Season 2, Episode 4: Lifesavers

A new week, a new episode, a new angle for Ritz Discount!  This store is committed to holding onto its dilapidated string pennants and unappealing window displays.

Twinkacetti spends some time enjoying throwing away junk mail from Mother Teresa and the Christmas seals, just in case you forgot he’s very greedy and refuses to spend money unless it’s to lose it while gambling.  Nah, I’m just kidding.  I’m with you, Twinkacetti.  Mailed letters asking for donations doesn’t fit with the aspect of my liberal self that wants to preserve the environment and cut down on waste; I mean, if you really want to recycle those things correctly you have to tear out the envelope’s little plastic window yourself!

Twinkacetti saves a magazine called “Motorcycle Maidens” for his “private moments”; the way Ernie Sabella delivers the line makes it seem like he’s surprised to see it, implying that the magazine is junk mail.  But, in all seriousness, magazines about motorcycles and half-nude women have been around for a long time: Easyriders, Biker, Outlaw Biker… if I kept listing them you’d accuse me of having used a random name generator.

Larry and Balki come in to deliver some exposition about how a “runaway taxi” almost ran over Balki, but Larry pushed him out of the way, saving his life.  Evidently, saving someone’s life is a pretty big deal on Mypos.  Since we already established that women cook dinner right after giving birth on Mypos, I’m assuming that both babies and adults have a pretty high mortality rate.  So, it’s natural you’d want to elevate anyone who manages to keep another person alive in addition to themselves.  At any rate, Balki thinks that Larry is a hero, referring to him as the “Primo do Polos” (not sure of the spelling there, but that seems to translate into “first of the city”).

Oh man, Mypos is so backwards they even prostrate themselves the wrong way! Those wacky foreigners!

Twinkacetti comes out of his office, still reading “Motorcycle Maidens”.  But, in all seriousness, pornography addiction is a real problem and–

HOLY CRAP THE MAGAZINE ACTUALLY SAYS “MOTORCYCLE MAIDENS” ON THE COVER! (checks Google, Google image search, eBay, WorldCat, and one of those trademark search websites, finds nothing) HOLY CRAP!!!  This show is really killing it on the props, you guys.  Anyway, life-saving, hero, Primo do Polos.  Larry encapsulates what I assume is his thesis for this episode:

Larry: My custom is bigger than your custom.

Famous last words, Larry.  In the next scene, we set up the Balki’s antithesis by way of Susan! Hey guys it’s Susan! I missed you, Susan!  I was afraid there were only going to be two hair colors on this show from now on, but it’s Susan!

What’s wrong, Susan? You seem like you’re uncomfortable with your role of being the silent receptacle for Larry’s expository lines.  Is there anything I can–

NO SUSAN DON’T GO! SUSAAAAN.

Anyway, Balki has taken on the role of personal servant to Cousin Larry.  After Susan leaves, Larry continues to voice his rationale for why he’s letting Balki do this, and then asks “who am I talking to?” And I like it when I see little jokes that the writers put in for themselves, to semi-apologize for the fact that you have to get all that exposition in there somehow.  I’ve thrown a few of these jokes into my webcomic as well, so that made me smile.

One of the rules of Myposian personal servitude is for the servant’s head to never be higher than that of the Primo do Polos.  Evidently, it’s also the right of the Primo do Polos to pad the episode by forcing a joke to be said twice.  Balki has ironed Larry’s clothes, holds a light for him to read, makes him “Sheep Wellington”, and also spoils the mystery novel Larry is reading.

And this is good!  This is a much better Balki than last week’s!  An event triggers something specific to Balki’s culture, and Balki makes simple, heartfelt but misguided gestures to do what he has been told he should to honor good people. I have a good feeling about this episode.  The show gives us the reveal that we’ve all been expecting: that Balki’s servitude is a lifelong commitment (like I said, they probably don’t live long on Mypos).

Later, Balki tiptoes around the apartment while Larry sleeps on the couch; he ties a string around Larry’s foot, tying the other end to the side table.  He then tries to check for Larry’s breath on a reflective surface, and when it doesn’t work–

Larry then keeps walking back and forth, just to the end of the length of the string, building the tension for when he inevitably will fall over. And both of these bits of physical comedy work, because we have no idea what Balki is up to.  It’s a playful little series of reveals.

