Top 10 Shittiest Moments Ever on Full House

Picking the Top 10 Shittiest Moments Ever on Full House is like selecting the finest grain of sand on a beach.  There’s just so much to sift through!  There are countless moments that could have qualified for this list but I did my best to look over the series and pick the ones that really stood out as the most glaring examples of why this show sucks so hard.  I’m sure people will have their own ideas and I look forward to reading them in the comments.  I was going to write an honorable mentions list but it would have had to include like half of the episodes.

Without further adieu, here it is, my own personal list of the Top 10 Shittiest Moments Ever on Full House:

10) The Endless Dream Sequence (Season 1, Episode 19, “The Seven-Month Itch: Part 1”)

At the end of the first Season, Jesse gets fed up with all of the responsibilities that come with living in his brother-in-law’s house rent free and runs away, creating a cliff-hanger for the series’ first 2-part episode.  The catalyst for his departure is an incredibly drawn-out dream sequence that exemplifies all of his anxieties about everyone getting all up in his face and asking him for stuff all the time.  It goes on longer than you can even imagine, with almost no progression, just an endless rotation of all of the characters uttering phrases into a fisheye lens.  This is the first example of a common tactic that the show would employ for the first several Seasons, where an episode’s story would be light so there would be some extraneous dream sequence to pad it out.  What made it more of a landmark for me, though, is that this was the first time during my run of watching the series where I can distinctly remember feeling like I was actually going crazy.

9) The Forever Music Video (Season 5, Episode 26, “Captain Video: Part 2”)

Season 5 ends with Jesse making a terrible music video out of his shitty cover of a mediocre Beach Boys song.  As far as mid-90’s music videos go, it’s maybe not all that bad (it features many odd conventions of the time, like rooms filled with candles and a location that looks like an old church in the desert) except for the fact that his babies are prominently displayed throughout it in what is debatably a sexually fetishistic way.  It’s also always hard to deal with something on this show when it’s supposed to be understood that it’s a quality presentation.  I’m pretty sure that we’re supposed to think that this is a good video although nothing that’s contained within it persuades us towards that perspective.  Regardless, it’s easily one of the most iconic terrible moments in the entire series.

8 ) Michelle Selects a Cardboard Cut-Out As a Reward (Season 7, Episode 16, “Joey’s Funny Valentine”)

This moment is so terrible and frustrating that it actually stands out as the worst part of an episode that’s all about Joey having a girlfriend.  A parrot flies into the full house and the kids recognize that it belongs to a guy who owns an electronics store.  When the parrot is returned, the owner decides to reward them by letting them pick any item from the store.  Throughout the rest of the episode, DJ and Stephanie argue over which appliance they should get until Danny finally leaves the decision up to Michelle.  Rather than picking between her sisters’ choices, she straight up chooses a cardboard cut-out of the shop’s owner, which is clearly the most worthless and impractical thing that could possibly have been inside that whole place.  This is one of those extreme cases of Michelle being shown completely over-the-top favoritism in the full house and getting what she wants at the cost of every other character.  When I think of all the things she did that made me want to beat her to death, this moment definitely stands out. 

7) Stephanie Goes to Therapy, is Cured of Her Neurosis in Minutes (Season 3, Episode 11, “Aftershocks”)

Stephanie gets all clingy and weird towards Danny so he decides to take her ass to a shrink.  The therapist has her draw a picture and, as Stephanie describes the image, it becomes clear that the source of her behavior is anxiety that came from not knowing where Danny was during the San Francisco earthquake.  Once that’s discovered, the problem is solved.  It takes less than 3 minutes.  Not only is this quick-fix narrative a slap in the face to therapy as a profession and practice, it’s also a big fuck you to anyone who endured any lasting traumatic stress after that earthquake.  What makes it most egregious, though, is the fact that they finally got one of these assholes into a therapist’s office and neglected to deal with any of the real issues.  Why wasn’t her overwhelming sense of entitlement ever looked into, or her total disregard for other people?  All of these people need therapy so bad!

