Season 3, Episode 18, “Mr. Egghead”

Pre-Credits Gag:  Danny lets Michelle record the full house’s answering machine message.  Didn’t you hate it when people would let their kids leave those confused sounding messages that were supposed to be cute?  That’s at least one reason why I’m glad that everyone uses cell phones now.

Stephanie interrupts Jesse’s guitar practice so he can help her prepare for her school picture day even though he was clearly in the middle of something and picture day’s a week away, so what’s the big fucking hurry?  Should I even bother to point out when these shitty kids interrupt the Dad’s anymore?  It’s pretty much the only way they ever engage them.  Jesse or Danny or whoever’s never just sitting around chillin’ out when the kids get up in their face, they’re always busy, every goddamn time.  And not once have any of them ever told the kids to back the fuck off them and wait until a more appropriate time, the always just immediately put down what they’re doing and give the kid their undivided attention, so you know that this behavior will never ever stop.  Anyway, Stephanie’s all anxious because she sneezed during last years class picture and all the kids called her “sneezeburger.”  This was a big source of misery for her, even though you’d think it wouldn’t be that big a deal since DJ calls her a “geekburger’” like every five minutes.  Why’s one burger so much worse than the other?  Anyway, Jesse begins photographing Stephanie in uncomfortably pin-up-esque poses until the baby (you guessed it) interrupts them and demands that she be photographed, too.

Danny and DJ enter the scene and tell everyone about how Danny got his first ever traffic ticket but he’s going to fight it in court with DJ as his witness.  Moments later, Joey comes home and tells everyone that Danny got him an on-the-air audition (whoever heard of such a thing?) to be the new Mr. Egghead, which is more or less a rip-off of Mr. Wizard.  It really pisses me off how all these fuckheads just have everything handed to them all the time.  Joey has done absolutely nothing to earn this audition besides living in Danny’s house for free and doing a terrible job or raising his children.  And while we’re at it, Danny doesn’t deserve to even have these connections because he totally sucks ass at his morning show host job.  All of these people should be living on the street.

Anyhow, DJ points out that Joey knows jack shit about science but Joey’s not worried because he lives a life of entitlement and being rewarded for his incompetence.  Joey decides that Jesse is going to play his sidekick (why Joey is allowed to choose his own sidekick is beyond me) but Jesse tells him to fuck off.  Incidentally, I can’t help but wonder how this Mr. Egghead gig might effect the Uncle’s advertising career and it seems pretty weird to me that neither of them considers this for even 2 seconds.  In any case, Joey bugs the shit out of Jesse until he finally agrees to play his sidekick after all.

Before they head to the courtroom, Danny tells DJ to wear all blue because it’s been psychologically proven that judges are more sympathetic towards people who wear that color.  What with all the manipulative behavior running rampant on this show, it’s kind of refreshing to see someone at least be open about it for a change.  Stephanie expresses her excitement to Danny about her picture day tomorrow, as well as the news that she and her classmates will be the audience for Joey’s Mr. Egghead recording.  Of course they will, who else could it possibly be?  Stephanie tells Danny that she thinks it’s rad that someone she knows will be on tv and when he reminds her that he’s on tv every day she says, “I know, but this is a show that people I know watch.”  Damn, Stephanie, way to diss the fuck out of your own Dad.  After she says it she just smiles and walks away, not giving a shit about Danny’s feelings.

Danny has DJ rehearse for their hearing and uses a magazine to swear her in.  He says, “please place your right hand on Fred Savage,” and she enthusiastically replies, “any time,” not knowing that Fred Savage will one day murder her in a tv movie (no foolin’, look it up).  During their rehearsal, Danny tells DJ to omit the detail about him dusting between the buttons on the radio while he was driving.  It’s about fucking time he taught those girls to keep their goddamn mouths shut about something, as demonstrated about 2 minutes earlier by Stephanie.  It’s not at all surprising to me that the only time he would have them practice any discretion whatsoever would be in order to accommodate his obsessive compulsive cleaning habit.