Larry even asks “why” about the string, rather than what it is, and you’re really an episode after my heart, aren’t you, “Lifesavers”?  Balki tries to follow Larry into the bedroom, and Larry chases him out, yelling that there is no hard evidence that droit du seigneur was ever actually practiced.

Later, in the shop, Balki sings “Material Girl” while cleaning. They’ve been leaning hard on this running joke, so I hope it’s going somewhere.  He is alone in the shop because he turned off Cousin Larry’s alarm clock.  Larry is proud of never being late, the punchline of which is that he was born three weeks early.

Twinkacetti bursts out of his office wearing the same hat from earlier, when he was jerking it to Ms. Helen Wheels.  This time he’s got the newspaper in hand, so whattaya wanna bet? Stock Market section?

Larry tries the old loophole trick of using his unlimited powers to demand that the servant no longer serve.  Anything he says goes, right?

But Balki is now the Nebulopolos (plural: Nebulopoli) because he has failed as a servant.  You walked right into that one, Larry!  Typical American blindness to other cultures.  You really should have found out all the rules of Myposian servitude, you know, seen if you could sic Balki on your enemies, go the Nightcrawler route and have him help you create gruesome photo ops.

Balki puts a bag on his head, and continues sweeping, now singing “Nobody Knows”, and whether writers knew it or not, it’s at least remotely appropriate, given that the song originated as a slave spiritual.  Balki continues working like this even after the commercial break, so you know this situation has become serious.  Twinkacetti suggests the solution I saw coming about 10 minutes ago–to set up a situation where Balki has to save Larry’s life. Hire Twinkacetti’s friend for $50 (always with the $50 on this show), have him pretend to rob the apartment, let Balki scare him off, and everything’s reset for next week.

Or, you know, we just end the whole series right here because Balki knocked over a bunch of cans of paint thinner and they all died inhaling the fumes.

A real burglar shows up and some guy in the audience just cracks up when he finally sees that both Balki and Dmitri have bags over their heads.  I like that.  Larry confuses the burglar and then wakes Balki up, trying to get him to come to Larry’s rescue.

Once Larry realizes that the fake burglar isn’t a fake burglar, but is in fact a real burglar, as evidenced by his real burglar gun, which fake burglars do not have, he starts babbling. Real Burglar (who is so confident in his abilities that he wears a bright red hat on the job) tells Larry to shut up, whereupon it is revealed that Larry didn’t talk through the entirety of 3rd grade.  I mention this only because I’m interested in exactly how fucked up Larry is.  Real Burglar pushes Larry onto Balki’s lap, trying to get them to do that buttsex thing he hears all the other burglars say this show is about.

Balki is upset on Larry’s behalf that anyone would automatically assume he’s a bottom, so he steals Real Burglar’s gun.  This is a kind of comedy version of Chekhov’s Gun: if the gun appears in the bad guy’s hand first, it will end up in the good guy’s hand (or vice versa, and extra points for each reversal).  Balki then shows us the Myposian form of shaming: slapping someone’s hand, saying “shame on you”, and cursing at them in your native tongue.  (Let’s add Balki Ricardo to our growing list of Balkis.)

By the end of the episode, the writers must have realized that they pushed Balki too far in the adult direction, so when Balki and Larry get back from the police station, we find that the police gave Balki ice cream and let him take his own “fingyprints”.

That’s right, you heard right, “fingyprints”.

Larry hangs his coat. This is important. Remember this.

Cousin Larry thanks Balki for saving his life. Saving people from certain death is just what you do when you care about somebody.  Awww, they care about each other so much it turns the music on.  Larry says that they are now even, which stands as the synthesis of the culture war subtext (taking care of your loved ones transcends all culture).

I’ll be honest:  I’m relieved that this week’s episode showed some improvement over “The Unnatural”.  I’m sure this kind of sitcom setup wasn’t new even back in 1986, but it allowed for a reasonable piece of Balki’s culture to show itself.  It let Balki be a bumbling, caring person, and it also let him do it as an adult.  And call me biased because I identify a little more with Larry so far, but I’m glad that it was Balki who learned a lesson this time.

