Back in the late 90's, a large majority of the non-sports television I watched was programming that aired after midnight. When you can't go to bars, but you don't want to go to bed before two, you and your friends have limited options. That's the time when we fell in love with the blond woman who did overnight news updates for KRON, with her little shoulder shimmy after, "More news at the top of the hour". It's also when I developed my controversial theory, "Andy Richter Never Says Anything Funny On Conan".
This evening, we were watching a Ricki Lake Show about troubled teens, or out-of-control teens, or teens who strip, or even out-of-control teen strippers who love trouble. And stripping. These teens were not so troubled that they needed Backstage Boot Camp, but they were certainly not in control. I'm not sure all of Ricki's guests were strippers or strippers' family members, but at least one of them was a proud stripper.
When it came time for Ricki to go into the audience for questions, she made a beeline for an extremely short and demonstrative African-American male, who had some choice words for the proud stripper.
"You gotta respect yourself," he began. "You gotta focus on school, not stripping."
"I go to school. I get good grades! You don't know me!" she countered.
He looked like he was waiting for just that opening. "Well, I've got a 4.0, and I'm not taking my clothes off for nobody!" Then, as the audience erupted in applause, the guy broke into a broad grin, and began dancing in place. He held up four fingers on his right hand, and his left hand formed an "O". Swaying and raising the roof, he repeatedly mouthed "Four-Point-O". It was like he was raising the roof with the 4.0 itself. It was awesome.
I guess the guy thought the stripper was saying that you had to strip if your grades were good enough, but I'm glad he stuck to his convictions. For a while, Docta V and I would make the "Four-Point-O" gesture to each other in public, when something particular un-smart happened. It wasn't quite as annoying as the 867-5309 thing, but then again, not many things are.
(In researching this post, I came across the Wikipedia entry for Maury, which is excellent. The writer deserves a 4.0 of his own.)
