Fuller House Episode 5, “Mad Max”

I wish I was watching Mad Max.  That would be way better than this crap.  That’s kind of a weird title for this episode, tho.  I don’t really know what it’s supposed to be referring to.

Stephanie helps DJ’s middle kid practice his trumpet and boy does he suck!  This kid is just the pits.  He’s worried about performing at school (and rightly so!) but Stephanie assures him that he’s from a long line of people who are grossly rewarded for their every effort, no matter how terrible or overbearing they may be.  He’s still peeing his pants about going onstage so she gives him her scarf, claiming that it’s magic and has always helped her perform as a DJ because lying to kids is often the best way to comfort them.  The fabrication proves to be reassuring but then he suggests that Stephanie holds on to the scarf until he needs it, as letting him keep it now might infringe on a potential plot contrivance.

DJ comes home and complains about how she told her shitty kids that she wasn’t gonna do all the work to raise their new dog but she’s totally doing it anyway.  Can’t say I didn’t see that coming.  Most kids do not deserve dogs.  At least she gets to pet the dog for a while, which makes the audience go, “aww.”

Kimmie Gibbler tells DJ that she’s made an online dating profile for her and she’s already inundated with dick pics.  DJ says that she’s still not ready to date, what with her husband’s recent tragic death and all, but she would like it if Kimmie Gibbler would store all those pictures in a desktop folder.  Ladies sure do love dick pics.  If they didn’t, why would guys always send them?  That’s just science.

As Stephanie feeds the baby, her tacky, orange, British friend Shannon enters the kitchen and says that she’s been horrified to see Stephanie’s latest internet posts that document her sudden complacent domesticity.  Clearly the only way to counteract such a horrible life change is to be whisked away to Cochella, where people go to desperately thwart their burgeoning adulthood.

As Stephanie gets ready to skip out on her responsibilities with her ghoulish friend, DJ expresses her confidence that she can hold it down at the fuller house while she’s gone.  Kimmie Gibbler enters with Ramona right as Stephanie is leaving and DJ immediately latches on to them for help.  DJ then realizes that there would be vast comedic potential if Ramona watched the baby so she sets it up.

DJ’s middle son asks the oldest son where Stephanie went because he wants the scarf for his performance tonight.  DJ’s oldest son divulges that Stephanie has skipped town with some British mess of a woman and then the younger kid starts shouting with alarm, which is surprisingly effective for conveying his plight considering how he shouts most of the time.

Ramona records a vlog in the bathroom that’s all about how she’s watching the baby.  Why is she doing it in the bathroom?  She starts changing the baby’s shit-filled diaper and since this is a vlog on a tv show it manages to be uninteresting content on two platforms at once.  After changing the baby, she flushes the diaper down the toilet because that’s what happens when you stick a 12 year old with these kinds of responsibilities.

DJ’s middle kid practices his trumpet in his room for the dog, who is wearing shorts.  DJ comes in and she’s like, “whys the dog wearing shorts” and he explains that the older kid told him to do it.  DJ’s like, “ok”  then she leaves and then there’s about 10 more seconds of trumpet practice for the dog.  That’s the whole scene.  Why did that happen?  What does it even mean?  If you took this scene out it wouldn’t effect the rest of the episode at all.  Just, what the fuck?

Kimmie Gibbler lets a strange man in the house and it turns out that he’s one of DJ’s potential internet dates and Kimmie Gibbler is doing like a screening of him.  Sure, why not?  She guesses his weight and they do this really hokey effect where she picks him up and I thought that it was just poorly done enough to be funny.  There’s also a lame joke about “picking up guys” and I have to admit that Kimmie Gibbler is probably the greatest deliverer of corny jokes in the entire entertainment industry.

So Kimmie Gibbler heads upstairs to find DJ, but DJ is in the kitchen, calling the plumber to find out when they’re coming over to pull that diaper out of the toilet.  DJ stumbles onto the date guy, who’s just standing around in the living room, and mistakes him for the plumber, which is a fairly reasonable deduction since Kimmie Gibbler apparently never told her about this date guy coming over.  What follows is a series of deftly crafted exchanges that can be interpreted as either requests for plumbing assistance or casual sex.  DJ is all, “let’s go upstairs and you can insert your penis into my vagina,” which could easily be about plumbing if you think about it.  Groundbreaking material!  Regardless of what a stretch some of the exchanges are, DJ’s delivery is pretty good and I like how the date guy is just totally down to fuck a complete stranger.  I guess that’s not too unrealistic.

Eventually, Kimmie Gibbler comes in with the real plumber and everything gets sorted out.  When the plumber realizes that these ladies are into online dating he puts himself out there as being available, too, which was really pretty brave of him.  I hope that lonely plumber finds the love that he’s searching for.

There’s like a 2-second stock footage shot of a crowd that signifies to us that we are now witnessing Coachella.  Stephanie and her disgusting friend spend all their time backstage, though, in a way more manageable set.  Stephanie finds out that some other bullshit rich kid DJ broke his arm so now she’s being invited to perform as a last-minute replacement, which comes as quite a surprise to her even thought pretty much everything in her life seems to happen this way.

Meanwhile, DJ hangs out with her kids backstage before the middle kid’s performance.  He’s shitting in his little pants because he doesn’t have the stupid magic scarf that Stephanie promised him so DJ decides to call Stephanie, who is in the middle of performing onstage.  She’s got like backup dancers and everything.  I guess it’s not that big of a deal for her to take a call during her set because she’s just one of those laptop DJ’s anyway.

DJ explains the trouble that’s been caused because Stephanie didn’t leave the kid her magic scarf, which is sort of a weird problem if you think about it.  Like, the kid doesn’t seem to really give a shit that she just cut out and isn’t coming to his show at all, he just wants the scarf.  So the lesson here isn’t really that you shouldn’t abandon kids, it’s just to remember to leave them with token gifts that you promise.  I don’t know.

So check this shit out.  Stephanie cuts off the music that she’s playing and puts the kid’s video call onto the projectors and has him play his shitty ass trumpet for Coachella.  So, not only are these people totally ruining an entire music festival with this bullshit, but you should also keep in mind that DJ’s kid is playing the trumpet backstage at his own show, so he’s also ruining whatever performance is happening onstage right now.  Stephanie gets the crowd to chant for DJ’s kid, which they are on enough drugs to go along with, so he acquires the confidence to play at some dumb little kid recital.  So I guess the lesson here is that if you forget to do something helpful for a kid then you’d better ruin a music festival for their benefit later.  Man, fuck this show.

Backstage at Coachella, Stephanie is applauded for forcing a bunch of people who paid an awful lot of money for a festival ticket to watch her stupid nephew suck at the trumpet.  Stephanie’s trainwreck of a friend urges her to go on to their next adventure, which will start with a drunken airplane ride and end with matching BFF abortions, so Stephanie decides to join her.

DJ asks Ramona why she flushed a diaper down the toilet but Ramona blames it on the baby, which leads to about a full minute of audience-pandering baby close-up shots.  DJ doesn’t get too mad about it because it’s her own fault for leaving her baby under the supervision of a little kid with no training.  Then, abruptly, and related to nothing, Kimmie Gibbler comes downstairs with the plumber and is like I’ma go hit this.  End of scene.  Well, I’m glad that things worked out for that guy.  He seemed really special and deserving of love.

As DJ puts the baby to bed, Stephanie enters the room and tells her that she decided to forego whatever STD’s she was inevitably about to contract and come back to the fuller house instead.  She goes on about how DJ’s deeply uninteresting children have burrowed into her heart like some sort of parasitic worm and then DJ says that she sees mom potential in Stephanie.  Then shit gets all serious and DJ’s like what wrong but Stephanie wont tell her but then DJ’s like bitch this show’s only like 25 minutes long just spit it out.

Stephanie tells DJ that she found out a few years ago that she’s unable to have kids.  She explains that she didn’t really think about it too much when she found out but since she’s been filling a parental role lately it’s been weighing on her.  DJ expresses her sympathies and says that her kids are Stephanie’s kids, too, and then they hug.  I’m sorry, you guys, but this was genuinely affecting.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been doing a bunch of projects about reproductive health over the past year or so, which has exposed me a lot to what women go through over this stuff and possibly made me incapable of being an asshole about it when it occurs on this show as a consequence.  But, honestly, I just think that they pulled off a genuinely emotional moment for once.  This is really the only time they’ve been at all mature or insightful when handling an issue.  The shit that Stephanie is going through is realistic, and makes sense in this scenario, and the actresses both really deliver emotionally honest and restrained performances here. This is the first time ever that a scene that was intended to have some sort of heart-string-pulling effect didn’t feel completely hollow and manipulative.  What really gets me is that this is  the first time that anyone has had any actual character motivation on this show.  Full House was all about how hilarious it would be if 3 total fuck-ups pissed and shit their way through raising kids together and, besides the dad, they never really created any clear reason for anyone to be there besides probably free rent.  Stephanie’s situation actually adds depth to her character by giving her a motivation for being there and it also strengthens the family aspect of the show.  As always, I am judging this show based on the all-time low bar that has been set by the original series, so I very well could be giving it too much credit here, but this is definitely the first time that seeing these characters cry didn’t make me laugh.

The kids all come in the room and greet Stephanie and then they all hug and then Kimmie Gibbler comes back from gettin her pussy ate by that gentle plumber and then she hugs with them, too.

P.S. I was just kidding earlier.  I know that ladies don’t really like dick pics.

Fuller House Episode 4, “The Not-So-Great Escape”

Stephanie makes some observations about the baby that aren’t even worth mentioning and then Kimmie Gibbler comes downstairs, kisses her and refers to her as, “sister-wife.”  Well, cool, I guess that I can stop complaining about how Full House never acknowledged its gay subtext.  Now that it has, why don’t we all just quit while we’re ahead?

But, no, it just keeps going.  DJ and Kimmie Gibbler have different parenting styles.  DJ makes her kids healthy turkey wraps for lunch and Kimmie Gibbler just gives her kid money.  DJ’s oldest kid comes downstairs with his science fair project because he’s king of the nerds and says that he was, “up all night, erupting my volcano, ” which is taken as a euphemism. The somewhat racy jokes are akin to the gay stuff on this show for me.  They helped the show to exceed the low standard that was set by the original series, and I was sort of impressed by that at first, but now that I’ve slightly adjusted those standards all I’m really noticing now is crappy jokes on a bland ass sitcom.  That initial spark of having my incredibly low expectations slightly outdone has faded.  It’s like the opposite of an erupting volcano.

Kimmie Gibbler’s kid, Ramona, complains about how her new school sucks a fat ass dick and she doesn’t have any friends there.  DJ gets ready for work and reminds Kimmie Gibbler that she’s supposed to watch the baby but Kimmie Gibbler’s like, sorry, homey, I got shit to do.  One of the greatest things about Full House was always when Kimmie Gibbler was a super shitty friend to DJ and this is totally how that kind of thing evolves over decades.  Your super shitty teenage friend who is habitually dishonest and often takes advantage of you ends up being your adult friend who is casually unreliable and lives in your house for free.  Anyway, Kimmie Gibbler gets Stephanie to agree to watch the baby by breaking down her self-esteem.  She gets Stephanie to admit that she doesn’t have a boyfriend or a job or any money, which means that she should watch the baby all day for some reason.  Why doesn’t Stephanie have any money?  I thought she was a hot shit DJ.  I kind of assumed that she would make pretty decent bank from doing that.  I guess it’s  feasible that she snorted all that cash up, tho.  Also, I’ll give the whole exchange a pass because I got to see Stephanie being emotionally abused.

DJ’s middle kid runs in the room and starts shouting at everyone about how he’s gonna pick out his new puppy today.  Remember in the first episode when that dog gave birth in the back yard?  Continuity.

Ramona complains about how much their school sucks to DJ’s oldest kid so he promises to cook up a scheme to break her out of there.  All of this happens at a new set, which is their elementary school or middle school or whatever.  I’m not really sure how old these kids are supposed to be.

Speaking of new sets, we get to see where DJ works, which looks like some weird, tiny pet clinic in Chinatown.  DJ is greeted by her secretary, Janet, who sounds like she’s from Jamaica or something.

Her nationality probably wouldn’t be worth mentioning if we learned anything else about her, but she’s just Janet the (probably) Jamaican secretary.  That’s all you get to know.  DJ has her middle kid with her because he’s there to pick out his puppy, which I guess means he doesn’t have to go to school.  The other kids are at school right now, but this motherfucker gets to hang out with a bunch of puppies all day instead.  The other kids don’t even mind for some reason.  DJ’s middle kid exclaims, “holy chalupas” when he sees the puppies because that’s the kind of catch phrase you end up with when you release your whole season all at once, without figuring out what works first.

There’s an abrupt introduction to some other vet that DJ’s works with but it seems like the only reason he’s on the show is because DJ might want to bang his son, Matt.  The vet explains that Matt will be helping out around the office so that the show can have some sexual tension and then Matt and DJ totally jerk off at each other for a few minutes.  But, like, with their eyes.

While Stephanie and the baby wait in line at a coffee shop, some guy starts putting the moves on her hella hard.  He’s like, “nothing gets my dick harder than a single mom, ” so Stephanie proceeds to pretend that Tommy is her baby.  She orders like 3 things and the guy at the counter tells her that her total is $18.50 and I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be a joke or not.  It seems like an absurdly high price for the items that she’s ordered, but it also seems sort of feasible, especially in San Francisco.  So it’s not high enough to be farcical and it’s not low enough to be reasonable.  So probably I’m putting more thought into it than anyone else did.  Anyway, DJ calls Stephanie and asks her if she can come fill in for her receptionist, who probably went back to Jamaica or something.  Stephanie agrees to come in so she skips out on paying for the stuff she ordered because it doesn’t matter whether or not the price is absurd when you’re straight up broke.

Meanwhile, back at school, DJ’s oldest kid sits around with his nerdy volcano and it looks like everyone else has a model volcano, too, so I guess this is like a class project and not the worst science fair of all time.  Ramona continues to scheme with him about how to sneak out of school.  She shoulda just said that she wanted to pick out a puppy.  That seems to get you out of school for a whole day for some reason.  Anyway, DJ’s oldest kid says that he’s gonna create a diversion so that Ramona can climb out of the window and on to freedom.

