ABSTRACT
Inspired by the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and primarily set in a high school, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose nonetheless foregrounded a wide swathe of film referents and techniques both visu-ally and narratively. Given its origins, it is not surprising it incorporated an element of “watched-ness”; not only narration and direct address, but Parker’s activities are aided by video surveillance, making Parker both the point-of-view character and audience member, offering an anthropological, if highly skewed, series about high school geared toward its Generation X audience. With a visual and narrative aesthetic driven by the network’s focus on the youth demographic, it paves the way for game-changing series like Buffy; its focus on video, in-episode (and in-character) commentary, and the acknowledgement of being doubly “watched” operates as a precursor to later mockumentary series such as The Office, Arrested Development, and Parks and Recreation, turning a production strategy into an aesthetic tradition. While meta is not deployed within the series in ways that could be construed as political, it does offer a window in a teen-oriented world, and its visual palate, choice of celebrity cameos, and meta awareness set the template a broader swathe of teen-targeted programming throughout the 1990s and 2000s.
