Season 7, Episode 23: It Had to Be You

What erected residence formed the venue for the events then taking place?

A three-story asymmetrical towered Victorian house, address undisclosed.

By what sobriquets did its chief lessee privately refer to it?

Cousin Cottage. Neverowned Ranch. Appletown.

What living-room object could be seen from a position exterior to the house, yet remained unseen from revealed vantages interior?

A domed lampshade.

 

What duration of time had elapsed between Larry Appleton’s procurement of flowers as connubial restorative and the vibrato peal of the telephone?

A period of no less than fourteen days and of no more than one month.

What objects appeared related to the telephone by virtue of their shared proximity one to another?

An array of slips of 4” by 5” colored paper; a half-used pad of pink “While You Were Out” slips.

 

What negative associations did Larry Appleton have in regards to the former?

Of embarrassment social; of debasement professional; of tumult psychological.

 

With what inner mantra did he regain calmness, and with what hand did he pick up the phone?

He was a hollow reed; his left.

 

What person was with him as he composed a note?

His wife, Jennifer Lyons-Appleton.

What proved this relationship?

The auric bands on each their left digitus annularis manus; their seated appropinquity; the suspicion that the latter is adhered to solely in resignation to the binding statutory nature of the former; the contiguous establishment of same over preceeding course of twenty episodes.

 

What impeded Larry Appleton from touching his wife?

His belief (justified) regarding her belief of his desirability. Her belief (justified) that it signalled interpersonal closeness.

 

Who was on the phone with Larry Appleton?

Tina.

 

Who was not on the phone with Larry Appleton?

Gus.

 

Mensurate the odds that Tina will be seen; that Tina will be mentioned again outside this scene; that Tina will be mentioned again outside this episode; that this Tina wears a heavy application of eyeliner, that this Tina is one and the same with a former resident of the Caldwell Hotel.

20:1; 100:1; 1,000,000:1; 400:1; 10,000:1.

 

With what intent had Tina phoned?

To solicit a second date with Balki Bartokomous.

 

What emotions were present in the voice of the listener upon apprehension of this?

Mock surprise, feigned interest, goodnatured praise.

 

How many second dates had the listener experienced in his lifetime?

One.

 

What advice did Larry Appleton give Tina as to when Balki Bartokomous would be available to tryst again like they did last week?

None.

What emotions and contemplations passed across Jennifer’s face upon secondhand apprehension of this news?

Real surprise at the steep number of the suitor’s applicants; surmisal at the proportions of the suitor’s sexual organ; resignation to her selection of mate; melancholy for her longtime friend.

 

What private comedic scene did Larry Appleton enjoy when envisioning his cousin’s serial rendezvous?

That his cousin would first lead each woman to a bed (sack ‘em) and proceed to abuse them by means of a manual blow to the buttocks (whack ‘em).

 

Were his reticences towards sharing this imagined scene with his bride of a general or of a specific nature?

Both.

 

Of a general?

Acquiescence to the practice of keeping one’s reveries to oneself; recognisance of prevailing social mores as regards abuse of the fairer sex.

 

Of a specific?

Failure of his memory to confirm if Jennifer had been present or in earshot of his variation on the phrase some three months prior; imprecise meaning in both terms; the projected time involved in clarifying definitions, referent, and his commitment to prevailing social mores as regards abuse of the fairer sex; his unwillingness to admit to having considered any nude flesh not possessed by his wife.

 

Have husband and wife endured untold hours sitting in place and taking messages for Balki Bartokomous?

The slips of paper attest to an absence of answering machine.

 

How many second dates had Jennifer experienced in her lifetime?

A multitude.

 

List her former suitors.

A Heisman winner, a baron, a count, a viscount, an accountant, a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker, the young senator from Tennessee, a cook, a thief, his wife, and her lover, Duke Lyle, Vince Lucas, Matt Minor, Frank Peterson, an economics professor, a statistics professor, a literature professor, the young senator from California, a teenaged male who asked importunately, a teenaged male who asked politely, a teenaged male who grunted and made lewd gestures, an unknown gentleman at the taping of Lydia Live!, an unknown gentleman at the taping of Ri$k It All, members of Chicago-area SA meetings upon their exit from church or community center, the young senator from Illinois, a corn-shucker in the employ of her father, a firetruck ladder.

 

What impressions are possible given this knowledge?

That she possesses both certitude of personal experience as well as certitude of adequate apprehension of the scope of the variance in human experience when relaying her reservations regarding Balki Bartokomous’s continued contentment in light of his recent practice of dating multiple women concurrently, and thus her reservations are well-placed; or that she possesses the former, but not in truth the latter, and thus her reservations are ill-placed; or that she possesses neither, and thus speaks only to set up her husband for punchlines.

 

What conclusion has Jennifer made about Balki’s emotional state?

His eventual and possibly current misery.

 

What self-imposed limit did Larry give himself when answering Jennifer’s concern?

Not to mention that a man possessed of such lithe gastrocnemii deserved to exist in a perpetual state of surroundment by the human female reproductive organ to a height of said muscle. That, counter to his personal choice of a guaranteed duumvirate of bodies, relationships additive in quantity are not subtractive in quality.

 

Was this information yet conveyed?

Yes.

 

How?

Through non-verbal means.

 

Such as?

Intense elevation of the corrugator supercilii, tensing of the zygomaticus majora and levator labii superioris, tilting of the head downward, eyes yet in contact with those of his wife, exaggerated rising pitch, and laugh.

Did either husband or wife note the irony involved in their divergences?

Which divergences was that again?

 

Of prior dating experience and voiced opinion of Balki’s emotional state.

Got it.

 

Well?

Hmm?

 

Did they note any irony about those?

No.

 

What potential corrective do the divergences in experience and opinion offer the episode relative to its precedents?

A replacement of the prior, and mostly recently absent, experiential and ideological differences weekly promulgated by Cousins Larry Appleton and Balki Bartkomous.

 

Does the episode realize this through means of further plot?

That this quality remains only nascent in the penultimate episode of a season can only be regarded as a disappointment.

 

On what point were their views equal?

That Balki’s need for, and eventual pairing with, a woman was unquestioned.

 

So how are these broads getting Balki’s number anyway?

Yeah no idea. Maybe Larry’s been writing it on bathroom stalls at all the subway and L stations?

 

Conceive a more respectful background that could eventuate this scene.

Larry has exercised nepotic leverage to advertise his relative’s bachelorhood in the Sunday magazine, exploiting audience familiarity with the sequential art feature “Dimitri’s World”, instilling in the reader a false equivalence between familiarities; that openness to the prospect of the sexual act with led naturally from appreciation of art output of same.

 

What public advertisement could convey the implicit explicit message as well as his deficiencies?

“His pen is mightier than his words.”

 

Be cruder.

“You’ve seen his cartoon–let his peen in your poon!”