Also, no third location this week.  Maybe Rafael Mauro (the actor who played Real Burglar, but you might know him as the car washer guy from the smelly car episode of Seinfeld) demanded his $50 up front.

See you next week for “Babes in Babylon”!

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Boner count: Larry (0); Balki (0); Twinkacetti (at least 1)

Catchphrase count: Larry (1); Balki (1.5)

Season 2, Episode 2: Hunks Like Us

Last week’s episode established that a few things that remained constant from the first season: lessons (with musical accompaniment), physical comedy, a third location.  The show has also introduced some new elements: repeating jokes, having Larry ask the wrong question to draw things out, and maybe, just maybe, a new character (Gina Morelli, from Balki’s citizenship class).  But, for me, at least, three major questions remain: will Susan stick around (and will she grow a second trait)? will we get to meet any of Larry’s siblings? and will Balki start pronouncing things correctly?

Let’s see if this episode answers any of these!

Like usual, we open at the Ritz Discount store, where Larry is cleaning a window.  Twinkacetti comes in and insults him.  I have something to say about the insult he makes, but first, check out Twinkacetti’s tie:

I love garish ties to begin with, but this one’s character-appropriate because there’s racing horses on it.  I appreciate the effort, considering that most audience members in that decade did not have a way to pause the show.

Anyway, about that insult.  Twinkacetti comments that Larry has “finally found a task worthy of [his] talents”.  I’m going to side with Twinkacetti here.  Every episode so far has shown us that Larry can’t handle various social situations that most people encounter on a regular basis: he can’t ask a girl out, he doesn’t know how to set boundaries, he even has trouble explaining relatively simple concepts like checks and bank accounts.  And, sure, Larry’s likely going to be subject to around 20 more lessons this season, but most of them will come from Balki.  Will this be enough for Larry to achieve his dream?  Pfft, like I care, I’m just here to make jokes about these guys having buttsex.

Balki comes in and announces that he’s joined a “healthy club” on the basis that body fat is a bad thing.  He then spouts what we’re led to assume is the exact same pitch he got from the person who sold him the gym membership.  Given that Balki probably has zero body fat, I have to question the sales skill of the person who sold him on the gym; they really should have pushed the bodybuilding angle instead of “aerobic exerceez”.

Larry tries to explain that it’s a scam, and even Twinkacetti backs him up on it.  Twinkacetti backing Larry up should be Balki’s first clue. No wait, I forgot, this is a sitcom; we can rest assured that this is definitely not the lesson Balki will learn.  Give it a couple minutes and we’ll find out what minor infraction Larry will be crucified for this week!

Well, look who’s arrived: it’s Tina’s replacement! New Tina features the same fashion sense as Tina Classic, but now with only half the eyeliner!  New Tina even has her own name:  Jennifer Lyons. That’s two women in as many weeks with verbally-established last names.  Susan’s got some stiff competition…

…because Cousin Larry’s popping a boner so hard over New Tina that he has trouble spitting out his own name!  I bet you guys didn’t expect a boner joke!  Anyway, New Tina works with “Reuben’s Perfect Body” and is looking for Balki, who forgot to sign his application.

Larry decides, on the basis of this one boner, that he’s in love with New Tina (okay, fine, I’ll stop) and decides to join Reuben’s Perfect Body.  His second bit of faulty thinking is that Jennifer only likes jocks.  You see, we all have an amazing mental ability to notice patterns; humans who didn’t have this skill died out thousands of years ago.  But this part of the brain almost never shuts up: one result of this is mental schemas of related things so that we don’t have to think as much about every new situation or person we encounter.  We convince ourselves that poor location or upkeep of a shopfront indicates lesser quality merchandise (lookin’ at you, Ritz); or that someone who is well-groomed is also smarter and wealthier.  But Larry is basing this on the fact that 30 seconds of interaction with this woman revealed her place of work, so for him to–oh, wait, goddammit. I keep forgetting this is a sitcom, and people never have character traits that are at all discordant with each other. Larry’s probably absolutely right on this one. So go ahead, Larry, start lying to Jennifer about your physical prowess. It’s the next step in this ritual demanded by the Sitcom Gods.

