Friday, November 30, 2007

"I almost feel like hugging you... Almost" or Jingle Hell (2.5)

This is a pretty racy episode title. It actually has "hell" in it! This does not seem very FH-ish.

Jesse is in his room attempting to write a jingle for Fred's Tire Town. He's singing some sort of bizarre ballad, and I know he's just trying to free-flow to come up with an idea, but seriously? A ballad as a jingle? Stephanie comes in with Harry the token Asian friend, whom Stephanie introduces as the one who "sits near the crayons." Jesse congratulates him on his superb geographical location and is so desperate for a song idea, he lets Stephanie try her hand at it. Apparently she wrote a positively divine poem about milk that made Harry crave a cookie.

Stephanie's jingle is essentially: "It's a very very very very very very very very very very very very very very nice place!" Not exactly what we'd call a winner. Jesse kicks the kids out of his room, only to have Joey barge right in. Joey starts spouting off some surf dude speak and utters the magic phrase, "It's totally radial, dude!" Jesse tosses him out, but his little catch phrase is sticking.

In the girls' room, Stephanie and Harry are playing and D.J. comes in from karate practice. She threatens to judo chop Stephanie to which the younger sister retorts "You're just jealous that I have a boyfriend." Haaa. I love how Harry calls Stephanie "Chief."

The next day, a triumphant Jesse returns home after selling his Fred's Tire Town jingle. Because Joey served as the inspiration, Jesse very graciously gives Joey half of the money. They decide that they make a great team and to go into advertising business together, "like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." Joey foolishly asks, "Can I be Butch?" Jesse: "Not in that shirt." Bwah! Another fugly Hawaiian shirt shot down!

Now the guys are working on a jingle for a national campaign for Kitty Krispies cat treats. Gaa! No! Bad! Joey, in an attempt to what I can only assume is be more butch, is now wearing a rugby shirt. Losers like that can not wear rugby shirts! Rugby is awesome! And what's worse, he's wearing my number (for those interested, it's 5). Ugh, I am forever tainted by this moment in television history.

Stephanie is in the kitchen eating popsicles with Harry. These popsicles were D.J.'s that she was saving for her and Kimmy and she even labeled them with her name. Man, Stephanie is really sucking hardcore this episode. Why is she being such a brat?

Since this episode is all about commercials and jingles, I just saw a commercial that perplexes me. Has anyone seen the AirWick commercial with the elephant housewife, talking about the mess made by her centipede husband? Can anyone explain to me the logistics of an elephant-centipede romance? It's positively mind-boggling!

Joey wants to dress in a cat costume for the presentation, Jesse puts the kibosh on that idea. When they go in to make their presentation, Joey surprises Jesse with cat puppets. I'm pretty sure that the back-up singing cats were Pound Purries (c) the feline equivalent to the popular 80s toy, Pound Puppies (c). I used to love those toys even though they were kind of fug. Anyway, it's a really cute presentation, but they obviously make the advertising suits look like they have NO sense of humor and aren't enjoying what's actually a pretty cute, clever and entertaining commercial.

Joey and Jesse come home angry and fighting about the presentation, meanwhile D.J. and Stephanie are arguing about Stephanie's brattiness, and the arguments mirror one another. You would think this would make J&J realize how childish they sound, but naturally it doesn't. Finally, in the girls' room the bell of urine sounds and UgMichelle emerges from the bathroom clutching a newspaper, having her first successful moment on the potty. Everyone laughs, and the floodgates to apologies and resolved issues open. All is well in the Tanner household because Michelle tinkled.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I totally don't remember this episode. At all. Although sadly the UgMichelle moment sounds vaugely familiar, barf.
:)

metamorphstorm said...

With one of her first allowances, my little sister bought a fifty-cent book of adult jokes (which for the most part we were much too young to understand), and one of the jokes was about an elephant that lets an ant have sex with him/her (if there were gender details for the elephant, I've forgotten them) because the ant gets a thorn or thistle or something out of the elephant's foot.

Most of the jokes weren't actually funny, and this one wasn't, either; the part that should have made the reader laugh, I think, was that the elephant steps on another thistle while the ant is doing his thing, and the ant thinks the elephant's cry of pain is a compliment to the ant's "size", or something.

Your comment about the Airwick elephant-and-centipede commercial reminded me of that...