 

That’s more silly than crude. What other ironies existed at the moment?

That entrance into marriage bond had not obtained happiness for either wife or husband; that accumulation of slips of colored paper indicates publication of phone number, yet the audience is shown a call from a woman who did not get the number from a publication; that 142 other episodes have offered no proof that a unified bachelor’s dream is shared by both cousins; that Mary Anne Spencer’s feelings are not considered.

 

What were Mary Anne’s feelings on the matter?

The only character who is in a position to know this is Jennifer.

 

Jennifer?

—

 

If Larry or Jennifer had contemplated locking their front door as a preventative against home invasion, why had they not?

The combined visual and spatial mental acuity that afforded them the confidence the domed lampshade was visible from the street.

 

What did the opening door reveal?

One Myposian cousin and one stumbling, estrous woman entering the domicile.

Describe the woman’s state and appearance.

Crazed, relative to the range of emotional expression in evidence in this sitcom; blithe, in that she openly requests being plied with alcohol; pitiable, that she desires sexual congress while hoping to mitigate her responsibility in same; brunette; wearing floral print dress of a cut designed to display a heaving embonpoint; light application of eyeliner.

Which of these caused irritation to Balki Bartokomous?

The first; the second; the third.

 

With what ruse did he pretend to misunderstand the woman’s advances?

A confusion of suggestion of postmeridian imbibing with a suggestion of sharing postmeridian bonnet.

 

With what impropriety did husband and wife respond to these events?

Open stares.

With what impropriety did the audience respond, and what purpose did this serve for them?

Hooting, cheering, applause: cathartic outlet in a puritanical era: collective recall of collective unconscious of the species of an era when sexual acts were public and celebrated.

 

How did Balki allay this irritation?

By propelling the woman backwards over the threshold.

What traditional Myposian words of farewell accompanied this act?

“Watch your fingers.”

 

What did Balki simultaneously accomplish by raising his left foot equivalent with the height of the communal sofa’s arm?

Taking up more than the volume his body occupied when not doing so; drawing the attention of home and studio audiences; conveying a cool, self-satisfied manner; rearranging the inhibitory pressures of inelastic clothing to positions more favorable to a tumescent member.

Of what did the reunited duumvirate of cousins deliberate then?

Balki’s date with Heather, whether he had fun (he did), what appurtenances Heather possessed at her place of residence (a trampoline), the implications of owning a trampoline, the mention of such implications as proof of Larry’s prior conjecture to Balki’s emotional state, Balki’s date with Kimberly, the disappearance of Kimberly during a staged presentation of sleight-of-hand entertainment, Balki’s failure to consider searching for her, the impossibility of improvement over his current situation.

What action was at variance with the young man’s account?

He began to weep.

What purposes did this action serve?

Catharsis of inner feeling to outer reality; reconcilement of discord between experience and emotion; demonstration of trust in cousin and cousin-by-marriage to responding to his invulnerability with comfort; censure of self-sure proclamations of authority on matters bacheloric.

Bacheloric? You made that up.

As did others previously.

 

What imperfect metaphor was employed by the young bachelor to describe his deeper vulnerability in the face of Jennifer’s lack of faith in his account?

That she had seen through him like an empty aquarium.

 

How imperfect?

75%.

 

No, I mean: why imperfect?

To see through someone is to see past them (general); the possibility of seeing through non-empty aquariums (specific).

 

What else was imperfect about Balki’s speech?

The day is not long enough to enumerate them.

 

What else was imperfect about Balki’s speech in this moment?

Misquotation of the song “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay”; partial misapplication of song meaning to personal occurrence.

 

His next proceeding?

Exit to the kitchen.

 

What advantages to Larry and Jennifer attended letting Balki lodge with them?

Reprieve from pressure to devise other topics of conversation; financial.

 

What conclusions did Jennifer make to her husband?

That Balki’s statement to her was not imperfect; that it described not her action, but his sensations; that his despair at losing Mary Anne was evident through his quotation of song lyrics.

 

What thematic link existed between her two conclusions, and which extension of this link rendered the latter incorrect?

That Balki felt hollow; that his head was hollow; that his head was populated only by reference to pop culture.

 

On what point did their views further diverge?

Whether Balki should reach out to Mary Anne or adopt a more laconic pace of dating.

 

What text did Larry’s vocalization of his viewpoint call to mind for him?

“Two bulls, a father and son, stand atop the crest of a hill. They overlook in the field below them a grazing herd of female cattle. The young bull, having recently reached maturation, appeals to the father: “Father, see the cows below us. It is meet that we run to this herd and each of us fuck a cow.” The elder bull smiles at the impetuousness of youth. “My son,” he says, “there is no need. We shall walk down there and fuck them all.”

 

And to Jennifer, after hers?

Genesis 2:18-20: And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. [19] And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. [20] And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

Larry’s acts?

To qualify his earlier statements; to agree with his wife to tear himself from her side to speak with his cousin; to boast of his own sexual history as a common point of experience between himself and Balki; to qualify his experience not in claimed number of women (dozens to hundreds), but in domain of interaction (three-dimensional to two-dimensional); to promise to set Balki on the proper path of intercourse with the opposite sex; to qualify his statement to clarify he meant humans; to exit the room.

 

Did the man reappear elsewhere?

After a lapse of one second the curls of his hair were discernible as the kitchen’s internal door turned quickly on its hinges. In the open space of the doorway the man appeared without his horn.

With what modern conveniences and other items was the kitchen outfitted?

A double wall oven, a tabletop stove, a tiled floor, a combination refrigerator/freezer, handtowels for protection from scalding and for removal of liquid spills, garlic braids, paper towels, a sink, drying rack, charcuterie/cutting board, food processor, telephone, coffee maker, teapot, salt and pepper shakers, carafes, serving platter, ceramic plates in alternating periwinkle and crimson (a wedding gift from the elder Lyons), a box of Life cereal, package of Quaker Oats (quarter empty), 4lb bag of refined white sugar (two-thirds empty), jar of Karo syrup, bottle of Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup, bottle of Bosco chocolate syrup, bottle of Hershey’s chocolate syrup, 8 cans of Lyon’s creamed corn (four past expiration date), bag of Vitner’s potato chips (opened, none eaten), box of Giggles cookies (one cookie remaining), three cans of chocolate frosting, stack of paper (three paper knives cut from top sheet), framed 8×10 photograph of vertical series of signs advising of distances and directions to nearby towns.

 

What items were peculiarly absent given Balki’s proclivities?

A festoonment of family photographs, postcards, coupons, and novelty magnets on the anterior of the combination refrigerator/freezer.

 

Did Balki note his cousin’s arrival?

Only upon feeling the pressure of his cousin’s hand through the fabric of his shirt.

Describe the shirt.

We’re never going to get through this if you insist on–

 

Describe the damn shirt.

