Family Matters Recused

Last week I promised you the review for Season 4, Episode 19: Just a Gigolo. It’s my fault that you aren’t getting that today. I am sorry. I’m trying to get an academic guest post set up for that one, but it’s not ready. So for this week and the next, at least, we’re going to take a little break from season 4.  This post was originally going to run between seasons 4 and 5, and it’s simply coincidence that I’m posting it on the first Friday of Black History Month.

_____________________________

Family Matters Assumed

Just over a year ago, through the Perfect Strangers Reviewed Facebook page, I received a message from someone whom I won’t name. Over the course of a week, ze contacted me, Philip J. Reed, and Sarah Portland about our review sites; possibly others.  The question asked of all of us is whether we were going to continue our reviews.  That is: would Phil review the ALF cartoons?; would Sarah review all of the new Star Trek stuff?; and in my case, when would PSR be done, and would I be reviewing Family Matters?  After all, said ze, Family Matters was “a continuation”.  Whoever ze is, ze damn sure ain’t this stock photo of a “lawyer”.

Paul Graham of www.paulgraham.com fame laid out a a hierarchy of disagreements in 2008. I saw it online during the last presidential election (and yes, *sigh*, I’m going to have to talk about that shit in this post) and thought it was useful. Someone going by the handle of “Loudacris” on a site called CreateDebate made a graphic to illustrate Graham’s hierarchy.   Here it is:

So let’s go backwards through these.  First of all, mystery questioner… I’m not going to call you an asshat.  We’ve spoken through Facebook on multiple occasions, you’re obviously a fan of Perfect Strangers, and you read my blog. Morever, you’re a real person. You have feelings, and we all want to be understood by others.  I don’t think you’re an asshat, but the question was kind of an asshat question.

Second of all, you’re hiding behind an avatar.  If you can’t prove you’re a real person, then  what authority do you have about 80s/90s network sitcoms? I owe you nothing.

Third, you asked me about this when I had barely done a year of Perfect Strangers Reviewed. Maybe artists like me are touchy about people asking for free work, but damn if it doesn’t happen again that, when you post hard work online, you’re bound to eventually get “you should do more” as the first comment. At least have the courtesy to first compliment me/us on my/our work. And when will I be done? Am I falling behind your media feeding schedule?

Are all of you getting the message from that pyramid above? Name-calling and ad hominem attacks and responding to tone are mean, made by the real asshats who can’t engage in a discussion.  Let’s continue.

Fourth, to settle matters for all asshats, everywhere, forever: Family Matters is not what I’d consider a continuation.

Fifth, okay, Family Matters is not a continuation, it’s a spinoff.  I kind of want to define continuation by the persons making it, but that doesn’t work; so let’s say that intention is key.  Saved by the Bell: The College Years is a continuation. Extreme Ghostbusters was a continuation. Fuck, The Munsters Today, however it was received, was a continuation. (I’ve actually considered reviewing The Munsters Today after I’m done with this. The answer to the question you just thought is “no”.)

Sixth, the argument boils down to a misunderstanding of the differences between a character and a scenario. It’s a continuation of the character Harriette Winslow, as portrayed by Jo Marie Payton-France-Noble-Clark-Downs-Nahasapeemapetilon, sure, and her husband, Carl, and it takes place in Chicago. But could anyone look at both shows and say that they form one narrative? There’s more coherence between the New and Old Testaments, people.

Seventh, I’ll refute a central (implied) point: I should review Family Matters.  Here’s my answer: fuck no.

BUT

I want to take this opportunity to talk about why that is in more depth. I’m going to take the long way around, and this is ultimately a semi-political statement on race. (Spoiler: I’m a liberal atheist who thinks we’d be a whole lot better off without money. You’ve been warned.)

Family Matters Remembered

I’m not going to ever review Family Matters, but there are some things worth talking about. I’ll start with me as a childhood viewer.

I watched Family Matters as a kid; and just like many white kids then, I loved Urkel.  I had an Urkel talking doll; I had an Urkel backpack; I still have my copy of The Lean, Mean Urkel Machine that I probably got from the Troll book fair at school.  I share partial blame for his success. I’m sorry.

I remembered the episode where Urkel tries to infiltrate a gang and this guy puts on a tiny pair of glasses and calls himself an “artiste”. I had remembered it being Mr. Potato Head glasses, but it wasn’t, which means I need to go apologize to some people I helped put in prison.

I remember Urkel burning down the restaurant.

I remember the one where Urkel had a jetpack.

I know I watched the show with my dad, because he told me what kind of car Urkel drove. I still wouldn’t mind owning an Isetta myself.

I remember Myra.  I really liked Myra, because Myra had large breasts. I remember the episode where Urkel was afraid to touch her breasts.

I remember that I stopped watching regularly around the 5th or 6th season. I remember watching the other shows in the TGIF block around that time – Step by Step, Home Improvement, Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper, Boy Meets World, but somehow it seemed that the magic was gone. I know I didn’t watch any of those regularly. Was I really only into Full House and Perfect Strangers and Family Matters? Was ABC’s TGIF programming simply not as much of a draw for me once I started watching better-written stuff like The Simpsons and The Critic?

I know I tuned in a couple of times in the last few seasons of Family Matters and being disappointed that it seemed to have turned into the Stefan Urquelle show.

Family Matters Revisited

I watched the entirety of Family Matters for this post. All 215 episodes. Just to talk about why I won’t write about it.

Here’s the first thing that jumped out at me about Family Matters: it’s a show about black people.

From what I understand, the Winslows were originally living in the Caldwell Hotel.  In the pilot episode, you can see a hallway outside their door, which would be replaced with a front porch in every other episode. So maybe it was still in the hotel?  It’s also my understanding that Larry and Balki were intended to show up in the pilot. Consider this: an appearance by the cousins would have been conferring the success of Perfect Strangers onto its child.  I’m honestly glad that somebody was smart enough to nix that appearance.  History is littered with those in power conferring rights and respect to the powerless; when that happens, those in power control the language of the narrative.  (Think, for instance, of when any man says that women should be respected because they are someone’s daughter, sister, mother, etc.; such language denies them respect on the basis of their personhood.)

Anyway, before I talk about Family Matters proper, let’s see how Perfect Strangers addressed the change.

The promo gives the impression that, for the world that Balki and Larry inhabit, Harriette and her family got a television show, replete with relatives that could be removed as needed. And, wow, what the hell happened to Balki’s accent? Am I going to have to listen to that for the next

*counts on fingers*

10 years of this blog?

