Man, I have clear memories of this episode. This write-up will contain hell of TRUTH because of this.
The episode starts out in the Step by Step kitchen, where JT has loused up another situation by being a bad phone messenger. Karen is expecting a phone call from a very important boy (VIB [His name is Bobby, so if you want it can stand for “very important Bobby”]) and JT is like UUUUHHH YEAH SOMEONE CALLED UUHHH I FORGET. I think that’s what he said. The family starts campaigning for an answering machine to be installed but Frank doesn’t wanna, because he doesn’t want a MACHINE telling his clients what’s what. Surprisingly the phrase “C’mon, It’s the 90s!” didn’t get uttered once. Instead the family asks of Frank, would you rather have JT deliver the messages? One look at JT trying to put a spoon on his nose (an act I immediately copied, I WAS A CHILD) made the choice clear, and it’s the choice of a new generation. Just do it.
In the family room Cody asks Dana out on a date to go see 101 Dalmatians. “You can help me count the Dalmatians!” Cody says. That is, and there is no other word for it, ADORABLE! Dana lays it all on the line for him: “If the sun exploded tomorrow and you were the last guy on this scorched cinder we once called Earth, I still wouldn’t go out with you. Dana then stomped out the door and went to go to her gig of singing the theme song to Squidbillies. Cody thinks maybe the answer is to be less like himself and more like another himself. “which me should I be?” Cody asks out loud.  In the Kitchen (ordered from least repulsive to most repulsive), Al, Frank/Carol (tie), Fat Lady #1, and Mark all stand around their new answering machine. They each take a crack at it except Frank (TOO NERVOUS!!!). Al is rude about the Fosters, while pushing her pro-Lambert agenda. Fat Lady #1 puts on a sexy voice and tries to sex up the answering machine, yuck! Carol turns into a babbling ninny who just goes on and on, it’s really terrible, a tragedy. Speaking of tragedy, Mark winds up being the winner! After remaking they just need to record a simple, boring message, Mark records this gem, which I’ve uploaded so you can use it as your own outgoing message:
The next scene is just a bunch of exposition that builds up to a sassy fat lady joke, ugh. Why am I even bothering with this? Okay, Carol reads a long list of boys that left message for Karen, but none of them are VIB. Frank got some remodeling job for bozos. The Fat Ladies are terrible. I can’t even make fun of them.  Hey, remember when you got your first answering machine? Heck, I can remember a time when this was a very big deal. My friends had answering machines but I didn’t, and I was SO JEALOUS. And guess what they all did? They made FUNNY FUNNY out-going messages! One I remember: Mom: I can’t come to the phone right now, because I’m stuck under a big pile of laundry! So please leave your name, number, and message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as the kids find me!
They also did the classic thing of pretending to have picked up, but then faking you out, but they did it REALLY well, like they weren’t joking about at all, they acted as if being deceitful on your out-going message was a law. I had another family that was a bunch of snobby cunts. This kid’s mom was seriously the most joyless rich bitch in the universe. It should’ve been awesome going to his house because he had cool stuff, but every time I went over we’d always end up going over to my house instead to get away from her. Like the first time I ever used MSPaint was at his house, for example. He was also the only kid who had a Sega Genesis instead of an SNES, which I didn’t realize until I scrimped and saved and bought one for myself that Sega Genesis is completely terrible. Anyway, One time, I called their house? And I was a silly kid, right? So I made silly noises and stuff into their answering machine for a couple minutes. It was a longer-than-usual message, but what the fuck, right? I’m a kid! And they BANNED me from ever leaving a message again. “You aren’t allowed to leave messages on our machine anymore” my friend glumly told me the next day. Oh yeah, he got fucking yelled at for it! I wish to GOD I had enough sense to not follow that rule. I wish I wasn’t scared of adults when I was a kid. Hey, another time I made a funny out-going message! Forrest Gump was a big hit, so I did my best Forrest Gump impression, claiming to be the Forrest Gump chocolate hotline. “Press 1 for dark chocolate, Press 2 for white chocolate” haha, get it? Because he had chocolates in the movie! My recent phone messages include me saying “I hate that I’m Richard Lewis, and you’re watching Comedy Central!” (and that’s it), and this one that I’ve had for over a couple years now. That message came about when I was in the middle of my stalker debacle that I wrote about in episode 109. Okay, that’s all my answering machine stories. Now I have to actually talk about the actual episode. Woof.  Cody is now wearing a fancy suit and boasting a new job as a regional field rep for some toy company. Cody fills toy vending machines for a living and wears a suit to do it, hoping to impress Dana. JT is unhappy with his sell-out cousin. “I haven’t been this bummed since Milli Vanili” you know what’s funnier than that joke? The idea of a be-mulleted little rat face JT sitting in his bedroom just listening to Milli Vanilli, being really into it, before he knew they were frauds. Picture it! No, download their album and listen to it all the way through, and picture JT doing the same, while drawing a really well-done color-pencil sketch of them. Then, when you’ve done that, just listen to “Girl you Know it’s True” and imagine the same scene, this time time-lapsed so instead of seeing him drawing the picture in real-time it’s a montage of his progress that lasts the whole song. Come on, just do it. I dare you!
