Season 4, Episode 13, “Happy New Year”

Pre-Credits Gag:  Michelle learns about caterpillars.

Joey makes a series of desperate phone calls as he tries to find a date for New Years Eve.  Pouring salt on the gaping wound that is his pathetic loneliness, the other dads come home from a double-date with their hot lady friends and start making out in the living room.  Danny, Cindy (making her 3rd appearance!), Jesse and Rebecca Donaldson urge Joey to find a date for the upcoming New Years Eve party at the tv station so he’s not an even bigger 5th wheel burden to have around than he usually is.

Kimmie Gibbler comes over and invites DJ to her New Years Eve rager.  DJ gets all excited about going until Stephanie reminds her that she has to watch her and Michelle that night.  It’s really weird how Stephanie gloats like an asshole about it, like she’s reveling in the fact that it sucks for her her sister to have to hang out with her lame ass instead of going to a rad party.

DJ complains to Danny that she wants to sneak a sip of champagne and use it as an excuse to let some oily boy with half a mustache feel her up on New Years instead of being obligated to sit around with her ugmo sisters but then Joey volunteers to watch the girls because he really doesn’t have anything better to do.  The other dads try to console Joey about the fact that it would be impossible for any woman to love him unless he got a bunch of plastic surgery and completely changed everything about his personality and then Joey slinks off to the basement while the audience goes, “aww.”

Jesse and Danny decide to set up a hidden camera in the attic studio to trick Joey into being interviewed for a video dating service.  Danny summons Joey with an intercom that they’ve never shown before, but I guess it stands to reason that they’d have something like that because the full house is hella big.  While they wait for Joey to come upstairs, the other dads fumble through an introduction to his interview, which is as bungling and awkward as it is superfluous.  Did video dating service recordings ever have introductions by the person’s friends?

Joey comes upstairs in his bathrobe with shaving cream all over his face, which leads me to conclude that the intercom in the attic is connected to another one in the shower in Joey’s basement bathroom.  Why did they have to introduce an intercom at all if its only purpose was to point out how absurd it’s use was?  If they’d just called down the stairs and he came up like that it would have made sense.  Why do they have to go to the trouble of adding extra details if it just makes things more illogical?

So anyway, the video dating ad recording is completely ridiculous.  Danny and Jesse never tells Joey that he’s being recorded because they think he has too much pride (that’s a first!) so they just weird him out for a couple of minutes by making him sit in a chair while they talk into an easel about how rad he is.

In the next scene Jesse and Danny tell Joey that they recorded him and now have a tape of women who want to date him, which prevents Joey from getting mad about them soliciting him without consent.  The first few women on the tape are totally awful, although the first one says she’s into “water sports,” which seems like it would be right up Joey’s alley.  Right before Joey decides to give up, he sees a recording of a woman named Christine and is immediately smitten with her.  He calls her up and invites her to sit around the full house with him and the girls on New Years Eve and she agrees to come, which is a pretty major red flag if you ask me.  After he gets off the phone, Joey stares at Christine’s image on the tv and says that he thinks that he’s in love with her, which is an even bigger red flag.

As the family get ready to go to their various New Years Eve parties, a big ass Christmas tree prominently displayed in the living room reminds me that I dodged a bullet by not having to sit through another shitty Christmas episode.  That one from Season 2 still stands out in my mind at the shittiest viewing experience I’ve had while writing this blog, which is really saying something.  Anyway, Danny and Cindy leave Rusty at the full house and he threatens Stephanie by telling her that he’s gonna kiss her at midnight.

Christine shows up at the full house and she and Joey are immediately smitten with one another.  As they get to know each other, they discover that they both love rollerblading and Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons.  Those might seem like some pretty shallow connections, but in the world of Full House that’s about as deep as anyone’s personality gets.

As the countdown to midnight reaches it’s final minutes, Rusty continues to sexually harass Stephanie.  DJ comes home with Ricky, the sexy paperboy from a few episodes ago, and reports that Kimmie Gibbler’s party got out of control and everyone got kicked out.  Moments later, Jesse, Rebecca Donaldson, Danny and Cindy all come home, claiming that they decided to ring in the New Year with the people they care about most, their obnoxious family of worthless assholes.

Right when the ball drops, Stephanie takes a big bite out of an onion and then forcibly kisses Rusty. 1991’s gonna be the best year ever, you guys!

As Joey and Christine slow dance in the backyard, they try to figure out how to express the mounting excitement they feel towards each other and decide to drive to Tahoe to get married.  Joey goes inside and announces his plans and everyone’s like, “what the fuck’s wrong with you, Joey?  Even considering the unbelievably low standards you’ve cultivated for your behavior, this is just totally unacceptable!”  They fail to reason with him because Joey’s a fucking idiot but then he starts to realize what he’s doing and then Christine shows up at the back door and tells him that they need to talk.  They go out to the backyard and decide that they shouldn’t get married yet, which is too bad for Joey because I bet it’s really necessary for him to rope a woman into a commitment as quickly as possible on account of his micropenis.

Well, that was probably the most meandering storyline so far.  That whole Joey-getting-married plot didn’t even start until the last 2 minutes of the episode.  I wonder if we’ll ever see Christine again?

Firsts:  Joey has pride, Christine