Not only does the show assertively stand on its own in this way, but Harriette mirrors this behavior.  She loses her job as elevator operator (my guess is that Balki mentioned to the wrong person that the elevator had buttons for all the floors) and interviews for a job as a security guard (my guess is that Lance Dick accidentally shot himself); when she’s initially turned down, she states the case for her qualifications loud and clear to the white manager.

(“A sister doing it for herself” is just one of the many awful and tone-deaf jokes you’d get from me, a white guy, if I reviewed the show.)

Eddie has a Chicago Chronicle sign or something in his room in another episode, but aside from those two things, Harriette’s job at the Chronicle is mentioned only a couple times per season after that. In the 5th season, she loses her job after having worked at the Chronicle for 23 years. It may be worth noting that, by that point, Perfect Strangers was off the air. It’s where the Chicago Chronicle originated; perhaps there was no need to keep that tie once the originating show was gone? And while we’re talking about continuation, Jo Marie was replaced during the 9th season.  Those two things really erode the idea of “continuation”, but that’s not the reason I won’t review it.

Family Matters Refused

The fact that it would take me probably 5 years to do is also not the reason I won’t review it.

I said “fuck you” at Family Matters multiple times while watching it; but that’s not the reason I won’t review it.

Or, actually, here’s my review of the series: I liked parts. I hated parts. It was good. It was bad. I have things I could say about why it was good. I have things I could say about why it was bad. Family Matters was a sitcom. It did sitcom things in a sitcom way.

But ultimately, I won’t review Family Matters because it’s about black people, and I ain’t one.

I know a few things about black people, and it’s all second-, third-, or nth-hand information; some of it from black people; most of it from books. In the first episode alone, I can see some things in the construction of Family Matters that fits in with things “I know” about African-Americans. You’ve got a big family living all together; there’s a matriarch present; there’s a mention of Prince; hell, the littlest kid is named Little Richie. But I don’t know enough. I don’t know half the celebrities that show up. I don’t know half the bands.

You’ve got episodes about making it big in sports, making it big in music, about driving while black, and about racist reactions to Black History Month. And for those first two things? I bet I’m making a bigger deal about them than I ought to, because I think of sports and music as being domains that black people are better in. That’s what I’ve been told my whole life, and I know damn well that if I looked at any amount of data on either thing, my understanding would be more nuanced by some order of magnitude. However, I don’t think that I remember any white sitcoms taking considerable time out of a story to have someone sing a whole song, or to have the characters doing nothing but practicing their dance moves in the living room as a group. When Balki and Larry sing, it’s always meant as some sort of joke. When Family Matters does it, you can tell it’s because someone thinks it’s important.

I’ll come back to the driving while black thing for a second. If you’re in enough of a social media echo chamber not to have seen this over the past half year, I’ll say it here: people of color weren’t surprised at the results of the 2016 presidential election, or any of the language used by the current administration. Being arrested or killed for nothing more serious than holding toys or candy is only a surprise to us. You may have only gotten upset (or not) hearing people asking “why’s there not a white history month” in the past few years. But black people? They’ve been seeing–living–this shit for years. Every god damn day.

When Philip J. Reed finished his ALF reviews, he mentioned that he couldn’t have imagined anyone’s voice but Billy Superstar’s for Full House Reviewed; moreover, that each of the shows we have picked to review are perfect for our personalities, and our voices.  I’m a neurotic, college-educated white guy who holds himself back from approaching women; I’m an overgrown child who still buys toys and wants to believe in people. I write detailed jokes about Daisyworld and put them right beside the easier jokes about Balki and Larry fucking. The internal focus between Larry and Balki mirrors in many ways my own internal struggles about how to do things. I’ve left women in my life hanging, and it’s often because I’m caught up in my own shit. As sad as it sounds, I am the cousins, and Perfect Strangers is the right show for me.

I’m not from a big family; I don’t even keep in touch with all of them anymore. I’ve never once gone to a black church and left Christianity’s fold a long time ago. I may have had “nerdy” interests, but I was never quite the type of social outcast Steve Urkel was. I didn’t grow up in a city. I’ve never been a robot.

And most importantly, I’m not black.

This show is not for me.

This show is not for me.

This show is not for me.

I think that, if anybody’s going to review Family Matters in a complete sense like I’m doing, it should be a black person.

*sigh*

But does that just make me one more white guy telling a black person what they ought to do?

Family Matters; Me, Cued

I hope not! But if it does, and I am, I hope you’ll tell me.

Let me take a page (or two) from Scott McCloud’s 2000 book Reinventing Comics. It’s hard to quote comics, so I’m just going to reproduce the relevant panels.

But let me also focus on the converse of who should write Family Matters Reviewed by saying who shouldn’t. I don’t think me, or any other white person, is the right person for it.  If we’re going to take a teleological approach, even playfully, and say the shows pick people, Family Matters hasn’t chosen yet.

There were two previous attempts to do Perfect Strangers, and both failed*.

Originally, Billy Superstar had wanted to review Family Matters, but all the seasons weren’t available on DVD yet, so he didn’t. There’s another guy who did reviews for a few seasons of Family Matters. I’m not going to link to it now; you can find it if you want. I linked to it once before, and now I regret it. It was written by a white guy. I haven’t read much of his reviews of the show, but I read enough to read one where he makes a joke about Harriette looking like an orangutan.

And you know what? It took a fair amount of work (I’m a research librarian, remember) to find out this guy’s name. I’m calling this guy out: UNACCEPTABLE, SHANE JEFFRIES

Let me get political again here. YOU MADE A RACIST JOKE, SHANE JEFFRIES

At the risk of back-patting, what I hear/read from women and African-Americans and other minorities is that one of the best things white cishet middle-class guys without disabilities like me can do is call out this kind of bullshit when we see it and say that it’s not okay.

SHANE THAT IS NOT OKAY IT IS 2017

Please note the difference. On Facebook, I was asked a question by someone going under a false name, and at first glance the question read as entitled, but there’s just an interested fan behind the avatar.  I didn’t say that person’s name.  “Rambo Homer McFly” doesn’t deserve that level of respect, or privacy. You’re an asshat, Shane. Go back to where you belong.

As far as I’m concerned, that kind of joke disqualifies you from writing about the show. I’m glad you went on to other things!  But I’m afraid that if I review Family Matters, I’ll end up making jokes that are just as racist–or be so cautious that I end up making fewer jokes, and still be racist. Because… I’m racist! I have racist thoughts about real people. I’ve done racist things, and I’m certain I still do in ways I don’t see. I benefit from racist structures and systems. Yesterday was the first day I tried calling a government agency to express my view about a nomination; why the fuck did I wait so long?