Oh shit, the kids’ teacher is played by Stephen Tobolowsky!  That motherfucker is in everything!  He’s that guy who plays Ned in Groundhog’s Day, plus bit parts in like everything ever, and also he had that podcast.  Plus also he’s one of the credited screenplayer writers of True Stories.  Anyway, DJ’s oldest kid mixes some chemicals together, which sets off the smoke alarm and all the sprinklers.

The sprinklers set off all of the volcanoes, which is actually pretty well staged, and then Ramona sneaks out of the window while all the other kids shuffle out into the hallway.  Since everyone else is also leaving, you’d think that she could just go out with them and then sneak away in all the kerfuffle once they get outside.

Stephen Tobolowsky gets all pissed at DJ’s oldest kid because he saw him activate the smoke alarm and then Ramona gets busted for sneaking out of the window because apparently everyone lines up right outside of it during fire drills.  Couldn’t she be like, “I was going out there to line up with everyone and I went out the window because there was water spraying all over the place or I was freaked out or whatever”?  This whole scheme seems very convoluted to me.

DJ’s middle kid continues to try to decide which puppy to choose.  Seriously, why isn’t this kid at school?  And why is this taking all day?  It’s really upsetting to me that a scene which features a lot of puppies could be so irritating.  Stephanie comes in and starts demanding that DJ pays her before she even does any work and then she starts vying for the attention of all the people who are patiently waiting for their pets to get some medical treatment.  Kimmie Gibbler comes in to pick up the baby and then someone’s phone rings and everyone checks to see if it’s theirs.  They keep doing that on this show.  There’s a phone ringing sound and everyone checks to see if it’s theirs.  I don’t really have anything to say about that but I noticed that it keeps happening so I thought I’d point it out.  Anyway, the call is from DJ’s kids’ school, to tell her that he got in trouble for setting off the fire alarm.  Moments later, Kimmie Gibbler gets a phone call about how Ramona is in trouble, too, but that barely registered with me because I noticed all of the photos on the wall that are supposed to be from DJ’s older co-worker (the one with the son she wants to bang).  There are pictures of a dog steering a boat and riding a motorcycle on that wall.  It’s enough to make you stop paying attention to whatever else is on the screen.

Anyway, DJ and Kimmie Gibbler head down to the school, leaving Stephanie to watch the baby and run the vet clinic, which must be pretty challenging when none of the vets are there.  That guys who wanted to bang Stephanie at the coffee shop walks in and tries to stick it to her some more and then DJ’s middle kid wanders into the room because he’s still there for some reason.  The coffee shop guys says that single moms with multiple kids get him all horned up even more than single moms with one kid so Stephanie says that DJ’s middle kid is hers, too.  Stephanie ushers the kid into the other room and also kinda haphazardly shoves the baby’s stroller in there so she can continue canoodling with the coffee shop guy, which was kind of funny in a laughing at horrible negligence kind of a way.

There’s a really over-long shot of DJ’s middle kid trying to pick out a puppy while the baby sits there in the background and it’s just so blatantly like, “look, babies and puppies!”  They’re not even trying here.

Some weird lady walks into the pet clinic and lets a skunk loose in what is maybe the most abrupt, random occurrence in the history of television.  The whole scene is like 10 seconds long.  The following scene shows us DJ returning to the clinic to find Stephanie soaking in a tub of tomato juice, along with the kids and the puppies.

DJ exclaims her old catch-phrase, “oh mylanta,” which doesn’t get a reaction from the audience because it was never very memorable.  DJ’s like, “what the fuckin is even going on around here?” and Stephanie explains that they all got prayed by a skunk and she googled what to do, hence the tomato juice baths.  She doesn’t explain where she got all that tomato juice but whatever.  Stephanie is worried that DJ will be mad but DJ just takes a picture and says that it will be great for her Facebook page.  Ha ha, Facebook!  That’s a thing we all use these days!

Back at the fuller house, Ramona has a friend over because getting in trouble at school made her instantly popular.  Both Ramona and DJ’s oldest kid have been suspended for 3 days after their terrible scheme went belly up.  Kimmie Gibbler doesn’t give two shits about her kid getting in trouble but DJ starts doling out strict repercussions to her son.  DJ”s kid gets all pissed about being in trouble when Ramona isn’t so DJ takes Kimmie Gibbler aside and asks her to stop being such a cool mom all the time.

Things get hella emotional when Kimmie Gibbler explains that she’s being so lenient because her marriage fell apart and she made her daughter move in with a bunch of annoying crackers so she feels bad but then DJ’s like, that’s understandable but you need to stop being such a fucking pussy because you’re fuckin’ up my shit.  Then the two moms go back to the kids and tell them that they have to share the duties of DJ’s kids punishment because it’s more fair.  Ramona tells them that DJ’s kid only set off the alarm to help her escape and that makes them reduce the punishment for some reason.  I guess the lesson there is that it’s ok to do something illegal that disrupts an entire institution if it’s to help someone you care about do something they’re not supposed to.

DJ’s younger kid comes in with his new dog.  I’m not sure which one he picked because they all looked exactly the same.  Actually, all of those dogs that we saw will probably be playing the dog on this show.  The doorbell rings and it’s that guy from the coffee shop coming over to bone Stephanie, who lies to him about who everyone else in the house is in relation to her because I guess the parents haven’t already taught the kids enough warped lessons already.  But, hey, check out that adorable new puppy!

 

 

Fuller House Episode 3, “Funner House”

Stephanie and Kimmie Gibbler flaunt their sexy outfits as they prepare for a girls night out.  DJ approaches them and even though she’s clearly wearing a shitload of makeup and has her nails did, she is apparently not prepared for a rambunctious ladies night out.

It never really works when people on tv are supposed to look like shit but also look nice for tv at the same time.  DJ says that she wants to just stay in and be a boring ass mom but Stephanie and Kimmie Gibbler aint havin’ it.  Kimmie Gibbler coerces her to come out on the town with them and names their group, “the she-wolf pack,” even though that seems to suggest that they should stay inside all the time and make reenactments of famous movies.

DJ continues to resist the pull to go outside and have a life.  When she points out that the kids don’t have a babysitter, she is told that it’s been taken care of.

That’s right, the world’s most useless asshole is going to be taking care of the kids.  You’d think that DJ would remember her own ruined childhood and refuse to let Joey anywhere near her progeny but I guess she blocked out most of the stuff that she lived through.

DJ says that she’s going to go upstairs to change but Stephanie insists the she changes in their Uber instead.  Oh yeah by the way this scene makes a big point of mentioning Uber, Instagram, selfies and “fleek” because it’s 2016, y’all.  That means that we have to shamelessly namedrop things that became a big deal two years ago.  But, anyway, DJ says she doesn’t wanna change in the car, protesting, “what if Uber sees my boobers?” which is weird because that’s a really forced rhyme and also Uber is not a person.  That’s like saying, “what if Checker Cab sees my nutsack?”  Joey responds to DJ’s concerns by saying, “then you wont have to give him a tip” because it’s not already unsettling enough already to think about the kids being left alone with him so he had to go and say some fucked up shit like that.

The parents say goodbye to the kids but they’re all just on their iphones and stuff because Uber Instagram fleek Facebook.com.  The parents leave and Joey discovers that the kids all went to hide in their rooms, probably because they didn’t want to look at his stupid face for one more second.  Did I mention that Joey appears to be wearing Heelys?  Boy do I wish he was dead.  He approaches the baby, who is physically incapable of escaping his presence, and starts doing some impression at him.  I really can’t tell who it’s supposed to be. Ralph Kramden?  That’s my best guess.

The ladies arrive at a club called Euphoria, which isn’t the worst set I’ve ever seen.  The audience are all like, “aaaaaaaaoowwwwww!” when DJ appears in her sexy goin’ out dress, and it’s a lot more understandable than when they hooted when Joey showed up.  Wouldn’t it be great if the audience all just started booing when Joey showed up, and then he left?  That woulda been just the best.

It turns out that Kimmie Gibbler is well known at this club, so the ladies get this special V.I.P. section with roped-off couches to have conveniently staged moments in.  Kimmie Gibbler explains that she used to hang out at this club all the time with her estranged husband and then Stephanie offers to get everyone tequila shots.  And then everyone agrees to drink tequila!  It’s not even made out to be a big deal or anything!  I am almost totally positive that this is the first time anyone has ever drank alcohol on any sort of Full House thing, except for that one time that DJ’s boyfriend drank a beer, which only occurred for the purpose of showing us how bad drinking a beer is.  Now drinking booze is just being casually presented as something that adults do when they go out.  I am willing to call that progress.  It’s like they almost sort of live in some kind of reality, finally.

Stephanie approaches the bar and the audience starts hooting.  I think it’s because of the appearance of these 2 guys at the counter.  Are these guys from something?  I don’t recognize them at all.  I also can’t tell if they’re supposed to be attractive or sleazy or some sort of combination of those things. Regardless, they each give Stephanie’s ass a good long stare.

Stephanie invites the guys back to the private roped off couches area and calls dibs on one of them (banging dibs) and then he does this weird move where he wipes his mustache off with his fingers.  I guess he’s just trying to get all the crumbs off before she places her vagina there.  What a gentleman!

Joey barges into the boys’ room while they are silently engaging with their screens.  He starts bugging them with some shitty impressions and they’re like, “fuck off.  You haven’t been on tv since before we were born, and even then you sucked shit.”  Joey can’t stand not being the center of attention so he steals all the kids devices and locks them in a drawer.  He then unveils a bunch of Nerf guns and silly string and shit like that because I guess simulating violence is preferable to sitting quietly in your room and watching pornography.  DJ’s middle kid exclaims, “holy chalupa” when he sees all the toy guns.  I’ve tried to avoid any articles or listicles or whatever about this show but it’s been pretty unavoidable to learn before watching this episode that this is his catch-phrase.  I don’t even know what to make of it.  If I hadn’t been warned that he’d be saying it again later, I wouldn’t have even thought about it.  It’s just some dumb thing he says.

Anyway, Joey encourages the kids into having a Silly String battle because he doesn’t have to clean the floors later.

Back at the clizub, DJ and Stephanie describe an old episode of Full House to the sleazy guys and the guys pretend that they think it’s funny because they’re trying really hard to get laid.  Then, all of a sudden, Macy Grey walks in.

Why is Macy Grey on this show?  She had, like, one song, and it was in the late 90’s.  This is even more bizarre than when she was in that Spider-Man movie.  She’s a pretty random one-hit wonder to feature on any show in 2016, but this one especially because it’s all about early 90’s throwback shit and Macy Grey had her 15 minutes several years after the original series went off the air.  Like, if Right Said Fred showed up in this scene, you’d have the same, “oh, they’re still alive?” reaction that you get from seeing Macy Grey, but you could sort of rationalize the appearance by realizing that he was fished from the same dried up pool of nostalgia that Full House was.  You know, the “things that ruined 1992” pool.  Seeing Macy Grey here just has nothing to do with anything.  I’m sure the real answer is that her manager is a producer on this show or something and they’re just trying to promote her new album (spoiler alert: Macy Grey will be plugging her new album shortly) but, even still, I find this guest-spot to be very odd.

So apparently Stephanie knows Macy Grey because they did some shows together or something so she decides to subject the singer to DJ and Kimmie Gibbler.  Another thing about Macy Grey that makes her appearance on the show extra weird is that she has no onscreen charisma whatsoever.  She seems really detached from everything that’s happening.  It’s a very unique brand of terrible performance, which actually sort of makes sense when you consider her truly bizarre singing voice.  Like, it’s not just that her delivery is flat, it seems like she’s in a trance or something, or like her lines are being beamed into her brain from a government satellite.  She’s never really looking at anyone and displays no emotion whatsoever.  This whole thing is just really weird.

After Macy grey abruptly wanders off, the sleazy guys start urging DJ and Stephanie to get grinded on the dance floor.  They ladies say that they’re into it but they need to find some loose, STD-ridden guy in a collared shirt for Kimmie Gibbler, too.  Stephanie says that Kimmie Gibbler should have no problem finding a guy because there’s plenty of “eye candy” in the club and then Kimmie Gibbler sees a guy’s ass while he’s bending over and refers to him as, “butt candy.”

The term butt candy is really disgusting, and should never be used as a joke, especially a sexual one.  Anyway it turns out that the butt candy in question is Kimmie Gibbler’s estranged husband, Fernando.

Fernando sees Kimmie Gibbler and immediately starts waggling his penis at her.  I can’t get over what an over-the-top Latin stereotype he is.  Every single line he says is drenched in Spanish-speaking sexy guy overemphasis.  I was curious about who this actor was and why he was willing to portray such an abrasive cultural stereotype and then I discovered that he played Jesus on some tv series.  I don’t know why exactly but I think that’s amazing.

Macy Grey takes the stage and plugs her new album (I warned you!) before performing her new song, which I’m sure is going to be a really big hit.  Fernando is overtaken by the music, which is a common ailment for Latin stereotypes, and convinces Kimmie Gibbler to join him on the dance floor.

DJ and Stephanie join the sleezy guys for a lengthy, choreographed dance number.  It definitely challenges disbelief to present these dances, which are clearly heavily rehearsed, as something that’s occurring spontaneously between strangers, but as an actual dance number on tv it was not bad.  Stephanie has another moment where she’s really begging the audience to see how talented she is, but, honestly, her moves are pretty good.  I gotta say, too, that Stephanie herself is looking not too shabby.  I cannot endorse fake titties at all, but her overall appearance is worthy of some audience hooting if you ask me.

I knew that Stephanie was gonna pull some “oh my god please look at me” dance moves during this series, but I was really surprised when DJ ripped shit up on the dance floor, too.  Good for her!  Meanwhile, Kimmie Gibbler and Fernando do some much more moderate moves while talking about how they used to win this clubs’ nightly dance competition all the time (you’d think that they wouldn’t have them do a dance that’s way less impressive than the 2 we just saw while talking about how they always win dance competitions…) and then Fernando’s date shows up and is like, “what the fuck?”  Apparently Fernando was trying to bag Kimmie Gibbler right quick while the blonde hoe that he brought to the club was taking a shit, but now the hoe is back and she’s throwing mad shade at Kimmy Gibbler.  For some reason she doesn’t get mad at Fernando for trying to bang someone the second she left the room and puts all her energy into being an asshole to Kimmie Gibbler instead.

