Sunday, December 16, 2007

"She's gone! And I'm alone! And I'm wet!" or Tanner's Island (3.1)

Hooray! Season 3! Plus, I loved this episode, it may be one of my faves.

Danny comes in and announces that the entire family, Becky included, is going to take a trip to Hawaii to celebrate their 2 year anniversary of living together (Well, except for Becky... who hasn't been around for 2 years... and doesn't live in the house (SPOILER ALERT!)...yet). And in the words of Peter Griffin, that is pretty frickin shweet.

The Tanner clan lands in Hawaii and the video quality here is different. I dunno how to explain it really, so I won't comment on it anymore. They are wicked picture happy, snapping approximately a bajillion photos a minute. Stephanie's definition of paradise constitutes a place having a pool, an ocean and a soda machine. It's good to have standards, and glad to see Hawaii met them for young Stephanie Judith Tanner!

As a side note, I've been contemplating switching Stephanie's name to Methanie Tanner on account of Jodi Sweetin's former drug addiction. The trouble is I like Stephanie most of the time, so I might just save the whole Meth thing for when she gets a little older and more annoying (ie. the Gia years).

Joey spies one of the Hawaiian hula girls who greets tourists with Lei's and immediately falls in love, not realizing that it's their job to smile at every schmo who arrives in Hawaii. Let him have his fantasy, I guess. She disappears when he tries to point her out to the fam. Hooray, another boring storyline reminding us that Joey has a penis.

Everyone's all set to go off and do their own thing until Danny gathers the troops to unveil his clipboard of fun. The clipboard essentially contains an itinerary with everyone's preferred activity, but just incorporates it so that everyone participates in the activity together. It doesn't sound all that bad, but the family naturally grumbles about it like the ungrateful asswads they are. I mean for fuck's sake, Danny just bought you all a free Hawaiian vacation and you're going to complain?!?! Ridiculous!

First off is Joey's activity: Golf. Fuuun. Everyone just stands around watching and refusing to play and maybe they'd have more fun if they tried to play. Next up is Danny's portion of the vaca, the boring historical stuff! Yaaaay! This segment allows us to be introduced to the Hawaiian folklore of Menehunes. Stephanie sums them up as Hawaiian munchkins, and so far as I can tell, that seems to be a pretty apt description. Becky adds in some hooplah that Menehunes will aid you when in need, but only if you really believe. Obviously, this will come into play later.

Next activity on the clipboard of fun is a marine life meet & greet. They also get to feed and ride dolphins and killer whales. All of the dialogue is dubbed over because I'm sure all of this aquatic interaction made the lines pretty difficult to deliver. The words don't completely sync up with their mouths though so it's a little wonky. I'd just like to note that in this marine montage, everyone looks like they're having a great time.

Jesse's choice of activity is to visit all of the landmarks from when Elvis filmed "Blue Hawaii" and "Paradise Hawaiian Style." The family is not nearly as moved by the sites as Jesse so they quickly move on. Next they are all paddle-boating and again, laughing and having a great time. Joey sees his Hawaiian girl and dives out of the paddle boat to pursue her but she vanishes yet again.

The family's now on a boat with Danny acting as skipper guiding them to the island of Pua. Unfortunately for the Tanner clan, Danny is not very well-versed in the fine art of skippering and has actually been navigating the boat towards a potato chip crumb on the map that he mistook for an island. Whoops. Luckily at that moment when everyone realizes that Danny's gotten them lost, he catches site of an island and they set sail for it. But the string of bad luck continues as after some exploration, the island appears to show no signs of life. To make matters worse, Danny needs some practice in tying knots as their boat begins floating away.

Danny begins running through the water to catch it, and Jesse follows, not to get to the boat, but to kill Danny. Man, I hope they didn't leave any of their important possessions on there. Becky yells that the boat's too far gone, but it really doesn't look like it is. Depending on their strength as a swimmer, I maintain that they could have caught up to it. They just wanted to stay on Potato Chip Crumb Island forever.

Jesse casts Danny's clipboard of fun out to sea and everyone cheers because they regarded the clipboard so bitterly. But, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we've seen evidence to the contrary and that the clipboard's assigned activities did indeed result in fun being had by all. Joey's doing the stupid Popeye voice and nature fights back by dropping a coconut on his head and laying his ass out. The score is Potato Chip Crumb Island, one, Joey Gladstone, zero. Unfortunately this blow to the head causes Joey to hallucinate that he's seeing his dream girl and he chases after the mirage. Dumb!

Steph is alone gathering food in the depths of the jungle which seems pretty dangerous to me. She runs into a young boy whom she takes to be a Menehune, but each child runs screaming away from the other. Stephanie runs back to tell D.J. who doesn't buy and when Steph starts voicing her concern over their fate, she does a pretty good job of comforting her and assuring her that the adults have this shit on lockdown.

But her theory's shot to shit when a plane flies overhead and doesn't see them so all of the grownups begin attacking one another, arguing and yelling. D.J., who's apparently the most mature of the bunch, gets them to cut the crap and that they can make P.C.C.I. a "totally rad place to live."

The family's trekking through the jungle when they come across a bunch of natives who pretend to be savages to fuck with them. It's actually a pretty awesome trick to play on tourists. The natives inform them that they actually are on Pua, so Danny receives the validation that he so desperately needed following his family's clipboard-hating inspired mutiny. They are invited to participate in a Polynesian show and Becky gets the band to play Rock-a-Hula. Jesse sings with them while the rest of the family dances onstage and I'm so terribly embarrassed for all of them.

1 comment:

Lauri said...

My father always puts a map on a clipboard when we go on vacation. Because of this, I call it "The Clipboard of Fun" to the point that he's doing the same now.