Reuben’s Perfect Body features one of my favorite 80s color schemes.  It also features all of the weightlifting equipment, you know the ones, with the heavy pieces of metal that move around? Let’s hope this means that Larry gets maimed on-screen for once!

Larry commits to his quest to lie to Jennifer by doing it even when she’s not on screen, telling Biff McSkincancer to leave a machine set at the higher weight.

(P.S. I love that Balki has already been to this gym once and still thinks that wearing shorts up past his belly button is proper attire.)

Hey, Balki the Kid is back!  He pushes Cousin Larry up and down on the machine.  I’m all for Balki the Kid if it puts Larry in harm’s way.

Jennifer waits until Balki and Larry are in the gayest possible position to come up and say hello. And that’s about all she says, because we’ve got to move right on to Larry pretending he’s up for an advanced aerobics class.  I know I’ve bragged about my research skills before, but I’m lazy, and I will just assume that this is what advanced aerobics looks like, since every other TV show is in agreement here.

Larry shows that he has absolutely no knowledge of the fact that when you’re using your legs, they’re using your oxygen, by trying to chat up Jennifer while they all exerceez.  Then he gets smacked around.

It’s a small thing, no bruises or broken bones, but I thank you, Sitcom Gods.

But then Mary Anne (Sagittarius) introduces herself to Balki; Balki, trying to follow in Larry’s footsteps, instantly asks her out.  Whoa, we’re only 9 minutes in here, and I’ve talked a lot.  So cue Balki and Cousin Larry struggling on equipment while a bemused Jennifer looks on.  Balki asks Jennifer out for Larry, citing a Myposian saying:

Balki: He who hesitates sleeps with the goats.

You see, there are so few people on Mypos that, if you don’t grab a woman fast on Fucking Eve, you’re stuck boinking the livestock.  Cue more physical comedy, Larry getting angry, Larry chasing Balki.

After the commercial, Larry and Balki try to hide from each other that they’re tired.  This is one serious web of lies Larry is spinning.

Larry: In 6 hours, two women…let me amend that… two gorgeous women are coming to this apartment. You know what that means, dontcha?

I’m so glad ABC decided to revisit the magical scene from season 1 when Larry and Balki had a good laugh about boners.  Balki makes the same face I do when I stand up, but my boner’s pointing the wrong way in my pants.

Balki and Larry dance, because, okay, whatever, and then Larry lays out his careful battle plan to touch a boob: get some rest before the women come over.

Get ready for a shitload of physical comedy!

Larry and Balki wake up in pain. Even though the women are going to be there “any minute”, Balki says he’s going to call Mary Anne (Sagittarius) and cancel the date.  I know I put this show down a lot for relying on physical comedy (and holy shit, we’re only 8 episodes in…), but there’s a bit here that works.

Balki shuffles towards the phone; Cousin Larry shuffles behind him.  Balki knocks a book onto the floor, forcing Larry to shuffle around it. Every movie chase scene where someone knocks over a lamp or garbage cans to slow down their pursuer, localized for this apartment’s layout. I like it.  But oh no! The women are here!

Larry’s boner has a Pavlovian response to the knock on the door, springing into action, making him plead with Balki to let this lie go on another (checks the minutes and seconds on the PowerDVD controls) 4 or 5 minutes. In yet another chuckle-worthy moment, it takes both of these guys to hang up the phone.  The phone, managing to symbolize both penises at once, indicates, when it comes to boners and trying to get them in women, Larry and Balki are working as a team.

The shuffling continues, and Jennifer and Mary Anne (Sagittarius) make the same we-signed-contracts-for-how-many-episodes-of-this expressions that Susan and Diane did back in Season 1’s “First Date”.

Cousin Larry and Balki move their shuffling-and-screaming act to the kitchen because God forbid the women characters get anything to do or say.  Nope, audiences want homosexual subtext, so homosexual subtext they’ll get!

(They’re grunting the whole time they’re trying to open the wine bottle, BTW.)

