We open with JT and Rich having a cheerio eating contest. Rich simply pours half of them down his mouth and half of them on the table. So I guess it was just a WHO CAN BE THE BIGGER SLOB contest rather than a physical feat of eating. Karen then enters dressed like a full-fledged movie-star. She explains she’s going in for an audition for a movie being held at the Elm Street Diner. The movie stars fake mega-star Jeremy Beck, a cross between “Kevin Bacon and Brad Pitt” Karen explains. “he sounds like a real bacon pit!” one of the guys quips. Good one fellas, if only bacon pits were an actual thing. Whose uncle wrote that fucking joke?  So anyway. Karen, dressed like Audrey Hepburn, then expounds on her fantasy of having Jeremy Beck fall in love with her, then commit suicide because her career has eclipsed his. She dramatically collapses on the table while describing this scenario. Al explains that they are simply casting a local girl to play a bit part, and then slaps Karen’s butt to get her off the table. I guess the writers knew that the show moving to CBS was their last chance to write in Al on Karen butt-slap. The audience doesn’t whoop. I guess they managed to wrangle the Bundys out the crowd.
Cut to the Audition. Even Dana is vying for the role! The audition is actually being held at the diner. I hope the diner squeezed the production company for all it was worth to have to shut down for two whole days. Wouldn’t it be more cost effective to have auditions in some rented office space? Hollywood must have money to burn. So anyway, Karen does an impression of an impression of Marilyn Monroe and is instantly gonged. I should mention that the girls are actually auditioning for the role WITH the star. On what planet does that happen? Maybe Jeremy Beck is also producing the picture and wants to be more hands-on during the casting process (Listen to me, with my fake insider Hollywood knowledge).
Dana over-thinks her audition and gets all dumb and feministy, and begins a lecture about waitressing being oppressive. The director throws her out quick. Dana complains that she didn’t even get to read the lines. The Director: “We’re looking for somebody to play a waitress, not a terrorist.” I think this was back when terrorists were whimsical activists who blew up fancy shops and restaurants in the future, like in the movie “Brazil.” Seeing as how they blew up a gigantic piece of the New York City skyline, that word carries a little more weight nowadays. Dana responds by tearing up the script and throwing it in the bushes outside. Dana, I never woulda figured you for a litterbugger.
Al goes up, does an adequate job, and wows Jeremy Beck, who silently nods to the director. They give her the part on the spot, not even giving the long line of girls outside a shot, rude. Immediately my mind went to some kind of rapey sub-plot, where the movie star is a creep who tries to get in Al’s pants. But that doesn’t happen in this episode. Sorry, fans of rape. Al responds to getting the chance of a lifetime by asking if she can eat some of the director’s fries.
Back at home, Carol and Lilly are making cookies for a bake sale. For some reason there is a terrible yuppy snot child in their house. She says, in an insane yuppy-kid voice: “My mommy and I are gonna bake something thats gonna get LOTS more money than your cookies” That’s great kid, shouldn’t you be somewhere telling Problem Child that he’s gross for being adopted? Carol asks the girl when her mom was gonna come get her. “After she gets her BMW waxed” the kid responds. Meanwhile, Frank tries to fix the electric mixer which blows up in his hands. The audience sort-of claps.
The girl’s mother shows up and is a complete snobby cunt. The woman instantly orders her kid to stop sitting on Carol’s kitchen bench, I guess because it’s too poor for her to be sitting on. She says Carol’s house is “very well maintained for this side of town.” The shit kid informs her mother that Lilly and Carol are baking cookies. The snob mom brags about cooking some snobby white fudge drizzle cake or some shit. “We got the recipe from Martha Stewart.” She’s basically bragging “we went to Barnes and Noble and bought a 15 dollar book.” She orders her kid: “Tracy honey go hop in Mommy’s shiny Beamer.” Oh brother! Carol and Lilly decide to throw out their cookies (and so did I after the shiny Beamer line) and “kick some bake sale butt” by baking something else. Al’s first day on the set is treated with a montage of her getting the star treatment. Including getting her own chair with her name on it. Seriously, they found a place that could print her up a director’s chair in less than 24 hours? You’d think they’d just give her a plain one. I like Al and all, and wish her the best, but what a waste of fucking money. Oh yeah, in this montage URKEL shows up! Without any explanation or fanfare whatsoever, Urkel shows up as a crew member. He uses the clapboard at the top of the scene and leaves, never to be seen again. You’d think there’d be a glance of recognition from Al since Urkel randomly crashed into their backyard on a jet pack 6 years ago, but she must have a bad memory.