If it was indeed a cotton/polyester blend, the balance was in favor of the latter, with billowing sleeves, button-down front, and stripes in a variety of colors in rich saturation: crimson, seaweed, golden olive, and eggplant.

What phrase hinted at a reversal of roles?

“Let me get this straight.” Larry said it.

 

What discrete succession of premises did Larry enumerate?

That Balki was dating numerous women, that they were gorgeous, that these meetings occurred at most three times in a single day, and that Balki was unhappy.

 

What in women did Balki, womanpesterer, dater of women, womancarrier admire?

Their universality: their democratic equality in the United States of America and constancy to a common system of dress, manner of speaking, and range of interests: their butts: the variability of arrangement of facial features accumulating to an average American face: their willingness to be manhandled: the inner and outer surfaces of their footwear: their subsidence after devastation: their sterility in advanced age: their preponderance over males in a ratio of 107 to 100 globally: their indisputable hegemony extending over the region of the male psyche: their weight and volume and density: their healing virtues: the noxiousness of their effluvia.

 

What acrobatic act had he attempted on a recent date?

To throw three women into the air and maintain their range of elevation, their velocities, and his own muscular haleness.

 

Had he succeeded?

The act proved insalubrious to all three, though only the final was considered pertinent to present discussion.

 

Under whose instruction had he undertaken this behavior?

His cousin Larry’s.

What evidence did Larry then find, and by what means?

Evidence of the truth of the story by touching Balki’s shoulder.

 

What quality did his (Larry’s) hand possess but with what counteracting effect?

The necessary fine motor skill to extend and meet a common bodily area of comfort, but with the effect of repeating his cousin’s pain.

What prevented Larry from explaining to Balki the true significance of the metaphorical phrase the latter had understood in a literal sense?

Firstly, a sense of expediency; secondly, he had done so for this same phrase on three separate occasions (in reference to Balki’s erstwhile concurrent work as caterer, mailboy, and stage manager; in reference to grocery bags; in reference to the latter’s attempt at abrasive dentitional ablution simultaneous with postdefecatory sanitization); thirdly, the net quality (after subtraction of risks to self) of superiority afforded him by another’s perpetual stupefaction.

 

What domestic problem as much as, if not more than, any other frequently engaged his mind?

How to rid himself of his cousin.

What had been his hypothetical singular solutions?

Deportation (framing for aggravated felony); prison (framing for felony); jail (framing for misdemeanor); moving to Montana soon; painting the house; wearing a Halloween mask and answering only to “Fred”; abandonment in an Iowan cornfield; suicide; murder.

 

What instances of deficient mental development in his cousin inclined him in favor of the lastmentioned (ninth) solution?

All; every; each.

 

Did they find their educational careers similar?

Substituting Balki for Larry Barry would have passed successively through a Kindergarten, a primary or elementary school (grades 1-8), a high school and an undergraduate (dual) course of study in journalism and photography at Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin. Substituting Larry for Balki Lalki would have passed through 12 consecutive years on a hillside.

 

What two temperaments did they individually represent?

The intellectual. The spiritual.

 

What two cultures did they individually represent?

USian. Myposian.

 

What prior cultural interchange was evident?

That Larry had advised Balki on the American bachelor’s dream.

 

What specific advice had Larry previously offered?

To risk death in quest of sexual congress, to observe and catalog corporal details for later verbal narration to Larry.

 

How does Larry now qualify his advice?

With chauvinist rhetoric.

Be more specific.

To endure any level of discomfort or tedium in quest of sexual congress: irrelevant tales of personal experience and thought: body odor: abnormal spacing of eyes: financial status: tone and pitch of voice: ideological disagreement: taste in footwear: ultimately to date one woman at a time until likelihood of sexual congress is determined.

 

What consideration calls Larry’s advice into question?

The heretofore total visual and aural absence of Jennifer relating an irrelevant tale of personal experience and thought to Larry.

 

So why are we doing this Q&A anyway?

It’s a whole thing. I’ll tell you later.

 

Can you give me a timeframe?

Yes, I can.

 

Okay.

So what happens then?

Balki just kind of stares at Larry while the music cue plays.

Then what happens?

 

The show breaks for commercial.

What products were the commercials for?

 

Folg–hey, I’m supposed to be asking the questions! How much time passed between this conversation and Larry’s next?

ONE WEEK

Was this measurement exact?

Assuredly not.

 

How so?

It had been nighttime; it was now daytime.

 

What spectacle confronted the audience when the show returned from commercial advertisement?

Two women passing southward in front of Appletown.

To what extent does the conversation undertaken by Larry and Jennifer match their earlier undertaking?

Less than I had feared; more than I thought necessary.

 

What speculation did Larry advance?

That Balki was over Mary Anne.

 

Jennifer?

Yes, she’s there.

 

Her speculation?

Balki’s unhappiness.

What revelation troubled each their assumptions?

Balki’s.

 

Of?

Imminent denouement of the dating lifestyle with eventual marriage.

 

Jesus, it’s like pulling teeth. To?

A sweetheart of recent acquaintance.

 

To whom does he credit this development?

His cousin Larry.

With application of what sobriquet does he credit Larry, and of what can this be considered a malapropism?

“This big Cucamonga”, I was hoping you could tell me.

 

Did he say then in what arena their initial confluence had taken place, and what attributes of his had proven attractive?

A carousel, successful forswearance of deviant layering of clothing (shirt, trousers, undergarments).

 

Compress the dialogue.

Balki met her one hour prior, Jennifer hesitates to endorse quick decision-making, Balki expresses a standard word for visceral experience of sickness in the standard nonstandard way, Jennifer and Larry perpetuate their argument further, Balki intends to dine with his paramour that evening, she waited now in the kitchen for an introduction, Balki exits to the kitchen to retrieve her.

 

What might occupy her attention while there?

That there was no festoonment of family photographs, postcards, coupons, and novelty magnets on the anterior of the combination refrigerator/freezer.

 

What objects might occupy one’s attention in the current setting?

Stone fireplace, stone mantel, tapestry above mantel, wooden box, potted plant, framed photographs, lamp, credenza, framed photograph of stuffed likeness of Ovis aries.

What frequentative act had this sheep as its inspiration, and what variation on this act might today’s events further inspire?

The weekly sequential art feature “Dimitri’s World”, in the first squarebound image, Dimitri appears vertically next to vertical pole, the lower half of his body unseen thanks to lower border, his hoofs around the pole, in the second image, Dimitri’s position is lowered relative to the first image, his position relative to the pole unchanged, the third image is identical to the first, the fourth image provides a wider vantage from which can be seen that Dimitri sits astride a large wooden likeness of himself that functions as part of a carousel.

 

How would Balki caption this sequence of images?