I mean, seriously, this episode has jack shit for the women to do.  Jennifer even saves more time by speaking for both herself and Mary Anne (Sagittarius), and tells the guys that they don’t drink.  Seriously, every plot point here is about both of them: we figured you guys overdid it this morning, we’re surprised you didn’t call and cancel, we’re not only interested in hunks just because we work out.  They’re essentially the same person.

Mary Anne (Sagittarius), in what is inadvertently the most explicit acknowledgment of this particular type of fucked-up sitcom logic, says that she and Jennifer will stay as long as the guys have learned their lesson.

But because this episode was so committed to all the physical comedy mess, we don’t have time to see them stay.  And because we can’t assume more than a fourth-grade intelligence on the part of the audience, the lesson that Larry and Balki learned has to be made explicit.  Larry gives a speech about how, in high school, the girls in the Latin Club just stopped doing it for him after awhile, and how he wanted, just once, for a cheerleader to give him a 30-second handjob out by the cafeteria dumpsters instead.  In his quest to get a little action from a pretty lady, he lied about himself, not only to others, but to himself, not accepting his own limitations.

The lesson music shows up a little late in this one, functioning more as a lullaby.

See you next week for “The Unnatural”!

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Boner count: Larry (3); Balki (1)

Catchphrase count: Larry (0); Balki (0)

P.S. If today’s review wasn’t enough sitcom wackiness for you, I’d like to direct you to an ALF comic that Philip J Reed and I made for Back to the Future Day this past Wednesday: ALF to the Future.

Season 1, Episode 6: Happy Birthday, Baby

This episode has what is probably the quickest establishing shot of the Ritz Discount exterior. Was ABC trying to respect its audience’s ability to associate the location with the show? Or did they need to shave off a couple seconds so that Balki could make that pained smile one more time?  Read and find out, dear friends…

And look at that!  There are four customers all at the same time in the store! (I’m not dense, there’s actually someone behind Larry that you can only barely see in this shot.)  A subliminal hint that the store–and hence the show–are popular.  This was the show’s last shot at selling audiences on this modern take on the classic Aesop Fable “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse”, so I’m sure this episode will be a no-holds-barred tour de force.

Now that we’ve spent two episodes with Balki fulfilling his dream of filling out paperwork given to him by bureaucrats and bank tellers, it’s high time we returned to Larry pursuing his dream of becoming a photojournalist.  He’s waiting on a call from the newspaper, but oh no! Balki wants to use the phone!  Cousin Larry lets loose with what should have been a catchphrase formula:

Just think how this would have enhanced the previous episodes!  “Write a check, I break a neck.”  “Fail the driving test, I punch a chest.” “Make me dance, I’ll fucking cut you.”

Larry gets a call from the Photo Editor at the Chicago Weekly Gazette, who wants to print his photo of a burning building.  I think I might have an idea how that fire got started.

Well, shit, dream accomplished, Larry.  Let’s do the Dance of Joy and hit the bars.

Oh, wait, no, there’s still 19 minutes of time to fill, so we find out it’s Larry’s birthday.  Balki wants to know what Larry got him, and Larry just unthinkingly walks right into the catchphrase when he asks Balki if he’s ever heard of the way they do birthdays in America.

Even though Balki exudes the level of excitement that a child would about Larry’s birthday, I’m going to let it pass for two reasons.  1) It’s a fitting joke about how he’s from another country where they do things differently and 2) his excitement is justified because it’s the first American birthday he’ll experience. So I liked that bit.  Oops, sorry, I forgot for a second I’m supposed to trash this show for being shitty, so, uh, hey, where are you from, Balki, Mypos or the fucking Shire?

*whew* close one

Twinkacetti comes in and makes what I’m 100% certain was the very first “Tweedledum and Tweedledumber” joke ever.  This show has historical value, people, which fully justifies my reviews (I’m looking at you, Harvard University Press).  He adds insult to insult by foretelling that Larry will spend his life selling discount clocks to extras until the day he dies.

