Welcome back to “The Best of the Best”, a monthly look into the very best of anything to do with Girls’ Generation. In the last edition, your votes decided that this month’s “The Best of the Best” would look into “Hello Baby”, a 22-episode series aired in 2009 that featured nine babies taking care of a baby, then too young to know that he was the luckiest human being alive. This funny and touching show made many new fans of Girls’ Generation, showing that their personalities and off-the-wall senses of humor were even more engaging than their looks. It is still one of Girls’ Generation’s best variety series yet, and though I list only five episodes in this column, every episode is worth watching to catch Yuri drinking from a baby bottle, to watch Jessica calling her mom to ask how to make a sandwich, to have Tiffany break your heart again and again, to listen to Yoona’s adorable hiccups, and to see countless other amazing moments. All episodes of “Hello Baby” can be found onsoshisubsclassics, with the first parts of my five favorite ones below. After watching, let me know what your favorite moments of “Hello Baby” were, and here we go with this month’s top five!
Episode 1: The Nipple
The very first episode of “Hello Baby” is one of my favorites of the entire series. This episode served as a great start and was filled with hilarious moments from beginning to end, including Taeyeon and Sooyoung’s realization that the models they were using were designed as baby boys, the whole group laughing when the baby care expert referred to “that one part”, Yuri burying her face in a diaper, and the story of Tiffany respectfully saying sorry to a five-year old. Later, Seohyun adorably whines that daily dad MC Mong never picks her to answer during a quiz, Sooyoung asks the camera, “How can [Kyungsan] cry after seeing someone so pretty?”, and Taeyeon gives her best line ever, accidentally saying to MC Mong, “Bring the nipple.”
This perfect opening episode ends in a cliffhanger with Kyungsan crying, Yuri and Yoona forming an alliance to gain Kyungsan’s attention, Tiffany becoming an expert in exactly when and why Kyungsan cries, and Sooyoung (of course) off to the side eating MC Mong’s ramen. Though “Hello Baby” got even better as it went on, its start was still filled with laughs sure to hook anyone into watching the rest of the series and wins the fifth spot on my list.
Episode 13: The Image
Recipes for great Girls’ Generation variety appearances usually involve a combination of silly games that no one really cares about winning, fun MCs, the members saying things they probably should not have, Sooyoung eating, and Hyoyeon. Amazingly, episode 13 of “Hello Baby” contained all five of these ingredients. The first half of the episode began with the continuation of a photoshoot with Kyungsan and the members of Girls’ Generation. While waiting for the photoshoot to begin, Yuri and Sooyoung pretended to film cosmetics commercials, acting out some of the CFs they had seen on TV. Though they were also very entertaining, Yuri and Sooyoung’s silly commercials are made somewhat sentimental knowing that the two would later no longer have to pretend to film CFs and used some of the same poses for their endorsements of cosmetic care lines such as Biotherm, Dior, Mamonde, and LLang.
Later in the episode, Girls’ Generation met with the daily dads, Han Minkwan and Kim Jaeook, before heading to Sooyoung’s idea of heaven, where the group found its image as the nation’s girl group under attack. As the members ate food from the buffet, the two daily dads played a series of games with prizes that failed to distract most of the members from eating. As the games progressed, Jessica asked which of the dads was Han Minkwan and ignored the games entirely to play with Kyungsan, Han Minkwan accidentally called Sooyoung “Tiffany”, and Hyoyeon showed off her impossibly low notes. Eventually, the game switched to forming a word with two Korean characters. While the other members gave words such as “allowance” and “child”, Sunny chose a more risky, less girl group-like answer, saying, “pornography”, which was included in the broadcast despite Tiffany’s protests. Finally, just as the episode ends, Sooyoung gave a powerful, not so feminine sneeze. The day’s events prompted Han Minkwan to say, “After coming here today… I really look at Girls’ Generation differently now”, proving that the greatest danger to Girls’ Generation’s image is probably Girls’ Generation themselves.
Despite Manager Hwang’s best efforts, episode 13 of “Hello Baby” showed that the members of Girls’ Generation aren’t quite the nation’s faeries that many people expect them to be. Of course, fans of Girls’ Generation love them all the more for it, making this image-ruining, laugh-inducing episode the next on my countdown.
Episode 9: The Kimbap
Girls’ Generation’s cooking skills are rarely seen, and based on the ninth episode of “Hello Baby”, it’s hard (or perhaps easy depending on your point of view) to understand why. In the first half of this hilarious episode, Jessica and Yoona are seen doing their best to prepare delicious and not-so-delicious sandwiches and kimbap for a very funny “cooking class”, during which even the PD of the show was unable to hold in his laughter. After making several sandwiches and rolls of kimbap, Jessica suggested preparing a prank for Tiffany and Sooyoung, and the two made overly-salted kimbap and sandwiches with ingredients dipped in vinegar. Meanwhile, Tiffany was shown doing her best to pick out pink clothes for Kyungsan (which makes me wonder how Tiffany would live if she had a child who didn’t like her favorite color), with several protests from Sooyoung.