This Dimitri I geting faymuss; Dimitri have it rekerd album seereeal and toy in storr; Dimitri no think it to be badd; But wy is they call Dimitri a carousellout?

 

And Larry?

Yes, he’s there.

 

😠

😆

 

How would Larry caption this sequence of images?

Yo, Dimitri here, bad boy sheep, what’s up?; Not old enough to have my face on lunchboxes. But here I am. Having my face on lunchboxes.; They call this place the “windy city”.; But I think “Sheepcago” sounds better, don’t you?

 

What erroneous statement from Larry did the impending revelation of mate necessitate?

That, if Balki’s lifespan were enlarged to match the lifespan of the Earth itself, a ratio of 1 year to 162,250,000 years, Mary Anne’s dedomiciling four weeks prior would correspond to the Miocene epoch.

 

What concept in quantum physics describes the above phenomenon?

Retrocausality.

What caused Larry embarrassment?

The ingress of a woman garbed in a Sears 1960s British Pop Singer Halloween costume. Before you ask, her name was Honey Liebowitz.

Was she a nasty little Jewish Princess?

Her fingernails are of notable length and of a luster unachievable by polish, and her hair of an unnatural hue.

 

Enumerate the other pre-menopausal women Balki had met during his sojourn in America, unrelated by birth, by marriage, and not as a result of his employment.

Mary Anne Spencer, Gina Morelli, between one and three Tinas, Heather, Beth, Amy, Kiki Karadopoulos, Susan Campbell, RN, waitress at donut shop, 18 women (per this episode, names unknown), secretary at Unicorn, a Vegas prostitute, Tess Holland, Linda, Bambi, a Dolly Parton lookalike, Mrs. Cooper, Linda Richards, Mrs. Holland, his rival for student body president, Katie Richards, two policewomen, Carol, four students in a journalism course, Kelly Langston, Fran, Hope, Nurse Socket, Mr. Wilson’s grieving masseuse/paralegal/financial advisor, dental assistant, Lisa Morgan, squealing woman in Greek restaurant, Roy, four jurors.

 

Why was the checkout girl at Bob’s Market Meats Produce omitted from this list?

She and Honey Liebowitz are one and the same.

 

The visible signs of her mental insufficiency?

Her nasal tone, her outmoded hairstyle, her question.

 

Her question?

That’s what I said.

 

State the question.

“Cousin Larry, are you a friend of Balki’s, or are you related?”

 

Thank you.

You’re welcome. What unspoken but implied ideology was present in her question?

 

The impossibility of simultaneous–hey! I’m warning you.

Hee hee.

 

How might a sexually active woman’s previous life and dating experience inform her question?

Having one father; having multiple daddies.

What pleasant reflection was not shared by Jennifer and Larry?

That Balki had engaged in self-discovery; that Balki has a type.

 

What previctualar pastime had Balki promised, had Honey anticipated, did Honey now demand?

Staging a race between human and outerwear thrown perforce through a laundry chute.

 

And with what vagueness was her demand relayed?

It was unclear whether Honey and Balki would also launch themselves through the chute: whether the concept was possible with nonsentient participants: whether any given pair of human and outerwear constituted a team: what prizes were on offer.

 

Provide commentation for this race in the style of a sports announcer.

Absolutely not.

For what qualities might Honey have reciprocated Balki’s infatuation?

His youthful demeanor: his playful tendency: his vocal imitation of television personalities: his musculi deltoideus, triceps brachii, brachioradialis, and biceps brachii: his plenitude of labia oris: his predominantly mono- and duosyllabic lexicon: his posture reminiscent of that of a kindergarten teacher when speaking to her: the humility indicated by billowy sleeves over musculi varia: his access to a laundry chute: his ownership of outerwear: the titillating distance between his understanding of physics and his certainty of its application: his discernment in general, and his praise specifically, of her selection of footwear: his honesty: his lack of correction regarding her speech: his butt.

 

What reason appeared more likely?

Mental over-correction of rising and falling pitch when attending to heavily accented and broken English at the moment of his asking for clarification of their relationship status.

What conclusion does Perfect Strangers invite the audience to reach through Honey’s dialogue?

That her scantness of reason was severe enough to guarantee her next question to Balki would be a request for instruction on the proper operation of a laundry gun. That Balki misses Mary Anne. That compulsory sterilization was not entirely unwarranted.

What opportunity did the preceding allow Jennifer?

An opportunity to demoralize her husband.

What impression of an absent face did Larry silently recall?

The face of his mother, Lois Appleton, née Olson, daughter of Silas and Emma.

 

Did the young lovers appear elsewhere?

After a commercial break the show turned its attention to the Chicago Chop House.

What comestibles were on offer?

Prime rib. Chicago chops.

 

What might a sitcom character order from such a business?

Prime time rib.

 

What distinguished it from the previous erigible?

Location: design: zoning: purpose: proprietorship: appurtenances: occupants: realization and publication of name.

 

What accompanied this establishing shot, and what emotions was it meant to evoke?

A fanfare of brass, strings, and percussion; galvanization, anticipation, recognition of trumpets.

 

What action did Balki make on their arrival at their destination?

Nervous flatulence.

Did they stand around like idiots in the foyer?

They stood around like idiots in the dining area.

 

Given the permeation of such images in situation comedies, what conclusions can be drawn?

Inadequate staffing, a lack of concern by restaurateurs for repeat clientele, the realities of statistical likelihood.

What information did Balki wait until this very moment to convey to his nubile towheaded companion?

Taking her hand, turning to face her, speaking in lover’s intonation, he intimated that the outer diameter of the restaurants breadsticks were of a size with the inner diameter of the human nostril.

Whom did Balki hug?

The maître d’hôtel.

 

How many previous encounters proved their preexisting acquaintance?

Three. The first and second in the apartment of Donald Twinkacetti’s Caldwell Hotel, Chicago, in the company of his cousin Larry Appleton, when the maître d’hôtel worked as a mailman. The third in the community theater auditorium during a rehearsal for Larry Appleton’s play Wheat!, during which time the maître d’hôtel worked at the Pasta Palace.

 

What appellation had you given him?

Doug Mailkenzie.

 

Update it.

Maître D’oug.

 

They called him Brad in “The Play’s the Thing”. Use that.

Brad Stick.

 

Adjust the capitalization on each.

Maître DOUG/BRAD Stick.

 

If names could feel, where might these names feel at home?

On a Garbage Pail Kids sticker.

 

Thanks.

S’aright.

 

S’aright?

S’aright.

What confused Doug?

That Balki requested a table for four, when only two were present.

 

Describe the previous occurrence, real or scripted for television, where two persons had lagged behind their dining partners.

Impossible; internal evidence proves the situation had never arisen before this moment.

 

Describe the restaurant.

Pass.

 

You can’t pass!

There’s screenshots.

 

In what endeavor were Larry and Jennifer engaged?

