Only Urkel Matters, Episode 1.19
“In a Jam”
Original Air Date: March 16, 1990
Last week, Laura quit yet another promising business venture, and Carl got a promotion by letting children beat the bag out of his police captain.
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 HATE NERDS, DON’T LOOK ANY DEEPER INTO IT!” (Family Matters)
Cold Open:
Carl and Eddie are working on fixing a cassette player (look it up, youngins). Eddie accidentally traps Carl’s hand inside the device, to big laughs from the studio audience. Urkel pops up out of nowhere between Carl and Edward, and I guess he was there the whole time? He’s found the problem with the cassette player: the shielding cable is crossed with the power line. But he’s fixed it, and he tells Carl to “let her rip.” The power immediately goes out, and the Urk-man gives us one of his trademark, “Did I do that?” lines as we head into the opening theme. I’m not sure he permanently damaged the cassette player or the house itself, so I will not be updating the SUB-total.
Urkel’s Story:
That’s right, motherflowers, Urkel has himself an “A-Story.” Now, within a few episodes, almost every show will be about him, but for now, it’s an important milestone in the show’s history. Steve walks in through the back door, and he wants to know if they’ve got anything to eat. Laura asks him if his parents ever feed him, and he responds, “Not every day.” It speaks to how annoying this kid is that not one person has called child services on his behalf. Urkel is starving because he hasn’t had lunch. Apparently, there’s a bully that has been taking his lunch money from him every day. Steve offers Eddie ten dollars to protect him, and Eddie readily accepts.
The next day, Urkel and Eddie are at Leroy’s eating lunch. Urkel is telling Eddie all about his allergies. Eddie decides that the bully isn’t going to show, even though there’s literally no evidence of this being the case. Urkel pays him his money, and Eddie, who is leaving his post early, is mad that Steve didn’t tip him. Eddie leaves, and the Urkster asks Shitty Rodney if he’d like to hang out with him. Rodney tells him that he’d rather eat dirt, so Urkel suggests that he switch to sand instead. The Bully (whose name turns out to be Bull, get it?) comes in, and it seems almost impossible that he didn’t run into Eddie outside, leaving me to deduce that either Eddie never bothered to learn what his mark looked like, or he doesn’t care anymore because he already got his money. He asks for his money, and Urkel, who has already paid someone to protect him, doesn’t have it. Bull demands that Steve pay him double the next day, or else. He demonstrates what would happen to Steve by bending a very fake napkin holder. Bull goes to leave, but Steve summons all of the courage in his little body and tells him that he won’t pay him anymore. Bull tells him Urkel that if he shows up the next day without his money, they’re going to fight.
Later, in the Winslow kitchen, Shitty Rodney is recapping what happened at Leroy’s to Eddie and Laura. In essence, that last sentence was a recap of a recap. Eddie doesn’t see what the big deal is, because it’s just two seventh graders fighting (confirming my suspicions that he never bothered to learn what Bull looked like). Rodney tells Eddie that they don’t call him Bull because he works at Merrill Lynch, which is a damn good joke for those of you who enjoy both investing AND mediocre situational comedies about working class African Americans. Urkel comes in, and since he believes he’s going to die, bequeaths a necklace to Laura that he had planned to give her on their wedding night.
“Great reaction, Kelly. Now just do that for eight more years.” (Family Matters)
If you can’t tell from the picture, Urkel ABSOLUTELY bronzed his retainer as a symbol of love, which is the kind of shit that I’m looking for in shows like this. The dumber, the better, gang. Eddie asks Urkel what he stands to gain from standing up to this bully. Steve launches into a heartfelt speech about how Eddie doesn’t know what it’s like to be bullied. Jaleel White CRUSHES this scene, proving himself superior once again to everyone else on this cast (except for Reginald VelJohnson, of course!). The best part of the monologue, which hits me right in the feels, is when Steve says, “I mean, I’m a fast runner Eddie, but sooner or later, you just gotta stop running.” Urkel leaves sadly, and the camera pans back to the three young actors remaining in the scene. They all do a great job conveying a mixture of pity and guilt, even Shitty Rodney.
Later, Eddie seeks out Carl’s advice on whether or not he should step in on Urkel’s behalf. Carl explains to Eddie that it all comes down to whether or not Eddie believes that there are people in the world that deserve to be protected because they can’t protect themselves. Eddie asks Carl if he believes that there are, and Carl tells Eddie that he became a police officer because he believes that so strongly. This is the second of back-to-back scenes that were both well-acted and well-written. I give the writers a lot of crap for lazy jokes, but these two scenes were so good, and they deserve some credit for that.
Carl’s Story:
Carl bursts excitedly through the front door (which he almost never does), to find Harriet, Estelle, and Rachel folding laundry together. He tells them to put on the TV, because he’s on the news! The whole family watches him being interviewed about thwarting a bank robbery. They’re all super proud of Carl, but his heroic police effort isn’t what he’s proud of; Carl is ecstatic because the dumb jokes he made throughout the interview led to him being given a tryout as a traffic reporter. I don’t remember a time when cops where the ones who did this segment, but I was still pooping in my pants at this point of the 90’s. Rachel, who has never been funny in her life, tells him that he’s going to have to become funnier if he wants to replace the former traffic cop, Officer Bud. She also thinks he could use a change in name. Carl tells her that he was named after his great-grandfather, and that he’s proud to be named Carl. Estelle corrects him, telling him that he was named after his great-grandfather’s horse. She’s a strange old bird.