Kimmie Gibbler gets all upset and heads back to her private roped off bourgeois section of the club to drink more booze and then her homegirls leave the sleezy guys on the dance floor so they can console her.

Meanwhile, back at the full house, the kids have completely trashed the place during their silly string war.  As they fire shots at each other, they vent their frustrations as well, the best of which is Ramona’s chastising of the boys for pissing all over the bathroom floor.  The doorbell rings and a voice from outside claims to be a pizza delivery and even though the kids haven’t heard anything about a pizza, they rush to answer it.  They must be the easiest to murder kids in America.  It turns out to be worse than a murderer because it’s Joey, who immediately starts shooting them with slime from a Super Soaker (are Super Soakers another throwback thing or are they still around?).  He douses them with slime for a really excessive amount of time and then, as though that didn’t go on for long enough, he shoots rolls of toilet paper at them with this prop comedian toilet paper launcher thing.

He finishes his assault with an impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger, after which the kids just kind of stand there like, “we have no idea who you’re impersonating because we are children and you haven’t updated any of your references since 1993.”

Macy Grey tells the audience about the dance competition because I guess she’s not just the headliner, she’s also the MC.  Kimmie Gibbler says that she doesn’t wanna hang around and watch Fernando win the dance competition with some blonde hoe but then DJ tells her that the two of them should team up and win it with their Dirty Dancing routine from 1987.  The 2 sleazy guys come back and even thought it would make sense to dance with them for the competition, the ladies snub them. The guys decide to dance with each other instead and then they tear their shirts open while the audience goes nuts, which I don’t even know how to react to.  All I have to say about it is that, if I have to have that image burned into my brain forever, so do you guys.

Stephanie talks Macy Grey into performing, “Time of My Life,” and then she sings it with her because why shouldn’t she be the focus of everything all the time?

DJ and Kimmie Gibbler start dancing together and I must say that it is pretty erotic.

There’s totally gonna be some scissoring in the fuller house later.  The 2 sleazy guys engage in an equally homoerotic dance, which is a lot weirder because they’re supposed to be brothers.  They eventually start bickering like an old married couple, which disrupts their pelvic thrusts enough to get them thrown out of the competition.

You guys aren’t gonna believe this, but Kimmie Gibbler and DJ are up against Fernando and that blonde hoe at the climax of the competition.  DJ and Fernando both prepare to be the Patrick Swayze in the lifting Jennifer Grey move and then DJ reminds Fernando that he’ll be causing emotional duress for Kimmie Gibbler if he wins so he throws the move by feigning a toe cramp.  DJ still feels like she has to complete the move for some reason so she enlists the 2 sleazy brothers to lift Kimmie Gibbler even thought they’ve already been eliminated from the competition and were a different team.

Macy Grey announces that the winners are, “these 2 luscious lesbians.”  Whoa!  That was actually amazing!  They really did seem like a couple during the competition, and I’m really impressed that the show actually acknowledged its own homeosexual undertones for once.  They don’t even make a big deal of it, or treat it like it’s an unfortunate misunderstanding or anything, they just kinda throw it out there.  All I ever wanted was for the show to recognize that it’s kinda gay, and it finally did.  I’ma sleep soundly tonight.

Just to ensure that not too much progress has been made, DJ delivers a long, self-indulgent speech to the audience as she accepts her dance contest victory.  She goes on about all the personal life lessons she learned by getting drunk on a weeknight and dancing with her homegirls and then the audience goes, “aww.”  At the end of the scene, Macy Grey says to no one in particular, “what am I doing here?  I won a Grammy.”  Points for self-awareness, yet again.  That was some real shit that she just said.

The kids arrange to dump a big tub full of slime onto Joey when he walks through the front door but the recipients of said slime end up being the ladies returning from their night out.  Nevermind how the kids managed to rig that whole thing, or where all the slime came from.

Stephanie exclaims, “how rude!” and the audience are overjoyed by this split-second  revisitation of their corny childhoods.  The kids aren’t sorry at all about sliming the parents, and neither is Joey.  Before the moms can even say anything, Joey gives them this whole speech about how he brought the kids closer together by ruining the house.  He then starts heading for the door and issues an incredibly condescending, “you’re welcome” to all the adults on his way out.  Wait, where’s he even going?  What time is it supposed to be?  I would assume that it’s pretty late since the adults just came back from getting drunk at a club and winning a dance competition, but the kids are also still up, so maybe it’s only like 9 or something.  But even still, I doubt Joey is about to get on a plane and go back to Vegas right now.  It seems odd for him to just peace out like that.

I’m gonna give the show credit here.  I took Joey’s terrible babysitting and condescending speech to be a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of what a useless dickhole he is.  This moment really is a perfect balance of “classic Joey” for Full House fans and “if you really think about, Joey is a complete piece of shit” for people like me, who can’t seem to not watch this terrible show.  What percentage of people are watching this show because they actually like it and how many are watching it just because they’re compelled by how bad it is?  I’d really like to know.  Anyway, the kids all spray slime at Joey with Super Soakers and that’s the end.

I don’t know, you guys, I thought this one was kinda fun.  I liked that they drank alcohol and DJ and Kimmie Gibbler rubbed their vaginas together on the dance floor and Joey was portrayed with some acknowledgement of how much he sucks.  Also, the kids weren’t in it very much.  It’s hard to really evaluate a show like this because it has set such a low bar for itself that you can’t really compare it to anything else.  But, compared to Full House itself, I feel like this was not too bad.  I feel like I need to further justify that statement.  Like, I expected this to be completely horrible and it was just really bad, so I kind of liked it.  I’m doing the best I can here.  Whatever.

Fuller House Episode 2, “Moving Day”

DJ’s middle son goes down to the basement that used to be Joey’s creepy room and is now where Stephanie nurses her hangovers.  I bet it still smells like Joey in there.  You just know that the stench of old, sweaty socks, cum rags and Funyuns are ground into every square inch of that underground shithole, so much so that even Danny’s obsessive compulsive cleaning could never get rid of it.  It’s worse than a carpeted room that used to have like 15 dogs living in it.  DJ’s middle kid shouts at Stephanie to wake up for Sunday brunch because if there’s one thing a bunch of white ass white people can’t wait for, it’s brunch on a Sunday.  I bet they’ll all do the New York Times crossword puzzle while they eat it.  Regardless of her heritage, Stephanie resists waking up so DJ’s middle son has to shout at her and drag her around.

Meanwhile, DJ prepares a bottle for her baby, Tommy.  I gotta admit that they actually managed to put a cute baby on this show for once.  Tommy is pretty rad.  DJ hands him a bottle and he drinks it for a while as the audience laughs.  I always resented these moments with Michelle and took them as opportunities to point out what an ugly baby the Olsen twins were but now that they have a cute baby on this show I can focus more on how hacky it is to just point a camera at a baby while it’s doin’ stuff.  I wonder if those moments are in the script.  “Point camera at the baby while it does whatever.”

DJ’s oldest son comes downstairs and DJ gets all up in his grill and keeps offering him lots of delicious food and a milkshake in a sort of manic way.

Candace Cameron is looking pretty great these days except that she’s all orange.  What’s up with that?  Are they just doing a really weird job with her makeup or does she sleep in a tanning booth every night in real life?  Anyway, her kid gets suspicious about her being all frantic and offering him bribery food but she won’t tell him what’s going on.

Stephanie comes up from her room and starts talking about how she’s not a morning person because she likes to stay out late and get drunk and cruise around for strange D.  I guess that they’re trying to establish Stephanie as “the party girl” and even though it’s kinda lame it’s at least an effort to make her interesting.  I guess it also kinda makes sense that the neglected middle child who nobody gave a shit about after she turned like 8 would be the most wild and out of control character on the show.  I bet she drinks like 2 whole wine coolers some nights.  Maybe there’ll be an episode later where they have an intervention after she smokes a cigarette or something.

DJ takes Stephanie aside and explains the premise for the episode to her, all recorded through this great from-the-fridge cam.  That’s a new one.  I like it!

They do this crappy bit where DJ keeps misconstruing Stephanie’s statements about what she’s looking at in the refrigerator and it really doesn’t work, especially when Stephanie declares, ” I spilled the beans” as a literal statement but we can see in the foreground of the screen that this did not actually happen.  It is very clear to us that there are no beans there!  Even still, more from-the-fridge cam, please!  I wish all the kitchen scenes ever were shot this way!

Oh yeah also I forgot to say that premise for the episode is that DJ doesn’t know how to tell her boring kids about how Kimmie Gibbler and Ramona are moving in.

One more thing I want to say about inside the refrigerator is that they have totally exposed food in there.  Put some Saran Wrap over that chicken!  I bet all these people’s stomachs are riddled with bacteria!

Kimmie Gibbler and her daughter, Ramona, show up on the porch and they only have like 3 bags between them but I guess this is them moving in.  I really like Kimmie Gibbler’s egg and bacon scarf.  It totally makes sense for her weird early 90’s fashion to have evolved into weird mom fashion.  Like, it’s sort of embarrassing but also totally awesome at the same time in both cases.  Ramona isn’t thrilled about living in the full house and then she protests that they’re moving in with “the whitest family in America.”  WAIT, WHAT!??!  Holy shit, that was amazing!  It’s like someone actually said something that made sense for once!  What an incredible moment of clarity!  This show has been painfully self-referential for pretty much every second so far, but this is the first time that it’s referred to itself in a non-back-patting kind of a way.  I’m totally impressed that they would make fun of themselves without smiling and winking at the camera the whole time, and are showing some actual self-awareness here.  Ramona is totally my favorite character forever now.

Hey wait, I also just realized that Kimmie Gibbler made a point about not telling Ramona about moving into the full house last episode and it seemed like there was going to be some follow-up to that, but now we revisit them with Ramona having already been told about it and the episode is all about DJ not telling her kids.  That seems weird and inconsistent to me.

DJ continues to give her oldest kid sugary breakfast foods while he pleads with her to tell him what the fuck is going on and there are some more shots of the baby while the audience whoops it up.  Kimmie Gibbler and Ramona burst into the kitchen and DJ’s oldest kid somehow instantly deduces that they’re moving in and is pretty upset.  I can’t really blame him.  What kind of a shitty mom is DJ being here?  She’s like, “how do I tell my kids about these life changes?” but I’d say that the worst possible solution to that problem is to not tell them at all and then just spring it on them.  You know what the solution to this problem is?  Talk to your kids.  Tell them what’s going on.  Maybe that’s not as wacky and hilarious as what we get to see here but it’s a very simple, obvious solution.

DJ takes Kimmie Gibbler and Ramona up to Jesse and Becky’s old attic digs, where they’ll be staying.  Kimmie Gibbler puts a big sticker on the wall that’s an image of her head saying, “Do it… Gibbler style” that looks exactly like the one I’ve had on the ceiling above my bed for years.  It’s really good advice.  Ladies be poppin’ like crazy for it.

Ramona is shown Nicky and Alex’s old room and she says that she can’t stay in there because it’s small as fuck.

DJ suggests putting her two boring ass sons in a room together so Ramona can have her own spot downstairs and Ramona’s like, yeah, man, make it happen.

DJ makes a cake for her oldest son to prepare him for the news that he’ll have to give up having his own room.  As she stammers through her disclosure, the middle kid runs downstairs and shouts about the shifting state of the rooms upstairs.  Man, that kid really yells a lot.  I guess that’s going to be one of his defining characteristics.

DJ’s oldest kid runs upstairs to find Ramona moving into his room and is again understandably upset about major shit going down that directly effects him that he had no heads up about at all.  Granted, this is all shit that he’d probably be upset about anyway, but the no prior knowledge thing is a real extra kick in the nuts.  Just tell your kids what’s going on, DJ.  That’s the lesson here.  It is a very simple one.

So I guess the arrangement is that Ramona gets her own room, the 2 boys have to share a room and the baby has his own room, too, just like how Michelle used to have her own room for no clear reason when she was a baby.  Why don’t they just put DJ in the attic room and the baby in Nicky and Alex’s old room and then everyone can have their own room downstairs?  Anyway, DJ’s oldest kid is hella pissed about sharing a room but the middle kid is super into it.

DJ finds Kimmie Gibbler and Stephanie in the kitchen, eatin’ all the cake, and she’s like, “there’s been another plot contrivance!  As if things weren’t already crazy enough, there’s an emergency down at the pet clinic.”  Apparently, a pig’s vagina exploded.  Kimmie Gibbler and Stephanie are like, “go do your job, we’ll handle shit around here.”

DJ’s oldest kid tries to convince the middle kid to share a room with the baby instead of him and it almost works out until the baby takes a big shit in his diaper.

Uncle Jesse walks into the kitchen and the whole audience simultaneously ejaculates.  I think they’d probably be less excited about his arrival if he wasn’t interrupting a scene featuring Stephanie and DJ’s oldest son, who are a couple of fucking duds onscreen.  Jesse says that he came back to the full house because he forgot his guitar and then the oldest kid bitches to him about having to share a room with his brother who won’t stop shouting all the time.  Jesse advises him to hug it out, and adds that they used to do that every day in the 80’s, which was sometimes so sweet hat you could hear violin music because ha ha remember how the old show was just like that?  As if that wasn’t enough of a wink to the audience, he starts chomping down some fried chicken like 2 seconds later.

Stephanie tries to overhaul Jesse’s glib very-special-talk by describing one of the first episodes of the original series (I think it was the second episode, just like this one is for this new series… I wonder if they’re going to continue to structure the episodes of this new show after original series episodes like this), in which DJ got all pissed about having to share a room with Stephanie and tried to run away.  Stephanie says that they managed to patch things up and then DJ’s oldest son says that he’s gonna go upstairs to work things out with his sibling, too.  After he leaves, Stephanie and Jesse jerks themselves off over what great legal guardians they are as DJ’s oldest son sneaks out of the house in the background.  Also, Jesse and Stephanie say each other’s catch phrases, which pretty well encapsulates everything that’s wrong with this series.

