The cast of "Sam and Friends," Jim Henson's first TV show, including a proto–Kermit the Frog.

The cast of “Sam and Friends,” Jim Henson’s first TV show, including a proto–Kermit the Frog.

Happy November, Rookies!

This month’s theme is FAMILY. We’ll be talking a lot about those people who are raising us, the ones we live or lived with, and the families we build for ourselves. And the families we only feel like we know, like the ones in The Royal Tenenbaums, The Squid and the Whale, Sesame Street, the Muppets, Fraggle Rock, The Cosby Show, Family Matters, Full House, Who’s the Boss, Diff’rent Strokes, Little Miss Sunshine, Parenthood, Bob’s Burgers, The Simpsons, Gilmore Girls, Six Feet Under, The Addams Family, Freaky Friday, Fun Home, ETC., FOREVER, BECAUSE WOWEE, there are SO many stories about families, and people always talk about family like it’s this sacred institution, or like you’re not allowed to question your family’s unconditional love for you, and you have to love them unconditionally, and huuuuugs all aroooouuund for everyoneeee.

But…unconditional love is stupid? A person should meet certain conditions to be deemed deserving of your love! And also, what about the episode of Boy Meets World where Shawn’s half-brother is being weird and Shawn says to Cory, “Eddie’s only blood. YOU’RE my family”? And also, WHAT ABOUT THE EPISODE WHERE SHAWN ADOPTS A PIG?

When we wrote our contributors about this theme, Anaheed included this quotation from a Joss Whedon interview:

I am a great believer in found families, and I’m not a great believer in blood. Although I love my family, even the ones I grew up with, to me I’ve always felt that the people who treated you with respect and included you in their lives were your family, and the people who were related to you by blood might happen to be those people but that correlation was a lot less [strong] than society believes it is.

So this month is neither a big happy Thanksgiving dinner nor a massive bedroom-door slam accompanied by a “LEAVE ME ALONE”—it’s a bit of both, plus an ode to the people whom you choose to love and include in your life. (On that note, be sure to saunter over to our events page to see if we’re doing anything in your area soon. ROOKIE FAMILY. Aw.)

How was your Halloween? Have you sent us a photo for our reader costume gallery yet (see the orange box at the top right of this page)? Enjoy this month!

Love,
Tavi