Season 8, Episode 6, “You Pet It, You Bought It”

Pre-Credits Gag:  The twins wake Michelle up by jumping up and down on her bed.  She’s like, “how come you little fuckers never pull this shit with Stephanie?” and they tell her that Stephanie’s a real asshole when she’s woken up.  Michelle then goes to wake Stephanie up, either to confirm their claim or to assert her status as the biggest asshole of them all.

As Stephanie works on making a 3-dimensional map of the United States out of plaster or something, Danny comes in and mentions how hot it is outside, then he starts beating off under the table while he describes the sweaty construction workers that he just saw working with their shirts off outside.

Becky and Stephanie rush off to ogle the construction workers that Danny so sensually described and then Michelle comes in and says that she needs more lemonade because she’s been selling a whole bunch at her little stand.  Danny suggests that Michelle should be boring and practical and save any money she makes at the stand and Jesse tells her to be frivolous and short-sighted with her earnings, because those are the kinds of guys they are.

Just so we don’t completely forget about the uncles’ radio DJ jobs, Joey suggests that they hold a contest where they ask people to recite the lyrics to popular tv show themes.  This leads to Jesse singing the theme to 3’s Company, which gets the audience all riled up for some reason.  The joke here, which I have to mention because it’s going to come up about ten billion more times over the next 20 minutes, is that Jesse can’t remember a portion of the lyrics and just says “the thing and the thing and the thing” instead.  Pretty funny, huh?  If you don’t think so now, maybe you just need to hear it over and over and over again.  Anyway, for whatever reason, the twins really like it when Jesse sings this song and pester him to repeat it.  Jesse says that when you hear something too many times it becomes annoying, which is pretty goddamn ironic when you think of his countless utterances of, “have mercy,” not to mention all of the other tedious catchphrases that this show has been milking for years.  I do have to wonder whether this isn’t some meta-commentary by the writers, or if they were just completely lacking in self-awareness here.  Anyway, the twins sing the 3’s Company theme with Jesse and it’s pretty excruciating, what with their inability to speak clearly and all.  I guess that’s sort of their own repetitive catchphrase.  Indecipherable gibberish.

DJ reclaims a shirt of hers from Stephanie that she wants to wear for picture day tomorrow and then Michelle comes in and tells everyone that she made $221 dollars at her lemonade stand and they’re all like, “say whaaaaaaaat???”

Danny receives a package and opens it up to reveal a picture of his great-great grandfather, General Cornwall Tanner, that he had blown up.

The uncles have a real good time pointing and laughing at Danny’s photo of his deceased relative and then Michelle comes downstairs and asks if anyone will take her to the candy store so she can spend her lemonade stand money.  Everyone says that they’re too busy to take her and then Danny and Jesse continue their debate about whether she should save her money or splurge.  Kimmie Gibbler comes downstairs and, after a brief, typical round of verbal sparring with Danny, agrees to escort Michelle to the candy store.

Jesse is once again coerced into singing the 3’s Company theme to the twins, which is a routine that ages less like a fine wine and more like a fresh turd.  Danny asks if Michelle’s back yet and then the girls inform him that she was carrying fat stacks of dolla dolla bills when she went to the candy store, which he didn’t know about.  Just then, as if on cue, Michelle comes home and reveals that she bought a donkey with her money.  That’s right, a donkey.

Well, points for originality, I guess.  I can’t think of another show that had an episode where a kid made a shitload of money at their lemonade stand and then bought a donkey.  I guess maybe it’s not all that different than the time DJ bought a horse, though.  Anyway, Danny takes an enormous shit right in his pants at the sight of the donkey and blames Jesse for Michelle making such a foolhardy purchase.  I guess no one is going to blame Michelle, because no one ever blames her for anything even though she willingly does horrible stuff all the time, although in this instance she’s not really ill-intentioned, just painfully naive.  This leads me to wonder what the fuck Kimmie Gibbler was thinking when she oversaw this transaction.  She must have know on some level that this was a bad idea.  I mean, really.  Apparently the guy who owned the donkey just asked Michelle how much money she had and then, when he was informed that she had $221, told her that the donkey cost exactly that much.  I actually don’t know if that’s a good deal for a donkey.  For all I know they’re really expensive.

