Netflix’s new TV adaptation of the forty-year gap between the 1980s book series and the modern-day show, and the limited challenge of covering each novel in a single episode, The Baby-Sitters Club had to get a little creative in its approach to the source material.
The Baby-Sitters Club, which was reated for Netflix by Rachel Shukert, demonstrates a lot of love for the nostalgic book series upon which its based. The characters' personalities are lifted from the pages of Martin's books - from Kristy's ion for leadership (and bossiness) to Marry-Anne's shy and sensitive nature. The show even alters the handwriting in the opening credits, matching the characters’ handwriting in the books, to indicate which member of the Baby-Sitters Club is narrating each episode. The final two-part episode “Hello, Camp Moosehead!” uses a blend of characters’ handwriting in the credits to reflect the shifting perspectives.
Despite its faithfulness to the spirit of the books, Netflix's The Baby-Sitter's Club naturally makes a few changes in order to update the stories for modern audiences, and better round out the TV versions of the characters. Here are the biggest differences between the Baby-Sitter's Club books and the TV show.
The Baby-Sitters Club's Modern Setting
The move from the 1980s to 2020 affects both the use of technology and the dialogue style in The Baby-Sitters Club. In the show the girls all have cell phones, which allows for abridged discussions. For example, there's group text regarding what to do about the rival Baby-Sitters Agency, which then cuts to the plan of action – in this case, handing out more fliers and walking around wearing sandwich boards. And whereas in the books Claudia has her own landline phone, which is then converted into the BSC’s official number, in the TV show they have to buy a landline phone from Etsy, and Claudia mentions that the extra number came with Janine’s computer software.
The Baby-Sitters Club books often dealt with serious issues, and in the show these are expanded to reflect today’s political climate in the United States. In particular, the scene where Claudia learns that her grandma, Mimi, was placed in a Japanese-American internment camp after Pearl Harbor allows the show to address the fact that many immigrant families are currently in detention facilities. When Claudia says, "I don’t understand how anyone could do that to a family," Janine replies, "I don’t know why they still do."
A similar incident occurs when Mary Anne baby-sits Bailey Delvecchio (Jenny Prezzioso in the novels), when Mary Anne learns that Bailey is transgender and proceeds to correct the hospital staff when they keep misgendering her. Through this interaction, the show speaks out against the way that the Trump istration has devalued LGBTQ rights in the last year, and illustrates the importance of respecting a person’s decisions in regard to their own identity. Furthermore, the strike that Dawn hosts in the second part of “Hello, Camp Moosehead!” highlights the importance of equal rights and how powerful people focus on those who can afford to make them even richer, while letting the poor fall through the cracks.
Story Changes In The Baby-Sitters Club Season 1
While the basic plot is the same for most episodes of The Baby-Sitters Club, the overall story arc of the books is changed by the order that the episodes appear. The first five episodes are in order, but the sixth book, Kristy’s Big Day, is the eighth episode of the show. Additionally, “Hello, Camp Moosehead!” is a translation of the second book in the Super Special series, titled Baby-Sitters’ Summer Vacation, and while the timeline does match up with the first eight books, the point at which the characters’ lives stand in Baby-Sitters’ Summer Vacation does not.
As a result, some of the biggest deviations from the delve into any subsequent book in the series in future seasons, because all the main building blocks of the BSC have been put into place.
The Baby-Sitters Club TV show also takes the opportunity to Kristy lives next door to Mary Anne and across the street from Claudia, but in the show's first episode, Kristy introduces Claudia's family to the viewer by saying, "Next door are the Kishis," when she goes home.
How The Baby-Sitters Club Changes The Actual Baby-Sitting
The Baby-Sitters Club cuts out many parts of the novels, and few of the BSC’s individual baby-sitting jobs that involve more than one child are illustrated in the show. As a result, the viewer is introduced to Charlotte Johansen and Jamie Newton early on, but not introduced to the Pikes until “Boy-Crazy Stacey,” although they do get an off-hand mention when the BSC first starts getting an inflow of appointments. Similarly, Dawn’s many experiences with the Barrett kids are shortened to a few back-to-back snippets. The play group in Claudia and Mean Janine is replaced with Claudia’s friends coming over and making cards for Mimi instead, and the club baby-sitting for all of Kristy’s cousins in Kristy’s Big Day! is also snipped to Kristy watching David Michael and Karen.
These changes were most likely made because the Baby-Sitters Club episodes are only twenty to thirty minutes long, and each is an adaptation of one of the books, meaning that there's a lot of ground to cover. Further, while each individual novel is a complete story on its own with very little bridging over to the next novel, the individual episodes of the TV show tell small parts of an overarching story. The simple act of filming one additional baby-sitting job per episode would add several minutes of screen-time onto the episode and add a group of unnecessary characters which would take away from the continuity of the show, especially for its young target audience.
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Overall, the Baby-Sitters Club books offer much more content than the TV show's first season, but, the show provides a wonderful opportunity for yet another generation to dive into The Baby-Sitters Club stories. It will be interesting to see which books are adapted in future episodes, and how they evolve from page to screen.