Later, Carl and Harriet are in the living room, when Estelle comes in. She asks Carl to sign an autograph for one of her friends, and this might be the very first time that she’s been proud of Carl in the whole series. It’s kind of adorable. After he signs it for her, Estelle leaves, and Rachel comes downstairs. She’s got a list of jokes for Carl to read in his audition. Harriet thinks that Carl should just be himself, but Rachel tells her that she’s a professional writer, and she knows what she’s doing. Yeah, her writing is super successful, that’s why she’s raising her kid in someone else’s home. She has Carl read some of the jokes, and they’re terrible. Carl, of course, reacts like they’re the best thing he’s ever heard. Truthfully, Estelle and Laura are the only Winslows who have any comedic talent. Harriet stays in her lane, forgoing comedy for the sake of sass. The rest of them are only funny accidentally. Eddie is dumb, Carl makes amazing facial expressions, and Judy is marked for death, which is hysterical.
Sometime later, Rachel is sitting on the couch in the living room, watching the news. She sees that Carl’s segment is coming up next, so she calls the family in to watch. Harriet hopes that Carl is smart enough not to use Rachel’s shitty jokes, and Rachel tells her that she’ll pretend she didn’t hear that. Estelle is very excited, because the last time she got to see Carl perform, it was as Mr. Tooth Decay in his middle school play about dental health.
Concurrently, Carl is at the news station, and he’s cocky as hell. He knows he has those fire jokes to rely on, so he’s not sweating anything. He tells a producer that he’s got a million jokes to tell, and the producer tells him that jokes are what got Officer Bud fired. You mean Aunt Rachel doesn’t know shit about entertainment? GASP! Carl’s swagger immediately disappears, but it’s time to get on the air, so there’s no time for him to recover. That’s why his face looks like this when they go to him live.
(Family Matters)
You can’t look at this picture and not agree with me that Reginald VelJohnson knows what he needs to do with his face to make an audience laugh. Anyway, Carl tries one of Rachel’s jokes, and he fucks it up big time. It’s so awkward that Judy says, “He’s dying” (and Judy knows a thing or two about death). The worst part of this is that he doesn’t tell the jokes right, so Rachel can say that the only reason they’re not working is because he’s butchering them. I really wanted her to have to eat some humble pie on this one. Anyway, Carl is saved by a tanker flipping over in the area he’s covering. The advice the newsroom wants him to give is for the commuters to take the service road, but as a cop, Carl is aware of roadwork being done on that road. Carl’s instincts take over, and he explains to the viewers how to successfully navigate around the traffic, as well as which donut shop to eat at along the way. He also tells them about a secret passageway into Wrigley Field.
Conclusion:
Urkel is sitting forlornly by himself at a table at Leroy’s. There’s an extremely large group of kids in the restaurant, and he asks them if they’re all there to see him get his ass handed to him. They are, and they all tell him so. The person most excited to see him get beat down is Shitty Rodney, whose moment of sympathy for Urkel was short-lived, I guess. Bull shows up, and Urkel doesn’t back down. Bull grabs him by the shirt and lifts him off the ground, a truly impressive feat of strength. We never get to see what Bull was going to do next though, as Eddie shows up at that moment. He gets a hero’s reaction from the studio audience. Eddie tries to talk Bull out of fighting Urkel, so Bull throws a punch at Eddie instead. Eddie quickly ducks, and punches Bull in the gut. Bull, like every other bully, doesn’t REALLY know how to fight, so he takes his beating and scampers away. Urkel is so excited that he wants to celebrate, and yells, “Drinks on me!” Instead of taking free drinks from this nerd they were all here to see get his ass kicked, the crowd dumps their drinks on him. Did they decide earlier that if anyone ever said “Drinks on me” they’d pour their beverages on them? It’s very strange, and more than a little mean-spirited. Urkel is too relieved to care, and he boogies himself off-camera.
A precursor to “Do the Urkel.” (Family Matters)
Carl enters, and Eddie asks him how the traffic reporting went.Carl tells him that while it got off to a rough start, he got the job in the end. Eddie tells his father about the fight, and Carl tells him that fighting isn’t always the answer. Eddie tells him that it really wasn’t much of a fight, because it took only one punch.Carl asks him Eddie if he used the famous “Winslow Punch” to take down the bully. Eddie tells him that much like Miley, he just closed his eyes and swung. Carl tells him that’s exactly how to do the Winslow Punch, and the episode ends.
Join me next week, when I break down Episode 1.20, “The Candidate.” Smart money is on this being a Laura episode, but Steve and Eddie are dark horses.
Please share this post on your favorite brand of social media by clicking its respective icon below. It really makes a huge difference in the amount of people who’ll read it, which I appreciate greatly.
Do you think Bull is just misunderstood? Let me know this or other thoughts by leaving a comment.
You should obviously like 7th Evan on Facebook and follow it on Twitter. Following my personal account on Twitter seems essential as well, doesn’t it?
Finally, please feel free to send me some electronic mail. I’d love to hear your opinions on something I wrote, or answer a question you may have.
