Season 5, Episode 16, “Crushed”

Pre-Credits Gag:  Michelle ruins Stephanie’s birthday cake because she wants to lick frosting off of the spatula.  Why are all the jokes based around her doing things that children should be discouraged from doing?

Michelle fails to make the twins laugh so she turns to Joey for help, bringing us another premise that puts the two worst characters together.  Joey agrees to enlist her in “Joey Gladstone’s Comedy College,” beginning with teaching her a really unnerving fake laugh.

Stephanie comes downstairs and gets all up Danny’s ass about him letting her meet her favorite rock star, Tommy Page, who will be appearing on Wake Up, San Francisco that day, which also happens to be her 10th birthday.  Danny tells her tough shit and sends her off to school, but once she’s gone he discloses to DJ that Tommy Page will actually be making an appearance at Stephanie’s birthday party that afternoon.

The girls at Stephanie’s birthday party bust some serious moves while Joey tries to emulate some sort of persona as the DJ.  I’m not sure what he’s supposed to be exactly.  Maybe one of the Yo MTV Raps guys?  Anyway, there’s no time to worry about that because Stephanie and her friends abruptly break into a choreographed dance routine set to “Good Vibrations.”  I’m talking about the Marky Mark version, not the Beach Boys song.  This shit is off the charts, you guys.  That’s some full on, unfiltered early-90’s right there.  How do they all know the moves?  And why are they all facing the wall while they dance?

Curiously, there isn’t an ending to the sequence or anything, it just cuts abruptly to Danny in the kitchen.  It just struck me as odd to whip out such an elaborate sequence and then just sort of shoo it away, but who cares, I guess.

So then Danny gets Tommy Page to come out and serenade Stephanie.  I honestly had no idea who the fuck this guy was and assumed they got some cheap actor to pretend to be some made up singer, but according to the internet he’s a real guy.  Anyway, he sings to Stephanie for several minutes while she sighs and the rest of the girls sway back and forth, killing several minutes of action that I’d otherwise feel obliged to describe.

After Tommy Page’s epic crooning sequence, he’s briefly sexually harassed by Kimmie Gibbler before walking over to Jesse to commend him on his solid keyboard back-ups.  After accidentally emphasizing what a gigantic loser Jesse is by comparing their careers, Tommy Page totally hits on DJ by asking her to give him a tour of San Francisco.  How old is this Tommy Page supposed to be?  He’s clearly a grown-ass man, and DJ’s like 13 at this point.  Pretty fucked up if you ask me.

DJ and Tommy Page’s inappropriate chemistry is cut short by Stephanie, who asks Tommy Page to sign her CD.  He signs it, “Love, Tommy” before kissing her right on the mouth.  Seriously, what’s wrong with this guy?

Later, while Stephanie makes wedding invitations for herself and Tommy Page, she overhears him coming in through the back door with DJ.  He thanks DJ for showing him around the city and then he straight up kisses her on the mouth.  Why isn’t this guy in jail?  You can’t just hang out with little girls and kiss them on the mouth.

I keep wondering if he’s supposed to be passing as a teen hearthrob or something but I’m pretty certain that Tommy Page is an adult.  Anyway, Tommy page tells DJ that he’s gotta go down to Jesse’s recording studio to record the song that he sang at Stephanie’s birthday party because I guess he’s got nothing better to do.  After he leaves, DJ is all like, “fuck yeah,” and then Stephanie runs upstairs and makes an ugly face while crying and it’s actually pretty hilarious.

Michelle struggles to make the babies laugh but then when Joey pulls out a pie to hit her in the face with she hits him with it instead and then the babies laugh.  Yeah, that’s it.

DJ waits anxiously for the red light above Jesse’s recoding studio to turn off (remember the red light?  It was in one episode, then it disappeared for a long time, and now it’s conveniently returned) so she can run down there and dry hump Tommy Page.  Kimmie Gibbler comes over and asks DJ to break her off some of that hot Tommy Page action but DJ says step off because they’re entering a real relationship.

After Tommy Page finishes recording the song that he sang to Stephanie (seriously, aren’t signed musicians not allowed to do stuff like that?  Also, does Danny have photos of him murdering a prostitute or something?  Why doesn’t he have anything better to do?), the red light turns off and DJ comes rushing downstairs.  Just when DJ’s ready to start grinding on Tommy Page, Stephanie follows after her and starts showing him embarrassing baby photos of DJ.

DJ pulls Stephanie up to the kitchen and they start having this great bitch-you-stole-my-man argument.  Things get pretty heated and then all the dads come together to try to figure out what the fuck is going on.

Once the fight is broken up, Stephanie goes on this long rant about how she and Tommy Page are in love.  The dads calmly explain to her that what she’s saying is fucking crazy and her stupid little girl feelings are ridiculous.

Once the message starts to sink in, DJ chimes in about what an idiot Stephanie is and then explains to the dads that she and Tommy Page are the ones who are actually in love.

Tommy Page apprehensively comes up the stairs and is coerced into telling DJ and Stephanie that he likes them only as friends.  Why aren’t any of the dads murdering this man?  Ok, I get that he just sang Stephanie a song for her birthday and there’s no reason why she should have gotten all worked up, but he straight up took DJ out on a date and then kissed her on the mouth.  What was she supposed to think?  It’s also creepy how professionally he’s able to tell these young girls that he only likes them as friends, like he goes around kissing young girls on the mouth all the time and then weaseling out of it.  The best part is at the end, where he says, “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.  I hope you’ll still come to my concert tonight.”  Spoken like a true professional.

Later, DJ and Stephanie commiserate upstairs about being jerked around by some creepy obscure musician.  Seriously, who the fuck ever heard of Tommy Page?  The music comes on as DJ declares that they’ll be sisters forever and should never let some schlong get between them.

DJ leaves and then Stephanie plays her Tommy Page recording, because we really needed to hear that shit one last time.