I have taken a test developed by Harvard researchers and gotten back hard data that the associations in my brain are racist. I’m from Georgia; my grandfather was in the KKK. I’m ashamed of that, and I’m responsible** for the bad aspects America he helped create. It’s unavoidable that my brain is going to continue to come up with ignorant racist bullshit for the rest of my life; my hope for the future is that each generation will be less so.

An important aside: I make numerous jokes about Larry and Balki being gay. I know only a few gay people. If I make insulting jokes, or say anything in bad taste, or anything that puts you down for being who you are, I want you to tell me. I need to know. I may ask questions, but I won’t argue with you. I don’t want to hurt anyone.

Family Matters was a show for black people and, sure, it was also a show written so it would have broad appeal for white people. But I feel that any white person is going to have less to say about the show than it deserves. Because black people know their own experience; and they also know the experience of how they’re supposed to present themselves to white people.  I know next to nothing about the latter, and even less about the former.

Family Matters Pursued

I think Family Matters could use some love (and some hate) from someone qualified to write about it. I illegally downloaded the entire run of the show–only to find out it wasn’t complete. There were numerous episodes missing that I had to purchase from iTunes, which really has more to do with the DVD releases than anything. Much of the season 9 rips were recorded during what was obviously a marathon, because I kept seeing the same show advertised in the bottom third of the screen. Also there’s one episode that’s lost a few minutes in the middle because a storm warning cuts in.  At any rate, for big movies, you can download them as soon as they’re released in Asia, which precedes the DVD release in the US, generally. But I downloaded these in November, a couple weeks after season 9 was released on DVD.  I honestly would have expected it to be on torrent sites, but then again, I’m an impatient criminal. At any rate, it’s out now! If you’ve been waiting to review Family Matters because African-Americans are disproportionately jailed for crimes that white people like me are more likely to commit, now’s your time!

By the way, yes, that’s Donna Summer in some sort of gas-powered egg timer. Family Matters went to some weird places. Just a heads-up.

I’d love to hear what a black woman my age has to say about the show. I’d love to hear what a black guy my age has to say about the show. I’d love to hear what any black person has to say about this show. Because god damn there’s a lot to say.

Maybe Family Matters and its reviewer haven’t found each other yet; maybe they never will. Maybe they have, and that person hasn’t acted on it yet. Maybe it’s there and I haven’t seen it? (down there, the comments, tell me) But here’s a message for that person (or the cooler self they become when they use the “boss sauce”):

Doing this kind of review blog certainly hasn’t been entirely a cakewalk***.  I have a lot of fun with it. It tells me a lot about myself, and about others, and about television, and about comedy, and about fans, and about nostalgia. But the more I invest in it, the worse it hurts when the show goes bad. When it acts like suicidal thoughts can be done away with in the time it takes to microwave a TV dinner; when it decides to let women stay around only if it helps the main characters get laid; when a character takes a moral stance that is then reversed in the next episode, or the very next joke they make; when it tells you there’s something wrong with you for being the way you are, or thinking the way you think.

And if you’re black, or if you’re a woman, or if you’re a black woman? I’ve seen enough to know that when you say anything online, you get hateful comments at the very least, and at worst, death threats (or worse?). And that may not even be the half of what you’d have to deal with if you took this on. Yeah, it’s a dumb old sitcom, but I’ve seen people who look like me get upset over far less. The worst I’ve had so far is a message on Facebook. You’ll likely be surrounded and policed by fragile white eggshells, jealous of your strengths and courage.

But if you’re out there? And you take this on? I will eagerly, hungrily read it. I will sit, and I will listen, and I will try to understand the interiors I cannot see. I will know that this is a larger, harder endeavor than Perfect Strangers Reviewed is in more ways than one. I will share your work, and I will encourage your work, and I will defend your work, and I will make stupid jokes in the comments about Waldo, or about Myra. And you’ll tell me I’m racist. And you’ll tell me I’m sexist. And I’ll learn, and I’ll try harder not to be.

Seriously, though, I’m totally ready to make stupid jokes about Myra.

And will anything I’m saying here make a difference to you? Do you need my allyship at all? Those aren’t questions for me to answer. If and when you show up, let’s talk about those things. Meanwhile, I’ll be over here.

Here’s what I know: Balki and Larry didn’t show up in the first episode; Harriette got a new job all by herself; I’m not reviewing Family Matters.

Ding Ding Mahmoud

So, back to the regularly-scheduled programming of white guys and their arguments that matter only to them. I’ll talk about Family Matters again at some point.  After all, it’s informed my readings of long-running sitcoms in general, and Perfect Strangers specifically, so it will be hard not to.

But I wanted to make sure that I said all this, because 80s/90s sitcom reviewing is a thing I’m doing right now. I think it’s a burgeoning community and I even see its potential as an art form. (I try to be an artiste with this blog.) Independent snarky sitcom reviewing is now a domain I have a voice in, and I’m invested in this, and I’d like to see it become more of a “thing”.  I want it to be a good “thing”, because there were plenty of times when the shows themselves certainly weren’t.

Oh yeah, by the way, there’s a Perfect Strangers Reviewed Facebook page, where you can ask me whether I’ll review your favorite show.

____________________________

Urkel count: I lost track of how many different Urkels there were sometime around season 6

*for some goddam reason

**not “guilty of”–I see some white people confuse the two and try to reject the former

***yet another of the many instances of awful and racially-unaware uses of language you’d get if a white guy reviewed the show

Season 4, Episode 1: The Lottery

Welcome to Season 4!

And, huh. Based on that episode title, maybe I wasn’t too far off in guessing at the writers’ preoccupations in season 3.  Season 4 premiered on October 14, 1988 as the lead-in to the proto-TGIF block of programming on ABC.  Full House, then in its second season, aired immediately after, but by the summer of 1989 it was moved to the start of the Friday night programming block.  Perfect Strangers would be bumped an hour later then, following Full House and Mr. Belvedere; why the change? TGIF: this guy’s inference? Families.  In Fall 1988 Perfect Strangers was in competition with Beauty and the Beast on CBS, and Sonny Spoon on NBC.  (Don’t remember Sonny Spoon? You and everybody else, bud.)