Insulting the labor class to its face.

Was there one point on which their views were equal and negative?

They anticipated an uncomfortable repast based on prior experiences in similar places of custom.

What impeded Larry from giving a parking attendant a sizeable tip, to which could be added the dignity of not demanding another human being not in one’s regular employ agree to their own devaluing, the spoken appreciation of the service, the courtesy waiting until after egress from the vehicle to expel a mixture of gases (59 parts nitrogen, 21 parts hydrogen, 9 parts carbon dioxide, 7 parts methane and 4 parts oxygen, traces of hydrogen sulfide and mercaptans), compassion towards the other and advancement of the self taking the form of a written editorial on the disadvantages to consumer and economy alike of the moral paucity of the custom of tipping?

The incompatibility of handling currency with his pretensions of status.

 

Describe again the severity of Honey’s diminished powers cogitation.

Why employment as a parking attendant effected a change in dialect for Southern Californian females only.

 

What concomitant feelings informed Larry’s actions?

Frustration at being called upon to engage in any outlay of income in his position as invitee, frustration at the prospect of listening to the prattling of a woman without concomitant prospect of sexual congress with same.

 

What’s he going to spend that spared dollar on anyway?

The parking attendant was slashing his tires at that moment.

 

What, reduced to its simplest description, is the extent of the physical comedy in this episode?

Larry bids Balki and Honey remove themselves to the farthest end of the cushioned bench at the table; an excited Balki and Honey exit the bench and bid Larry and Jennifer remove themselves to the farthest end of the cushioned bench.

Estimate the number of printers from whom restauranteurs in Chicago may have sought production of menus in 1992.

One.

 

What, reduced to its simplest terms, is a core two-way nullifying aspect shared by both this and the episode previous?

Similarity of premise.

 

Combine both plots into one episode.

Would that I could.

 

What personages then benefited from the presence of Maître D’oug?

Mary Anne Spencer; Larry Appleton; Jennifer Lyons-Appleton.

Name the former’s astrological sign.

Sagittarius.

Name the benefit to Larry and Jennifer.

Forewarning. Forearming.

For whom would the former word’s meaning be uninteresting, and for whom would the latter word’s meaning be frightening?

Honey (assumption of golf jargon). Mary Anne (body horror resulting from generation of limbs).

To what yardage did Larry remove his cousin from the table to warn him of impending reunion?

None.

Did Balki find four separating forces between himself and his quondam inamorata?

Time, distance, clothing. Only three, I guess.

 

You can’t come up with a fourth?

Maybe his nearness to his girlfriend.

You mean to Honey?

I’m not mean to Honey, she likes it that way.

 

Assert alien’s arrangement alliterationally.

Balki betwixt bookend blondes.

 

What truths and untruths did Balki and Mary Anne trade?

The quality of their appearances, the quality of their emotions.

What failures and successes of sorority manifested?

The regained equilibrium of communication between Jennifer and Mary Anne subsequent the latter’s change of locale was marked by an abatement relative to its former equilibrium; Mary Anne complimented Honey’s coiffure.

What supererogatory marks of special hospitality did the host show his former friend?

Relinquishing the exclusivity of his current venture, he invited her to table, jeopardizing the positive mood of the venture, he invited her date to table, ignoring extrapersonal opinion, he did not consult with three persons before showing these special marks of supererogatory hospitality.

 

What actor was enlisted to portray Mary Anne’s escort?

Other Pinchot: other he.

What qualities of his appearance were of greatest significance to the plot?

Gender: hair color: hair style: gestalt vestiture: vocal patterns: accent: height: billowy sleeves: Mandarin collar: design on vest anterior: facial features.

 

Summarize.

And some are lips, what’s your point?

 

You know what I fucking mean.

They’re basically the same guy.

 

What Perfect Strangers custom did he immediately perform when entering the dining room and scanning his vicinage?

Look right.

 

The audience’s reaction?

As if Jesus had appeared and given his personal endorsement of each their heteroclite fantasies.

 

Can we talk now about what your point is with this format? List the signs of lassitude.

Yes. We’re both getting punchy, we’re ready to come to blows, and I’m winded.

 

Here, sit down, you’re listing.

Haha.

 

Is apologia available and forthcoming for the experimental approach to longform sitcom assessment?

Restlessness: respite from monotony: enhanced phrenic engagement in the reader effecting co-ownership of humor: enablement of discussion of meta-textual or fanciful points of discussion: occlusion of authorial perturbation having its origin in considered text: added value over the hundred other abandoned Perfect Strangers review blogs: self-congratulation: demonstration of lexical superiority: assumption of nonzero chance of readership comprehension of referents.

 

The disadvantages?

Attrition of readership: misapprehension of humor and meta-textual discussion: risk of imbalance in creative, meta-textual, humor, and evaluative aspects.

 

Ensure an adequate portion of the fourth of the latter.

The serendipity afforded by the insistence of genetics allows the episode an enhancement of what it already sought: the availability of recognizable dumb blonde character actress lends a certain pleasurability not possible with fourth- or lower-tier character actors: the concept that Mary Anne and Balki would shun new experience in favor of exact replacement is fun and sweet: that one third of the story takes place off-screen is not: that the resolution does not involve either Balki or Mary Anne’s realization of this and instead treats rejection of potential mates as a series of nitpicks of minor traits is not: Balki escaping once again the consequences of two episodes previous by preferring Mary Anne only slightly to another woman reveals a paltriness of conceptive faculties in the writers: having Larry and Jennifer in this scene just takes time away from the premise, why the fuck are they there?

 

Are we done here, then?

Man we’re only halfway through this episode.

 

Are further apologetics available for authorial insertion in this manner?

Any format experiment achieves uncloaking of the author; further disclosure is marginal.

 

What complicates that answer?

That the immediate format experiment constitutes nothing less than brazen theft of the penultimate chapter (“Ithaca”) of James Joyce’s Ulysses. That explicit explication appears as apology, not apologetics, suggesting a failure of the selected format to ipsa loquitur.

 

What mitigates the latter?

That the “Ithaca” chapter had explication as a purpose.

 

Is there sufficient justification for its application to this episode?

The episode does not demand this format. Nor did “The Gazebo”. Yet perhaps there is a reflection, through a mirror, darkly, in the author’s experiments of the sitcom’s own. As Gazebo to Laurel & Hardy, so Gazeboreview pale imitation of David Foster Wallace. Suggestion of Ulysses by friend for personal enjoyment kindled feelings of kinship (self and balkilarryselves) with Joyce (and text and stephenbloomselves) akin to that of exuberant, wayward youth and established, dreaming elder. I experimented minor in minor key form; he major in Major Tweedy form. I saw the rain-dirty valley, he saw Brigadoon. I saw the crescent, he saw the whole of the moon.

 

Dig one more piece of lint out of that pocket.