Larry, undaunted, rushes out the door to make his appointment with the Photo Editor.  Seriously?  For all that the show sells Mr. Twinkacetti as the basest type of taskmaster, his employees sure do leave the shop at a moment’s notice for anything.  I mean, Larry doesn’t even ask Balki, “Hey, do you need to take a quick dump or anything before I leave?”

Then Susan shows up with someone named “Tina”, whom it is implied that Balki and Cousin Larry have already met.  Nice try, show, but I don’t even have to look online to know she’s not sticking around.  I’m maybe 33% disappointed by this, because she dresses like a grown-up Kimmy Gibbler, and I’m a Gibbler Groupie from way back.  But, honey, you’re going to need to dial back that eyeliner if you want to get picked up for the fall on this network.

Balki, Susan, and Tina set up a surprise party for Larry, and bravo to whoever in the props department who was clever enough to make letters on the banner look Greek-ish. And they’ve got bags of chips, too, but it’s probably too much to expect that someone would have closed the circle on this season by having pink lemonade instead of punch.  But check it out, though, Tina must have gotten a hot tip from Gus that Balki likes shoulders.

Anyway, who cares, it’s party time!

Balki comments that to get the same aural effect in Mypos, they had to squeeze a frog.  Rustic!  Larry comes home early (surprising the surprisers… cleverrr) and they all rush to ready themselves.  Balki pours peanuts in his pocket & puts the bags of chips under the couch cushions in what I’m sure is yet another Myposian tradition.

Larry enters, and it’s obvious he plans to celebrate his birthday Larry-style: being upset about something that happened off-screen and doing Bismol shots.  It turns out that the paper chose someone else’s photograph of the same burning building.  Man, here we are at the end of the first season and Larry hasn’t achieved his dream yet?  Am I looking at seven more seasons of this incremental buildup to Larry working as a photojournalist?  Like, at the end of season 2, does he get a picture into the paper, but they crop it in a way that Larry thinks ruins the composition of the shot?  Cripes.

Larry fails to hang his coat.  Remember this. This is important.

Cousin Larry decides to give up on his dream because he’s already behind on his master plan, which included winning a Pulitzer Prize by the time he was 24.  Bitch, I looked it up, you’re 31.  At least Full House had the decency to have Jesse’s age be John Stamos’s age.  You’re probably wondering why I’m homing in on this kind of thing, given that the majority of TV shows and movies have it done it.  But I’ve been a media consumer since childhood.  At every stage of my development, I’ve watched actors who are older than me play characters who are supposed to be my age.  As a result, I have long felt a strange disconnect when I observe the world around me.  Was everyone in my hometown just a runt? In high school, why were we not all the same height as the kids on Saved by the Bell? It’s something that’s only clarified as I’ve gotten older, too; I work at a university, and the freshman always look like babies. Yet college students on television are always perpetually just shy of 30.  I will never stop hating the practice. It seriously messed with my self-image growing up; it seriously screwed up the Tank Girl movie.  Anyway, we return now to Perfect Strangers, which is already in progress.

Balki gingerly shifts position on the couch so as not to make too much of a crinkling noise.  I don’t think Cousin Larry would think twice about it, bro:  he knows what you do to those sofa bed sheets at night.  Balki suggests a party to cheer Larry up, but Larry says he’s got to get back on the street setting building fires; in fact he just got a hot tip about an old lady two blocks over who’s been saving newspapers since the Eisenhower administration.

Larry fails to throw a throw pillow onto a chair.  He turns down Balki’s party idea because he hates to think of how he’ll have to explain to everyone that he failed at achieving his master plan.  Larry, baby, they’re your friends. They got over you being a loser a while ago.  But someone knocks on the door. Oh no! the partygoers!  Now that we’ve established what an unsolvable pickle Balki’s in, there’s an act break.

And it actually picks right back up in the next act!  I was so sure that Larry was going to come in the Ritz the next day, telling Twinkacetti about how he beat up all the party guests and spent the night in a holding cell.  Balki opens the door long enough to say “Go away” and slams it.  It’s often the small, detail-level jokes that do it for me (which is why I’m probably the only fan of the film Don’t be a Menace…), so someone’s extended noisemaker getting stuck in the door got a big laugh from me.