Anyway, who the fuck cares about that, what’s occurring to me now is that Season 4 is the first season where we’re not starting over. Season 2 was a year of struggles and pain, being willing to let go of parts of the past if they were keeping you from living in the moment (Larry the Christmas Boy and Balki the dog-owner). Season 3 was a little more forward-looking: it ended with the same lesson, but that was after a year of trying its darnedest to progress and move past its own tropes (Mypos sayings).  In a broad sense, Season 3 overgeneralized Season 2’s lesson of letting go into actively trying to forget unless pressed to (Larry the Camera Boy and Mary Anne the landlord-rememberer).  Season 3 gave us a new work environment, and a new set of second-tier characters that it was alternately hesitant to commit to (Mrs. Burns & Gorpley) but would bring back and highlight if they proved popular (Harriette and Lydia). Twinkacetti still existed in the world of Season 3, and we can assume that Mr. Burns probably does too, unless we’re told otherwise.  However:

But for once, we’re in the same place, we’ve got the same characters. So perhaps the show doesn’t have to do as much heavy lifting in terms of introducing us to the characters and their situation, but I would argue it still must do some. Like how at the beginning of 4th grade the teacher spent the first couple of weeks reviewing stuff from 3rd grade. Back then it just made things boring for me, but I can see now it was the teacher’s way of sound out the waters, pre-test for the year, find out not only what we remembered by what we wanted to learn and how we thought of ourselves and others and school in general. So I’ll probably give the first few episodes some tiny passes if they need them. Big questions:

Are things the same? Have the cousins changed since the spring?  Who are Larry and Balki now? Is this show still about dreams, and if so, what are theirs?  In addition to those big questions, I have a shortlist of smaller ones:

Will we have an endless list of characters who stop by, threaten the cousins’ friendship in some tangential way, and leave? Or will Gorpley say more than “Bartokomous, where’s the line that you say after my line?”

Will the lessons still be pat and easy? Or am I still guaranteed somewhere between 2 and 4 decent story endings?

Are we going to retread familiar ground again?

Will Larry lie only 20 times, or 21 times?

Will Larry remember that cameras are still a thing, and never stopped being a thing?

What new thing will Jennifer not necessarily like?

Will Balki ever pronounce Larry’s name right?

Anyway, here we are at the Chronicle.  It’s a new season, it’s sunny out, everything is success, success, success, and Balki is finishing up his work for the day.

Mr. Gorpley stops him, demanding more work: in this case an office directory.  As we saw last season, Balki had graduated from American high school; here, we see that he has now been socialized into the American capitalist system and knows that employees are simply tools, their bodies owned by their faceless employers.  Balki brags that he has added every employee’s blood type to their directory entries.

Gorpley affirms this dim view of employee agency:

Mr. Gorpley: Your days are numbered.

And Balki thanks him for it!  I’m going to pause from my hard-hitting exegesis to ask: how, in the 800+ hours of Balki watching television and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, did he never hear this phrase?

There’s a ding from off-camera!

*gasps*

One miss!

Two miss!

Red miss!

Blue miss!

This one has a brand new ‘do!

This one has neuroses, too!

Lydia is excited because she won the lottery, and somehow there weren’t any lottery commercials on TV either, because Balki doesn’t know what it is.

Harriette explains how the lottery is a backwards ritual that ought to be forgotten, as there are much better ways to control the population (in terms of stemming the dual tides of growth and revolution) than randomly stoning people to death.

Nah, j/k, Harriette mentions that the grand prize is $28 million dollars!

*counts on fingers… that’s 560,00 times $50!*

Then we find out that Lydia only won $100.  😦

Larry emerges from the past, confirming that he did not write an article that day and that he is still a jerk.

Harriette gripes about having to listen to Lydia whine about how Larry called her an idiot, and once again, Belita Moreno proves to be the only actor who knows how to use the different types of exits to their full potential–she starts whining as the elevator door closes.

Balki starts in with his whole “I want to play state-sponsored snowjob” bit and Larry tries to talk him out of it.

Larry: You have a better chance of being hit by a car!

…after which Balki promptly runs out to the parking garage.

Balki comes into the apartment shaking his imaginary tits, just like they do in Fiddler on the Roof. He’s singing Reason #17 that DVD as a format will be abandoned before the music rights on this season are cleared: “If I Were a Rich Man”.

Since there’s no women here, the cousins are forced repeat to each other what they did before they got home. Larry loaned Balki a dollar to play the lottery, and Balki pays him back out of his Freddy the Frog bank.  Freddy evidently has chosen some weird-ass antlered anteater wearing a cape as his avatar for this world.

But Balki has done more than take on the music of Jewish portrayals in pop culture: he offers to pay Larry 50 cents back instead of the whole dollar

Larry does not want in, Balki keeps trying to sell him on the idea that Balki is being generous and thankful to him.

Balki: You took me in, gave me shelter…

Ignoring for the moment that Larry treats Balki like dirt and calls him a slob, this is a succinct (and, if I may say, clever) way to restate all that audiences need to know about the cousins’ relationship 50 episodes in. Larry usually is all about the quick fixes and get-rich-schemes, but his response here is fitting: he is rejecting fate (chance/religion) in favor of control.

Cousin Larry wants to tell Balki about economics

*leans in close to the screen, fingers poised on keyboard, ready to praise the show*

Larry just starts reading the text on the dollar bill.

*shoulders slump, fingers type out “fuck you show”*

Larry, the acceptable face of the Capitalist race, says that the dollar bill can buy things, while the other piece of paper has no value.  He has chosen to let the eye on the back of the bill see for him, and is thus blind to the fact that he errs in the exact same way Balki does.

Later that night…

Black dress!

??? dress!

Dumb miss!

??? miss!

The women have come downstairs just to watch a man on a screen say six numbers out loud (the 80s were a strange, cocaine-fueled time, kids).

Mary Anne (Sagittarius) tells Balki to come back to the couch so that he won’t miss the drawing, something he certainly would have forgotten in the time it took him to grab a single bowl from the kitchen.

Jennifer: Gee, I’ve heard money is nice when little effort is put forth to get it.

Mary Anne says that if she won, she’d buy the airline she works for (the 80s were also a cheap time when you could buy a lottery ticket for a dollar and an airline for $28 million) so she wouldn’t have to be scheduled on double shifts.

She then spouts what are meant to read as well-informed financial decisions she would make for the company.  Mary Anne is the rare character in this show for whom everything she says is funny.

When she says something dumb, she’s funny because she misunderstands something. When she says something smart, she’s funny because she’s dumb.  But Jennifer?

Jennifer keeps the focus off herself by asking Larry what he’d do with 28 million. Larry again rejects the idea of chance by rejecting the question. But WWBD?

He would pay off the Myposian National Debt, which totals $635.

