With any new show it’s important to leave it alone and let it breathe and grow on it’s own. Except for Step by Step, which they could tell would need to be pulled out of the toilet immediately. So lets get that asshole Urkel in there quick so people actually watch this bullshit.
The episode starts with the family all having a wonderful barbeque in the back yard. “How many dogs?” Frank asks. “Lets see... Karen, Dana, I count two, dad!” Oh JT, you’re only cheating yourself by refusing to get to know and get along with your new step sisters. Mark doesn’t want any hot dogs because he’s afraid they’re too phallic and if any of the other kids have read his diary it would invite the comparison. He claims that really he’s too nervous to eat; his science fair partner from out of town is due to visit any minute. Al makes sport of Mark for having a science fair partner he hasn’t even met yet. “We’ve met, but only through my computer modem and the occasional fax.” Mark says, beaming with pride that he’s such a piece of shit.
Just as Carol puts the potato salad on the table, Urkel drops from the sky. He looks at the totaled picnic table and says his catchphrase: “I am a terrible gimmick of a sitcom character.” Whoops, I mean, “Did I do that?”
So after the theme song and some terribly fascinating commercials, we arrive in the Step by Step kitchen. Mark and Urkel are debating what their science project should be. Mark wants to disprove evolution by using carbon dating samples. Urkel wants to create a machine that once you go in, your glasses get taken off, your voice gets deeper, and your suspenders get replaced with a smart-looking jacket. After Mark and Urkel pass through, Frank and Carol decide to use the kitchen to be disgusting in. Frank wants to take Carol to a nice romantic dinner, but Carol can’t make it; she’s on the committee for Al’s backwards dance, where the girls ask the boys out. This is also known as a Sadie Hawkins dance, but they didn’t want to get sued by the estate of Al Capp. Al and Dana walk in, horrified at the sight of Frank and Carol sucking each others faces off. “You two aren’t going to reproduce, are you?” Al says with a tremble in her voice. Oh Al, if only you knew what was in store for you and your terrible family in Season 5.
The main purpose of this scene is to establish that, big surprise, Al isn’t much interested in the dance. But truth is she’s just scared to ask a boy, Roger. “He’s a pitcher, I’m a catcher. It’s strictly a business relationship” says Al, dressed in a baseball uniform, making it not sexual or double-entendrey at all. Frank uses himself as an example to try and pep-talk Al into being a lady. You have to ask for things you want in life, and he talks about asking Carol to marry her. “Finally I asked her to marry me and see what happened?” “Yeah, you married her and now I have two jerky step sisters and a step brother who’s building a bomb in the basement!” Keep Mark’s bomb under you hat, Al; that Family Planning clinic is not going to know what hit it.
Urkel and Mark continue their heart-to-heart in the Living Room. They basically just restate the premise of the entire series to the people at home who skipped the pilot because Urkel wasn’t in it. Al and Frank enter. Frank tells them they should be upstairs working on their science projects. As they speed upstairs, Urkel knocks over a thing. It’s so funny! Al and Frank are basking in post-game victory. Al tells Frank she asked Roger to the backwards dance and he said yes! Looks like your daughter isn’t going to grow up to be a dyke after all!
Frank walks in on Dana trying to get tickets to the musical Cats, because she promised her music professor that she’d take her to see Cats on her birthday. Which seems... weird. How did THAT come up? Frank lets her know that JT’s best friend’s father is a ticket broker and that she should talk to JT about getting tickets. Dana is disgusted with the idea of going to JT for anything, but she sighs and... why do I have a feeling that this scene is complete filler? This better pay off, or I’ll be fucking furious. The kitchen scene ends with Frank and Carol doing a comedy routine with shopping bags.
Fat Lady Watch: They help Al with her dance dress in the kitchen. Urkel and Mark nerd it up while Al is fitted for her dance dress in the kitchen. “We still need to work on our Nuclear Fission part of the science project!” Mark says. “That’s right, and if anybody asks us where we’ve gone, we can tell them we’ve gone Fission!” haha, nice! Al then gets a phone call from Roger. A girl he liked better asked him to the dance, so he’s going with her instead. Aw, Al! I actually feel bad for pre-puberty Al!
After a scene where Frank tries to give Al a pep-talk about being broken hearted, we cut to the night of the dance. JT got Dana’s tickets for Cats, THANK GOD. But Dana had to get him Cindy Sherman’s phone number. I assume that’s some girl at school and not the photographer. I’d try to construct a more clever joke out of that reference, but to be honest I only remember her name from the John Waters movie Pecker and had to google it wondering why it was on the tip of my brain. Sorry I couldn’t bowl you art fags over with a stronger zinger.
Mark and Steve come home from the science fair. They’ve won first place with their project titled EBONY AND IVORY, which consisted of them making out behind a baking-soda volcano. Frank and Carol are roped into the dance committee even though Al is no longer going to the dance. Al enters to get ready for a night of watching TV by herself. Steve gives Al his sympathies for being dumped. Al gets testy: “I’m sick of getting advice from people who have never been dumped before!” Steve then stares at the audience blankly, rivaling Mark Walberg in Boogie Nights in that scene where the drug deal is about to go to shit. Urkel tells Al the same shit her dad did, but this time it works because of the star power involved. Al asks Urkel to go to the dance with her.
The End: Al arrives at the dance with Steve. Roger gets one look at her in that dress and his jaw hits the floor! “habahabahaba will you dance with me please habahabahaba” Al tells Roger to drop dead! Urkel then yells at the DJ to “play a fast one” and by sheer coincidence he decides to put on the backing-track for THE URKEL. Everybody then gets into formation and they DO THE URKEL. Seriously, they couldn’t make this SLIGHTLY more believable by having Urkel turn to the kids sand say “hey follow my lead everyone!”? No, I guess everybody in the school watches Family Matters and already knows what to do. Come guys, The Simpsons, A CARTOON, even had enough sense to make THE BART MAN not only be a dream sequence, but they also made it NOT BE PART OF AN ACTUAL EPISODE. It was a music video shown in tandem with an actual Simpsons episode! It was also a thing I sang while I sat on the toilet, replacing the line “last name Simpson, first name Bart!” with my own name. But we will have plenty of time to talk all about that in hell.
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