Kimmie Gibbler teaches Stephanie how to change the baby’s diaper.  Stephanie recalls changing Michelle’s diapers and says that she had to do it so much that it was almost like there were 2 of her because ha ha remember how there were 2 ugly babies that played Michelle?  I’m sure a lot of you wouldn’t have gotten that if I hadn’t pointed it out.  I wonder if this Tommy kid is gonna grow up to be a talentless emaciated billionaire, too.  Stephanie hears her phone ringing and realizes that she left it in the baby’s diaper and then, instead of just pulling it out like a sensible human being, she holds the baby’s ass up to her ear and proceeds to have an entire phone conversation with DJ.  As forced and ridiculous as this was, I did kind of like it when the baby farted in her ear.

Jesse drives through the grapevine and sings along to Elvis because I guess he hasn’t expanded his repertoire at all in the last 20 years.  While he’s doing this, we see that DJ’s oldest son has stowed away in the back seat, which Jesse probably would have noticed if he gave one shit about anything.

Jesse calls Becky through the dashboard phone thing and serenades her with Elvis songs, which she must be so fucking sick of by this point that I can’t even imagine it.  DJ’s oldest son gets understandably fed up with Jesse’s singing and interjects, revealing his presence.  Jesse’s like, “what the fuck are you doing in my car?” and DJ’s oldest kid explains that he’s hella mad about all the changes in the full house, especially since it’s like mostly broads now.  Jesse empathizes about the struggles of living with women, then he starts rambling about how shitty Becky’s cooking is and then it turns out that their whole conversation was left on her answering machine.  Oops!  Anyway, Jesse tells the kid to text his mom where he’s at and then turns the car around to take him home.

Kimmie Gibbler and Stephanie hang out with the kids in the kitchen, drinking what I thought were margaritas in a refreshingly not-G-rated moment, but then I noticed that the kids are drinking them, too, so it’s probably just like juice or some shit.  DJ comes home after getting the text from her son about how he fled to Southern California and rails on her new co-parents for being such fuck ups.  I guess she got to leave work after getting the text even though she was called in for an emergency, or maybe she just finished reconstructing that pig’s vagina.  It makes sense that Stephanie would be totally useless here but I’m kind of confused about Kimmie Gibbler’s incompetence.  She’s also a single mom, so it seems like she’d have a few things figured out.  That’s a fundamental difference between this series and the original, which featured 2 completely hapless adult men stumbling through their attempts to help a single parent raise kids, whereas one of the adult helpers on this show is actually arriving with some experience.  I guess it would be less wacky and hilarious for her to be portrayed as competent, though, so we’ll still see situations like this, where the her severe negligence and ineptitude is played for laughs.

Jesse comes back to the full house with DJ’s oldest son and then DJ calls everyone into the living room for a family meeting.  Stephanie downs her juice before leaving the kitchen so maybe it is supposed to be booze?  Maybe the kids were supposed to be drinking a no-booze version of it, then?  It kind of feels like there’s 10 seconds missing that would contextualize these margaritas.  Stephanie and Jesse share a moment where they reminisce about the original series some more, harkening back to what a fuck up he was (not that this has changed at all) and then, right before he heads out, he gets a text from Becky that’s like, “I got your message that recorded you talking shit about me to DJ’s boring kid and you can go fuck yourself.”

DJ leads a family discussion where she asks her oldest son what the fuck he was thinking when he stowed away in his greasy uncles car.  DJ’s oldest son says that shit’s been hella hard since his dad died.  Moving into in a giant house for rich people has been a really challenging life change.  DJ tells him that she used to have to share a room with Stephanie and, even though it sucked dick, they’re like all close and shit now so maybe in the long run it’ll be for the best if they build that relationship, like if his wife dies when he grows up, which seems to be a tradition with this family for some reason.  Kimmie Gibbler also consoles Ramona even though she’s just sitting there and doesn’t even seem upset.

Everyone agrees to try their best to adjust to being a part of this terrible new tv show and then they all hug as the audience goes “aww” and cheesy music plays and then Jesse comes back in and smiles and winks at the audience about how they’re all hugging and cheesy music is playing because I guess it’s supposed to be more palatable if they pretend that they’re above all that now.  Way to have your cake and eat it, too, Fuller House.

 

Fuller House Episode 1, “Our Very First Show, Again”

Hey, remember that hideous baby from the late 80’s?  Just in case her horrifying visage isn’t already burned into your mind’s eye for all time, let’s start this horrible throwback series with an alarming close up of her.

Oh, I get it.  This is the original opening from Full House.  I wonder how that’s gonna lead into this show?

Oh, they just played like 10 seconds of it and then, in an inspired piece of editing, cut to this screen that says, “29 years later”.  Well, it’s not like I wanted to know what happened within that 29 years anyway.

Danny emerges from the bowels of the netherwold to greet Tommy, who is the new token baby on the show, apparently.  Gotta have a baby on this show.  Bog Saget looks all puffy and he can’t seem to be b0thered to stay in character.  He has this really odd presence like he just can’t believe that he’s doing this again and he kinds of wants everyone to know it.

Then John Stamos shows up!  He’s aged about 5 minutes since this series ended.  He doesn’t looks puffy at all.  I guess that’s one of the perks of selling your soul to the devil.  He also has a smarmy, overly-self-conscious presence, but he’s just so darn charming!

Jesse bought the baby an Elvis onesie because that’s the only thing he could have possible done for the baby and then Joey surfaces, destroying any mild “this isn’t really all that bad” feelings I may have been trying to convince myself of.

Sparing not one second, Joey launches into his Bullwinkle impression, because you motherfuckers just couldn’t wait to see it, could you?  He then starts sparring with the Elvis suit baby and then Jesse uses the baby to hit him in the nuts.  What?!!?

Well, I guess I can’t complain, since he did get hit in the nuts and all.  The only time Joey is tolerable on screen is when he’s getting hurt.  Remember when he got hit with that coconut?  That was the only second that I ever liked looking at him.

Next, Jesse starts making the baby do Elvis dances on the counter.  He’s really manhandling that baby!  But nevermind that, here’s Aunt Becky!

Oh yeah I forgot to mention that the audience really whoops it up whenever anyone makes an entrance.  I’m willing to give this the benefit of the doubt by assuming that those are real people hooting and laughing, not just some buttons on a sound board.  If people are terrible and stupid enough to want this fucking thing to exist then there must be plenty who would show up to a live screening and hoot and laugh like a bunch of rubes.  Anyway, Aunt Becky looks fly as fuck, and she immediately starts talking to Jesse about how firm her ass is and then they start making out.  Remember that dream sequence set in the future where all these guys still lived together and Rebecca Donaldson had a big huge ass?  I’m kinda disappointed that her ass is not gigantic after all, but I guess it could still happen later.  Gotta keep those dreams for the future alive.

DJ comes in, inspiring lots of audience hooting, and kisses everyone.  Danny says that he wants more kissing so Joey plants one on him and it is delightfully G-rated and homoerotic at the same time.  As you may recall, the universe that full house is set in contains no real gay people, and two men sharing affection is just a hilarious, absurd idea.  The hardest part about watching this moment is that Joey did not get hit in the nuts.

Gradually, we start to catch up with the characters a little bit.  Becky and Jesse actually moved out at some point and are only back at the full house for a visit.  Becky and Danny are getting ready to move to L.A. to host a new show, “Wake Up, U.S.A.” because I guess that the amateurish mess that was “Wake Up, San Francisco” was such a hit that someone has decided to give it’s elderly hosts (well, actually, I guess that Aunt Becky is pretty ageless…) a national upgrade.  Sure, why not?

Because other people are talking about themselves and not him, Jesse cuts in with a statement about his new job.  At this point I must point out how unnatural all of this exposition is.  Like, everyone there would already know about Jesse’s job.  They sort of half-assedly set up the explanation about the “Wake Up, U.S.A.” thing, but in Jesse’s case he just chimes in with information that everyone would definitely already have.  Anyway, his news is that he’s doing the music for General Hospital (is that still on?) then he makes a meta-comment about how that show hires the best actors (because he used to be on it, if that wasn’t blatantly obvious).  Man, this show is pretty desperately self-referential.  Also, I’m pretty shocked that Jesse’s got an actual job.  I thought his job was just going to be givin’ it up to Aunt Becky (which must be nice work if you can get it).

Stephanie walks in and the audience seems pretty fully committed at this point so they give her a courtesy whoo.  You can tell that they don’t mean it.  She says that she just got in from England and she’s doing this fakey British accent for some reason.  I can’t even tell what the joke is supposed to be here.

Stephanie asks where Michelle is and then Danny Bob Saget makes the 10th meta-reference in the last 3 minutes by saying that she couldn’t make it because she’s in New York running her fashion empire, and then the whole cast does a straight up 4th wall break by just staring straight at the camera for like a full minute.  I don’t think they’ve ever done a 4th wall break before, but I gotta admit that I thought that this was pretty alright.  Seeing as how the Olsen’s appearance, or lack thereof, on this series was such a topic of discussion leading up to the release, I think that this was actually a pretty decent way to address it.  I mean, it’s nothing great or anything, but by Full House standards this is fucking genius.

Stephanie starts asking Joey about his career as a shitty Las Vegas comedian (a believable outcome for him, except for the part where he says that he’s “kicking Carrot Tops butt.”  Carrot Top actually makes mad bank, you guys.  He is the true king of terrible comedians.) and she’s still talking in that phony baloney British accent.  But why?  I thought it was just a throwaway gag for one line, but she keeps doing it.  How long is this going to go on for?  I really don’t like it.

Jesse comes in with Nicky and Alex, who I wouldn’t have even thought about for one second if they’d never been mentioned.  Wouldn’t it be funny if they still just spoke in broken gibberish?  Well, that ends up not being too far from the truth.  To be fair, these guys were put on tv when they were babies and I don’t think they’ve done anything since, so they shouldn’t be expected to have any acting chops (not that this ever harmed the Olsen twins’ careers, or anyone else on this show, for that matter…) but in that case, why bring them back on the show at all?

They sit down to eat breakfast and Jesse talks for a long time about how good he looks and then, just when I thought I could take this no longer, a beacon of light appeared.

Kimmie Gibbler, y’all.  If she was the only returning character, this show could actually be pretty good, but I guess she’s saddled with these fucks forever for some reason.  Why can’t she just have her own show?  I would watch it without making shitty comments the whole time, even.  She makes a drug reference and then immediately reassures the wholesome family audience that she never actually did any drugs, which is extra dumb because Kimmie Gibbler is totally the kind of person who drops hella acid in college.  I gotta say, Andrea Barber is really jumping right back into playing Kimmie Gibbler here.  She’s the only person on set who’s got actual energy in her performance.  No one seems like they’re having a bad time, but no one besides Kimme Gibbler is really bringing it, either.

Kimmie Gibbler is an event planner now so she’s back at the full house to help with Danny’s going away party, since he’s gonna sell the full house when he moves to L.A.  Stephanie keeps talking in that fucking British accent that’s so terrible that even the other characters on the show hate it (these are people that actually enjoy Joey’s cartoon character impressions) and we learn that she’s a DJ that goes by the name DJ Tanner.  DJ is bothered by this because that’s her name (which isn’t the worst joke ever) and you have to kind of wonder how DJ is just now learning about this.  Are we supposed to think that none of these characters have been in touch for years, or what?

DJ’s 2 kids come downstairs and… I don’t know what to say about them.  They have brown hair.  We learn that DJ has been living in the full house with Danny and her unremarkable kids for the past year but she feels confident that she’s found a nice new house for her family which she better hurry up and movie into if Danny’s going away party is tonight.

Kimmie Gibbler takes her shoes off and puts her feet up on the breakfast table and then, double-dipping on nostalgic references, Stephanie says, “how rude” and the audience loses their fucking minds.  It’s almost like they thought that there was a chance that she wasn’t going to say that.  Anyway, for some reason Kimmie Gibbler’s feet stank makes Stephanie stop talking in that fake accent and I’m not even going to question the logic of it because I’m so pleased with the result.  I mean, it would be better if Stephanie had suddenly dropped dead instead, but I’m trying to have realistic expectations here.

All of a sudden an opening credits sequence starts up.  Wait, all that was the pre-credits gag?  That was like 6 minutes long.  Aw, fuck, this episode goes on for 36 minutes!  That’s almost twice the length of the old episodes.  I shoulda just faded away into internet obscurity instead of announcing that I was gonna review the new show so I could bask in semi-obscurity instead.  What can I say?  Going on some morning radio show like once a year as the weirdo that wrote angry reviews of every episode of Full House is a hard lifestyle to let go of.  I’m in it not so much for the glamour as the prestige.

The opening features a cover of the old theme song by Carly Rae Jepsen, who probably wasn’t born yet when Full House aired its finale.  I liked that Call Me Maybe song and everything, but you’re dead to me now, Carly Rae.  It also features a time lapse montage of all the characters, and seems to confirm my worst fear that this show is just gonna be all about DJ and her boring kids and all the dads will only show up occasionally.  I know that I hate those guys and everything but at least they leave an impression.  I’m willing to bet that DJ’s family is just completely uninteresting.  I’d rather eat a bowl of nails than flavorless mush, especially if I’m gonna have to write about it later.

I always wonder what Joey is talking about during that opening footage.  My guess is he’s like, “so then she told me that she didn’t want a second date because I wouldn’t stop doing impressions of cartoon characters all the time, then I jerked off in the bushes outside her house.”

We also get a fantastic update to that wonderful shot of Aunt Becky bending over and showing us her ass.  She wasn’t kidding when she was talking about how firm it still is!

