Season 2, Episode 2, “Tanner vs Gibbler”

Once again the show begins with a pre-credits skit, accompanied by this weird cheesy graphic.  I don’t remember ever seeing this when I watched the show in syndication, but maybe that’s because it was bumped for taking up precious advertising time.  Just like in the first episode, this intro scene is focused around a stupid baby trick.  You know those corny routines where you ask a dog questions and have it answer based on what dogs can say, like, “how’s life?  Rough?”  or, “what’s on a tree?  Bark?”  Well this is pretty much just like that except with a baby who can say, “yes” and “no.”

Danny’s burgeoning obsession with cleanliness is further explored as he tries to teach the baby to fashion tape into a lint roller.  The baby’s subtle psychological damage is interrupted by a phone call.  Danny’s boss wants him to come in immediately for some, “big news.”  Danny struggles with whether it’s good news or bad as he rushes out the door.  Meanwhile, DJ plans a surprise birthday party for her badass friend Kimmie Gibbler.  Stephanie makes repeated attempts to horn her way into said party but DJ aint havin’ it, which the Uncles actually back her up on.   Kimmie shows up to walk with DJ to school and Stephanie blows the lid off of the surprise party, which is clearly a passive aggressive act.  Kimmie asks if she can bring some cool girls from her karate class to the party and Stephanie makes a final attempt to gain an invite.  When she is ignored, she proclaims, “how rude!”

Danny interrupts a discussion between his boss, Mr. Strowbridge, and that chick who played the love interest in Rad (you know, that movie about BMX bikes).   Danny’s all high strung about what the big news is and some awkwardly phrased dialogue that could have been cleared up pretty easily leads him to believe that he’s being fired and this new chick is getting his job.   But it’s all just a wacky misunderstanding, and as it turns out she’s a friendly tv show host named Rebecca Donaldson who’s going to be co-hosting with Danny on a show called, “Wake Up, San Francisco” starting on Monday.  You’d think that there would be a lot of contract negotiations and preparation involved with all of these big network shake-ups, but I suppose that if the characters on the show followed any kind of standard procedure there’d be a lot less room for hilarious misunderstandings.

DJ and her friends gather at Kimmie’s surprise party, waiting for the guest of honor.  They get all excited when they think she’s arrived but it turns out to only be Stephanie, trying yet again to crash their shindig.   While they’re kicking her out, Kimmie’s arrival goes unnoticed.  Kimmie doesn’t give two shits, though, as she’s all wrapped up in her two super cool guests from karate class who are in junior high.  The junior high girls immediately start hating on the party and call up some naughty sounding boys in an effort to start a rager.  DJ puts a stop to their festivities and the junior high girls get all pissed and invite Kimmie to ditch her lame party and go to the mall.  Kimmie seems to have a moment of clarity in which she recognizes how stupid and lame everything the full house stands for is and unabashedly disses DJ and the whole party.  I’m surprised it’s taken Kimmie Gibbler so long to realize how much cooler she is than everyone on this show…

Stephanie’s idea of a good time playing in her room is lining up all her stuffed animals and lecturing them.  I guess that’s a pretty expected behavior from any kid with a Dad who spends their infancy forcing obsessive instructions about cleanliness upon them.

Also in this scene we get the first appearance of Mr. Bear, Stephanie’s beloved stuffed bear who is dressed like a 1940’s detective.

Anyway, Stephanie’s neurotic playtime is interrupted by DJ, who comes home from school distraught over being referred to by all her peers as a “geekburger” as a result of the junior high school girls incident.  Can we just pause for a second and acknowledge that this episode makes heavy use of the term, “geekburger.”  It’s the official title DJ receives from her classmates, and is stated over a dozen times in this episode.  Who even thought of that?  Geekburger?  Really?   And I have to say that, as little sympathy as I have for any of the Tanner clan, it’s pretty fucked up of Kimmie to not only leaver her party, but then immediately launch into a shit-talking campaign against DJ.  That’s some raw shit right there.  DJ airs her hurt feelings to Stephanie, who declares, “how rude,” yet again.

The family gather in the living room to watch a tape of the first episode of, “Wake Up, San Francisco,” but have to wait because Danny wont stop windexing the tv screen.  Man, this cleaning thing is getting creepy pretty fast.  Jesse enters the scene and declares, “have mercy” at the sight of Rebecca Donaldson.  He keeps trying to press his boner up against her tight, tight jeans but she blows him off, saying he reminds her of her baby brother, Corky.  Dang, could there ever been a surer sign that he’ll never work his way into those super tight, late-80’s jeans?

The family finally sit down to watch the show but Danny keeps pausing it every 2 seconds to comment on how funny he is.  Eventually the baby gets the remote and changes it to an episode of Thundercats, which ends the scene and this plot thread for the episode.  So did the show go well or not?  There’s really no way of knowing based on what we see here, so why did they even show it at all?

DJ refuses a phone call from Kimmie, which prompts the Uncles to have a chat with her about forgiveness.  The discussion goes on for a while but before the music can come on, Kimmie Gibbler shows up at the door.  DJ waits for Kimmie to give her an apology but Kimmie says she only came over to get her presents.  Damn, Kimmie Gibbler, could you be any more harsh?  I guess so, because only moments later she refers to DJ as a “double geekburger with cheese.”  DJ stops her from storming out of the house and the music comes on, which abruptly changes the tone of their interaction.  It’s weird how sometimes  the music itself seems to be the cause of conflict resolution.  I guess that when you are having a conflict in the full house you know it’s time to resolve things when you hear the music come on.  Finally, in an effort to set things right, Kimmie Gibbler declares that she was the geekburger all along and then DJ gives her a really stupid hat for her birthday. Conflict resolved!

This episode feels a lot more like a season opener than the actual season opener did, as it’s sort of a landmark for Full House.  In it, we see Danny’s career change from a sportscaster to an early-morning talk show host, we meet Rebecca Donaldson, who is more or less the final major cast member to join the series, and we also see the series really begin to embrace the obnoxious pandering of the repeated use of lame catch-phrases.  This episode delivers two utterances of “how rude” and one, “have mercy,” but pretty soon the catch phrase count is going to really pick up.  This is the beginning of the end.

Firsts:    Rebecca Donaldson, Mr. Bear