Season 4, Episode 23, “Joey Goes Hollywood”

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Pre-Credits Gag:  Michelle tries to get Jesse to play puppets with her but he really doesn’t want to do it.  She manages to persuade him by making a hideous face, which he refers to as her “very first guilt trip” even though she pulls that shit all the time.  She finally gets him to cooperate but then she just criticizes his unenthusiastic chipmunk voice the whole time.

Stephanie interrupts Kimmie Gibbler copying DJ’s homework by announcing that she needs to change her name because all the kids at school have been calling her “step-on-me.”  I gotta say, if the cruel nickname the kids at her school have given her doesn’t describe her face in any way, she should be thanking her lucky stars!

Danny comes in the room and delivers this really passive-aggressive front to DJ where he acts like he thinks her phone bill is so amusing to him and then he gets all pissed about how big it is.  Apparently someone’s been making all of these really expensive calls to Japan but none of the girls will claim responsibility for them.  During Danny’s investigation, Stephanie starts ragging on Kimmie Gibbler real hard, and even though her jokes are totally weak, Stephanie gets a big bumptious kick out of her own material.  It goes on and on, too.  It’s moments like this that perfectly define why I hate this shitty show so much: not only is it obnoxious and unfunny, but it’s patting itself on the back for being so clever and hilarious at the same time.

Joey abruptly enters the scene and tells everyone that he’s leaving for L.A. for the day and then exits the room just as quickly as he showed up, which is a pretty obvious cry for attention.  The rest of the family, ever unable to resist behavior that begs to be noticed,  follow him out of the room.  Once the coast is clear, Michelle comes in and makes a call to a woman in Japan named Miko, who is apparently perfectly willing to sit attentively while Michelle counts to 100 into the phone.  How did that relationship even get started?

The family are so dedicated to disregarding one another’s privacy and personal space that they block the exit until Joey will tell them where he’s going.

Joey discloses to the family that he got an audition for a role on a sitcom that stars Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, but he was trying to keep it a secret because he’s pretty sure he’s going to fail miserably like he has at everything he’s done his entire life.  The kids are pretty unclear as to who Frankie and Annette are but Danny explains that he got his first boners watching Annette develop big ass titties on the Mickey Mouse Club when he was a kid, plus they made all those rad beach movies.  Danny tells Joey about a fan letter that he wrote to Annette’s titties when he was a kid and there is some speculation as to whether or not she would remember the note, which may or may not come up again later…

Anyway, Joey continues to stew in his insecurities about the audition but then Jesse tries to lift his spirits by evoking a fantasy sequence about how great it’ll be if Joey gets rich and famous on tv.

The weirdest thing about Joey’s fantasy is that he still lives in that room in Danny’s house.  I guess his wildest imaginings still cant produce a reality in which he’s capable of supporting himself.  Anyway, Joey walks around with leather pants on and delivers the same lame jokes he always does, except even more pompously than usual and with greater success, plus the Laker Girls live in his room with him.  Oh, also, a teenage fan appears in his room and starts grabbing at him and screaming, he has a poster that’s an enormous picture of himself on his wall, and that mannequin that he used to have when his room was the alcove is back.  So, yeah, the inside of Joey’s mind is pretty much as unsettling as you thought it would be.

Joey is so revitalized by his disturbing fantasy that he races out the door to his audition in L.A.  Michelle bids him, “sayonara,” which tips Danny off that she was the one that made the calls to Japan.  I’m impressed that Danny was actually willing to recognize that Michelle was the culprit this time, as he usually goes through several stages of denial and refusal before taking any sort of responsibility for what a terrible child he’s raising.

As Jesse puts the finishing touches on the cake he’s baked for Joey to congratulate him on his audition, Danny gives Michelle a fake phone that she can make pretend phone calls on so she’ll stop making hella expensive ass calls to other countries.  Subsequently, Stephanie refuses to come downstairs until she is called by the new name she’s chosen for herself, “Dawn.”  Danny expresses some disappointment towards the name his dead wife gave to his second-ugliest child being changed, but “Dawn” seems pretty confident that you can polish a turd after all.

Speaking of overconfident pieces of shit, Joey comes home and says that he kicked ass at his audition.  Proving that there is no justice in this world, the phone rings that very second and it’s Joey’s agent on the other line, telling him he got the part.  Seriously?  Who in their right mind would ever cast Joey for a role on a sitcom?!!?

