like it to be there with her. Cookie says that her parents don’t know where her doll is at the moment. She tells Trish that a person named Ida knows. You’d think Trish would go to the front desk to tell the one in charge to keep an eye out for Ida and ask Cookie’s parents, like her father we saw previously, about Ida, right? Nope!
Ida and Noel, played by Peter Duckworth-Pilkington, show up at the hospital and get into an elevator. He looks at the camera to make sure it is okay to press the button.
It’s time to meet Ida as an adult if she doesn’t change her ways concerning the club rules.
Make sure you read the rules below because while the episode will show them over and over again, I’ll spare you the repetition. These are the hospital’s equivalent to the club rules and they are enforced to the same extent.
The kids try to go in to give Cookie her doll, and the nurse at the front desk takes the doll to give to their friend who they even say is named Kathryn Peters making it easy for her to have it sent to Cookie’s room. Nope!
She cuts them off and refuses to do anything but say that she didn’t make up the rules before shooing them away from her.
Noel has a plan to get by the nurse at the front desk, played by Annette Tilden.
While they go off to put Noel’s plan in motion, it turns out that Trish had enough time to find a replacement doll, but still can’t be bothered to go to the front desk to mention Ida, Cookie’s doll, or anything to be passed along to Cookie’s parents.
Cookie isn’t entirely innocent here either since it appears that she spoke with at least one of her parents between the time Trish was last here and now. Apparently this is something to keep bringing up with Trish, but not her own parents. The parents that know who Ida is since it is Ida’s mother who was called to tell Ida that Cookie had appendicitis and to find the doll.
Meanwhile, we find out the plan to get past Desk Nurse is for Ida to try to sneak past by walking behind a hamper.
After being caught, Ida is sent away again.
A doctor comes in to explain a few things to Cookie, but we aren’t here for competence, so let’s go back to Trish.
Along with saying a few other things, she lies to Cookie. She says she’ll look around for Ida. She doesn’t look around. In fact, after a short scene with Ida and Noel, she comes in with the anesthetic.
I will give the episode credit here for having Trish explain to Cookie exactly what they are going to do to her. She even allows her to stick a needle in the other doll to show her how the anesthetic will be administered.
While this was going on, Noel came up with another plan, which was to have Ida put on a Groucho Marx mask and try to walk by Desk Nurse. I get the feeling Noel isn’t the brightest of kids that live on Degrassi St. While we’re on the subject of Noel’s plan, where did he get that mask from anyways?
As you can see, the plan went over swimmingly.
You’d think at this point that Desk Nurse would begin to think that if two small children have tried this many times to get past her, then perhaps it is something worth asking them about or asking security to look into. Of course she doesn’t. Let’s never mind the little matter that there are two kids under the age of 12 that appear to be unsupervised constantly trying to get past her desk.
Trish, after still not going to the front desk, injects Cookie with the anesthetic. Yet again, Cookie emphasizes just how important this doll is to her. Remember that this isn’t something the hospital doesn’t take into consideration given the fact that Trish brought in another doll for Cookie. It’s just that for whatever reason, Trish doesn’t want to do the bare minimum to find Cookie’s doll. Cookie gives Trish Ida’s phone number. You’d think Ida or Noel’s parents might be wondering where their kids are at this point.
Finally, finally, Trish goes to the main desk to try to do something about this doll situation. Within a couple of minutes she finds the doll. Does it help at this point? Nope! By the time Ida reaches Cookie, she is seconds away from going under.
In other words, all of this just made Cookie’s experience leading up to her surgery a more uncomfortable and potentially frightening experience.
After surgery, Ida and Noel pay a visit to the recovery room so that we can see the devil doll at the bottom of the screen.
Afterwards, Ida changes the rules to allow Cookie’s doll to join the club. End of story. Ida learned her lesson and Cookie will probably be scared of hospitals from now on.
Geez, they certainly muddled the lesson they were trying to teach with this episode, didn’t they? I understand why they pushed the parents into the background. It is a show for little kids. However, in the case of an episode such as this, it makes them out to be horrible parents.
Despite my issues with the episode, it, like the show, does a good job with its portrayal of the kids. Unfortunately, the parents’ stuff will continue to come up in later episodes.
In the credits, we find out that Degrassi royalty was involved in this episode.
Phil Earnshaw would go on to be the cinematographer and director of episodes in the franchise up to and including Degrassi: Next Class. Kit Hood was around for quite awhile. Linda Schuyler was with the franchise the entire time.
Since doing a post on Ida Makes A Movie, I have since found out that, at least according to Wikipedia, the first four episodes were short films that were then turned into a series and originally aired as after-school specials. Why was the first episode the only one not to include an introduction on it for the DVD release? I don’t know.
See you next time!
- The Kids Of Degrassi Street
- Ida Makes A Movie
Through the Shattered Lens 