So Al’s big scene happens and it goes over great. She’s dubbed a natural, and Jeremy Beck even tells her “you can have a real future in this business.” I just wanna say the movie these guys are shooting looks like the most boring movie in cinema history. Jeremy Beck plays a serious sad guy who's troubled and back in his old town. That’s pretty much it. Al plays a waitress that recognizes him from high school. Anyway, they like her so much they decide to rewrite another scene so she can be in that too. I’m gonna jump ahead here a little to the second scene, which is more of the same. The waitress is obviously troubled and serious and sad also, in an extremely vague way. If these are truly her only two scenes then I hope she enjoys being an extra on the DVD, because these scenes SCREAM expendable. Seriously, if these two scenes are truly the only two scenes in the movie with the waitress and her vague pathos that doesn’t pay off or go anywhere, then they are going to get cut like fucking that.
Speaking of something getting cut, something got cut on the ABC Family version of this episode. There’s an establishing shot of the Lambert/Foster house with the proper transitional music. The music gets cut off short, and we cut right to the house, where you can hear the tail end of the audience laughing at something. What? We’ll never know. Al comes home between scenes and tells her parents the great news, but then also drops this: She wants to quit school and move to Hollywood. Come on Al, you have enough sense to know they aren’t gonna go for that. Just keep that to yourself for a while, why don’t you? Frank is against the idea, citing that Hollywood is full of “Drug-pushers and Gang-bangers and Pauly Shore!” Al then launches into an over-dramatic monologue about how “Dana is the smart one, and Karen is the gorgeous one, I’ve always just been good old Al. FINALLY I DID SOMETHING SPECIAL. WHY WOULD YOU GET IN THE WAY OF THAT?’ I think all Carol and Frank need to do to get the stars out of Al’s eyes is to show her a tape of THAT performance. Oh brother.
Next Scene: Completely over this traumatic experience, Carol is now beaming with pride over her wedding cake she made for the bake sale. Lilly doesn’t want to take the cake to school because she didn’t help at all. There’s a lot of “Awww” from the crowd as Carol decides Lilly is right. Luckily they still have the cookie dough in the fridge. Carol vows to simply let Lilly make the cookies herself and just watch. Lilly puts a big dumb glob of cookie on the cookie sheet and yells at Carol who tries to politely tell her she’s fucking it up. Carol allows Lilly to make a fool of herself. The end of that dumb subplot.
Cut to Al’s second scene. Frank wanders in on the set, which appears to have zero security. He watches Al’s scene and is amazed at her acting ability, which is in reality fucking terrible. When they are done shooting the scene they talk and reach an understanding. Al SHOULD pursue acting, but shouldn’t quit school. Fuck me, is this gonna be a thing this season? Al’s acting career? We’re headed towards territory here I call “SITCOM FAMOUS.” I think it’s a true mark of sitcom terribleness when systematically each character starts becoming famous. Like Fresh Prince had one character host a talk show, and in Full House everyone had multiple talk shows pretty much. And don’t get me started on Larry Sanders, the biggest offender of them all. Basically it’s a function of sitcom writers getting antsy with having to write about families being in their family rooms all day, so they decide to branch out into fake interview shows, because basically they wish they could be on the writing staff of SNL doing the same thing. I should mention for the sake of fairness that I’m a nobody. I’m a jackoff living with his parents being snarky about reruns. So maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about? But I’m also probably completely right. Mark Watch: Mark is not in this episode. Thanks for the break, dude.
The End: Karen has a fever dream where she dumps Jeremy Beck outside of the rainy Elm Street Diner. He does the classic gag of looking puzzled when the over-dramatic incidental music flares up, and then goes back into the scene, threatening to blow his brains out. Karen is woken up from the dream. She smirks and says “I have him just where I want him!” and goes back to creep. I mean, sleep.
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