Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

This week, Jonathan and Mark go back to high school, just in time for prom!  I went to four proms over the course of my high school years and I loved every one of them.  There is no greater American tradition!

Episode 3.17 “A Night To Remember”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on January 28th, 1987)

It’s time for the prom!

Danny (Mitchell Anderson) wants to ask out Melanie (Kimberly MacArthur) but can’t bring himself to do it because he’s feeling insecure about the fact that his father lost his engineering job and is now working at a gas station.  Danny makes extra money working at the local pizza joint but he loses his job when he throws a punch at bully Richard Davies (J. Eddie Peck, future star of Lambada).

Sammy (Joel Hoffman) wants to ask his lifelong friend, Kate (Susan Savage).  But Sammy feels insecure because he’s short.  When he tries to buy lifts to make himself taller, Richard calls him out right when he’s about to ask out Kate.  Sammy is an aspiring stand-up comedian and he’s on the verge of dropping out of school all together.  “I can be a comedian or a teenager but I can’t be both!”

Don’t worry, though.  Jonathan is their new social studies teacher.  And Mark is the coach of the girl’s volleyball team because every assignment is designed, in some way, to humiliate Mark.  In this case, Mark takes a volleyball to the nose and spends the entire episode worrying that it’s broken.  Mark really can’t catch a break (heh) on this show.  He has to drive everywhere.  He’s usually the one who has to do all of the hard physical work while Jonathan just appears wherever he wants.  Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be a union for human angel helpers but then again, it’s not like Mark ever seems to get paid for all of his hard work.

Anyway, the stakes aren’t particularly high in this episode.  Both Danny and Sammy eventually find the courage to ask their dates to the prom, though Danny doesn’t do it until he’s actually at the prom.  And both of them take some time to tell off Richard.  “Still wearing your mother’s underwear?” Sammy asks and Richard turns a dark shade of red as if Sammy has accidentally guessed his greatest secret.

I actually always like these episodes where Jonathan and Mark become teachers.  They’re not as depressing as the ones where they end up working at a shelter or a retirement home.  This episode was just about giving the students the best prom ever and that’s okay.  Not everything needs to be a huge drama!  Sometimes, you just need a night to remember.