Bloom kissed her crescents; “please touch the hole of my moon”.

 

Why that chapter for this verse?

Prior commitment to such beginning with “Citizenship, Part 1”. Assignation of chapters of book to episodes of sitcom. Regular interweaving of textual references from former to latter (collect ‘em all!). The author’s admitted exiguousity in prosaical writing acumen (indeed prosaic) to mimic the style of any other chapter. Similarity of themes within both texts (duality of self, marital discord, equivocation in the face of romantic pursuit, impossibility of communication between older and younger males, possibility of communication between older and younger males, butts) and similarity of format to personal obsessions (contriving a deep-dive to shrive, stive, and shuck and jive, completeness anteceding cessation of protracted narrative) leads me to adopt the considered opinion that the approach is an echological one.

 

Echological?

Echological.

 

Well, I walked right into that one.

Hoho.

 

Declare the winners in various categories in a battle royale of the butts between Balki’s Mama, Molly Bloom, Travis McKenna, and Katherine Sutter from the Newhart episode “I Like You, Butt…”.

Longest number of years with a large butt: Mama

Largest longterm impact on Western culture: Molly Bloom

Largest relative to body type: Katherine Sutter

Smelliest (foul): Travis McKenna

Smelliest (agreeable): Molly Bloom

Largest overall: Mama

 

Revise the name.

Battle Glutale.

 

Name potential hosts of the televised event.

Chuck Bareass. Butt Sajak. Alan Thicc.

 

Stand on one leg.

Simon didn’t say!

 

Speaking of verses, what song parody in key of D minor does the current scene suggest?

What advantages had Joyce? What advantages have you?

Greater time period; full control over described events; more intimate familiarity with systems, literature, and history. The original publication of Ulysses preceded the Internet by some six decades; impending deadlines impart and demand a devil-may-care deportment and headlong approach; the establishment of modern forms of catechism in the decades intervening.

 

To wit?

Knock knock.

 

Who’s there?

Pinchot.

 

Pinchot who?

Pinchot salt, please, this food’s a little bland.

 

Please don’t do another.

Knock knock.

 

Who’s there?

Mary Anne.

 

Mary Anne who?

Mary Anne haste, repinchot at leisure.

 

uggghhh

Knock knock.

 

Who’s there?

Serge.

 

Serge who?

Serge me! I have amnesia!

 

Please stop. You’re about as far from reviewing the episode as it gets.

Knock knock.

 

Who’s there?

Kimmy.

 

Kimmy now, I don’t want to live anymore.

Okay, fine. Next form. “Pinchot Me, I’m Dreaming” for $100.

This person should have been comfortable being hugged when meeting a new person.

Who is Balki? “Double Trouble” for $100.

Larry answered Jennifer’s worries by suggesting this tactic.

What is waiting for their own doppelgängers to arrive? “Let’s You and Him Fight” for $100

 

Eight persons at a restaurant could engage in this sport.

What is a battle royale?

 

No, I’m sorry.

What is a battle victuale? “Stepfamilies” for $100.

Jennifer and Larry moved this distance away from the table to loudly recap the plot.

What is three yards? “Larry’s Bowels” for $100.

 

Larry was upset that, for some goddam reason, there was not one piece of this dairy-based dessert.

What is cheesecake? “Lameass Americans” for $100.

 

Larry proposes this well-known tactic as a means to progress the plot.

What is dropping hints?

 

No, looking for a sitcom tactic.

What is letting the male diva have a spotlight? “Slightly Taller Tales” for $100.

Despite the premise that all four of these people are alike, only this person laughed at the retelling of the Myposian epic poem “The Moose and the Shower Cap.”

Who is Mary Anne? “Same Face” for $200.

This thought, popularly initialized by the Internet, was shared by Nico and Honey in the face of their respective dates ignoring them.

What is what the fuck? “I Saw This on Woody Woodpecker” for $200.

Balki violates dinner table etiquette with this faux pas.

What is tucking a pair of women’s socks into his neck as a bib?

 

No…

What is demanding to know if the cook had just returned from childbirth?

No, I’m sorry. The answer was eating off of a knife. Next answer. Category: “Islands in the Dream” for $200. Honey mistook Nico’s accent to mean he was from this Mediterranean island.

What is Mypos?

 

Judges? The judges tell me Mypos does not exist.

“Who Let You In?” for $200.

 

Nico faced this social ill due to his similarity to Myposians.

What is racism? “Memory Glands” for $200.

Mary Anne had a higher-than-average ability to recognize changes, or permanence, in regards to this common piece of furniture.

What is a couch? “Clothes Fake the Man” for $200.

Instead of adult conversation, Jennifer engaged in this with Mary Anne to draw her attention to similarities between Balki and Nico.

What is talking about vests? “Animals” for $200.

 

Correct. Honey mistook this word to mean clothed crocodilians.

What are investigators? “Religion” for $300.

 

Mary Anne thought these ancient Roman priestesses dressed like Myposians.

Who were the Vestal Virgins? “Bosom Buddies” for $300.

 

This Perfect Strangers episode featured Balki wearing the very same vest that Nico wears.

What is “Fright Night”? “Song Titles” for $300.

 

Jennifer hoped that Balki and Mary Anne might find this.

What is love? Baby don’t hurt me. “Trope on a Rope” for $300.

 

Though utilized in nearly every episode of the sitcom Perfect Strangers, what tactic was now mysteriously unavailable to Jennifer and Mary Anne?

What is walking three feet away? “Airheads” for $300.

 

This aerodynamic research tool was formed by Mary Anne, Nico, Balki, and Honey sitting in a line.

What is a wind tunnel? “Wreck Please” for $300

 

In addition to being incredibly impolite, Jennifer and Larry’s open efforts to get Balki and Mary Anne to leave their respective dates before they had finished eating could be considered this.

Bad writing. “We Meat at Last” for $300.

 

This condiment, offered erroneously by Honey to Balki, but loved by Nico, ensured the impossibility of the former pair’s union.

What is pepper? “Swatch and Learn” for $400.

Despite evidence that Mary Anne remembered every fabric pattern she’d ever seen, Balki responded to her comment on his avoidance of pepper with this emotion.

What is surprise? “Gimme Dat Quotable” for $400.

 

It’s a Video Daily Double.

What is Balki’s catchphrase? “Talk About a Square Meal” for $400.

This similarity shared by all four unmarried diners was noted by Balki at Larry’s prompting.

What is membership in the Screen Actors Guild?

 

No, I’m afraid that’s not it.

What is a double-digit IQ?

 

No, one more try.

What are ingrown family trees?

 

The question we were looking for was “What was their side dish?” “What was their side dish?” It was rice, by the way.

“Imaginary Appendages” for $400.

Larry pulled Balki under the table by these body parts. Remember, contestant, this is a family program.

What is his foot?