After the opener, we find Stephanie and DJ in their old room, reminiscing about their insufferable childhoods.  “Remember when we were yelling, demanding pieces of shit all the time?  Remember when we stopped that little league game so we could talk about our feelings?  Ha ha, fuck everyone else who was there.”  Several jokes about Stephanie’s big titties are made but there is no mention of how obviously fake they are.  We learn that DJ’s husband died, “doing what he loved,” which I assumed meant that he died of autoerotic asphyxiation but apparently he was a fireman who died in the line of duty.  I bet that he really just bailed on her after meeting her Uncle Joey.  Who wouldn’t?  I know that firemen are real life heroes and everything but nobody is brave enough to put up with that shit.

We also learn that Stephanie is some sort of globe trotting DJ/performer, which kind of makes sense.  I’m not suggesting that she has any talent, just observing that she comes from a family of mediocre performers who seem to be constantly rewarded and showered with praise and success.  Why should she be any different?  Thanks, nepotism.

Stephanie holds the baby and then makes a bunch of uncomfortable jokes about how he’s eyeing her big ol’ titties.  She tells him that, “this Dairy Queen is closed,” which I assume to mean that they severed her milk ducts when she got those implants.

The two sisters reminisce about a scene that I’m pretty sure is from the first episode of the original series, and then the dads all come in and they do a jokey run-through of the standard make-up-at-the-end-of-an-episode routine.  DJ and Stephanie exit the scene, leaving Danny alone with Joey and Jesse, who he thanks for all of the sacrifices they made to help him raise his kids.  What sacrifices?  Those motherfuckers were completely incompetent and total mooches.  They’d probably both be dead by now if Danny hadn’t taken them in.  This would be a way better scene if they were apologizing to him instead.

They all hug and then the baby gets upset.  Joey says he’ll handle it so Danny and Jesse leave him alone to subject that poor child to Mr. Woodchuck.  That puppet looks a lot bigger than I remember.

The baby seems pretty terrified, and not for nothing if you ask me. You’re doomed, kid.  You may grow up to be incredibly successful at whatever method of entertainment you put half your ass into, but you’ll also be surrounded by complete assholes for the rest of your life, and they will never stop hugging you.

Downstairs, at the party, Danny is approached by his wife, who refers to him as, “the sexiest man alive.”  One thing about writing for the internet is that you can write one sentence and then go get in the shower, scrub your skin until it bleeds and then rock back and forth in a fetal position for several hours before writing another sentence but your audience will never know it.  It’s just two sentences to them.  So who’s this wife all of a sudden?  Does she live at the full house?  How come she wasn’t there when they were all having breakfast?

Jesse and Becky do a spit take when their worthless idiot sons say they want to move back in with them and then DJ’s younger son prances onto the scene to clean it up.  How come no one ever rushed to clean it up when Joey would spit all over everything?  So I guess that one of DJ’s younger son’s defining characteristics is that he’s really into cleaning, which makes him get along real well with Danny.  Man, I knew that these new characters were going to be defined by an extremely limited range of behaviors and interests just like the original cast were, but I never imagined that they’d just recycle their old characteristics.  The lack of thought and effort here is almost impressive.

DJ answers the door and we are introduced to Ramona, who is Kimmie Gibbler’s kid.  We also meet Kimmie Gibbler’s ex-husband, Fernando, who is a flagrant Latin stereotype.

My assumption was that they’d keep the cast %100 white, as is their tradition, but I should have guessed that they might include some deeply stereotypical ethnic characters for the sake of diversity.  Danny’s wife is also vaguely ethnic, but I don’t think she even has a name so I’m not sure if she counts.

Fernando apparently used to cheat on Kimmie Gibbler all the time, as Latin lovar’s are known to do, but now he hella wants her back.  The rest of the cast is confused and perturbed by his burning desire for her, but that’s because they’re all a bunch of duds in the sack.  I’ve always assumed that Kimmie Gibbler would be a freak between the sheets but now that Fernando has declared it, it is cannon.  Also, I just wanted to ad that, for reasons I can’t quite put into words just yet, it totally makes sense that this guy is Kimmie Gibbler’s baby daddy.

Abruptly, Stephanie plays a meta-referential (if you took a shot for every throwback moment while you watched this, you would be dead by now.  And if you’re still conscious for this next part, you’ll wish you were dead.) “90’s throwback,” that New Kids on the Block not-at-all-timeless classic, “The Right Stuff,” and then everyone launches into a choreographed dance.

This is the part of the show where I felt like I was actually going crazy.  It also encapsulated everything that this show means to me.  Fuller House is definitely a 90’s throwback, but I wouldn’t call it nostalgia.  Nostalgia is a sentimental look at the past, but this is more of a sobering reflection.  This isn’t like remembering getting a Super Nintendo for your birthday or hitting the winning home run in a little league game, it’s that time your parents got divorced or when you shit your pants at school and then everyone called you “shit pants” for the next 5 years.  This isn’t your first kiss, it’s your first time testing positive for chlamydia.  It’s like visiting your racist, abusive grandfather’s grave.  Fuller House is a chance to look back at your life and remember everything that went wrong.  It’s a deliberation on your squandered potential, and all your unfulfilled hopes and dreams.  Remember your childhood?  Like, do you really remember it?  It was mostly pretty awful, wasn’t it?  When you really remember things clearly and truthfully, as they really were, you’ll probably come to realize that you did not have the right stuff after all.

Before I had any time to recover from what I just saw, Steve showed up.  He’s hella into the food, as is his defining character trait, and then we learn that he has Comet’s grandchild, who is currently carrying puppies.  Oh yeah, did I mention that DJ is a veterinarian on this show?  Speaking of DJ, Steve is immediately trying to get all up in her mom jeans.  I wonder if they ever did it when they were younger?  As I recall, the series ended with them going to the prom together, so if there was any time they ever did it, it was probably then.  I bet DJ waited until marriage tho, saving herself for that smoldering fireman.

DJ asks her older son to interact with Ramona at the party and he talks about how they don’t get along.  She forces them to socialize and then they pull their phones out, because kids these days, right?

Becky exudes an unhealthy attachment to DJ’s baby and then she makes it pretty clear that she hates her 2 grown kids.  I mean, I can’t really blame her, but you’d think that she’d expect her kids to grow up to be a couple of worthless pieces of shit given who their dad is.

DJ starts reflecting on how everyone is leaving after the party and she’s gonna be a single mom again but nobody even reacts, probably because they’re all thinking about themselves.  For no reason that I could ever understand, everyone starts prodding Jesse to sing “Forever.”  He says that he’s sick of that song and I thought that, just this once, this show would throw me a bone by putting something to rest, but then he sings it anyway.

Just to make it extra unbearable, the whole family sings along, and Stephanie gets a special duet with Jesse.  I couldn’t really evaluate her singing voice because I was too distracted by her blaring psychic projection that cried, “for sucks sake, can’t anyone see how talented I am?  I can act and sing and dance!  Why am I the only person on this show who never got any more work?  I got fake titties and I wrote a tell-all book about my drug addiction!  What more must I do?  Fucking Dave Coulier has a more successful post-Full House career than me! Please please please recognize me, America!”

Oh yeah, I should also mention that a bunch of the O.G. Rippers are looming in the background during all this.  They look awful!  There are only four of them here but I recall them being a pretty large group before.  I’m willing to bet that the rest of them are dead.  They sure weren’t too busy with their careers to make an appearance, I can tell you that much!

After the party, DJ and Kimmie Gibbler’s kids have some sort of interaction and I was going to write about it but then in the seconds between me watching it and writing this sentence I forgot what happened.  I do remember that one of the kids hit one of the other ones with a garbage bag.

Steve tries even harder to stick it to DJ while he cleans out the refrigerator.  His attempt to bag her earlier was not at all subtle, and yet, here we are, watching it all over again.  It’s always weird to me when a movie or tv show has a scene that doesn’t move the story forward at all, and it’s even weirder when that scene happens twice.  At least this situation gives Steve a new character trait.  He used to just be really hungry all the time.  Now he’s hungry for not just food, but also DJ’s sweet, sweet puss puss.

DJ seems kind of ambivalent about giving it up to Steve and then he leaves.  Maybe she’s saving herself for her next dead husband?  Stephanie talks about all exotic locations that she’s going to travel to on her tour and then DJ laments the fact that she is going to be booked solid taking care of her boring kids.

Why would you bother to have a chore chart if you were the only person doing the chores?  Just make a list.

Later, Kimmie Gibbler comes over (which is sort of a weird transition, seeing as how she was in the last scene) to follow up with Danny about how well she organized the party.  I gotta say, I kind of enjoyed their interplay here.  Bob Saget’s weirdly self-conscious performance works best when he’s being a dick to Kimmie Gibbler, because his pissy tone really matches what appears to be his attitude towards being back on the show.  Like when he’s all, “what the fuck are you doing here, Kimmie Gibbler?” the intonation is indicative of both his characters attitude and his real-life incredulity about playing Danny Tanner again.  You also get a genuine sense that these two actors are enjoying playing off of each other, which is actually fun to watch.

DJ comes in and she’s all stressed and overwhelmed because her baby is sick and her other kids are mundane.  Kimmie Gibbler volunteers to lend a hand and then all of a sudden Steve comes on with his dog, who’s in labor.

He’s unsure of what to do and I don’t know how to help a dog that’s in labor, either, but I’m pretty sure that carrying her around in your arms is a bad idea.  Danny asks them to take the dog outside to give birth because of the mess even though I distinctly remember that when Comet was born in the full house there was no blood or vaginal mucous whatsoever.

As DJ delivers the puppies in the backyard, her younger kid immediately starts pestering her about keeping one.  She’s like, “I don’t have the energy to deal with that shit.  Can’t you see that I’m an overworked single mom?  That’s like my whole thing now,” but the kid is dedicated to carrying out Full House’s deepest tradition.  He doesn’t give a shit about her needs or limitations at all and bombards her with shrill demands instead, proving that he truly belongs in this family.

DJ hears the baby crying on the baby monitor and has to go tend to him, leaving the dog to give birth while a bunch of useless assholes mill around helplessly.  As she passes through the kitchen, Jesse sits around eating fried chicken while his wife carries lots of heavy bags, unhelped.

See, it’s shit like this that really disturbs me.  Why is it supposed to be a funny joke that he wont help his wife?  Someone wrote it down and thought it was funny 20 years ago and it was such a hit that they’re still doing it now.  This shit is just baffling to me.

Joey ambles up the basement steps and shows off one of his garish shirts from the old series just to be like, “hey guys, remember this?”  and then he says his “Cut. It. Out.” catchphrase.  Maybe he should go into the backyard and share his catchphrase with the rest of the family if he wants to help with the dog labor.  Actually, I’d kinda like to watch a montage of occasions where Joey’s catchphrase would be helpful… let’s see… at a briss… um… an appendectomy…  ok, that’s enough.

DJ continues to be all stressed out so Aunt Becky, who’s finished carrying Jesse’s luggage for him, offers to help out.  DJ says that she can handle it herself and then Becky starts begging Jesse for another baby even though she clearly hates the ones they already have.  He tells her that it’s too late because they’re both post-menopausal.   Actually, he tells her, “That ship has sailed.  All semen lost,” which is a much racier joke than we ever saw on the old show.

DJ tries to console her baby while also verbalizing the struggle that she’s going through while the family all listen in on the baby monitor.  I have to admit that this is a pretty effective scene.  I think it’s mostly because the struggles of a single mom are a really understandable predicament, but also because DJ has always been the only character on this show that seems at all like an actual human being that could exist in real life.  It’s interesting to me that she’s ended up being a vet, which, although fairly prestigious, is a somewhat relatable job.  The rest of her family can join the %1 just by farting into a microphone so it’s kind of refreshing to see her end up doing something that’s at least feasible to a normal person.  I’m also willing to give Candace Cameron credit for her performance here.  This moment feels pretty authentic and hits its desired emotional note without being heavy-handed, which is quite an achievement for this show.  I actually kind of gave a shit about DJ for like 10 whole seconds.

Everyone else takes in DJ’s plight, partially because they feel bad for her but also because none of them give a shit about her privacy.  Also, I bet that only one or two of them has enough empathy to be capable of actually feeling bad for her.  You can tell that, while all this is going on, Jesse is remembering how good he looked while he jerked off to himself in the mirror earlier.

DJ comes downstairs to find the whole family waiting for her.  Danny offers to quit his new morning show so he can continue to help her with her stupid kids.  Becky offers to help, too, since her morning show co-host is quitting on her at the last minute and then Joey offers to move back in so he can continue to be a blight on the household.  Jesse, on the other hand, is just like fuck all y’all, I’ma go work on General Hospital.  I guess he’s fully transitioned to living off of his wife’s resources and is no longer dependent on Danny and the full house at all.

Stephanie intervenes by telling everyone else that they should continue their plans to escape the full house once and for all and that she should be the one to stick around and help DJ.  I wonder if she jumped in here because the thought of more kids having to endure being raised by Joey was just too much for her.  Kimmie Gibbler also volunteers to move in to help out and even though this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense from a logical perspective, she’s the only one of these people that I can stand so I’m really glad it happened.

Heartfelt speeches are exchanged and then everyone hugs.  Danny offers to let them stay at the full house because it’s not like a bunch of white ladies with high paying jobs should have to pay rent.  At least Jesse makes a comment about how they should still sell the house because of what it’s valued at now.  That’s no joke.

DJ calls her kids in to tell them that they’re going to be staying at the full house (when were they supposed to be moving out exactly?  I don’t really understand what the plan for selling the full house was here…  It doesn’t look like Danny is moved out in the slightest.  Also, where’s his wife?  How does she feel about this decision?  Why don’t we have any information about her, and where is she when they’re not having a party?) and Kimmie Gibbler says not to mention it to her daughter for some reason.  I guess that’s set-up for the next episode or something.  DJ’s younger kid asks if he can have one of the puppies because that’s all that he cares about and DJ’s like, “well, I guess it would be good for the shows marketing campaign if we had a dog, so… ok.”  Hey, I just realized that a dog has been giving birth in the backyard while all this has been going on.  Why hasn’t anybody mentioned this?  As soon as DJ left the dog to go check on her baby everyone else just completely forgot about it.

