Season 6, Episode 20, “Grand Gift Auto”

Pre-Credits Gag:  Michelle dresses one of the twins up like Jesse and the other one like Danny, plus she dresses the dog up like Joey.

Joey comes home all excited about a surprise birthday present he’s gotten for DJ.  Everyone goes out to the backyard to see what it is and discover that he got her a car.

Everyone ogles the car, including Michelle, who delivers some remarkably stilted lines that are especially conspicuous because they’re meant to convey enthusiasm.  Danny gets kind of annoyed at Joey because he wanted to be involved with the car-buying process and he begins to describe all of the anal retentive research he’d already done, including contacting Ralph Nader.  I bet that being mentioned on Full House is the #1 reason why Ralph Nader lost the 2000 presidential election.  DJ vehemently thanks Joey and then he and Danny take turns kissing her and Joey says that he loves DJ as much as if she were his own daughter, which is the saddest news I’ve ever heard about DJ.  DJ says she’s going to go inside to get her drivers license and then all the other kids follow her so the dads can have a scene with the car that may present something of a twist to the plot.

Jesse starts the car up and it begins to shoot oil out of the windshield wipers, which is a very common indication that a car might have something wrong with it.  A few seconds later a bunch of steam starts shooting out of the engine so Jesse opens up the hood and confirms that the car is all fucked up.

The only natural course of events that could possible follow such a discovery is for Jesse to fix the car real quick while Danny distracts DJ and her friends by playing songs on his guitar.

Joey does a sucky ass job of assisting Jesse while he fixes the car, which leads to several gags that are not worth mentioning.  Meanwhile, Danny continues to stall DJ by getting Michelle and the twins to perform “Pop Goes the Weasel” on some little kid instruments.  This is one of those moments where you can’t help but wonder how this is even something that was ever on tv.  It’s literally just some little kids banging on some instruments and looking confused.  It’s like being forced to watch someone’s terrible home movies, and unfortunately this is the only home movie involving Bob Saget where nobody gets hit in the nuts.

Jesse manages to finish fixing the car just as DJ and her friends lose their patience with Danny.  I have to admit, that’s pretty impressive.  I mean, let’s just be generous and say that Danny was able to stall DJ for a whole hour.  That’s still an astonishingly quick repair job on a car that was clearly totally fucked.  Anyway, just as DJ and her friends get ready to drive off, a sexy lady cop pulls in front of their car, right in the backyard.

Never before has it seemed so awkward that there’s no set for the curb in front of the house so they just use the backyard for everything.  The lady cop explains that the car is stolen and that Joey is under arrest.

The lady cop brings everyone into the full house so she can be subjected to their grating personalities for a few minutes before Joey tries to explain himself.  He tells her that he bought the car from an old lady and is unable to provide any sort of proof of ownership.  Everyone struggles to convince the lady cop that Joey is innocent and ultimately decide that the only way to do so is to expose her to what a fucking simpleton he is.

They give the lady cop a tour of Joey’s room and argue that anyone who would surround himself with so much stupid immature bullshit couldn’t possible be malicious enough to steal a car.  Michelle holds up his Ninja Turtle slippers and introduces one of them as Michelangelo even though it is clearly Leonardo.

The Ninja Turtle slippers are enough to convince the lady cop not to arrest Joey.  Can you believe that shit?  How’s she gonna explain that one down at the station?  At least she impounds DJ’s car.  After she leaves, the family all jovially discuss what a goofball idiot Joey is until sad music comes on as he says that he never realized that he was the family joke and that they were all laughing at him instead of with him.  I can’t speak for the rest of these cornballs, but I myself have never laughed at all while Joey was onscreen.  Maybe that one time when he got hit with a coconut, but that was just because he was hurt.

Joey does what any attention starved 12-year old girl would do and puts on a big show about how nobody takes him seriously and says he’s gonna go look for an apartment.  The whole family totally buys into his bullshit behavior and immediately start showering him with emotional support, which is a real textbook example of a codependent relationship.

As if this episode didn’t already stand out as one of those most slapped together messes of them all, it suddenly turns into a clips show as each of the girls reminisces about what a great presence Joey has been in their lives.

We get to revisit the first time that Joey spit all over everything, and are given a tragic reminder that Stephanie used to be a cute little kid that you didn’t want to stab.  The worst moment comes with the flashback from the episode when Joey taught Michelle how to ride a bike.  First of all, they don’t show the part where she falls into the bushes, which is the only moment in the entire series that I’d actually be happy to watch again.  To make things even worse, we have to re-watch that creepy part where she says, “uh-uh Joey, I did it with you,” sounding much like Aaron Bailey from Pet Semetary.  But that’s not even the most fucked up shit.  They freeze the image of her creepy little face and echo her voice when she says it, then they transition to a real close-up shot of Joey, which leads to the most unsightly overlay in the history of television.

Can you think of two worse faces to transition between?  Anyway, the music comes on as Joey says that he feels super shitty about buying DJ a stolen car and that he never really felt like he had a family before becoming the weird uncle of a house filled with a bunch of obnoxious pieces of shit.   Joey says that he’s going to stay and then tells everyone that he loves them, then they all writhe around in a big pile on the couch.

This one was a real garbage dump.  I guess I have to give the creators some credit for at least attempting to justify why Joey still lives in the full house, but it’s become pretty clear by now that any attempt to bring any depth or reason to his character is a real wasted effort.  This episode also had an awful lot of filler.  The car being fucked up and having to be repaired had no real bearing on the rest of the story other than to make it a few minutes longer, plus there were all those clips at the end.  I also think it’s pretty interesting that everyone in the full house seems to get a fancy red car for exactly one episode, and it always results in something bad happening.  At least DJ’s was stolen, unlike Danny, Joey and Jesse’s cars, all of which were involved in accidents.  Finally, how did the lady cop find the stolen car when it was in the back yard?