Stephanie says she likes the Donkey because he’s got big hairy ears, just like Uncle Gus.  Who’s Uncle Gus all of a sudden?  Some distant relative that they’ll only ever mention one time for the sake of a throwaway joke, I guess.  Danny insists that they return the donkey and then Kimmie Gibbler informs him that the petting zoo that they bought him from was a traveling petting zoo that was packing up to leave for Seattle immediately after their purchase and, even though that couldn’t have been more than like 10 minutes ago, for story purposes we’ll all just assume that they’re long gone.  Danny’s like, “well, fuck,” and agrees to let the donkey stay in the backyard overnight while they figure out what to do with him.  He tells Michelle that she’ll have to clean up after the donkey and she says, “no problem, I already clean up after my hamster.”  Wait… she has a hamster?  Since when?  I never saw no hamster.  Where does she keep it?  Maybe it stays with Uncle Gus.

The donkey starts braying loudly in the backyard in the middle of the night, pissing off the neighbors and waking up the denizens of the full house.  DJ is concerned that if the donkey keeps her up all night, her school picture wont turn out well.  Everyone else’s concerns are less specific but they all want the donkey to shut the fuck up, except for Michelle, who seems to love the donkey unconditionally and want to keep him, probably just to spite everyone else.  The twins come downstairs and ask Jesse to sing the 3’s Company theme song again and then when he refuses, Joey coerces him by suggesting that it will drown out the loud braying of “Engelbert Donkeydink” which is maybe the most baffling wordplay I’ve ever heard in my life.  It’s neither a timely reference nor a clever pun.  What the fuck?  Anyway, Jesse sings the theme song to the twins and then everyone notices that the donkey stopped making noises while he was singing so, naturally, the only solution to the problem at hand is for Jesse to stay up all night and sing the 3’s Company theme to the donkey over and over. Again, if nothing else, points for originality here.  Maybe “Engelbert Donkeydink” wasn’t very inspired but whoever wrote this plot synopsis was on some shit.

Jesse and Michelle wake up on the couch after making it through their first night with the donkey.  Stephanie starts hollering in the kitchen and it turns out that at some point in the night the donkey ate the map that she was making.

DJ comes downstairs looking like a straight up meth addict because she’s apparently allergic to donkeys and then Stephanie’s like, “this donkey seems to be tampering with all of the story elements that were introduced earlier… We’d better get rid of him!”   Danny’s unsure of what she means until he walks into the living room and discovers that the donkey has destroyed his giant photograph, which impels him to boot that donkey once and for all.

I don’t know, you guys.  Since when has been an imposing pain in the nuts ever gotten anyone kicked out of the full house?  If they’d ever had these sorts of standards before they would have gotten rid of Joey a long ass time ago.

Becky suggests that they give the donkey to the children’s zoo and everyone agrees that it’s a good idea, even Michelle, who’s finally willing to recognize what a piece of shit her donkey is.  She says that she’s gonna buy everyone some candy and then put the rest of the money in the bank after they sell the donkey but then Jesse explains to her that they’re going to have to donate him because he’s fucking useless and she was a total moron to waste all of her money on him in the first place.

Before taking the donkey to the zoo (which we’ll just assume will accept unsolicited donkey donations), the family convinces Jesse to sing the 3’s Company theme to him one last time, because we really needed to hear it again, and it turns out that the rest of the family all know the missing lyrics, which they never told him before just now for some reason.  Amazingly, the music is once again absent from this episode, maybe because it had such a muddled message.  It’s been kind of a while since they’ve used it and, even though the episodes themselves seem to be getting more and more half-baked, at least this is one element that’s improved.