Judges? His foot? His feet or his foot, yes.

“Pass the Assault” for $400.

This person did not hear Balki’s insults from three feet away.

Who is Nico? “Don’t Play With Your Scenery” for $400.

 

Balki rushed back to the table to join in this activity.

What are malapropisms?

 

Not quite.

Balancing spoons on their noses.

I’m sorry, your response must be in the form of a question. Next answer. “She’s So Dumb” for $400. Honey thought that this word referred to training bras.

What is flatware? “She’s So Dumb” for $500.

 

Mary Anne worried that carrying these common ceramic items would eventually cause her back pain from curvature of the spine.

What are tea cups?

 

It’s time now for Final Jeopardy! You have thirty seconds. Good luck.

Oh, I’m sorry, the question was “What is a repeat of the bit where they change seats?”.

You know, I don’t think that format was all that funny.

What offered partial consolation for this feeling?

The reader who has made it this far has fallen prey to the sunk-cost fallacy: it went faster: the experiment itself is the goal.

 

Introduce the next format.

Carnac. What do you think?

 

I think you’ve made a simply wonderful selection!

Well, thank you. I was a little concerned about your approval.

 

Oh, you needn’t have worried. I trust your taste implicitly.

Thank you. You’re so kind.

 

Thank you!

No, thank you!

Domicile.

What does Balki throw at Larry whenever he bakes?

Vegetable tray.

What do you call your friend Tray when he’s in a coma?

 

Popcorn bowl.

Popcorn bowl!

 

May a failed Boy Scout tie your tubes. Popcorn bowl.

What do you say to Pop Corn when it’s his turn to bowl?

 

Cousin Larry.

What’s Balki doing when he’s mad at Larry?

 

Bartokomous.

What should you do if a moose politely asks you to Bartok it?

 

Mountain lions.

Mountain lions!

 

May a Myposian move in with you. Mountain lions.

What was Larry doing on his wedding night?

 

Jell-O, Mary Anne, and Honey.

Name three things that look delicious, jiggle, and can’t think.

 

Swiffer, Carl Winslow, and Second Sight.

Name a mop, a cop, and a flop.

 

20,000 Leagues Beneath the Sea.

Where’s this bit headed?

What minor imperfection in the double date did Larry, to his wife Jennifer, who was there, relate?

A plurality of diners had submitted inquiry as to whether the duads were in the employ of Doublemint gum.

 

What syllabus of pursuits constituted Balki’s pretext for not partaking of finger foods?

Reconvention with Honey, availment of decreased friction on skating rink flooring through partial disrobing, expedition to urgent care facility seeking extraction of ligneous flinders and remedy against seropositive risk.

What syllabus of pursuits was an erstwhile design of Larry’s?

Snapshot photography, comparative study of population segments, interview of aldermen, junket into surrounding geographic area with wife, intellectual conversation with wife.

 

How did these options now appear to him?

Not more possible than they had then appeared, not less possible than other hopes now appeared.

 

What hopes now?

Revelation of 11 down via solution of 17 across and 25 across.

 

With which attendant dignities had Larry lived then, did he live now?

The unsympathetic indifference of desirable females, the contempt of muscular males, the simulated ignorance of casual acquaintance, the abuse by octonary siblings; the unsympathetic indifference of desirable female, the contempt of majuscular superior, comparison to cousin.

 

In short?

‘N short ‘n anxious ‘n weak ‘n frustrated ‘n envious.

 

Among others, to what qualities did Larry attribute Balki’s comparative success with the female sex?

Some are lips.

 

In what final satisfaction did these antagonistic sentiments and reflections, reduced to their simplest forms, converge?

Satisfaction at the technological and cultural primacy of Western to Eastern hemisphere, a lavatory no longer assaulted by alien musk, regular remuneration for services rendered, lower risk of colon cancer relative to African American males, knowledge of relative strengths of active agents in, pricing of various brands of, and schedules of brief reduction of price at purveyors of antacid, of access to posterior female hemispheres of nonzero adiposal aspect.

 

In what satisfaction did Balki’s converge?

The new slate of children’s programming premiering antecedent to the vernal equinox on Saturday on ABC: The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Land of the Lost, Darkwing Duck, Goof Troop, The Addams Family, The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show, A Pup Named Scooby Doo, season 14 of ABC Weekend Special, and Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa.

 

What other member of the household was a Pooh man?

Larry Appleton.

 

Had time equally but differently obliterated the memory of migrations (geographic and professional) in cousin and cousin?

In the American by the access of years and in consequence of overdosage of antacid: in alien by access of minutes and in consequence of single-digit incidence of neurons.

 

What might have mitigated a discontentment with Balki’s misapprehension following Jennifer’s inquiry regarding Honey?

The aforementioned limitations of the former’s forebrain; Jennifer’s habituation to the aforementioned; a minor smorgasbord in his field of vision.

To what three character traits did Balki reduce Honey?

Innocence, naiveté, occluded genius.

 

Whose name did he accidentally utter upon further interrogation?

Mary Anne’s.

 

By what means could any two people be considered clones?

Reduction to three character traits.

 

What misfire of reasoning occurred in Honey’s mind upon learning of Freudian slips?

She demanded identification of Freudia’s location upon a globe, she wondered what materials were used in the garments’ production.

 

What proclamation did Mary Anne make regarding lapsus linguae?

She cared not from what school of culinary arts Lapsu had graduated, it would not compare with her mother’s linguae.

 

What had this episode’s abundance of adipose female posterior hemispheres failed to effect?

Penile vascular congestion in anyone but Balki.

 

How many catchphrases?

Balki said one; Larry none.

 

In what ultimate ambition had all concurrent and consecutive ambitions now coalesced?

Balki’s marriage.

 

Do larger aggravations lie yet in wait in the remainder of this season of Perfect Strangers?

None.

 

Which, then, enjoys ascendancy over its competitors?

That, in its infancy, the program set itself the task of counterpoise between recurring motif of relationship and insistence of character against personal development: that it jettisoned the latter in favor of the former: that it sought once again the latter despite the vagaries a focus on the former had visited on the personage of Balki Bartokomous: that vacillation of locus of disaster external and internal to Larry duplicates the uncertainty of causes of Balki’s arrest: that Mary Anne too suffers from this ailment of creation.

 

What causes?

Internal motivation toward eccentricity but foundering in repetition of misapprehension and improperness and erroneousness, a mind naturally as vacated as Miami Beach postliminary to the Spring Break season: treatment by cousin and cousin-by-marriage implying his ineptitude for eventual culmination in maturity.

 

State ironies.

Four episodes were too much; four episodes were not enough. The intelligent couple bereft of vocal interchange are wed; the feebleminded couple enjoy communication, are separated.

 

State a divergence.

Two-way abuse; one-way abuse.

 

Predict Balki’s end.