I hope you’re all wanting to strangle Balki as much as I am for blowing that money on a skywriting jet last season.

Deep down, Balki still understands that capitalist excess is a danger to his way of life, and start starts getting scared when the numbers are announced. He begs Cousin Larry to hold the transcribed numbers (Balki hid the ticket) and Larry puts on this whole asshole 1950s sitcom “gee, Balki” kind of voice.

We get a slow close-in on Larry’s face as he realizes what’s on the note that Balki handed him.

The women try to leave, there being nothing else in the entire apartment to interest them, but–

Balki won!

In the next scene, the women finally leave. For the second time this episode, Balki calls himself “a simple sheepherder”.

Look, Balki, I know that’s how all your masturbation fantasies start, but according to “My Brother, Myself”, you’ve been here for basically two years. You haven’t even touched your shepherd’s crook since *sniff* Susan left.

The cousins are so happy that they do the Dance of Joy.

Larry keeps pressing his cheek against Balki’s and saying “we did it”, but–

Balki: What you mean we, white man?

Balki very smugly gives Larry back his own rule-based thought process: he refused to play the lottery, thus he gets no share of the winnings. Cousin Larry deserves this on a couple of levels.  One, Larry put him down earlier in the episode. But more importantly, this is what Larry gets for being so rule-based for so long.  Larry offers to go buy 20 lottery tickets and give Balki half of whatever he wins as a show of good faith. They mention also that Larry told Balki that the word “sucker” has Balki’s face beside it in the dictionary. Okay, show, I’m warning you: you’re telling me that Balki knows not everything is literal. I don’t care how much else you’ve forgotten about the past 3 seasons (or was it 2? I’ll have to ask my man T-Boyett), but you’re blocking off escape routes early on here.

Larry cries…

Balki relents…

Balki: I’m just playing a game of cat and louse with you.

Not only does Mypos have such a small economy that $635 would pay off its debt, it evidently has its own food web too.

Larry: In your face, Donald Trump!

…who lives up in the sky with God, apparently?  I usually don’t talk about that guy, because, well, here’s my opinion of him:

But there’s definitive proof that his net worth was less than $28 million in 1988.

BUT

UH-OH

Where did Balki hide the ticket?

Larry: You put the ticket…

Balki: I put the ticket…

Larry: You put the ticket…

Balki: I put the ticket… in my…

Larry: You put the ticket in your…

*lets out breath*

IN HIS BUTT HE PUT THE TICKET UP HIS BUTT HE FOLDED IT SEVEN TIMES AND HE PUT IT IN A LITTLE BAGGY AND HE PUT IT RIGHT UP HIS POOPER

Balki finally remembers that he put the ticket in his winter coat.

And here’s your show-stopping physical comedy setpiece for the season 4 opener: Larry and Balki start throwing coats out of the closet.  That scene from the 1974 film version of The Great Gatsby, starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, where Daisy throws all the shirts in the air, got nothing on this!

The ticket’s not in the coat, but maybe he put it in a cereal box.

So the cousins start throwing out the expired props from Season 3. You’ve got your Raisin Puffs, a couple boxes of Sugar Oatsies, and

Colonel Kernels!  I’m seriously excited by Colonel Kernels. I hope they travel to the Deep South to meet the racist CEO and do physical comedy at his plantation house, spill their mint juleps and swing from his porch fans.

Balki gets excited about a Captain Power decoder ring. He’s happy to have a complete set, but Larry throws it away, not realizing that exactly that kind of behavior is what increases the value of the toys that were kept in pristine shape. In fact, a few years past the airing of this episode, comics fans realized this fact en masse, driving up prices on old comics such as Incredible Hulk #181, and creating a boom/bust cycle of speculation involving numerous first issues, variant covers, and gimmick covers, like this one here for Amazing Spider-Man #400:

Oh, sorry, I got carried away there. Larry’s screaming at Balki now, and Balki’s crying, and now Larry’s holding Balki’s arms for the 16th time this episode and Larry’s throwing Balki around.

Anyway, Balki can’t remember where he hid the ticket. Larry yells at Balki to say what part of the apartment they haven’t torn apart yet, and Balki says “all those books that suddenly appeared for the first time this episode!”

Larry grabs a volume of Shakespeare from the shelf and he just starts shaking it around and I, as a librarian, must turn my head away from this savagery.

Then they tear open the vacuum bag, and, you know?

I’ve lost the thread of this episode, and quite possibly this show. Wasn’t this episode about blood types or something? Wasn’t this show about a shepherd and his beer-drinking cousin?  Has Balki fixed the radio yet?

The next day, we get a panning shot of the building’s exterior, which is the only part of this episode that’s felt like it’s taking place in a different year from that of the previous season. We see that the Caldwell Hotel has grown battlements, an outer reflection of the constant fighting within.

The cousins, spent from the night’s exertions, lie limp on the floor, and Mary Anne thinking that they’ve been up all night partying Hunter S. Thompson-style is really great.

Jennifer makes the episode’s requisite mention of their job, but before they leave, Mary Anne returns the envelope Balki gave her. The episode spins this as an indication that she is forgetful.

Now that they’re millionaires, the cousins go straight to the offices of Unicorn Cereal.

They’re so excited that they’ve been fucking the whole way there.

The cousins meet Mr. PAY-OFF, who in a very officious way (he’s wearing glasses and everything) checks the numbers on the ticket.

Larry mistook 7 for 4 when he read Balki’s handwriting. The idea is that since Balki puts a horizontal strike through 7, it looks like a 4 to Larry.

*facepalms*

YA COULDN’T FRIGGIN’ MAKE IT A 4 AND A 9, SHOW?

Larry demands that the official give them money based on the piece of paper that Balki wrote the numbers on, sealing the deal on that Colonel’s kernel of an actual commentary on assigned value.

The cousins only win $100. 😦  Barely enough to buy snacks for a Christmas party.

In the final scene, Balki names all the things you could spend $100 on in 1988: Air Jordans, 20 trips to the top of the Sears Tower, or a multi-year subscription to Sports Illustrated, including the swimsu-it issue.

Larry has always wondered what women’s hips look like…

Mary Anne is dumb (and smart); Jennifer is uncomfortable talking about anything but her job, which you can already tell from her outfit anyway.

Lydia is a slightly more established, slightly more troubled Larry; Harriette is black.

Mr. Gorpley hates Balki.

The lesson of this episode:  Larry looks at things one way, Balki looks at things another way.  That’s it. That’s the lesson.

Welcome to Season 4.

Come back next week for “Assertive Training”!

