Jenny Lewis: Queen of the Girls with Bangs

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Jun 18

Jenny Lewis: Queen of the Girls with Bangs

Band Geeks for the Music Nerd, Geek Love (Nerd Girls) Add comments

Of all the girls with bangs, Jenny Lewis is the girl with bangs held above all the rest. My friend just saw her perform and said the show was like a sea of bangs with Jenny as their captain. Indie kids may know Jenny Lewis lead singer of Rilo Kiley, but nerds like myself known her far better from The Wizard and very special episodes of Growing Pains (she was the girl that called Ben “Ben-ja-min”).

In fact, she ran the gambit on 80's sitcoms, Golden Girls, Just the Ten of Us, Roseanne, and Mr. Belvedere. Always playing the cute girl for some boy on the show to pine after. And that's how she entered a young geeks mind. Through mildly charming acting and squeaky clean girl next door appeal, Jenny became one of the first girls we fantasied about. This was right before the greasy gross pinups, when a boy's fantasies still had a certain hand holding innocence.

It's her performance in The Wizard, the movie that introduced the world to Super Mario Brothers 3, that will forever immortalize Lewis in our hearts though. When Jenny Lewis screamed, “He touched my breasts,” that was perhaps the first time we thought about breasts. And why did Lucas need to keep his power glove off her, what depraved thing would Jenny possibly do with a power glove?

“I love the power glove. It's so bad.”

And, of course, when Super Mario came down on the big screen, we were well into true love.

But the best reason, Jenny Lewis is a nerd girl we love is that there's, at least, a 50/50 chance that Fred Savage took Jenny Lewis's virginity. How many girls can say that? Savage: a young Hollywood mover and shaker. Lewis: the fresh faced red head. How could she have possibly resisted the lure of the Savage? Coincidentally, Lewis met her Rilo Kiley counterpart Blake Sennett on the set of Boy Meets World. Ben Savage anybody? Do the Savage connections ever end with her?

The only real problem I see with Jenny Lewis is that she hasn't aged much in 20 odd years. So, as cute and sexy as she may be now, it's hard not to still see the 12-year-old girl. While, she started our prepubescent fires, that old image is more than a little creepy now.

Tags: nerd crush

6 comments

§ Dee Dee Supreme said on : 06/19/09 @ 08:24
You forgot Troop Beverly Hills. That movie credit alone moves Jenny Lewis from mere geek crush to the "boys want her, girls want to be her" category.
§ Büyü Çeşitleri said on : 07/23/10 @ 09:33
You forgot Troop Beverly Hills. That movie credit alone moves Jenny Lewis from mere geek crush to the "boys want her, girls want to be her" category.
§ Online Banking said on : 09/25/10 @ 22:54
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§ teeth whitening said on : 09/27/10 @ 16:43
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§ Kelley said on : 01/13/12 @ 13:58
Sorry boss. I know all there is to know about Jenny Lewis/Rilo Kiley and am fairly certain that David Faustino, aka Bud Bundy from Married with Children, popped her cherry.

Exhibit A - The lyrics from Rilo Kiley's Teenage Love Song. [http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/45569/] Particularly these telling passages:

"Oh, Davey, why did you leave me
All alone when we went all the way?
But maybe someday, Davey
We'll be together for more than a day

[...]

So now we're standing so damn close
You've been in rehab - you think I don't know
I just remind you of yesterday
Places forgotten, and friends passed away"

There is no Exhibit B because this clearly proves she boinked David Faustino.

Case closed. Kelley 1, Gnards 0.
§ Wolfie G. Nards® said on : 01/13/12 @ 14:24
I like your detective work! However, even if she did have sex with David Faustino (or Davey Hasselhoff, Davey Letterman, Davey Carradine), that doesn't mean he took her virginity.

Of Course, I will concede just because Fred Savage had the opportunity in 1989, doesn't mean he was the first either.

Kelley 0, Gnards 0, Savage 1