Only Urkel Matters, Episode 1.12
“Laura’s First Date”
Original Air Date: December 15, 1989
Last week, Aunt Rachel had a useless saxophone story-line, and Laura sold a priceless family quilt to the devil, who was obviously a white lady.
If you’d like to catch up on an episode before you read the recap, you can watch every Family Matters on Hulu. If you missed last week’s recap, you can read it here. Any “Only Urkel Matters” that you may have missed can be found here.
I’ve been looking forward to writing about this episode for a while, so let’s just dive on in.
“I just fucked up our whole life.” (Photo Credit: IMDB)
Cold Open:
Eddie and Aunt Rachel are in the kitchen, and Eddie is standing on a chair, which is unusual. Oh yeah, he’s also wearing a dress. Harriet wants to wear this dress that evening, so Rachel, who we haven’t known to be a seamstress until just this moment, is adjusting it for her, and using Eddie as her body double, which is not going to scar him at all. She runs out of pins to keep the dress together, so she runs off to get more. Of course, this is when Carl, Laura and Judy stroll into the kitchen. Carl is concerned, because this is the late 80’s, and people were NOT ready to be cool with dudes in dresses. He tells Eddie that they need to have a talk, and GOD I wish we got to hear it.
Laura’s Story:
Two weeks in a row, son! The writers are clearly starting to dig writing for the Laura character. I hope there isn’t a new character who comes along to steal her thunder. Laura wants to go to a dance, but Harriet thinks she’s too young. Laura tries the shitty little kid thing where she asks Carl instead, and, having not heard Harriet tell Laura she couldn’t go, he agrees to let her. Harriet, however, legitimately threatens to kill Laura if she disobeys her. Laura sucks up to Carl, who caves (as many men would in this situation) and agrees to talk Harriet into letting Laura go.
Carl finds Harriet in the living room, and makes a pretty good case for why Laura should get to go: she’s thirteen, she’ll have to be home by ten o’clock, and all of her friends will be there. Harriet finally relents, but tells Carl to remember that she was dead-set against this. Carl couldn’t give two shits.
A few days later, Laura is at a restaurant called “Leroy’s” with one of her friends. I’m 90% sure that this is the same locale as “Rachel’s Place,” the restaurant that Aunt Rachel will own after she gives up on her dreams of being an author. I don’t remember if this is just a case of the writers hoping you don’t notice, or if she ends up buying this place, but I’m excited to find out. We’re starting to get to the things in this show that I’m eager to write about. Laura is studying, which is a super not rude thing to do when you’re sitting with a friend. Laura’s friend tells her to get her nose out of the book, because they need to find her a date for the dance, which is tomorrow night. Eddie walks in, and Laura’s friend, who is clearly crushing on him, invites him to sit with them. Eddie tells her that he can’t be seen sitting with them, and true to his word, squats next to Laura so that they can have a conversation. The kid is dedicated to his social standing. Eddie tells Laura to watch out, because he overheard Steve Urkel talking about his plans to ask Laura to the dance. After Eddie walks away, Laura explains to her nameless friend (hereby known as “not Maxine”) that she can’t go to the dance with Urkel because he’s a mouse eater. Okay, gang, this is BRILLIANT and subtle writing. Steve definitely did not eat a mouse, but how does a rumor like that begin, especially in high school? Think about it. What does Steve say to Carl all the time that might eventually lead to someone saying that he ate a mouse? I’ll give you some time to think about. Anyway, Urkel walks in, (for the first time in the series, really) and he’s instantly the funniest person that has ever been on the show. He’s wearing his trademark suspenders and giant Coke bottle glasses. He watches a girl play an arcade game for about three seconds before being shoved away, and somehow this elicits a laugh from me. Steve confidently strolls up to Laura (carrying a briefcase for no reason, which also made me laugh) and asks her to the dance. Laura doesn’t even have to answer, because not Maxine tells him to take a hike, and that Laura would rather eat worms than go anywhere with him. He says, “Okay, some other time then,” and walks away confidently, which is so alpha. I think this kid will be all right. Laura sees the boy she actually wants to go to the dance with, and she makes flirty eye contact with him. Not Maxine tells Laura that he’s going to ask someone else. Laura tries to give him the eyes again, but Urkel gets in her line of vision and mentions that his dad knows singer Wayne Newton, prompting not Maxine to call him a goat-face and throw fries at him. Urkel turns to leave, walks into a support beam, and APOLOGIZES TO THE BEAM. Jaleel White was a goddamn riot.
Later, at the kitchen table, Rachel tells Laura that she’ll make a dress for her to wear to the dance. Laura tells her not to bother, since no one has asked her to the dance yet. Carl insists that the phone is going to ring any minute, so they all stare at it for a few seconds. Eddie wonders how long they’re going to do this, a classic joke that went away when cell phones were created. Laura runs upstairs, humiliated, and Carl tells Rachel that she should make the dress anyway, because he’s certain that she’ll find a date. His tone suggests that if it doesn’t happen naturally, he’ll MAKE it happen. In the scene that changes history and essentially ruins his life, Carl calls Mr. Urkel (Steve’s Dad) and asks if Steve has a date to the dance.