_______________________

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

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

Dance of Joy running total: 12

Season 3 Reviewed

As I said last week, I have lots to talk about. I’ll split it into sections to help you out. If you didn’t read last week’s textdump, that’s cool, whatever, I didn’t care anyway. But Section 1 will touch on the most important fallout of the historiography that I wrote.

1. Season 2 Backtrack (Bring Back those Bouncy Blonde Babes!)

So it turns out that Jennifer and Mary Anne (Sagittarius) were intended for only one appearance–the one in Season 2, Episode 2, “Hunks Like Us”.  Whether it was due to Linn-Baker and Pinchot arguing for their return because they felt they had good acting chemistry, or if it was just the studio audience reaction, the women were brought back as recurring characters. And then ABC started moving the episodes around; they placed “The Unnatural” right after “Hunks Like Us”, and my guess is that this was to assure home audiences that the women would stick around. But damn, that’s some rapid prototyping! I’d believe that Rebeca Arthur tested well with audiences, but Melanie Wilson? I just don’t see the appeal of the Jennifer character, other than as something for Larry to cry about.  And if ABC was willing to bring actors back because of a strong first showing, perhaps they got rid of actors for the opposite.  But this explains all of the confusion of why they were suddenly neighbors, and why they were suddenly stewardesses. Jennifer became Linda, Mary Anne was added so we could have some nutty upstairs roommates, and Gorbachev? Mary Anne was so dumb that she put him in the washing machine on hot and added too much bleach.

I was so angry at so many things when I reviewed “The Unnatural”, as well as how the new women supplanted my beloved Susan (“The Rent Strike”), and how they were so obviously intended as the leads’ long-term girlfriends, I overlooked how their continuation answered one of my other gripes. There were scant few recurring characters in season 2 (basically, Gina and the Twinkacetti offspring, Here Today and Gone Tomorrow). So Season 2 did give us recurring characters, but I’m still unsatisfied, because I feel that they were overused. I could have used some more Schlaegelmilch, or maybe the one guy, or even that other guy, in “The Rent Strike”; and why couldn’t other denizens of the Caldwell have been on the Ritz Discount Royals?  If anything, ABC put too much faith in these two women. Did they give Melanie Wilson a 5-year contract, only to realize that she didn’t have much screen presence and shuffled her off the stage as quickly as they could get away with? Or is it simply a side effect of the fact that bringing her back as a stewardess robbed Jennifer of the one part of her bio (working at a gym) that was unique to her alone? At any rate, as I forecast, ABC is eager to move things around, focus on them if they work, and ditch them if they don’t; it may make for a less than continuous experience, but it pleased the viewers. And if Season 3 was a disappointment in terms of the show not committing to either characters who showed up once versus people the cousins interacted with everyday, then I’m going to put that down to ABC trying to come up with the best formula for the new situation of the cousins working at a newspaper. Once Lydia showed up, she kept showing up. Mr. Burns ran out of the room enough times that the show finally let him go forever.  Forget everybody else.

You know what? I’ll go a step further and say that not only was ABC trying to see what would work for recurring characters for this show; it was trying to figure out how to do a workplace comedy at all. I went to the trouble of clicking on every ABC sitcom from the 1980s in the Wikipedia list (up through the 1987-88 season, anyway), and it appears that ABC really did focus almost exclusively on households and families. The only shows I find that are definitely workplace comedies are Open All Night (1981-82), Off the Rack (1985), The Slap Maxwell Story (1987-88), and Just in Time (1988). These were set in, respectively, an all-night convenience store, a clothing store, a newspaper, and a magazine; and not a damn one of them lasted more than one season.  Smack dab in the middle of these, time- and setting-wise, were dual versions of Perfect Strangers: the discount store with the character-of-the-week, and then the newspaper with fledgling attempts at a recurring cast.

2. Changes (and not) in character and setting (Reuse, Remix, Repeat)

We got two (three?) new bosses for the cousins, an elevator operator, a neurotic advice columnist, and the return of everyone’s favorite lovable ethnic scamp, Vince Lucas. I think that the show could have gotten away with only a handful more stories set at a discount store, so it’s good that we’ve moved on.  And just as we saw last week that the actors’ stories shed details to fit a strong narrative, so did the show. Twinkacetti gets all of one mention, and slowly the whole idea of a landlord is lost, though we do get echoes of other neighbors (Schlaegelmilch).  Another thing reading through all those articles told me is that Thomas L. Miller saw this as a friendship show.  I guess maybe I’ve just never watched many of them to know if this is standard, but seasons 2 and 3 were firmly, strictly that. Other characters existed solely to provide something for the cousins to fight over.  Once that conflict is established, does anyone else really need to be on screen or have any impact on anything?

I’m realizing that some of the episodes I like best are the ones where the external world is more than just a vague hint.  In “The Rent Strike”, when we got to see the other apartment dwellers; in “Get a Job”, where a restaurant serves as more than mere backdrop.  An apartment building seems like an easy environment to flesh out.  But a likely-constantly-in-the-red junk shop? Well, some cops came by once.  But a baseball team? A racketeer? These things extended the world along minor linear paths (Twinkacetti’s greed, maybe? Balki’s interest in Spider-Man?), but they didn’t feel like they fleshed it out.

But Season 3 has given us a workplace that automatically and instantly builds the world of Chicago-1. Not only is the Chicago Chronicle a microcosm unto itself, but it connects the cousins with the city and beyond.  We met an out-of-state psychic, the cousins’ ultimate boss is well-traveled, and Larry is given reporting jobs that take him to low-profile events. Some connections with the outside world are problematic, though. “Just Desserts” is a physical comedy high point, but it too forces our sense of the show’s reality in multiple ways. Food chemistry aside, why has Larry put aside slowly working toward his dream of photojournalism so he can try to sell stuff to chefs? “Taking Stock” is character-driven, but Balki forcing a company to reduce its profit margins is too fantastic to be taken seriously. But the smaller story of Larry and Balki causing Bob’s Market to operate at a serious loss for its first month does a better job of connecting the cousins to the world around them. That the ad in “To Be or Not to Be” gets on the air at all is unbelievable, even if the process of making the ad was character-driven. “Karate Kids” is character-driven, too, but again we’re on the smaller scale: Larry thinks he can pick a fight with a guy at a bar because brains, he assumes, win out against brawn. I get that Balki’s lack of sense of barriers and hierarchy makes meeting the Quaker Oats man and John Henry possible, but it’s still not probable. Between the two cousins, we begin to see shades of Homer Simpson meeting George Bush and Ken Griffey, Jr., Homer going to space, Homer running a snowplow business, Homer working as a Monorail conductor….

