Stradi-Various

When Shorofsky receives a violin from Germany, which was sent in 1947  the kids start to believe it has magic powers and their wishes start to come true. Although sometimes it's a case of be careful what you wish for!

This episodes tries very hard to recreate the zany fun of "The Monster That Devours Las Vegas", right down to having Shorofsky break the 4th wall and narrate what's happening directly to the audience. It also uses a similar story to "Wishes" where people's wishes start to come true. This time aided by a supposedly magical violin that has taken 40 years to turn up at the school!  

For me this episode just  can't quite recreate the fun that was had in the season 4 episodes Danny gets to be Chris, Jesse gets to be a comic and Reggie gets Ian interested in her but it all just feels a bit bizarre.  One of the pluses for the season 4 episodes was they had some great songs to counteract any silliness but here we just get a cover of "Mack The Knife" and for me that isn't that great a song.

To be honest this is one of those episodes that the U.K. never had originally and when I did get a copy the previews at the start totally put me off from watching and it was years later before I did finally watch it. I guess overall it wasn't quite as bad as I was expecting but there was very little in it that kept me interested. 

Original  air date in U.S.A.  23rd  February 1987

Original air date  in the U.K.  The Children's Channel  Broadcast Early 1993  

Original air date in Italy 20th January 1989  

Original air date  in France 20th March 1996