Later that evening, on “The Magical Porch That Fixes Everything,” Laura is sitting glumly on the porch swing. Eddie comes outside and asks Laura how she’s doing. Laura tells him that she’d like to be alone and he tells her that he understands, and then joins her anyway, which is another example of a “Contractually Obligated 90’s Joke.” Eddie tells her that he knows she has a crush on Mark (the boy from the restaurant) and that she should just ask him to the dance instead of waiting on a teenage boy to do the right thing. Solid advice. She’s worried that she’ll look like a fool if Mark says no, but Eddie says that any boy that wouldn’t go out with her doesn’t deserve her anyway. This is the first time that these two have had a touching brother/sister moment, and since we’re already six hours into this series, it had a huge impact. Great writing. Eddie leaves to go shoot some hoops, and Laura hesitates for a moment before heading inside. She walks slowly to the phone, hesitates again, and then calls Mark. Obviously, she knows his number by heart. When Mark picks up, Laura asks him to the dance, likely prompting millions of women around the world to say, “Good for you!” out loud. Don’t look at me like that, ladies. Every girl I’ve ever watched television with has done that at least once.
On the day of the dance, Laura comes into the kitchen to show off the dress that Rachel made for her, and my god, this thing is hideous. I mean, look at it:
(Family Matters)
I know everything in the 90’s looked like garbage in hindsight, but there’s just no way this was a good-looking dress even by the current day’s standards. Harriet notices a loose thread, so she pulls at it, and it rips off the entire left shoulder of the dress. It’s possible that like me, she realized how hideous this thing was, and destroyed it on purpose. Rachel and Laura rush upstairs to fix it, and Harriet goes into the living room to grab thread for Rachel.
Carl comes home while Harriet is retrieving the thread, and Harriet tells him about the dress situation. Carl smugly points out that he knew she’d get a date, and the doorbell rings. Harriet asks Carl to get it so that she can run the thread up to Rachel. It’s Urkel at the door, and goddamn, it’s good to see Carl and Steve interact. Steve is wearing a suit (his bow-tie is crooked, of course) and he’s carrying flowers. He says, “Hi, Mr. Winslow, I’m Steve Urkel,” and I just about burst into applause. Carl invites him inside, and Steve tells him that he nearly wet his pants when he found out that he’d been set up with Laura. He’s had a crush on her since the first grade, but Laura’s always thought he was a freak. Carl compliments the flowers, and Steve tells him that he picked them up in a cemetery on the way over. Carl suggests that Steve go into the kitchen and wash out the roots, and Urkel thinks this is a good idea. He compliments Carl on his home, which he says is very nice for a cop’s house, and then accidentally bumps into the coffee table, causing it to smash into pieces. This is the first instance of damage that Urkel causes to the Winslow home, and I’m obviously going to keep a running tally. Carl looks up to the heavens and says, “What have I done?” This is the understatement of his lifetime. If you don’t think I laughed at every single thing that happened in that scene, you’re severely underestimating how much I love Steven Q. Urkel.
Eddie strolls in with one of his buddies (Tyrone), who is wearing headphones and bizarrely never removes them. Eddie tells Carl that he’s paid Tyrone ten dollars to take Laura to the dance. This family really needs to work on its communication skills. Carl tells him that Urkel is taking Laura to the dance, and they have a short conversation about Urkel eating mice. Laura comes downstairs in a completely different dress, and it looks so much better than the last one. Eddie tells Laura that Tyrone is her date to the dance, and she’s understandably upset that her brother hired a teenage male prostitute for her. Mark arrives, and Carl is dumbfounded when he finds out that his daughter, who is both intelligent and beautiful, has managed to find a date on her own. He tries to rush them out the door, but the Urkman has finally finished washing off the flowers, and enters the room at that exact moment. Urkel then excitedly asks Laura if she’s wearing a bra, which is hilarious, and somehow doesn’t get him punched by any of the boys. Carl tries to get Urkel to say that he called Laura to ask her out (which was obviously not going to work), but Urkel dimes him out. Laura is humiliated, and she runs out of the room.
Conclusion:
Harriet finds Laura on the Magical Porch That Fixes Everything” This situation has gone so horribly awry that Laura thinks that something must be wrong with her. Harriet convinces her that there isn’t, and that Mark obviously really likes her. She tells her that boys can be scared of asking girls out too, and that it took Carl six weeks to build up the courage to ask her out. Laura heads back inside, and Harriet prays to God that Mark is into Laura.
Laura heads back into the living room, and asks Mark if he still wants to go to the dance with her. He sure does, because he’s liked her for a long time. They head out. Rachel emerges from Mother Winslow’s room (where was Estelle at for this episode?) and she’s finally finished the dress. Again, just terrible communication at the Winslow residence. Urkel is still here, and he makes himself comfortable on the couch, as his parents told him not to come home until 10:00. He asks if they have any cheese, which is one of those money-grabbing Urkel catchphrases. Obviously, his constant asking for cheese led to people calling him a mouse, which then blossomed into “mouse eater.” Fantastic, subtle writing, as they never actually explain this in the episode.
Later that evening, Laura comes home from the dance, and tells Carl and Harriet that she spent most of the dance talking to Penny (probably not Maxine’s real name), and that Mark didn’t get up the courage to ask her to dance until there were about three minutes left. She can’t wait until boys get braver, and Carl tells her that she better let him know if they get TOO brave. He also apologizes for trying to set her up, and she accepts his apology. She also tells him that the next time he considers setting her up, he should just picture Steve Urkel. The family shudders, and the episode ends. Little do they know that they won’t ever have to picture Steve, because he’s NEVER GOING AWAY.
Thanks for reading. I know this one was a little lengthy, but c’mon guys, Urkel’s here! Join me next week when I break down episode 1.13, “Man’s Best Friend.” Probably about a dog, but here’s hoping that it’s about Eddie’s blossoming friendship with Steve Urkel.
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