So it seems that the bigger the scope and the higher the reach of a Perfect Strangers plot, the worse it fares in terms of reality. Maybe I’m splitting hairs here, because the Chronicle is meant to be the #1 newspaper in the U.S. But the cousins do work in the basement, where they are underpaid for being overworked on menial tasks.

A large part of what I think makes the Chronicle setting work is the characters, not only in and of themselves, but also in terms of the roles they step into.  Harriette is a strong character all on her own.  I don’t know enough to say whether her acting is any sort, or level, of African-American caricature (that is: I suspect, but I’m a white guy), but she’s there to talk truth to the cousins.  And JoMarie Payton has presence.  And so does Belita Moreno, but you already knew that. She bursts onto the scene with such energy and knowledge of character that we know who she basically is within seconds.  What’s more, she’s also there to talk truth to the cousins.  I mentioned way back my impression that Susan and Twinkacetti were there to act as angel- and devil-on-the-shoulder type characters for Balki and Larry, respectively, pulling them further in their respective directions; or, if mixed and matched, to pull/repel them closer to center.  Harriette and Lydia serve a similar purpose: Harriette to reinforce Balki’s experience-based knowledge, and Lydia to affirm Larry’s booksmarts. It doesn’t always play out that way (cf. Harriette’s advice in “The Defiant Guys”). And it may never be fully realized, given this show’s reliance on breaking established character for laughs.  But it’s there, and the fact that these two often rub each other the wrong way* makes them–and the show–that much more fun to watch.

Speaking of filling roles, Twinkacetti’s gall was a whole divided into three parts. We had (and lost) Eugene Roche as Harry Burns, the disinterested Twinkacetti. We have Sam Anderson as Mr. Gorpley, the mean Twinkacetti. (Larry got the greed.)  Even though we saw more of Eugene Roche, it’s Sam Anderson who’s returning for season 4. I personally like the idea of a boss who tries to avoid his employees as much as he can, but I can see how a boss who constantly tries to find a way to fire a perfect employee makes for better sitcom conflict.

So we have new characters settling (sort of) settling into what were (sort of) puzzle piece roles, and ABC was constantly tinkering with things.  I feel like the group of characters is close to being cohesive, but the addition of so many decent actors who have their own personalities and, in Harriette’s case, a family outside the show, just makes Jennifer look more and more, well….

3. Old TV shows are great! (Remember, Don’t Watch)

To sum up what we’ve seen this season about television:

–The Golden Age of Television was just that: perfect in every way

–When you’re dealing with an addiction, say, for instance, to television shows, it’s important to remember that addictive personality disorders don’t exist. America’s culture of excess (cable television) is what causes addiction, so be moderate

–The bar for a good TV show lesson is anything deeper than Ward Cleaver telling Beaver he loves him no matter what

–Getting on television is an admirable goal

—Newhart is a pile, but gee, wasn’t The Bob Newhart Show great?

–It’s important to pay homage to the Golden Age of Television, even if you’re selective with your memory

Shoot, hold on a minute, it’s late and my eyes are getting tired. Let me put on my glasses so I can pick out the next screengrab–

Ooh, okay, maybe not.

4. Money & Death (Choose your own season finale!)

There sure were a lot of episodes about money and death, huh?

Money: “Your Cheatin’ Heart”, “Night School Confidential”, “My Lips Are Sealed”, “Just Desserts”, “Better Shop Around”, “My Brother, Myself”, “You Gotta Have Friends”

Death: “The Horn Blows at Midnight”, “Future Shock”, “The Break In”, “The ‘Pen’ Pal”, “Bye Bye Biki”

I remember enough (little enough?) about I Love Lucy to associate get-rich-quick schemes with it, so if Perfect Strangers was still trying to honor that show, the trope is well-placed.  And it fits with Larry still refusing to give up on the idea that there are shortcuts to success.

And as far as threats to Larry, sure, we had job (3), girlfriend (5), and ego (22). But are there so few things going on the cousins’ world that they needed to dip into the well of Larry possibly losing his life (or at least, his future) three times? And what did Balki stand to lose this season? His work buddy, his job (2), his innocence about the business world, his meager earnings to a counterfeiter, his work ethic, his cousins’ faith in him, and his grandmother.  Sure, both cousins are dealing with real threats that real humans experience.

But in one way, that’s glaringly bad. It’s unbalanced: the stakes are too damn high for Larry. In another way, it’s perfect for the cousins’ personalities. If Larry thinks in terms of getting rich quick, he likely also thinks in terms of losing it all quick. Okay, sure, Balki was a dick in “The Horn Blows at Midnight”. He should have known that Larry’s blood pressure was already elevated from his diet, and that convincing him he would soon die could only make that worse. In most cases, however, Larry makes the stakes high for himself, and the answer is usually along the lines of

–you just have to be upfront with your feelings

–you have to be upfront about your embarrasing situation; someday you’ll look back on it and laugh 3 minutes later

–you don’t have to impress someone who already likes you (remember? you and Jennifer struck a deal in “Future Shock”)

For Balki, on the other hand, this is the first he’s ever faced some of these threats. To a child, whatever is right in front of you (or was, just a moment ago) can become your whole world. Perhaps it’s not so imbalanced after all.

*holds up finger as sign of warning*

But for every successive season, the show will be less and less able to get away with that kind of imbalance.

Speaking of stakes, I wonder what stakes the show felt it was facing. Season 3 had two–possibly three–episodes that could have worked as a finale.  I’m saying three because for some of you out there who illegally downloaded** this season may be seeing “You Gotta Have Friends” as episode 22. It’s not finale material, but someone thought it belonged last for some reason.  The one that aired last in the original run was “Bye Bye Biki”. But the story of “The Graduate” feels the most like a finale. It gives us that incremental success that we got at the end of both seasons 1 and 2. Balki graduates from Adult Evening Classes High School, and Larry makes a principled stand all on his own, virtually free of his own hang-ups. “The Graduate”, even with Balki’s statement that he now wanted to give back and make his own contribution to society, is very much a tying-things-up kind of show. Balki sees how he’d gotten so far, is grateful for it, and is ready to keep succeeding.  “Bye Bye Biki” does the same: Balki must face that the past is just that, and accepts that he should now cast his gaze forward.

But, the difference here is that we’re juxtaposing success and death.  And if you consider “You Gotta Have Friends”, we weave in the idea of money again.  On the larger level, the show spent a lot of money for the cousins to see Carl Lewis; on the smaller scale, so did Balki.