The baby starts crying and everyone surrounds him so they can sing the Flintstones theme, which is how the first episode of the original series ended, too.  The show assumes that you wont remember this tv moment that you’re actually cursed with having burned into your mind forever so they do a split screen of both sequences.

And that’s the end of the first episode.  Phew!

Well, I guess that was about what I expected.  It brought back a lot of painful memories but it also looked pretty good in HD.  I’m guessing that there’ll be a lot less to say about upcoming episodes as this show becomes more focused on DJ and her boring kids.

A couple of notes before I hit the road:

It’s really weird to be writing about Full House again.  I definitely never thought I’d be back at this.  It feels especially strange since this is a new show now, whereas before I was writing about stuff that was over a decade old.  The fact that there are a lot of sites that are currently writing about the same show as me is definitely a new thing to deal with.  I’ve been avoiding the other reviews so I can come at this without any outside influence.  It’s for that same reason that I would like to politely request that people don’t write about upcoming episodes in the comments (or to send me private messages, or post on the Facebook page, etc.).  I know that people are going to do it anyway but I thought I’d at least ask.

One final thing I thought I’d mention is that they’ve already announced a second Season of this show.  For reals?  I don’t know how to deal with that information.  I decided to review Fuller House because it seemed like a fun way to revisit this blog and there were only going to be 13 episodes.  Having only watched this first one, I was already kind of regretting taking on this new series, but now that I know that there’s going to be even more of it down the road I feel like I really fucked myself over.  I’m definitely on board for this first Season and then we’ll see after that.  For now, it’s fun to be back.  I sure missed all you weirdos!  I’ll be here next week to find out how shit goes down in the newly established full house.  Until then, feel free (or even pressured to) check out my weekly Saved By the Bell Reviewed Podcast.  My hilarious co-hosts and I are currently reviewing the college years, which is like the Saved By the Bell equivalent of Fuller House.  I’m not sure if that’s an incentive or not.

I love all you guys like you were my very own shitty, self-centered family.

8 Predictions for Fuller House

Why, oh why, is there going to be more Full House? It’s the worst 90’s throwback since the invasion of Iraq.  Never in my wildest dreams did it occur to me that there would ever be more of this shit.  And yet, here we all are.

Starting next week, I’ll be reviewing every episode of Fuller House, just like how I reviewed all of the original series except not ten years after the fact.  I thought I ought to write an initial post to get back in the groove and give y’all a heads up that FHR would be coming back (I sure do get asked that a lot, even in comments on posts where I explicitly state that, yes, I will be reviewing Fuller House.  I bet that this post gets at least one comment that asks that) and a look ahead seemed like the best way to get back in the saddle.  At the time that I’m posting this, Fuller House should have just become streamable on Netflix, but I’m happy to say that I haven’t watched it yet.  Maybe this post is really just me holding on to those brief final moments of my life before seeing the Full House revival.  I’m just holding on to this moment, before things get bad again.

It goes without saying that this 20-years-later return to the worst sitcom of all time will be terrible. The question is not about what level of quality we can expect, but rather just what the particularities of the awfulness will be. Here are my speculations about what we should anticipate as we emotionally prepare ourselves for the return of the greatest atrocity in American history:

1) It Will Be Bland

Remember that Boy Meet’s World follow-up, Girl Meet’s World? I decided to check it out for the sake of curiosity, and because it was streaming on Netflix. I only made it through one episode, and only managed that because I was reading stuff on my phone the whole time (ironically, the episode was all about the folly of smart phones and how those damn kids these days should be going to the library instead). My point is that, once you work past the initial intrigue or curiosity that’s built into these kinds of throwback shows, there’s usually not much there. Sure, I’m curious to see just how poorly Dave Coulier has aged, but after that 2-second intake, what more will this show have to offer? If I want to see Uncle Joey do his stupid fucking Bullwinkle impression for the ten millionth time, I can just watch an old episode (I mean, I don’t, and I wouldn’t, but I could if I did). A lot of these nostalgia cash-ins seems to be more of a reminder to revisit the old thing rather than an incentive to see what’s currently being made. Unfortunately, most people who will find themselves checking out old episodes of Full House for the first time in a decade will very likely be horrified to realize what a pile of garbage they wasted their youth watching. Full House has aged as poorly as Dave Coulier’s withered mug.

Fuller House will fail to fully establish itself as either Full House Season 29 or as a whole new show. It will be self-referential, but it wont be self-aware enough, it wont update any old ideas (I mean…what ideas?), it wont say or do anything new. It will probably be less obnoxious than the old series, but more hollow as well. That overbearing, confrontational arrogance was pretty much the only stand out quality the original series had. Instead of grating moments that makes you want to tear your hair out, Fuller House will have bland scenes that you wont even remember.

Ultimately, Fuller House will underwhelm, and most people who bother to check it out wont make it past the second episode.

2) No People of Color

Full House is a show by, for and about white people. It takes place in the Bay Area, one of the most ethnically diverse places in the world, and yet it is a total cracker fest. Back in the 90’s you could get away with having an all white cast on tv (you practically had to) without any criticism. Well, those days are over. I’m really curious to see what the twitter hashtag that condemns this show for being nothing but a collective of super lilly white honkeys will be. My guess is something like #FullofWhitePrivilegeHouse. I can’t wait!

Full House is a show about white privilege, so much so that it fails to recognize that any other kind of person exists. Even the token ethnic friends that showed up every now and again were at least half white. Think about this, you guys: the blackest person to ever set foot in the Full House was Urkel. That’s right, Urkel.

3) No One Will Have Made Any Personal Progress

As we revisit the Tanner family and the hangers-on who have managed to leech off of their success (Joey, Jesse), we will be met with no surprises whatsoever in regards to how anyone has changed in the years since we were last subjected to their antics. This won’t be played for laughs, and it wont be a sobering reflection on how people don’t really progress and are bound forever to make the same mistakes and do the same annoying shit. This will happen because these are tragically underdeveloped characters, and there’s just not that much else that can be done with them. Danny will still be an obsessive compulsive cleaner because what else could he possibly do? Joey will still do a bunch of terrible impressions all the time, and it still wont make any sense at all why he’s involved with this family.   Wouldn’t it be nice if Joey returned to television having learned not to spit in people’s faces all the time? Or if any of these people came to the realization that they are not in fact the center of the universe? Like, just seeing any of them wait their turn in line for something or go anywhere without needing to become to the focus of the whole crowd’s attention would just be amazing to me.

Jesse’s lack of personal progress will be most dissatisfying because we all know a guy like him-an aging fuck up with a shitty band and no regard for anyone else-and most of us have seen that guy go to jail. Not Jesse, though. There will be no repercussions whatsoever for his lifetime of selfish worthlessness, I can guarantee you.

4) Still No Exploration of the Theme of Alternative Families

Another thing that bugs me about the underutilized San Francisco setting is that San Francisco is the gayest place on Earth and yet, somehow, this show about three gentle, sensitive men who live together to raise kids as a family, seems completely unaware that gay people even exist. Just look outside! I guarantee you that people are having butt sex in that park across the street from the full house at pretty much any given time. Inside the house, there will be occasional hilarious misunderstanding where someone walks in on Joey and Jesse wrestling in their underwear or something and it sure is funny when it’s taken out of context, but no one is ever like, “hey, this show is totally about gay dads!”

Rather than some half-baked, tacked on 20-years later sequel, I think that Full House could really use a reboot. The world is ready to watch a show about a polyamorous unity between 3 men who are raising kids together. I’d watch that shit. Also, replacing all the actors would be a major bonus! Don’t bring the full house back, burn that shit to the ground, and maybe you could actually build something that’s worthwhile on top of its smoldering remains.

Unfortunately, based on that amazing time that Candace Cameron got told by Raven Symone on the View, I can only assume that she’d do everything in her power to prevent this from ever happening.

5) None of the New Characters Will Be At All Memorable or Interesting

I guess DJ and Kimmie Gibbler have kids now and maybe there will be new love interests or some shit but I can pretty much guarantee you that, after viewing all of these episodes, I won’t know anything more about any of those new characters than I do right now. That’s not because they wont have their own storylines. I’m sure that there will be obligatory episodes about how DJ has to go to her boring kids karate tournament at the same time as an important work meeting and how’s a working single mom supposed to make it in this day and age? And I’m sure that each new character will have some overly simplistic characteristics that define them, like the hungry kid or the fidgety guy that Kimmie Gibbler is dating or the kid that really likes science and says affirmative all the time, but none of the new characters will leave any lasting impressions. The worst part is, the new characters will actually make us miss the returning cast members when they’re not onscreen. I can’t think of a bigger offense than that.

If there’s one thing that’s guaranteed about this series, it’s that every returning character will be spewing out their most overused catch phrases from back in the day at the slightest provocation. They might as well call this shit, “Remember That Dumb Ass Catch Phrase From When You Were 12? The Series.” There will also probably be some attempts to bestow the new characters with catch phrases of their own, and all of them will fail. This will partially be because the new Netflix model of releasing everything all at once doesn’t allow for a shows creators to gage an audience reaction to something in order to make decisions about what to develop into “a thing” (one of my all-time favorite tv moments was in the E! True Hollywood Story for Blossom in which Joey Lawrence thoroughly explains the evolution of his catch phrase, “whoa.” So THAT’S how it happened!), but it’s also probably true that there will be no new or good ideas injected into this series, so it wouldn’t have worked anyway. Regardless, I’m willing to bet that the shows creators will do their best to make assumptions about what will get the audience all riled up, resulting in some new and misguided catchphrases.  Here are my predictions for what some of them will be:

“I’m so itchy!”

“I made a doo doo in your bed”

“Wha-wha-wha-whaaaaaaaaaa?!!?”

“That’s not my problem”

“I don’t care about you at all”

“#AllLivesMatter”

6) There Will Be No Mention of Stephanie’s Fake Titties

The elephant in the room will not be addressed. There might be some gross, family-friendly references to how much Stephanie has “grown up” or something in response to all of the low cut shirts she seems to be wearing in all the promo stuff, but no one’s gonna just straight up be like, “damn, Stephanie, what’s up with them fake tittays?”

7) The More Successful Cast Members Will Smugly Phone In Their Appearances, While the More Desperate Ones Will Give It Their All, To the Point Of Making It Uncomfortable To Watch

John Stamos has done really well since the show ended, so much so that he seems willing to grease his hair up and neglect his wife on tv again just for the fun of it. It’s also possible that he’s doing it as a favor to the rest of the cast, or maybe even just because he missed working with them. Regardless of his reasons for showing up, he knows he’s too good for this show and this will be apparent in every moment that he’s onscreen. Bob Saget will also smugly phone in his performance, doing his best to communicate to the audience that he’s smarter and funnier than this show even though none his stand up has proven this to be true.

Jodie Sweetin seems to have had the roughest time out in the real world, so much so that I can’t help but wonder if this reunion isn’t some charitable deed by everyone else involved to try to help her get some work. Her biggest claims to fame in recent years has been a tell-all book about being a meth addict and a series of failed twitter campaigns where she lobbied for a spot on Dancing With the Stars. I think it’s a safe bet that her presence onscreen will be that of a person trying way too hard to prove her performance chops so that maybe, just once in her life, she might get an acting job playing someone besides Stephanie Tanner.

8) They Will Not All Die

Proving that sheer force of will cannot alter reality, and that nobody on the executive staff cares about all those letters I sent, the series will not conclude with all of the characters dying horribly. How great would it be, though, if the house collapsed or exploded or something and the family all died. That’s the only thing that would validate a return to the full house. It’s the only possible way anyone would end up saying, “this was worth waiting for.”

 

Tune in next week for Fuller House Reviewed Part 1.  It’s gonna be real cranky!  Also, feel free (or even obligated) to check out Saved By the Bell Reviewed, a weekly podcast where myself and 3 other real funny people talk about a way better show than Full House.

 

The Unauthorized Full House Story Part 3

I can’t even remember what was going on when we left off.  Whatever it was, it wasn’t that interesting.  I do remember that it was at the 55 minute mark, because I’m keeping track of those minutes, real close.

Jesse and DJ hang out in the same studio courtyard set that they used in the Saved By the Bell Lifetime movie (and probably a bunch of other crappy Lifetime biopics that I haven’t watched, too).  DJ worries about shitty stuff that she’s seen about herself in tabloids and Jesse just kind of talks about himself and how that relates to him.  She wonders what it would be like to have a normal life and he encourages her to go to a normal people school.  He kind of seems like he’s coming on to her the whole time and I kept waiting for them to start kissing but it never happened.  I guess that’s probably just what talking to John Stamos is like in real life.  You’re just waiting for him to kiss you the whole time.

She starts talking about how her brother is trying to convince her to get closer to god (when’s the biopic about Kirk Cameron’s crazy god obsession gonna come out!??!) and you can tell that Jesse’s like whatever about that shit but then he’s just like, do your thing, man.  Like, I get hella pussy and strum my guitar, that’s my thing.  If you wanna grow up to be some conservative bible thumper then, like, whatever.  Raven Simone isn’t gonna like it but, like, that’s her thing.

Bob Saget takes notes while watching endless videos of babies getting hit in the nuts for his side gig and then John Stamos comes into his office or dressing room or whatever and tells him that Dave Coulier’s come back to work just 1 day after his sister’s funeral.

Wait, what?  We didn’t even ever hear about him having a sister.  We have heard about Bob Saget’s sister’s terminal illness, but that’s got nothing to do with this.  The pair of them find Dave Coulier on set and ask him why he’s at work if he’s dealing with some fucked up ass life bullshit.  Dave Coulier is clearly trying to repress him emotions and then when they ask him why he doesn’t go home to his wife and child he tells them that he’s getting a divorce on account of his wife realizing that she was married to Dave Coulier.  He also says that he’s not that great at being a grown up and before anyone can chime in about how he’s not great at being a comedian or tv actor or a person that doesn’t look like he needs to get punched in the face all the time the Olsen twins roll up and belch out some indecipherable gibberish.

Seriously, I rewound it 4 times.  I have no idea what they said.  It kind of sounds like, “I saved you from a nap.”  Coulier cradles the cryptic children and asks his costars, “wouldn’t it be great if real life was more like Full House?”  Fuck no it wouldn’t.  There’s no sex or alcohol, and everyone’s a totally self-obsessed piece of shit.  If my life was like Full House it’d be a very special episode about suicide.