Joey tells the family that they’re all going to L.A. to watch the pilot being filmed and then a camera zooming in on the Hollywood sign does as much work as a bunch of expensive exterior shots would have to let us know that the family is now in Hollywood.

For some reason Joey’s walking around in a bathrobe when the family visits him backstage.  Man, this whole episode’s like one traumatic Joey moment after another.

Anyway, Annette Funicello walks by and then Danny starts bugging her but then she remembers him from the creepy beat-off letters he used to write her and is actually happy to meet him.

Becky comments on what an embarrassing ass-kisser Danny is being but then she gets all up in Frankie Avalon’s face when he shows up.  Wait, before we move on, I just want to make sure you guys all got that:  Danny was ogling Annette Funicello and then Becky was judging him for it, but then when Frankie Avalon showed up she did the exact same thing.  You see, it’s ironic because she herself exhibited the same behavior that she’d criticized just moments earlier.  Adding layers to it, the seed for this entire interaction was planted in a previous scene, when Danny mentioned the creepy beat-off letters he’d written to Annette Funicello when he was a kid.  Also, there is a woman in Japan who will sit and listen while Michelle counts into the phone.

Rounding out the guests stars’ subjection to the personalities of the Full House cast, Jesse talks hair maintenance with Frankie and Stephanie insists that they call her, “Dawn Arielle Tanner.”

So then they start to film the pilot, which is for a show called Surf’s Up.  So what is this exactly?  I remember on Married…With Children how they would sometimes have episodes that were actually pilots for some other show the creators were trying to get on the air, but I don’t think that’s what this is.  I guess Surf’s Up should be taken at face value as the fictional pilot on an episode of Full House, but if that’s the case then why is it given so much screen time?  At least nobody spent any money on sets or anything.  Seriously, the beach set on Surf’s Up keeps the Malibu Sands beach episodes of Saved By the Bell from being the shittiest looking beach location in the history of television.

Frankie and Annette sing, “Who Put the Bomp in the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp,” to a bunch of extras in bikinis until Joey runs in and interrupts them.  During his buffoonish entrance, Joey is trampled by a herd of beach-goers and Michelle fucks up the shoot by hollering at him to make sure he’s ok.  It’s not enough for the Tanner family to have the pilot be ruined just by one of their own being featured in it, they have to fuck it up even more by interrupting the shoot, too.

Joey plays Flip, Frankie and Annette’s idiotic mailman who is more or less a shitty impression of Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High.  Joey delivers a letter to Frankie and Annette from the Beach Boys, who I assumed would be sending a letter of commiseration for being another once-likeable act that have hit an all-time low by appearing on Full House, but they’re actually just inviting them to perform at their show in Hawaii.  Joey offers to watch Frankie and Annette’s burger stand for them while they’re gone and then he sets his ass on fire.  And that’s it.  That’s the whole Surf’s Up pilot.

Later, back at the full house, Danny tells Stephanie that he thinks the name “Dawn” is at least as lame as her real name and she agrees to go back to being called Stephanie pretty quickly.  Just as that subplot wraps up, Joey comes into the living room and tells everyone that, much like most people in show business, he’ll be finding out the fate of the pilot he appeared in by watching a segment on the Hollywood Insider.  Joey actually says that his agent called to tell him this.  Why wouldn’t the agent just tell him the actual news?

Anyway, the host of the show says that Surf’s Up has been picked up by the network but that it will now be an animated series.  Joey is disappointed until he finds out that he’ll be voicing his same character, who is now a kangaroo.

Joey is unsure if he can do a kangaroo voice that’s as shitty and irritating as all of his other terrible impressions but then Jesse helps him figure out how to hack it out in like 2 seconds, and then the credits come on.  Wait, what?  Does that mean that Frankie and Annette are gonna make a bunch more appearances on Full House since they’re Joey’s coworkers now?  I have no memory at all of Joey ever having this job so i don’t know if this storyline is just going be lost like so many others that came before it or what.  Anyway, who gives a shit?  All that matters is that we get a closer shot of that production artwork for the Surf’s Up cartoon.  Dang, you guys, somebody got paid to draw that.