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Description

TALES OF AUTUMN SPRING (ToAS)

by Richard Mandel

based on characters and situations

copyright (C) 2019-2023, all rights reserved

Episode 1 - "Prelude"

PREV --> FIRST --> NEXT -->

--------------------

COMMENTS

In a cut scene, we would have learned that Brandy signed her home in Middleton over to Matt and Nancy so they'd have a big enough place to raise a family. Not that they would have ever had to worry about a mortgage, given Matt's side of the family (the Hansens and their wealth), and they probably could have gotten their own place if they had wanted, but it was convenient for all parties concerned. You also might recall Nancy telling her mother Brandy back in "Love Eternal," the final episode of the original Autumn Spring series, that she knew her mom wasn't the kind of person who could live by herself in "a big old house with nothing but memories" for very long. In another part of this same cut scene we would have learned that they kept her furniture too, which saved them the trouble of buying new furniture, and especially the old red couch you see Brandy sitting on (which saved me from having to redecorate the house set, wink). "There's a lot of love in that couch," Nancy would have declared and Brandy would have agreed with her. The couch had originally been her late husband Larry's, back when he was living by himself at the Richland Townhomes in years past, and after Brandy moved there and subsequently got involved with him the two of them shared many a tender moment on that old couch. I'll probably recycle this cut scene if I do a future novelization. As for what they did with their old furniture, well, don't forget that this house has a very big attic and they also probably used some of it for the kids' bedrooms.

The cartoon the boys are watching on the big screen is Filmation's Flash Gordon -- long a fave of mine since I saw it when it first aired, in both movie and series form, back in the early 1980s. Author's conceit there. I can hand-wave it away by saying it was probably Larry's, as he had a big personal video library full of old sci-fi and adventure titles. Remember his watching both The Phantom Empire and Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze in some of the early Autumn Spring episodes?

The cat who is getting all of the loving from Brandy as she talks to her granddaughter is Bamm-Bamm, named after the Hanna-Barbara Flintstones character. You last saw him in "Love Eternal," the final episode of Autumn Spring. He's very old by this point, as Larry and Brandy originally got him along with another cat, a calico tabby named Pebbles, from the local animal shelter when Nancy was still living with them and before Larry passed away. Well-cared for cats who live indoors average a 10-15 year lifespan, sometimes longer if they and you are really lucky. The longest-lived cat I've ever owned so far lived 13 years. We would have also learned in another cut seen that Pebbles had passed on the previous year from old age. That's a topic I hope to revisit later BTW, but not here. It would have been too much of a downer as part of this first ToAS story. The fact that Nancy's youngest child is old enough to attend kindergarten for the first time is also a big clue as to how much time has passed since the end of Autumn Spring and the start of ToAS.

In my original prose draft for this episode, the names of Brandy's grandchildren were in order of age Johnny, Jerry, and Suzie. My original intent was to have the daughter and youngest child named after Suzie Cheatham, Brandy's former boss at DCH Associates P.A. in the original series, but I changed the name of the little girl to Jenny so she'd be named after Brandy's mother Jennifer. That's also why I recycled Suzie as the first name of little Jenny's kindergarten teacher, as you see above. You might remember Jennifer Ames, later Jennifer Dent (long story there, go read the series) as one of the more prominent supporting cast members of Autumn Spring.

With Brandy's use of the term and with her father Matt having used it earlier we now know that "Sweetness" is little Jenny's nickname. It's very appropriate, given how cute and innocent she is (grin-and-wink). I actually used to know someone with that nickname long, long ago, when I was a much younger man (chuckle), and it's been used for other people too. Former NFL running back Walter Payton was also called "Sweetness" back in his day, for example. He's probably the most famous example, but there are many others.

Description

TALES OF AUTUMN SPRING (ToAS)

by Richard Mandel

based on characters and situations

copyright (C) 2019-2023, all rights reserved

Episode 1 - "Prelude"

PREV --> FIRST --> NEXT -->

--------------------

COMMENTS

In a cut scene, we would have learned that Brandy signed her home in Middleton over to Matt and Nancy so they'd have a big enough place to raise a family. Not that they would have ever had to worry about a mortgage, given Matt's side of the family (the Hansens and their wealth), and they probably could have gotten their own place if they had wanted, but it was convenient for all parties concerned. You also might recall Nancy telling her mother Brandy back in "Love Eternal," the final episode of the original Autumn Spring series, that she knew her mom wasn't the kind of person who could live by herself in "a big old house with nothing but memories" for very long. In another part of this same cut scene we would have learned that they kept her furniture too, which saved them the trouble of buying new furniture, and especially the old red couch you see Brandy sitting on (which saved me from having to redecorate the house set, wink). "There's a lot of love in that couch," Nancy would have declared and Brandy would have agreed with her. The couch had originally been her late husband Larry's, back when he was living by himself at the Richland Townhomes in years past, and after Brandy moved there and subsequently got involved with him the two of them shared many a tender moment on that old couch. I'll probably recycle this cut scene if I do a future novelization. As for what they did with their old furniture, well, don't forget that this house has a very big attic and they also probably used some of it for the kids' bedrooms.

The cartoon the boys are watching on the big screen is Filmation's Flash Gordon -- long a fave of mine since I saw it when it first aired, in both movie and series form, back in the early 1980s. Author's conceit there. I can hand-wave it away by saying it was probably Larry's, as he had a big personal video library full of old sci-fi and adventure titles. Remember his watching both The Phantom Empire and Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze in some of the early Autumn Spring episodes?

The cat who is getting all of the loving from Brandy as she talks to her granddaughter is Bamm-Bamm, named after the Hanna-Barbara Flintstones character. You last saw him in "Love Eternal," the final episode of Autumn Spring. He's very old by this point, as Larry and Brandy originally got him along with another cat, a calico tabby named Pebbles, from the local animal shelter when Nancy was still living with them and before Larry passed away. Well-cared for cats who live indoors average a 10-15 year lifespan, sometimes longer if they and you are really lucky. The longest-lived cat I've ever owned so far lived 13 years. We would have also learned in another cut seen that Pebbles had passed on the previous year from old age. That's a topic I hope to revisit later BTW, but not here. It would have been too much of a downer as part of this first ToAS story. The fact that Nancy's youngest child is old enough to attend kindergarten for the first time is also a big clue as to how much time has passed since the end of Autumn Spring and the start of ToAS.

In my original prose draft for this episode, the names of Brandy's grandchildren were in order of age Johnny, Jerry, and Suzie. My original intent was to have the daughter and youngest child named after Suzie Cheatham, Brandy's former boss at DCH Associates P.A. in the original series, but I changed the name of the little girl to Jenny so she'd be named after Brandy's mother Jennifer. That's also why I recycled Suzie as the first name of little Jenny's kindergarten teacher, as you see above. You might remember Jennifer Ames, later Jennifer Dent (long story there, go read the series) as one of the more prominent supporting cast members of Autumn Spring.

With Brandy's use of the term and with her father Matt having used it earlier we now know that "Sweetness" is little Jenny's nickname. It's very appropriate, given how cute and innocent she is (grin-and-wink). I actually used to know someone with that nickname long, long ago, when I was a much younger man (chuckle), and it's been used for other people too. Former NFL running back Walter Payton was also called "Sweetness" back in his day, for example. He's probably the most famous example, but there are many others.