I’m a writer, and ultimately my worries and feelings and thoughts and desires come out in what I write, both here and in my webcomic. So I have to wonder if, in aggregate, Perfect Strangers was worried about its own future.  Would it graduate to syndication at some point? Would the shortcuts it took to “lessons”, or making food episodes that matched the physical comedy on I Love Lucy, succeed?  Or did it indeed need some help from friends? Would the gamble of Carl Lewis work? Would a guest star like Perfect Strangers-brand cream-filled treats enough to agree to be on the show? Would the tiny gambles of character removal and tonal shifts it had been making all along pay off? Or would it misinterpret the lessons it learned early on about gambling (“Babes in Babylon”)?

Or would it die and leave an empty chair behind?

5. Video games (and other media)

Even though I only majorly dipped into the video game joke well a couple of times, it was very prominent in my mind throughout season 3.

Perfect Strangers seems to have suffered the same fate that ABC wanted for then-classic television.  For the most part, it’s remembered vaguely; for anyone who remembers more than Balki’s catchphrase, it’s remembered fondly.  Pardon my potential confirmation bias, but my take on the Perfect Strangers fan community is that it has a distinctly feminine bent–at least in its expression. Given, much of this has to do with the fact that, up until I started this blog and kept with it, there was basically only one website for this show; and it was (and is) developed and maintained by a woman.  But even the Facebook groups feel the same way. And when I say feminine, I’m just going with the common, “thick” version of the concept; it’s problematic; here’s not the place I want to discuss the term or its connotations; and I’m not putting it down.  There seem to be greater memories of feelings and moments, rather than memories of specific jokes or characters who aren’t Balki. But here’s the thing with confirmation bias: it’s easier to succumb to when there are fewer examples of a thing. It’s why minorities are criminals; it’s why redheads are sexy; it’s why I associate aviator sunglasses with dictators.***

The Perfect Strangers fan community is small. Full House got a reboot; Three Stooges got a movie; you will never, ever stop seeing Star Wars or Shrek. Sure, every now and then a fan will ask rights holders about further Perfect Strangers DVDs, or ask the creators about a reboot, but the answers were, respectively “You never know” from the first and “It has been mentioned” & “It could be fun” from the second. You never know! The DVDs could come out tomorrow! Somebody on a forum mentioned locking up all the gays, and you know, it could be fun! You never know!

Anyway, I’m taking the long way to make a point about the video quality of season 3 onwards. For those of you reading in the year 2054 who had the masters of every TV show uploaded into your brains at birth 1) I’m sorry, and 2) the video quality on this season is not great, and it lent my viewing experience a surreal feeling. I had to go to a torrent site and download the rest of this show, which is criminal enough****, and I’m okay with that, but many fans don’t share my blase nature, so it’s a certainty that fewer people in the past decade have seen seasons 3-8 than the other two. Also, the rips came with no contextual information, in an order different from original airings, and a few of the filenames feature misspelled episode titles. When did they air? Who recorded them off METV? Did they leave anything out? Who can we thank for the one episode with all them dancing Santas? These episodes feel as fuzzy as I imagine most people’s memories of Perfect Strangers are.

What? Oh, video games, right. The Mario Cousins, Larrio and Balkigi.  I had an NES and a Gameboy as a kid. I had a handful of games: Mario Bros/Duck Hunt; Back to the Future; Super Mario Bros 3; Fun House; Rad Racer; Spy vs Spy; and for the Gameboy: Tetris Blast; Star Wars; and Zelda: Link’s Awakening. I never beat any of those entirely on my own. Fourth stage on BttF was the best I could do; my cousin figured out how to get the initial sword in Zelda and I figured out the rest; fuckin’ fuck Fun House. SMB3 I beat only through use of a Game Genie: I’d start on World 4 as invincible sledgehammer Mario and go from there. On my own, I could get to World 3, and that was after a couple of years of throwing myself against World 2 (that damn pyramid, man). When I got there, I promptly lost my frog suit and gave up, because I hate hate hate water levels. Besides, come on, if you’re a plumber, and you’re underwater, doesn’t that mean you did something wrong?

I thought I could get away without talking about the other two Perfect Strangers review blogs that started roughly the same time as mine. I really don’t want to incriminate myself in those sites’ deaths, and you’ll have to find them on your own, but I feel successful that I alone achieved the escape velocity necessary to make it past season 2. Anyway, simply making it farther with this show, coupled with something that ought to have been 1st gen copy but looks like 5th,  were enough to plant the seeds that bloomed into confirmation bias when season 3 plots and structures started resembling season 2’s. I broke into uncharted territory, I lost some of the protection I had in the form of jokes I thought would keep running, and I made it through the water stage alive. And in a few weeks, I’ll move on to World 4, which I imagine assumed itself a giant after the gambles it made over the past 22 weeks paid off.

I think the point I was trying to make here is this: Perfect Strangers season 3 is this thing that I imagine has been seen more rarely, which makes me think of a thing with a 3 that I saw but rarely, and then gave up on a lot. Also I may or may not have murdered two other websites in code blood.

6. Cue the synth clarinet, here’s your season 3 review in easy-to-swallow list form

Best episode: I still have a soft spot for the season 1 episode hiding inside “Karate Kids”, but “The Defiant Guys” wins here. It had Balki actually try out advice that worked for another person’s situation, but not his. Larry was sort of rude, but both cousins owned up for their part in the conflict. The fact that the physical comedy didn’t feel forced, but was a result of the conflict, was also good. Putting it at the end kept the focus on emotions and problem-solving, resulting in multiple lessons for different specific situations.

Worst episode: Never stop shoving hot pokers up your rectum, “The Break In”

Best one-off character: Ted McGinley as Billy Appleton

Worst one-off character: The homeless black guy they picked up off the street to play Carl Lewis

Best Balki-ism: “Cookies *grunt* cream”

Worst Balki-ism: the rest of them

________________________________

Season 3 Catchphrase Count: Balki (18); Larry (7)

Season 3 Boner Count: Balki (2); Larry (3)

Cumulative Catchphrase Count: Balki (59); Larry (14)

Cumulative Boner Count: Balki (11); Larry (13.5)

Dance of Joy running total: 11

________________________________

And for next week: I’ll look at what our actors did between season 3 and 4!

*don’t you fucking dare say it

**I just called the police on you, by the way

***seriously, though, Charles Nelson Reilly was probably a dictator at some point

****by this point you’re already in jail and the police won’t believe you if you tell on me