Balki keeps opening and shutting the door on the party guests, and Tina’s understandably upset.  She still thinks she has a shot if she can just stay on screen.

Larry says he’s hungry and Balki offers him the peanuts from his pocket.

Larry: Why have you got peanuts in that pocket?

Balki: Because I have a squirrel in this one.

I really like this payoff because it’s a moment of self-awareness on Balki’s part that he can get away with having the crazy shit he says go unquestioned because he’s a weirdo foreigner.  Shoot, I’m liking the show too much again. You can’t see it because I only really single out the jokes I like, but trust me, there’s plenty of crummy jokes on this show.  Mostly the show relies on cheap physical humor to try to get laughs, like right now.  Observe the following endless sequence. Balki locks Larry in the closet and then shoos away the guests.

This gives Larry a chance to use his catchphrase one more time before the season’s out.

Then they argue about whether Balki locked Larry in the closet and they engage in some more physical comedy and it’s obvious the writers didn’t know what to do.

Anyway, who cares, it’s padding time!

Larry shouts for a while, makes some sort of nonsensical joke about Anthony Perkins, Balki fields a call from Larry’s mom, unsuccessfully refuses the birthday cake delivery, fails to throw the cake out the window, and then has to cover it up.

Sheesh. The end of the scene should have been Larry going to bed, but similar to the discographies of Wilson Phillips or Asia, there were more “hide the party” jokes after the initial stopping point than before it.

Later on that night, Cousin Larry tries to wake up Balki and says, hey, all that padding was fun, let’s do some more of that. But he has trouble waking Balki, so he does a wolf howl and Balki shits the bed.  Larry has come to the conclusion that Twinkacetti was correct about being stuck in retail the rest of his life and then proceeds to pule and whine about nobody having wished him a happy birthday.  He even specifically mentions that Tina didn’t say anything; dude, have you even seen her more than twice?  Larry starts shyly & haltingly asking a question, and Balki disgustedly hands him Dmitri, the Myposian masturbatory aid.

Later on that SAME night, Balki wakes up Larry. Larry, having forgotten that he shares an apartment, comes out of his room armed.  But it’s a good thing that Larry didn’t have to use the trophy as a weapon (“I may have just bought it at the discount store, Balki, but it was my trophy! I grew up with 8 brothers and sisters and we had to share our achievements.”), because it’s party time again!

Balki has rounded up all of the people in a 100-yard radius who were awake: Max, from the bus stop newsstand; Officer Finley and the person standing right next to him who, gee, I dunno, must just be really friendly and not have a name; Sandra from the donut shop; Snake (he’s the one with the snake tattoo, if you must know); and a wino bum.

And there it is! There’s that pained smile! The same one I make when my hands are dry and cracked and I put hand sanitizer on them. Also Larry puts down Balki in a way Balki won’t understand one more time.  They’re just packing it in at the end here. (gaaaaaay)

Larry opens his present from the group and it’s crullers!  I give that joke a 6. You’ve got the “k” sound at the beginning, but, eh. Call me old-fashioned, but I would’ve gone with strudel.

That previously unnamed guy is “Lou” and which writer seriously thought that this was going to be a good visual punchline?  Who isn’t going to have put two and two together already about the guy standing right next to the cop?  This was the worst joke of the whole season, hands down. I mean it, you two, put your hands down, it’s a shitty joke.

Anyway, we’re at the end of the episode, so let’s see what the lesson is. Cousin Larry learned not to give up on his dream of being a photojournalist because you can’t put schedules on dreams or something like that.  Balki learned that he should start switching out Larry’s liquid antacid with sedatives.

The homeless guy comes out of the bathroom saying that they’ve run out of ice.  Homeless people sure do have their priorities straight: any time you have access to a bathroom, you start right in on that next batch of toilet wine.  Let’s hope he joins the cast for season 2; Tweedledum and Tweedledumber could learn a lot from this guy.

Hey, wow, end of season.  Next week I’ll do a review of Season 1!

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Catchphrase count: Balki (1), Larry (1)

Boner count: Balki (0), Larry (0) (a moment of silence, please, for all the unborn boners Larry would have popped over Tina)

Dance of Joy running count: 3