Season 3, Episode 23, “Fraternity Reunion”

Pre-Credits Gag:  Michelle interrupts Jesse’s guitar playing by forcing him to play a game where they make hideous faces at each other, resulting in a bunch more screencaps that a bunch of people will lift for their tumblr pages.  Don’t forget to plug the site!

As Joey and Danny get ready for their 10-year fraternity reunion, Jesse comes home and goes on a lengthy diatribe about how much it sucks dick to drive around in the city.  After experiencing a series of unfortunate incidents on the road, he decides to spend the rest of the episode driving around the countryside for some peace and quiet.

Joey breaks Danny’s balls about how he let some sorority girls steal their fraternity seal (if you don’t know what that is, just hang in there) when they were in college so Danny agrees to steal it back at the reunion.

DJ and Kimmy Gibbler have to watch the news for homework but Kimmie Gibbler says the news is for fucking squares so they should at least get an extra tv so they can watch music videos at the same time.  I don’t know how they managed to get through this entire discussion without mentioning Milli Vanilli, but kudos to them.  Anyway, DJ goes along with Kimmie Gibbler’s plan so they carry the tv upstairs, which is a source of anxiety for Stephanie as she enters the scene.

DJ and Kimmie Gibbler manage to get the tv up the stairs without incident but then they hang it over the bannister and talk about what a rad idea it was to bring it up there and, completely unpredictably, it falls and breaks.  Danny runs in, gets totally fucking pissed off and uses the incident to vent a bunch of his hatred towards Kimmie Gibbler.  It’s always interesting to me how tv’s were treated like a sacred household item on sitcoms.  I guess it’s kind of a meta thing, right?  As such, Danny’s typical annoyance with Kimmie Gibbler is replaced by a deep feeling of being existentially threatened and he finally tells her that he’s sick of her always coming over and pulling a bunch of stupid bullshit so he bans her from the full house for 3 weeks.  DJ protests this decision so Danny continues to lecture her while Stephanie stands behind him and sort of copies his gesticulations in a way that I’m not sure is mocking or supporting or reverence or what.

The girls perform a simple hand clapping routine and the audience gives them a gigantic round of applause.  Seriously, is the audience full of rubes or what?  Joey tells Danny that he’s figured out the perfect way to get the seal back as they exit the full house, leaving DJ in charge.

So, yeah, this is the episode where Joey and Danny dress in drag.  I don’t even think I’ve ever seen this one before but I can’t say that I’m surprised for a second that it was made.  They seem to have been working their way through every completely fucking obvious sitcom cliché, and I think the only reason it’s taken them so long to get to this one is because they wasted a bunch of times doing others more than once.

Joey and Danny enter the sorority house’s reunion dressed in drag so they can steal back their seal, but first they have to adjust each others boobs and fumble their way through being questioned by other sorority women.  Eventually they spot the seal and we get to see what the fuck this thing is that they’re talking about.

It’s a stuffed seal?  I had been assuming that it was like a crest or a plaque, you know?  Why would they give a fuck about this stuffed seal?  The sorority sisters actually stole this thing and displayed it prominently in their sorority house for like 10 years.  The whole episode they’ve just been casually addressing it like it’s a given that you’d know what this thing is and then it’s like the least obvious answer.  I don’t know, maybe I’m missing something because I don’t know shit about fraternities but this just seemed a little peculiar to me.

Joey tries to figure out how to open up the case that the seal is in while a gigantic waiter makes sexual advances towards Danny.  Joey agrees to create a diversion while Danny breaks into the case so he pumps up the jams and busts out a limbo pole.  Now, you might think that the limbo is a totally ridiculous way to steal a group of people’s attention, but I’d like to remind you that this was 1989.  I don’t know what the fuck was going on in everybody’s heads, but there was about a 2 year period right around when this episode aired where you could go to any party in America and bust out a limbo pole and everyone would just automatically start lining up for that shit.  This is actually the most astute social observation this show has ever made.  Seriously, y’all know I’m the first guy to point out how stupid and absurd everything that happens on this crappy show is, but I’ve got to give them this one.  It was a pretty inexplicable phenomenon, but in the early 90’s a cure for limbo fever was found and nowadays people pretty much only remember it when it’s featured on a rerun of some shitty old show.

After referring to himself as a “limbo bimbo,” Joey gets a little too enthusiastic about finding out how low he can go and knocks his wig off.  Seeing that the jig is up, Danny makes a desperate grab for the seal and he and Joey rush the exit.  They’re taken down by a gaggle of shrieking women in a scenario that I once read an article about how Japanese businessmen will pay like $80,000 for.

After being overpowered by the women, Danny and Joey are arrested by one of them who turns out to be a cop.  The cop brings Danny and Joey into the police station and they’re arrested by Rif Hutton, who’s played a cop or a doctor or an army guy on like every tv show ever.

Joey and Danny are put in a prison cell where they try to think of a way to maintain their masculinity while being anally raped with a dress on.  Danny makes a narrow escape by requesting his phone call, leaving Joey alone to bear the brunt of the untamed prison lust.  I guess this kind of explains why Danny would keep a guy like Joey around.  Sure, he’s a worthless idiot, but I guess that every now and again it can help to have a sacrificial lamb handy.

Danny calls DJ and asks her to get either Grandma or Rebecca Donaldson to come bail them out.  I’ve got 10 million bucks that says that Grandma is unavailable for some reason.  Danny returns to the prison cell, where the prisoners are feeling less hostile after working all of their rape tension out on Joey.  One of the rapers recognizes Danny as the host of Wake Up, San Francisco and it turns out that all of the prisoners are big fans.  Well, at least that answers my question of who watches Danny’s show.  Cartoonish convicts, that’s who.

DJ is unable to find Grandma (because she fell into a dimensional vortex) or Rebecca Donaldson (because it suited the story) so she decides to go bail Danny out herself while Kimmie Gibbler violates her banishment in order to keep an eye on the full house.

The prisoners do song and dance routines for Danny until DJ shows up to bail him out.  Right after DJ’s arrival, the cop returns to the police set to tell Danny and Joey that she and the other sorority sisters feel like they’ve learned their lesson so they’re dropping the chargers.  Wait, what?  Then why did DJ have to come down there?  Couldn’t she have been spared the trauma of seeing her father in a prison cell?

Kimmie Gibbler plays pattie cake with Michelle and, once again, the audience is totally amazed.  Everyone comes back from the prison and Danny announces that he’s pissed at Joey but it’s not really clear why.  Danny takes Kimmie Gibbler aside to thank her for helping out by holding it down at the full house while he was in the slammer and for a second it seems like the music is gonna come on and they’re gonna have a touching moment but instead he just takes a week off of her banishment and tells her to get out.

DJ tries to mediate a discussion between Danny and Joey and continuously draws parallels between their dumb ass relationship and her dumb ass friendship with Kimmie Gibbler.  Danny realizes that Joey is his Kimmie Gibbler and Joey asks if they can still be bosom buddies.  There, they said it.

Jesse comes home and tells Danny about what a shitty time he had on his countryside ride, creating a hilarious bookend for the episode.  In conclusion,  I’d just like to point out that the episode was called “Fraternity Reunion” and nobody ever went to a fraternity reunion.

Tune in next week for the Season 3 finale!  I haven’t watched the episode yet but if it’s the one I think it is based on the title then we are in for some shit!