This is pure conjecture, but the Chicago Chronicle building could explode.

Predict Larry’s end.

Constipated his entire life.

 

Why you little… Mensurate the odds of Larry’s doom taking the form of eternal marital hostilities, of divorce, of poison in his Maalox.

Acrimony 5:1, alimony 10:1, antimony 2:1

 

That’s one way to merge Carnac with Ulysses.

Thank you.

 

Are you saying that Jennifer is silent but deadly?

I state that wife imitates fart.

 

Think you’re pretty clever, don’t you?

I do.

 

You do?

I do.

 

You do?

Would you quit that?

 

Ow, stop–would you stop pulling my nose?

Okay. Knock knock.

 

Oh for fuck’s sake!

Ulysses.

 

Ulysses who?

This is Twinkacetti, you lessees owe me two months’ rent.

 

Jesus Christ.

Knock knock.

 

This is the advantage you have over Joyce?

Ithaca.

 

I’m done.

Itha catathtrophe, thith review.

 

I can’t believe I indulged your desire to do this. Are we done yet?

Ask me about their collective auditive sensation.

 

What was their collective auditive sensation?

Knock knock.

 

You son of a bitch.

No, really, Mary Anne’s at the door.

With what parody of domestic violence does Balki greet her?

Playfully, he punches her mental region; playfully, she receives it without harm done.

Describe the double homothecy formed by the four characters sitting in this order: Larry, Jennifer, Mary Anne, Balki.

With the center of the couch as their center and counting also as a homothetic object, the number of lines spoken in any given episode.

Mary Anne’s act?

To petition her hosts for advisement on the duration of this summit.

 

Mary Anne’s anticipated next act?

Undisclosed activity with a waxed museum floor.

 

What were Balki’s reflections on the combined power of Jennifer and Larry’s finances?

Utilities were within their budget; a mortgage was not.

What form of jocosity did Larry choose as a conversation starter which, if he had not said it, you would have?

A rule-of-three.

 

Name a girl you went to school with in rural Georgia.

Billie Jo Cossity.

 

His punchline?

That Balki and Mary Anne might discuss displacement of romantic feelings onto simulacra.

 

His second punchline?

You know… stuff.

 

These people didn’t read 9,000 words just for you to be vague.

That was what he said!

 

And I suppose you had Nut & Honey for breakfast too. What result did Larry inadvertently cause?

Instillment of worry in friends regarding mental state when utilizing monosyllabic words with correct syntax, grammar, and applicability to immediate situation.

What recurrent impression was effected by Mary Anne’s elocution?

The same.

 

Her speech?

English is a haphazard language, and polysemous words such as attraction demand prolonged ratiocination comparative to monosemous words such as horny.

 

What did Balki’s elbow, when quickly extended, encounter?

Mary Anne’s elbow.

 

Why for the observer might this action appear a contrivance?

Bronson nudges Rebeca to prompt her attention on him, prompting the audience’s attention on him, prompting my attention on him as he contorts his face.

How many seconds had passed since last attention was placed on Bronson?

An excess.

 

What moral of clear communicative behavior had husband and wife learned two episodes previous?

None.

 

Over what time period did Jennifer and Larry’s imprecise language go on?

A while.

 

What dominated the conversation?

Questions of definition.

With what antagonistic sentiments are your reflections now affected?

Envy, jealousy, abnegation, equanimity.

 

Envy?

Of a multitude of male organisms employed remuneratively for the creation of character and plot and wit for the satisfaction of network and audience.

Jealousy?

Because longterm contemplation of objects of praise or scorn engenders at most feelings of ownership and at least implicit knowledge of what object would or could or would not or could not do. Because of childhood fondness of character. Because natures full and volatile as occurs in sitcoms are still natures of permanence, natures of promise. Because a minority of remaining installments signals an end to promise. Because current episode does not make good on promise. Because of the character that was. Because of the character that could be.

 

Balki?

Balki and Mary Anne, simultaneous.

 

Abnegation.

What happens when you quit going to the gym?

 

Hiyo! Equanimity?

As sitcommy as any and every sitcomical act of a sitcom on ABC, executed by their nurtured natures by unnatural creations in accordance with his, her, and any actor’s swung weight and personal feelings of equanimity, so was Perfect Strangers. As not as calamitous as a cataclysmic sidelining of Lydia in consequence of collision with the cousins. As less reprehensible as Balki’s abuse of Mary Anne, Balki’s arm through a coat, Balki and Larry as babies, Wheat!, the gazebo, Larry’s abuse of Jennifer, lack of follow-through on setup, Mama, Rob Bob, Dimitri’s World, Tess’s disappearance, Larry’s Fortune, the wedding ring, the marriage proposal, sunburns in tuxedos, miracle cures, fat jokes, hen-bursting dinosaurs, football betting, Yeorgi, alien dream, piano, journalism class, suicidal bride, suicidal Frank, censure of mature sexual desire, ten seconds of Carl Lewis, Biki, Susan, Balki crying about baseball. As more than inevitable, irreparable.

 

By what reflections do you justify to yourself the latter sentiments?

It’s almost over. I got to make jokes about it.

What followed Larry and Jennifer’s egress to kitchen?

A rush of air and particulates resultant from the laws of physics.

 

What coincidence served as catalyst for Balki and Mary Anne’s reunion?

Concurrent procurement of popped corns.

What metatextual aspect did the reunion impart to the whole?

They had met in the eighth episode. They met again in the eighth last episode.

With what subterfuge does the episode avoid establishing Balki and Mary Anne’s grounds for reunion?

The camera switched to Larry and Jennifer in the kitchen.

State the ultimate reason for Balki and Mary Anne’s reunion.

Due to the perpetual motion of the earth through everchanging tracks of neverchanging space, there was no time left in the episode. Due to the accumulation of decisions, there was no time left in the season.

 

Could it have gone any other way?

Cousins causing collisions, causes causing causes, it had to be this.

 

On how many additional bases do you make this conclusion?

A second: a third.

 

Who’s on first?

Balki.

Why was Mary Anne happy that her courtship was over?

The time commitment and high tuition of a course of study in maritime law.

 

What form of ending traditionally accompanies a “to be continued” notice?

A cliffhanger.

 

When will Balki and Mary Anne be married, and who will portray them?

In “Get Me To the Dump On Time”. Bronson Pinchot and Rebeca Arthur. Melanie Wilson will exist too.

 

With?

Mark Linn-Baker and Tark Linn-Taker and Wark Linn-Waker and Fark Linn-Faker and Rark Linn-Raker and Shark Linn-Shaker and Bark Linn-Breaker and Ark Linn-Acre and Quark Linn-Quaker and Stark Linn-Staker and Lark Linn-Laker and Dark Linn-Kaker and Vark Linn-Zaker and Nark Linn-Yaker and Xark Linn-Phthaker.

 

Where?

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