Jerry McGuire made the concept of sports agency a real glamorous affair. So lets see the STEP-BY-STEP take on things!
Jean-Luc enters dressed like Aladdin. He’s apparently making some kind of fashion statement. He did not turn into an actual genie. Trust me, I tried making a wish. It didn’t come true, he was still on screen. Carol informs Jean-Luc that he looks like Barbara Eden in “I Dream of Jeanie.” He retorts with “Well you look like Chrissy from “Three’s Company but you don’t hear me (end of sentence drowned out by audience laughter)” Suzanne looks surprised and delighted but in a completely fake way. Like meetings were held agonizing over how her reaction should read something like “we have fun of the set! Sometimes we just surprise each other with inside jokes related to past credits! And it stays in the show!” Hey Jean-Luc, you look like Balki! Huh? Huh? Or you know, the guy who gets cocaine all over him when he’s being pulled over by the cops in True Romance. And no one else.  Mark remarks that Jean-Luc’s pants look like a big orange diaper and scampers off while Jean-Luc quips “quite a shock coming from Orville Redenbacher!” Haha, nice one Jean-Luc. We were ALL thinking it.
Frank and his bowling buddy enter. His bowling Buddy is played by Don Gibb, the only Bee Gee to become a pro wrestler. Jean-Luc and bowling buddy instantly clash when Jean-Luc tries to kiss him on the cheeks like French dudes do. Frank manages to subdue bowling buddy with cheese and bread (who’s the Frenchman now?). Somehow it leads to Carol and Jean-Luc talking about starting a bowling team for the hair salon. The manly men scoff at the idea: “A Bunch of Hairdressers bowling? I don’t think so!” says Don Gibb. Jean-Luc challenges the beardo lummox with a glove-slap and Frank holds the big brute back with all his strength. Hey Frank, you look like that guy from Dallas! Am I doing this right?
Cut to JT and Rich dressed like what they think slick agents look like! They say “babe” and “ciao” and “do lunch.” Al wisecracks at them and leaves. JT & Rich’s one client, a college hockey player arrives. “Hey we’re like in Jerry McGuire!” JT exclaims. He and Rich begin yelling “SHOW ME THE MONEY” at their client like a couple of dorks. Their client then says “you guys can SHOW ME THE SANDWICH!” putting JT & Rich to work making him lunch. He then reels off a list of other things for them to do include typing up a history paper, washing his car, and doing his laundry.
Lets speed things along here because to be honest? I’m tapped out of good Step by Step jokes. I used them all on my last write-up. Karen enters to the usual hoots of the audience, passing the hockey player by with a flirtatious glance. The hockey player adds one more thing to the list of tasks: GET ME A DATE WITH THAT BABE! Cut to the Bowling Alley where Carol and Jean-Luc are bowling against Frank and Don Gibb. At stake: if the men win then Carol and Jean-Luc have to be their poker night slaves. If the ladies win then Frank and Gibb have to wear tutus in the bowling alley and sing HAIL TO THE HAIRDRESSERS. This reminds me of when I was gonna take drama in high school, and some kid tried to talk me out of it by telling me “do you know what they make you do in drama? They make you PRANCE AROUND in TIGHTS AND TUTUS.” He honestly meant this literally. Never happened, friend. The closest to that was I wore Lederhosen in THE MOUSE THAT ROARED. But he honestly had me believe that in this acting class there was a unit in acting gay, basically.
The audience claps for the stock footage of cut-aways of people getting strikes. Pretty much everyone is good at bowling except Carol, who rolls a gutter ball. Balki gives her a tip: pretend the pins are jerks! Just then Frank comes in with a rude put-down: “hey carol just so you know, the object of the game is to hit some of the pins!” Like magic, Frank appears in place of the first pin. This is actually a great idea. Next time I go bowling I’m going to picture the whole Step By Step family as the pins. Karen comes home from her date with Mr. Hockey. She really likes him! But guess what? He’s a slime-ball! He asks JT & Rich to get him a date with some other girl, who he intends to date in tandem with Karen. This is an obvious moral quandary, but they are so fueled by the prospect of getting 10% of 10 million bucks (I guess they assume this guy is going to sign a 10 million dollar contract of some sort? It’s honestly not clear in the episode why they think they’re gonna make so much) that they let their family date a jerk. At this point my dad came home with Kentucky Fried Chicken. I wasn’t paying such close attention. So lets breeze through this bore-fest:
Carol and Jean-Luc win bowling.
Karen wants to tell hockey player that she loves him, finds out he’s a creep when she walks in on him smoochin’ some other broad. JT & Rich try to stop her but are too late, but they wind up dumping hockey jerk too. Karen claims she wants to lock herself in her room and “become a man-hater like Cybill Shepard” They then spot a bucket of dirty mop water, and decide to pour it on hockey guy, who is outside in his convertible which is conveniently parked under the window of the student rec room, which is where they caught him being a slime-wad. But not before hocking loogies in the bucket! Normally this would gross me out, but I’ve had a cold for the past two weeks almost and loogie hocking has become a normal fact of life for me. They dump the water on the guys head while chanting SHOW ME THE LOOGIE!
The End: Frank and the pro-wrestler sing and dance in tutus at the bowling alley. Don Gibb whispers to Frank “I’m man enough to admit it... I’m feeling kinda sexy!” And I’m sick enough to admit, I think I lost my will to live. Ugh. Lilly Watch: Lilly is not in this episode.
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