6) Michelle Forces Becky and Jesse to Stay in the Full House (Season 4, Episode 20, “Fuller House”

After Becky and Jesse get married, it makes perfect sense that he’d start mooching off of her instead of Danny, so he moves into her place.  It really wouldn’t hurt the series at all to have them live in their own house nearby but I guess the producers thought that it was really important for everyone to be crammed into this one house forever so Michelle gets all sad and cries when Jesse packs up his shit.  Jesse is so distressed by this that he is unable to enjoy his new life in his nice new house with his super hot, smart wife with an amazing career so he forces her to move into the attic with him, effectively ruining her future forever.  But, hey, at least Michelle’s happy!

5) Joey Doesn’t Quit Comedy (Season 3, Episode 6, “Star Search”)

Joey finally realizes that he’s a no-talent waste of human life but he tries to prove to himself otherwise by going on Star Search, a haven for such people.  In one of the series’ rare moments of at least partial self-awareness, Joey loses because he sucks and for one brief, shining moment, it seems like he’ll finally do the world a big favor and kill himself, or at least quit doing all those terrible impressions all the fucking time.  But no, he decides that he can’t be dissuaded and continues to be an annoying pain in the ass with the support of his shitty family. This episode is the greatest argument against a person following their dreams that I have ever seen.

4) Jesse Serenades Michelle (Season 2, Episode 16, “Baby Love”)

Michelle develops an unhealthy attachment to another baby who comes and visits the full house and then she lapses into a deep depression after he leaves.  Jesse tries to lift her spirits by singing her an awful song that he’s written about her.  It’s uncomfortable to watch for so many reasons, and the worst part is that it doesn’t even do any good, so we have to sit through that shit for no reason.

3)  Jesse’s Christmas Speech (Season 2, Episode 9, “Our Very First Christmas Show”)

The family gets trapped in an airport during Christmas and everyone’s morale is quite low until Jesse decides to get up in front of everyone, including all the other unfortunate passengers who are stuck there with them, and delivers the most contrived “inspiring” speech of all time about the meaning of Christmas or some such bullshit.  This was the first of many times where I couldn’t believe that no one from the full house was assaulted for being such a public nuisance.  He actually forces everyone to sing Christmas carols with him, as if being trapped in the airport didn’t suck hard enough already.  This is one of those interesting moments that would have actually had the opposite effect in reality than what is conveyed onscreen.  For any person that was trapped in that airport, Jesse’s speech had to have been the worst part of the whole experience.

2)  The Death of Papouli (Season 7, Episode 17, “The Last Dance”)

This one’s tricky because it’s actually one of the few enjoyable episodes, but for all the wrong reasons.  Jesse’s elderly grandfather comes to visit from the old country and, after bestowing his magical, old-world wisdom unto everyone, dies abruptly in his sleep.  The last half of the episode consists of the entire cast sitting around sobbing and delivering incredibly melodramatic speeches and it’s fucking hilarious.  Although I enjoyed this episode the most out of the entire series, I had to include it here because it had the opposite of its intended effect.  This was easily the most emotionally manipulative thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life, and the greatest failure of all the series’ very special moments.

1) Michelle and Her Classmates Sing Twist ‘n’ Shout (Season 4, Episode 25, “The Graduates”)

Although there are certainly more contrived or offensive moments during the series, this is definitely the hardest one to sit through, ever.  When Michelle and her little friends graduate from Preschool, Jesse has them put on a little performance of Twist ‘n’ Shout that I can only assume is supposed to be cute but, holy fuck, it’s just a horrible mess!  This is the most extreme example of the show not even qualifying as an amateur-quality production.  I cannot believe that this was on tv at all, and knowing that it was part of a successful series and that people got paid really well for it is just a fucking travesty.  This is the ultimate pull-your-hair-out infuriating moment of the entire series, and, in case you didn’t notice, that’s saying a lot!