Joey’s Mr. Egghead taping falls in line with the tradition of Wake Up, San Francisco, in that it’s clearly unrehearsed and does little else than demonstrate the host’s gross incompetence.  Amidst a plethora of egg-related puns, Joey gives a talk about energy until he’s interrupted by audience member Duckface, (remember that guy?) who stumps Joey with a complex science inquiry.  Joey tactlessly tries to change the focus with a demonstration, and when it’s time to select an audience member to help him he picks Stephanie.  In one of those rare cases where the characters actually respond appropriately to a situation, Duckface points out that it’s total bullshit that Joey would pick his own niece for the demonstration and gets all the kids to chant “fix!”  Joey ignores their outrage and I’m glad he does because what comes next just about makes this whole grueling Full House review series worth it.

I don’t know how pulling a lever to release a giant boxing glove on a spring is supposed to be an apt demonstration for how energy works, but in this case I’m willing to let it go.  Stephanie tries to pull the lever but can’t so she decides to sing “Tomorrow” from Annie while Joey tries to get it to work.  And sure enough, just as she’s standing right in front of that big spring-loaded glove, Joey accidentally triggers it.

Now, don’t get me wrong here:  999 out of 1,000 times I would think that seeing a little girl get hit in the face would be absolutely awful.  But haven’t I earned the right to derive joy from this?  I’ve sat through these fucking kids obnoxious bullshit for over 60 episodes now, and I’ve actually stayed up late at night praying to Jesus Christ that a moment like this would occur.  It’s not as good as seeing Joey get stabbed with a knife, but it’s still a pretty sweet consolation prize.  Think of me what you will but I savored every millisecond of that shit.  Total catharsis.

Stephanie comes home from the hospital with a broken nose and Joey is wrought with guilt.  Stephanie actually seems pretty chipper about the whole scenario until she remembers that it’s gonna fuck up her class picture tomorrow.

Danny comes home with DJ and reports that they were able to beat the traffic ticket but while they were in court his car got towed because the meter ran out.  Oh, such sweet, sweet irony.  Joey admits to Danny that he broke Stephanie’s nose and reveals that he didn’t get the Mr. Egghead job, which is the first time ever on the show that someone’s gross incompetence has repercussions.

Stephanie decides to hide inside the full house instead of going to school on picture day. She goes into her room and discovers that Michelle has a regular routine of going through all her shit while she’s away even though there was just a whole episode about Michelle starting preschool so it really doesn’t make sense that she’d be home.  Besides, why would Stephanie ditch school and then hide in her own house if she didn’t want to get caught?  She should go down to Golden Gate park and drop acid or something instead.  Anyway, she sends Michelle downstairs to make her something to eat which leads to a really disgusting sequence of Michelle making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with her bare hands.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  why is this child always running around unsupervised?

Eventually, Joey goes up to Stephanie’s room to clean up all the peanut butter and shit that the baby smeared all over everything (he saw her making the sandwich in the kitchen but neglected to intervene then, seemingly to serve the purpose of getting him up to Stephanie’s room) and quickly discovers Stephanie hiding in the closet.  She effectively manipulates Joey’s feeble mind into allowing her to stay home since he still feels all shitty about breaking her nose (she didn’t even have to wear a blue suit to pull it off) but then Jesse enters the scene and tells her to get her ass to school.  He then berates Joey for being such a fucking useless idiot and having no parenting skills whatsoever, which is actually pretty great.

When Jesse brings Stephanie to her classroom they’re surprised to find that Joey’s already there, which doesn’t really make any sense timing-wise.  Inexplicably, Joey managed to get to Stephanie’s class before her, with enough time left over to convince the entire class to take their group picture with fake novelty nose-and-glasses on.  What a brilliant fucking plan, and I’m sure the other kids’ parents will be just thrilled when they see the class picture that they’ve payed for.  Wouldn’t it have been better for everyone if they’d just let Stephanie stay home?  After the novelty glasses photo is taken they convince Stephanie to take part in a group photo sans glasses so the whole thing ends up being pretty pointless.  And that’s it.  That’s the end.

This episode is equally obnoxious and hackneyed to just about every episode so far, but it also had a sense of contempt towards the characters that I found delightfully refreshing.  I’m not saying that it wasn’t a big awful piece of shit, but we did get to see Joey get turned down for a job and Stephanie get hit in the face, so at least there were some parts that were actually worth watching.

Firsts:  a member of the full house is open about their manipulative behavior, a member of the full house’s gross incompetence is treated appropriately