Later, Tiffany and Sooyoung return and try the food that Jessica and Yoona prepared. Sooyoung eats a piece of Yoona’s salted kimbap, which causes her to grab Yoona’s collar in anger and, being a true friend, attempts to get Tiffany to eat one as well. Tiffany then tries Jessica’s vinegar-dipped sandwich and refuses to eat anything else until Sooyoung convinces her to eat one piece of kimbap. She later accidentally eats another. Jessica finally resorts to using English to get Tiffany to eat an untainted sandwich, saying “Trust me, oh my God” and, “I made it!” Yoona’s kimbap appears in the second half of the episode as well, when the members travel to an amusement park. Stopping for lunch, Taeyeon, Sunny, and Hyoyeon eat the leftover kimbap and sandwiches that Jessica and Yoona kindly packed. As they are eating, Sunny can be heard complimenting Yoona’s cooking just before Taeyeon and Hyoyeon pick salted pieces of kimbap to eat.
Though Taeyeon, Tiffany, Hyoyeon, and Sooyoung may not have appreciated Jessica and Yoona’s cooking, the two chefs’ antics made this episode one of the funniest in “Hello Baby”, taking this countdown’s third spot.
Episode 4: The Acting
Even after starring in several professional dramas, some of the best (and worst) acting from the members of Girls’ Generation came in 2009 in the fourth episode of “Hello Baby”, when they conspired for a hidden camera prank on Seohyun as a birthday surprise. In order to make her as miserable as possible before presenting her with a cake and gifts, Seohyun’s unnies insisted that she not be the best mom, split into two teams with each refusing to pick her, pretended to argue, sent her to go shopping with Jessica in full Ice Princess mode, and made her prepare Kyungsan’s food on her own. However, despite having four talented actresses who had or would go on to have lead drama roles, the prank nearly failed as the members’ awkward acting and constant laughing almost gave them away. All of them can be seen cracking up as soon as Seohyun turned around, with Yuri even laughing right behind Seohyun on the couch while Sunny used a doll to cover her face as she smiled. Over-the-top and hilarious acting notwithstanding, Seohyun fell for the hidden camera and held in her tears throughout the episode, but finally understood and smiled when the birthday party began, making for a very touching ending. As much as I dislike hidden camera pranks, this side-splitting display of Girls’ Generation’s acting makes this episode the next on my list of the best “Hello Baby” episodes.
Episode 15: The Athleticism
Who needs the “Idol Athletic Championships” when you have episode 15 of “Hello Baby”? In just a one hour show, Girls’ Generation played games of mini-basketball, mini-bowling, and mini-tug-of-war, had a game of chicken fight, and drank mini-yogurt drinks, displaying their skills (and lack of skills) at sports. The episode began with the group dividing into teams. Sooyoung, the MC, decided to try and get her revenge on Yoona for her salted kimbap, and filled three cereal bowls out of six with large amounts of salt, placing the members who got the salted cereal bowls on one team and the members who did not on the other. Karma was then proven to exist when Yoona unfortunately received the salted cereal, joining Sunny and Yuri.
The games began with mini-basketball, which eventually became a combination of basketball and wrestling, with Sunny holding Tiffany to the ground as Hyoyeon, for some reason, held Sunny on top of Tiffany. This left Taeyeon against Yuri and Yoona, which ended exactly as you would expect a basketball game between one short person and two tall people would end (Taeyeon tried her best though). Next, the group moved onto bowling, which again went the way of Sunny, Yuri, and Yoona. However, much funnier than the actual game was watching the members worry about making elegant bowling poses, Tiffany’s random celebratory dances, and Taeyeon failing to set up the bowling pins (even though she had successfully set them up just four minutes earlier in the episode). A game of chicken fight and tug-of-war later, Sunny, Yuri, and Yoona found themselves up three games to one, before Taeyeon, Tiffany, and Hyoyeon staged a miraculous (not really) comeback in a final game that Sooyoung decided would be worth three points for the sake of entertainment. This last game involved each team drinking yogurt smoothies as fast as possible. Unfortunately for her team, Yuri was the slowest to finish her drink and caused her team to lose, which is strange considering she trains by drinking ma juice every morning.
From the beginning of the show to the end of the credits, this amazing episode still makes me laugh nearly four years and a dozen times rewatching it later. Filled with extremely funny moments that could fill up a column on their own, episode 15 is my favorite of the “Hello Baby” series and wins the top spot on this month’s countdown.
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