It’s 1993 and we see a high school hallway where some young woman we’ve never seen before has apparently just enrolled.  She keeps talking about being on set and… oh, wait, that’s supposed to be Candace Cameron.

I guess they decided to switch actresses in the last 20 minutes of the movie.  Sure, why not?  Some mean girls shit talk Candace and her shitty ass tv show and for a split second it made me think about how it would feel for the actors to hear people’s harsh criticisms of their terrible performances but I had to stuff those feelings down a la Dave Coulier in the previous scene because otherwise I was about to have to take a long hard look at my life and it was gonna be rough.

New DJ tells the other girls what the outside world is like as we meet the rest of the time-lapsed kids.  They’re all as hollow and unremarkable as the actresses they’ve replaced.  I have nothing else to say about them.

Some producer or stagehand or something finds Bob Saget and Dave Coulier goofing off backstage and he tells them that they’ll start filming soon but they don’t give no fucks. They continue to goof around with props while John Stamos approaches, who joins in on their naughty mischief.  They open a refrigerator and bust out some whipped cream, which leads to the most controversial moment in the whole movie.  Brace yourself, gentle reader, as I am about to tell you something that may shock you:  the dads do whip-its.

I know that’s not as shocking as if there’d been a scene where someone like smokes a cigarette one time or says a bad word or something, but this is all we’re gonna get.  I’m not sure if it’s a result of the nitrous oxide or years of palpable sexual tension between these fellows, but either way they all start spraying each other with whipped cream.

Seconds before penetration occurs, Jeff Franklin comes back there and tells them to knock it the fuck off and then that’s it.  That is the height of controversy and drama that you will find in this snooze-fest.

Bob Saget’s daughter starts getting all up his ass about how he spends more time with his tv family instead of his real one because I guess she doesn’t realize that not having him around all the time is a best case scenario.

He tells her that she can suck it because he’s actually going to visit his dying sister, which is always a pretty good way to win an argument.  Take THAT, girl who needs her father!  You also get a sense that Mrs. Saget is getting tired of the absentee husband routine as well and you can kind of see the gears turning as it dawns on her that she can get half his shit and not have to look at his stupid face anymore in one fell swoop.

The Olsen twins appear on some talk show while the rest of their young costars watch and hate on them.  Meanwhile, the Olsen parents argue over the appropriate handling of their young commodities, again portraying the mom as being uncomfortable with the incredible wealth and luxury her ugly children have bought her.

When Bob Saget’s sister dies it gets actual screen time. Seriously, what was up with Dave Coulier’s shoehorned sister death? Anyway, Bog Saget’s wife encourages him to take comfort from his stupid obnoxious tv family and then she sits and watches from the car, looking all butt hurt as Saget smiles and makes dead sister jokes with Dave Coulier.

They cut to another weird scene of John Stamos and his shitty band performing a terrible cover in the rehearsal room and then Jeff Franklin comes in and tells everyone that he’s leaving the show to go work on Hanging With Mr. Cooper. Remember that show? It was hella better than Full House. It was weird how it got totally retooled a few seasons in. Remember when they added Raven Simone and it became a way more family friendly show? It totally wasn’t as good after that. Anyway, he tells them that it’s been a honor to work with a bunch of no talent pieces of shit on the most egregious creative compromise of his career and then they all have a disgusting group hug.

There’s another scene portraying Bob Saget as a negligent husband and then we cut to Dave Coulier and John Stamos backstage at a fashion show. Stamos alludes to being tired of swimming in an endless sea of poonana but then he bumps into Rebecca Romijn and they have a little meet-cute.

Everyone talks about all the shit they got going on in the rehearsal room as the Season wraps up. DJ talks about her tv movie, which I’m pretty sure is the one where Fred Savage plays her murderer boyfriend. Everyone gossips about Lori Loughlin’s recent divorce and you can tell that John Stamos is hella mad that he missed his window to hit it now that he’s all up in Rebecca Romijn.

The shows producers walk in and tell everyone that even though the show still has high ratings, the network finally realized that it sucks fat dick and needs to die already. Jodie Sweetin has like her only dramatic moment when she talks about how the network can’t take the show away from them (seriously, if she hadn’t said this then they may as well have not even shown her at all for the last half of the movie) and then everyone hugged and cried until I barfed all over my keyboard.

The reenactment of the final episode is actually sort of faithful to the original version, which threw me for a loop. They do the part where Steve comes back in the final moments and it’s kind of like, oh yeah, there was a whole other cast member that they never even mentioned at all until now (they also never mention the twins but I’m sure not complaining about that oversight).

The guy that plays Steve is way more of a nebbish than the original but he’s probably like someone’s son or something and, besides, he’s got like one line. Oh, wait, I just noticed that when they do the final cast bow, the twins are standing there. Well, ok.

2 years later, Bob Saget is back to telling jokes about nuts on stage. John Stamos is performing on Broadway, which is not a total travesty. They don’t bother to tell us what Dave Coulier is doing, which is fine by me, but then we cut back to Bob Saget as he and his wife sit down to sign divorce papers. He says that he thought things would get better after the show ended and she says that the show was never the problem, which I assume is an admittance that the problem was always his stupid face. Or maybe just the endless dick jokes.

Candace Cameron and Lori Loughlin go to a charity hockey game that Dave Coulier’s playing in and he introduces them to some Russian hockey player. The Russian guy tells them that he learned to speak English from watching Full House and then he says, “oh my lanta” to Candace and she’s like, “you’re funny.” Yeah, tv show actors always think that people who quote their catch phrases at them are real funny. Anyway, the next scene jumps ahead 4 years to their wedding because wedding’s are a really good way to wrap up crappy biopics.

After the ceremony the cast all gather together and hug for about 2 minutes straight and then, in true Full House fashion, Bob Saget interrupts the reception by giving a long toast that’s mostly about himself and not at all appropriate or interesting to anyone else.

Gentle music plays as he talks about the character of Danny Tanner and ice cream and hugs and that they’re a family in real life even though they only played a completely deplorable one on tv, then Dave Coulier farts, which is a pretty fitting ending to this entire mess.

Well, I’m glad that’s over. It was kinda fun to be back, even for a big pile of garbage like this. I do think that this productions total lack of quality was appropriate given its subject matter, but I wish they’d managed to dig up some actual behind the scenes dirt. Couldn’t they have thrown in some stuff about Alanis Morrisette, or like some fucked up shit that happened later? I’m pretty sure that the Olsen twins became big coke heads when they were teenagers. Well, whatever.

That’s it for the foreseeable future. I will be reviewing Fuller House when that comes out (and yet somehow I still bet there will be a comment below that asks if I’ll be reviewing it). I have a tentative deal with an actual website to publish the reviews there so if that pans out I’ll just link to them on here when they’re up. We’ll see how interested they still are when the show actually comes out. Until then, be sure to check out the weekly podcast I do with several other hilarious geniuses, Saved By the Bell Reviewed.  As always, I remain

Your pal,

~Billy Superstar~

 

 

 

 

The Unauthorized Full House Story Part 2

Wait, this is only part 2?  I feel like I’ve been watching this thing for a million years already!  Lemme check the timer… 21 minutes!??!  Fuck my life!  There’s another hour of this shit!??!

Last week’s entry left off with the cast fully assembled.  Now that Bob Saget has joined the team, he meets the rest of his fellow “actors.”  I have to commend him for immediately addressing the gay love triangle at the heart of the show, even though he’s only doing it to mess with John Stamos, who’s all “no homo” about it.

In the writer’s room, Saget pitches story ideas to Dave Coulier for some reason.  I guess it’s supposed to represent his immediate dissatisfaction with the show (the exchange also credits him with inventing Danny’s obsessive compulsive cleaning habits) but, seriously, why’s he bouncing these ideas off of Dave Coulier?  Shouldn’t be be talking to… anyone else?

All the child actors arrive and they make a big point about how the Olsen twin’s mom had no interest in pimping out her kids and was actually quite uncomfortable with the whole endeavor, which I bet is total bullshit.  They perpetuate this myth throughout the entire movie, so I guess we’re supposed to believe that she reluctantly turned her kids into producers by the time they were like 5 and that the powers that be had to bite and claw to get her to allow her kids to become billionaire moguls based on their mediocre direct to video movies and clothing lines by the time they were teenagers.  I’m sure that their mom was really conflicted about the enormous sums of money she was making off of her no-talent children.

The live studio audience eats up the hot garbage that’s being shoveled into their mouths but the show still receives terrible ratings and reviews.  Bob Saget whines to his sister and wife and the latter poses the question, “It’s a show about 3 friends raising kids… what’s so terrible about that?”  Oh, man, don’t even get me started!  Bob Saget replies, “there’s nothing terrible, or interesting, or funny about it.  That’s the problem.” And he’s right.  Except the part where he said there’s nothing terrible about it.  Anyway, Saget’s wife and sister tell him to stop being such a pissy ass bitch and learn to appreciate his crappy new job.

In attempt to feel more enthusiastic about being cast in the worst show in history, Bob Sagets invites his adult costars to Vegas, or at least a conspicuously uninhabited casino set that’s supposed to represent Vegas.  The guys all get drunk and gamble (which is the kind of stuff that you’d never see on Full House, but still not racy enough to justify a tell-all movie) and discuss their various characteristics:  John Stamos gets hella pussy, Bob Saget has been with his wife since high school and never cheats on her (good for him!) and Dave Coulier is apparently always farting.  Seriously?  Like I didn’t already think Dave Coulier was the worst guy who ever lived, now you gotta tell me that he also drops nasty farts all the time?  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.  You know how people always say that if they had a time machine they’d go back and kill Hitler?  Not me, man.  I’d stomp on baby Coulier the day he was born, and the world would be much better for it.  Way less terrible jokes, and less farts, even.

With that, we’re caught up to the opening scene, further proving that nothing interesting is going to happen throughout this entire movie.  Stamos complains to the producers about how long it takes for the Olsen twins to get through a scene, what with their constant pants shitting, and Saget is scolded for making stripper jokes in front of Jodie Sweetin (maybe that’s why she grew up to be so fucked up.  I can only guess because we never get to see any of her meth abuse in this movie, which would have been like the only cool part).

Between takes, Saget makes a bunch of totally valid observations about how terrible the show is and starts to walk off the set.  His adult costars convince him to stay because Dave Coulier will likely never work again if he doesn’t keep this gig and John Stamos shares the same fear even though he’s the only person on the show who has actual show business level talent.

I guess Dave Coulier is on a pep talk roll because the next scene is him talking to Moms Olsen about why she needs to keep her hideous babies on the show.  The best part is that the Olsen twin he’s holding is totally picking her nose during the scene.

That’s the best thing that happens in the whole movie.  At the end of this very special talk, Dave Coulier prompts the girls to deliver some Nicky and Alex level gibberish.  I guess that means that they’re staying on the show?

As Season 1 comes to a close, Jeff Franklin anxiously awaits an answer as to whether the show will be picked up for another Season.  Despite all logic or good in the world, the network decides to continue on with this unholy endeavor, much to the casts gratification.

Dave Coulier farts with relief and the rest of the cast is like what the fuck?  Jodie Sweetin says, “how rude,” which is sorta snuck in there.  That’s the only reference to any of the catch phrases that were used on the show.  I guess if it’s used outside of a reenactment of a scene it’s ok?  Anyway, I’m really bothered by this farting thing.  Like, I really didn’t need another reason to hate Dave Coulier.  There were already way too many.  I just can’t even deal with this.

Jeff Franklin delivers a talk to the cast about how he’s cooking up ways for the show to suck less dick in Season 2.  That poor, deluded son of a bitch.  He wants more family oriented narratives and he decides to add the character of Rebecca Donaldson.

We see Lori Loughlin’s first day on set and she’s introduced to John Stamos, but it turns out they’re already familiar, as they used to hit skins back in the day.  They have a debate over who ended things and there’s a real Jesse and Becky tension, you guys.  You can tell that Stamos is right about to whip it out for her but then she tells him that she just got married.  Dang!  Sorry, Stamos!  At least you’ll get to make out with her on tv all the time.

We get to listen to “Everybody Have Fun Tonight” by timeless artists Wang Chung as a montage rolls across the screen, indicating that the show has become a hit.  The Olsen twin’s mom is advised to get a lawyer by… someone.  I can’t remember who it is.  I think it’s supposed to be Jodie Sweetin’s mom?  Anyway, those kids are proving the be a hot commodity and their mom is starting to get more savvy about it.

As Season 3 begins, Kimmie Gibbler runs in to the kids backstage school session and tells Candace Cameron that she’s become a series regular.  This actress does nothing to simulate the radness of Kimmie Gibbler but it doesn’t even matter because this is like the only time we see her.

There’s a pan over to Jodie Sweetin giving them side-eyes and I guess we’re supposed to get a sense that she feels left out or something.  That’s about as much Jodie Sweetin character building as we’ll get in this entire movie.

John Stamos gives Dave Coulier a pep talk to convince him to ask out some model that he’s into.  He lists Coulier’s positive qualities in attempt to lift his spirits, which is really difficult to sit through.  He should just be like, “you’re rich now and even though you suck and so does the show that you’re on, you’re famous regardless so you might as well abuse that.”

Bob Saget tells the other dads that Michelle Tanner is officially the most recognized female character on television and they all scramble to get more scenes with her.  Meanwhile, Moms Olsen meets with Jeff Franklin and her fancy new layer to get a bunch more money for her disgusting babies even though she’s totally not in this for the money.

Meanwhile, Bob Saget gets called into a meeting with a bunch of soulless executives and they actually do a pretty good job of conveying how he would talk shit right to their faces and they’d be like, “oh, you!”  They offer him the hosting gig of Americas Funniest Home Videos, AKA People Getting Hit in the Nuts: the Series, and after going home and talking at his wife for a few minutes he decides to take it.