Karen enters the Kitchen with Brendon, dressed like a preppy little puke. Turns out she just put through a “fashion lesson” at the mall. She then checks the messages from the answering machine and she finally got a message from her beloved VIB! The message itself is something like “hey come hang out with me at the yogurt stand in the mall food court, I’ll be here till six!” But the line read is oddly creepy and kinda sounds like Karen is being set up for a rape trap (that’s the version of Mouse Trap you can buy at Adult Superstores all across the country). Karen leaves as the next message plays; it’s from the construction company that hired Frank to remodel the apartments. The guy warns Frank not to show up, because they found problems with the building and they need to demolish it. When the message is over, after having played to an empty room, the answering machine’s robot voice goes “YOUR MESSAGES WILL NOW BE ERASED.” Here is where I call bullshit. And I also called bullshit 17 years ago when I was a fucking 8-year-old whose defining experience with answering machines was getting BANNED from a snobby cunt’s one. No answering machine works like this. Not even in 1991.  So Frank goes to the job thinking everything is a-okay. When all of the sudden a wrecking ball smashes through the wall. Now, this scene lasts all of 45 seconds, but I remembered it lasting for fucking ever. Like I remember all kinds of antics with the wrecking ball and dumb comedy orchestra music and other members of the family getting involved for some reason... but really the ball smashes through the wall while Frank is inside, then it smashes through a second time and Frank rides it out. That’s where the scene ends. It was kind of a let down, to be honest. I was ready to be mad at it all over again.
So after such a horrific ordeal, you must be wondering to yourself; “what’s up with Cody right now?” Well, he’s sulking because he lost his primo gig. He kept only putting good prizes in the vending machines because he didn’t want to let down the little dudes who wanted to buy some slime and wound up with an eraser. Cody tells Carol about how he blew it and just wanted to impress Dana. When Carol passes this along to Dana, she browbeats her into going into his van and cheering him up.  In the van, Cody has a poster of Einstein hanging up. I thank my lucky stars it’s not the one with his tongue sticking out, ugh. Cody doesn’t quite know who he is, he just likes the Don-King effect he has going on with the hair (paraphrased). Dana, meaning to be harsh, assures Cody that there’s nothing he can do to change her feelings of him. Cody celebrates that Dana came into his van at all after she leaves. Aw Cody, my heart goes out to you buddy. I can’t even lampoon you. You are too sad!
So when the episode is over, Karen is punished from using the phone, and Frank gives the answering machine another shot (after smashing it to bits in a previous scene). They’ve placed a message board next to the phone so people can properly record each other’s messages, since the machine apparently won’t. Carol alerts Frank to one of the perks to having an answering machine, you don’t have to pick up the phone when you’re about to go bone. Penny (aka Fat Lady #1) is on the phone, demanding they pick up. Frank and Carol sneak away AS IF SHE’D BE ABLE TO HEAR THEM WHILE LEAVING THIS MESSAGE and I call bullshit again. God, maybe buy an answering machine before you write about them, writing-staff of Step by Step. You are all terrible.
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