It’s been 25 years since “Blossom” lovingly appeared on our television screens, and we were all wearing denim overalls and floral Doc Martens. Or maybe I just was. The show aired from 1991 to 1995–those were influential and formative years for Jewish actress Mayim Bialik, because Mayim was growing up, just like her character Blossom Russo.
In a recent interview with with Uproxx, Mayim talked about what it was like being on the show so young, and why it was so significant for women and young girls everywhere. She was only in her teens when the show began–think about all those raging hormones–and described how this affected her, stating how she still managed to have fun despite that:
“I was a very, very moody, dark person. All the fun that we had that you see on screen we had in real life. We learned to dance together, we took tap dancing, for a couple years of the time there we would take tap dancing at lunch time, we had a teacher come and teach both of us. We had a great time. I’m sure you can fake that kind of chemistry but we happened to really enjoy what we did.”
What stuck out to me the most in the interview, however, was when Mayim spoke about how the show tackled difficult issues like divorce, depression, and gender. She discussed how television shows, especially in the 80s and 90s, sugarcoated real life issues and tended to cast many women only to fit into a “conventionally attractive” mold, and explained how “Blossom” was groundbreaking in this way:
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“We did a great episode called “Blue Blossom,” which was about her being depressed and those were things we were trying to normalize. Honestly, with how much more materialistic and superficial a lot of our culture has gotten for young men and young women, I think it’s especially refreshing to realize that we did a show about someone that wasn’t always feeling great and looking great. The character did not look like a runway model. She wore normal clothes. Some days we had flannel shirts and jeans days.
And the actress playing her, me, was not a traditionally attractive female that people were used to seeing on TV, especially for lead women. The fact that it is so commonplace now…I don’t know that we’re uniquely responsible for that, but we definitely were the first network show I knew about at that time that was about a girl.”
Because of this, I began thinking about my favorite “Blossom” moments. Do you remember the time David Schwimmer was in “Blossom?” I do. Check out his baby face below:
And then there was this episode with her “Big Bang Theory” co-star Johnny Galecki, who guest starred in the episode titled “Sex, Lies and Teenagers.” Sounds pretty spicy, doesn’t it?
What are some of your favorite episodes and moments? Tell us in the comments below.