The next scene shows John Stamos jammin’ out with his band in the rehearsal room, which is kind of confusing to me.  Why are they doing that?  Are those supposed to be The Rippers?  Why are they allowed to perform in the rehearsal room?  Was this a real thing they used to do?  It seems kind of weird to show this without any set-up or context.  Anyway, the whole cast all dance around together like a bunch of corny goofballs, except for Bob Saget, who’s like, what a bunch of dipshits.  I don’t know, this movie is kind of making me respect him a tiny bit.

We cut to 1990 and there’s a large and diverse family shown tuning into TGIF to watch Full House and then we see a really amazing psuedo-rendition of the shows opening.

At some sort of cast gathering, Dave Coulier informs his costars that he’ll be marrying Jane, who I can only assume is the model that he was talking about a few scenes ago.  That poor, poor woman.

Candace Cameron runs panic-stricken through the backstage area searching for Lori Loughlin, who she finds on set rehearsing a scene with John Stamos.  Candace tells Lori that she’s straight buggin’ because she has an onscreen smooching scene and it’s her first kiss.  Lori convinces Stamos to demonstrate a screen kiss with her while Cameron watches and if the scene wasn’t so poorly directed and performed it would give you a clear sense of the sexual tension that exists between the two actors.

I don’t think that this is an intentional reference to all the weird scenes on the show where characters stared at Uncle Jesse while he made out with some floozy but I thought I’d refer to the similarities here because that shit lives in my brain now and there’s nowhere else to put it.  After the kiss, Lori Loughlin abruptly exits the scene, presumably to go rub one out.

Dave Coulier tells the fellas that his poor, unfortunate wife is seeded with his blasphemous brethren and then the conversation soon turns to all the poonana that John Stamos gets.  There’s a trivia checklist of all the famous women he’s banged and then they talk for a minute about how he’s really into Paula Abdul.  Dang, I totally didn’t know about that!  That’s actually kind of interesting, from a useless early 90’s trivia standpoint  Abruptly, and unrelated to anything else that’s happening in the scene, Bob Saget’s sister walks onto the set and tells him that she’s dying of some rare disease.  I’m not gonna make any shitty jokes about that, tho, because what am I, a monster?

John Stamos make an appearance at some event with Paul Abdul and a reporter asks him what it’s like to be dating her and then follows-up with, “you’re still on that kids show, right?”  We never really see the ramifications of this scene so I’m not sure what exactly it’s supposed to be saying about their relationship (like is he insecure about her being more successful than him? Is that what they’re trying to convey?) but I did notice that they totally cast a white woman to play Paula Abdul.  She doesn’t even have any lines!  They could have cast anyone that looked at all like Paula Abdul to play her!  What the fuck?

Stamos whines to his dad about how he’s still never gotten a movie role.  I guess that was the point of that last scene… it still doesn’t tell us anything about his relationship with white Paula Abdul… We do learn that they just broke up, tho. Why?  We’ll never know.  Gentle music plays as Dad Stamos tells his son to grow the fuck up and I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be a reference to the show or not.  Gentle music is a staple of many bad televised narratives.

As Jeff Franklin witness the soulless commodification of the Olsen twins by corporate bigwigs take shape, he sees a live feed of Bob Saget making lewd gestures and jokes with a mannequin between takes.  It really goes on for a long time.

Jeff Franklin and Bob Saget have a heated exchange over his inappropriate tomfoolery and I guess it’s supposed to be a big moment, which is yet another indication that nothing controversial really happened behind the scenes of this show.

It’s late and I’m tired so I guess that wraps it up for this week.  There’s only about half an hour left at this point so I can probably finish this monstrosity up in the next installment.  Thanks for reading, guys!  It’s great to be back, even for something this awful.  Tune in next week, and be sure to check out the Saved By the Bell Reviewed Podcast, starring me and several other hilarious geniuses.

 

The Unauthorized Full House Story Part 1

Damn, guys, I guess there’s more Full House stuff.  I’m gonna review Fuller House when that happens but in the interim there was a terrible Lifetime movie so why don’t we have a friendly little chat about that?

So, this thing is bad and everything, but it’s also pretty well suited to the quality of its subject.  I just saw Straight Outta Compton and it kind of amazed me to see an actual high-quality biopic get made for once, but imagine if they’d made a Full House movie of that caliber.  I mean, it couldn’t be done, because there’s pretty much no story to tell here, but like imagine if this movie actually looked like it cost money to make or had even one talented actor in it.  It’s kind of a zen practice to try to conjure up that image because it’s so unfathomable that it just makes your mind draw a complete blank.

Anyway, let’s get into the point-by-point shit talking.  The “movie” opens with the actor who plays Dave Coulier backstage talking to what I wouldn’t so much call an actor as a confused child who is depicting one of the Olsen twins.  The guy who plays Coulier is pretty lousy but I was so grateful to not have to look at Uncle Joey’s actual face for any of this that he never really bothered me.

The two of them head onstage and I was going to say that they embark on a reenactment of a Full House episode but the thing they’re doing isn’t based on any episode that I remember seeing.  I know that I was stoned on pot for most of the episodes that I watched (especially the early ones.  BOY was I high all the time back then!) but I’m really certain that there was never a sleepwalking Uncle Joey episode.  I guess that this is a thing about rights. Like, the people at Lifetime must know the exact amount of stuff that you can do in a biopic without getting sued.  Probably you gotta cough up some cash to do an episode reenactment?

And if that doesn’t throw you enough, check out this set!  That looks more like Archie Bunker’s house than the Full House.  It’s, like, inverted.  Again, I have to assume that this is a rights thing, like they changed it just exactly enough to not have to give anyone any money.

So then a bunch of no-name actors come out as various characters from the show and it kind of makes your brain reel.  It’s weird because it was already unsettling to see all those terrible people in those garish outfits deliver that intolerable dialogue when it was actually happening, but seeing a skewed reenactment of it is even more fucked up somehow.  It’s like seeing a hideous monster reflected in a funhouse mirror, and it keeps telling all these corny jokes.

So the actors run through their crappy fake episode reenactment until the Olsen Twin shits its pants and they have to stop the scene (that’s really what happens!) and then the camera pans up and we cut to 2 years earlier.

Wait, what?  Oh, I get it.  That was, like, the high drama moment.  Most crappy biopics start at a moment that’s supposed to pull you in, like when the guy it’s about is smoking crack in a hotel room or like getting robbed at knife point by a prostitute who’s high on crack or like skiing on a steep, dangerous mountain in the Ozarks while he’s high on crack or something, and then it cuts to when he’s young and innocent and you’re like, man, I gotta see how this hopeful young man ends up being a treacherous crack smoker, especially since he was also the writer of Alf.  The problem here is that the moment they’ve used to try to hook us with reveals that nothing at all interesting is about to take place for the entire movie.  And this isn’t just me being that cranky guy on the internet that shits all over Full House all the time, either.  There’s like zero drama in this whole thing.  The big conflict is that (spoiler alert) Bob Saget is aware that the show sucks.  Outside of that there’s really nothing controversial or even interesting here.  Nobody even hits a crack pipe, not one time.

2 years earlier, Bob Saget was telling dirty jokes on stage.  The jokes aren’t that dirty here because this is a cheap network television movie (his bit is about tampons, which you can totally talk about on every channel) but you get the idea.  Faux-Saget heads backstage and meets up with Faux-Coulier, informing the audience that they were pals before starring on the worst sitcom of all time together.  They have a friendly exchange with Mrs. Faux-Saget before she leaves them to do guy stuff, like drink booze and trade handjobs (just like on their tv show!  Well, not the booze…).

Faux-Coulier tells Faux-Saget that he’s just been cast on Saturday Night Live and Faux-Saget congratulations him before going into a whiny diatribe about how all the comedians that they came up with are getting tv deals except for him.  I guess it would feel pretty bad to see Dave Coulier get better comedy gigs than you.

We cut to a generic diner, where we meet Faux-Stamos, who is working for his father after quitting his role on General Hospital.  I’m just gonna assume that he’s working there to help his dad out and not because he spent all of his tv money already.  I mean, come on.  Anyway, Faux-Stamos gets ogled by a bunch of horny broads while his dad gives him a pep talk about his acting career.  Young Stamos worries that the course of his career has led him to be seen in the acting world as “damaged goods,” which is incredibly naive considering that he’ll still be getting work in 20 years after appearing in the worst thing ever filmed (including footage of actual torture) but, you know, hindsight’s 20/20.  Faux-Stamos is comforted first by his father’s reassuring words and then by sauntering over to those horny broads to tear them walls up.

Bob Saget’s low wage doppelganger goes home to his wife to tell her some big news and she says that she has big news, too, and then in true sitcom fashion he keeps interrupting her when she tries to talk and tells her all about how he’s got an offer to be the lame comic relief on a morning news show.  He questions whether or not he should take the job and then his wife tells him that she’s pregnant because that’s all wives ever say on tv after their big news gets interrupted over and over again.

Phoney baloney Dave Coulier’s agent calls him and tells him that the people at Saturday Night Live realized that he’s the worst comedian of all time and his stupid fucking face would be a pox on their show so he didn’t get the gig after all and then Coulier pouts like a stupid whiny baby.  Meanwhile, Fakey Bob Saget decides to take the morning show gig.  I think that these two scenes are supposed to be visually woven together by the artful use of cordless phones.

We cut to the ABC Network, where a bunch of fancy bigwigs have a meeting.  There are some real tasty looking donuts on the table and no one is even eating them.  That always drives me nuts on tv shows when there are delicious snacks at a meeting and everyone just acts like they’re not even there.  Man, if I was at that meeting I’d be tearin’ them donuts up.

The meeting scene is actually a pretty decent explanation of how Jeff Franklin, who wrote some actually quite watchable movies that played on cable ten millions times throughout my youth (“Summer School” and “Just One of the Guys”), wanted to pitch a show about a bunch of comedians who lived in a house together and was cajoled by the network into a series of creative compromises that led to the monstrocity that is Full House.  It all kind of makes sense from a soulless tv network perspective.  Like, let’s just throw a bunch of obnoxious kids into that mix and make it really emotionally manipulative and you’ve got yourself a series!

After a brief sequence of Bob Saget just not quite fitting in on his morning show gig, he finds out that his wife is in the hospital.  It turns out that she had an emergency c-section but is ok and then Sister Saget comes in to establish her character, which may be important later.

As Jeff Franklin prepares for his initial casting session for the Full House pilot, he expresses concern to either Miller or Boyett about being unsure of the creative direction of the series he’s helming.  Meanwhile, Candace Cameron delivers a mediocre audition, which we know because the casting director says so to Jeff Franklin, as the actress playing Candace Cameron’s performance is pretty much on par with everything else we see in this movie.

As the casting process continues, we learn more fun trivia about the show, like that the creators wanted Paul Reiser to audition for Danny but he’d already signed on to do My 2 Dads, which is pretty much the same show except not as shitty (and, paradoxically, not as successful).  These sorts of moments are really what this movie is all about.  You don’t get much actual dirt (seriously, not one crack rock in the whole production) but you do get a lot of useless factoids.  Anyway, Candace Cameron’s soulless show-business mom storms back into the casting office with her daughter in hand and, in true Full House fashion, they are awarded another opportunity for overstepping their boundaries.  There is a smart creative choice in this scene of playing music over Candace’s audition so we don’t evaluate her actual performance but we do get the idea that she did a much better job this time and is awarded the role.

As the casting process continues, Dave Coulier gets a call from his agent to let him know that he’s been offered the role of Joey for some unholy reason (probably some goats got sacrificed, or maybe Dave Coulier just sucks a powerful mean dick) and then we see John Stamos fight his way through a horde of groupies to have a lunch with Jeff Franklin that leads to him being cast as Uncle Jesse.

Even though the Olsen twins are only in the audition room because their mom is there with a friend who’s peddling her own children, Jeff Franklin can feel it at the base of his nuts that he can make those 2 ugly babies into soulless media moguls some day.

Bob Saget gets fired from the morning news show because he’s got the second most punchable face in television.  His wife suggests that she go back to work early so he can be a stay at home dad for a while and he’s totally just like fuck that noise.  Like, super flat out.  His wife suggests that he makes an effort to get cast as Danny Tanner and, after some resistance, he agrees to go for it.  Anything’s better than being a stay at home dad!

There’s a teeny tiny flair of storytelling as the producers are shown announcing the casting of Danny and it’s revealed that John Posey has received the role.  Jeff Franklin watches the pilot in his office and expresses his feeling that John Posey’s face just isn’t begging to be punched enough for his terrible abomination of a tv series.  Franklin insists to the producer that Bob Saget is the only man for the job and then they both wonder how they’ll break the news to John Posey.  We never actually see the scene where John Posey is let go, or hear any mention of him ever again in this movie.  Man, I’d give anything to know how John Posey feels about being let go from Full House.  Is it a bummer or a total relief?  Oh, wait, I just googled “john posey full hosue interview” and found all the answers… maybe I’ll read it later.

And with that, the cast of Full House is assembled, which seems like a good stopping point for the first review.  Man, I’m totally not used to writing this kind of crap anymore.  How did I ever have time to do this?  Anyway, I’m guessing it’ll take 3-4 weeks to review this whole thing.  I hope people keep reading it.  If  you want to hear more of my dumb thoughts about shitty pop culture, be sure the check out the Saved By the Bell Reviewed Podcast, where I chat about that show with a regular cast of depraved weirdos (and an occasional special guest!) each week.

Introduction

For those of you who are just stumbling across this site for the first time, Full House Reviewed is a blog that writes scathing reviews of every episode of Full House, the worst sitcom of all time.  It was written to amuse people who have boring desk jobs.  It was the bizarre hobby of a cartoonist with a little bit too much free time on his hands, although, to be fair, he probably would have quit doing it if it hadn’t accumulated such a large following.  It took about 4 years to review every single episode and every entry is available to read for free in the archives.  After the project was completed, the author teamed up with another cartoonist, Carolyn Main, as well as a few more nerdy bloggers to create a podcast that reviews every episode of Saved By the Bell.  Subscribe to the Saved By the Bell Reviewed Podcast on itunes, and rate and review it, please.  You can also check out the podcast on its Tumblr page and like it on Facebook.