Only Urkel Matters, Episode 3.3: Steuben's Bane
“The Show Must Go On”
Original Air Date: October 4, 1991
Last time on OUM: Carl again had problems while trying to fix something in his home, while Urkel used science to win an athletic competition. Unfortunately, this led to his rocket-fueled death.
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(Family Matters)
Cold Open
Carl is tidying up around the house with a feather duster, and he’s wearing a maid’s apron while doing so. He picks up a rug (presumably so he can vacuum the spot where the rug sits) and places it outside on a chair that I had no idea was there. While he’s doing this, he dusts a tree for no reason. At the same time, Lieutenant Murtaugh strolls right past him and into the house. When Carl turns around to re-enter his home, he’s startled by the presence of his commanding officer. Murtaugh takes a few jabs at Carl for taking care of his family (gee, I wonder why he’s divorced) and then hands Carl a beeper (look it up, youths). Carl asks why he’s getting this, and Murtaugh tells him that it’s time for his annual performance review. The implication here is that Murtaugh is going to have Carl do errands for him since his career is in his hands. This is no way to treat someone that you had a near-death experience with. Murtaugh tells Carl to put the beeper into his purse, which irks Carl enough that he tells Murtaugh that he wears the pants in his family. Unfortunately for him, it seems like Harriette has been outside waiting for a good cue to come in. She chooses this moment to do so, and hands Carl a bouquet of flowers.
The Story:
Harriette is busy making breakfast when all the Winslow kids and NLR come downstairs. Each of them make odd demands for breakfast on a weekday, and each order is more outlandish than the last, culminating in NLR asking for ice cream. He seems destined to end up looking like his Uncle Carl. Harriette tells them that they can eat oatmeal or starve. I paraphrased, of course, but they shouldn’t expect her to make four different breakfasts on a school day. Carl’s beeper goes off, so he rushes upstairs to get his uniform on. Estelle says that the last time she saw Carl move that fast he was chasing a donut down a hill. Carl gets no respect from the women in his life. Hurricane Urkel comes in (he didn’t die? GASP!), and he’s dressed like an asshole:
(Family Matters)
The reason for this get-up is that today is the day that auditions for the school presentation of Romeo and Juliet are being held. Urkel, as you might have guessed, does the whole, “It is the East, and Laura is the Sun” gag. Estelle asks Steve if he’s going to try out for Romeo, but he’s already been delegated to stage manager by the director, Ms. Steuben. Urkel leaves, and Harriette asks Laura if she’s going to try out for the play. She doesn’t know yet, but Rachel thinks she should, because if she’s anything like her aunt, she’ll be a great actress. Carl comes downstairs. He’s on his way to pick up Lieutenant Murtaugh’s dry cleaning, which was the “emergency” that caused him to rush in the first place. On his way out the door, Rachel tries to improvise a monologue about how worried about him she is. It does not go well.
Later, in Mysteriously Unnamed Junior High’s auditorium, a girl is in the middle of her audition. Ms. Steuben is doing her best not to cringe, but she does. I’m not sure if the joke here is that the girl is bad at acting, or ugly, or some combination of both, but what I do know is that she’s not getting the part. Ms. Steuben thanks everyone for auditioning, and Steve starts repeating everything she says with a megaphone. It’s routine situational comedy. After she eventually silences the Urkster, Ms. Steuben announces that the titular male lead will be played by a boy named Daniel Wallace, who is a new hunk for Laura to pine over after Urkel screwed douchebag Alex Phillips out of awkward yet consensual snogging with Laura last week. The role of Juliette comes down to Laura and Maxine, because none of these other girls actually exist. Ms. Steuben asks Daniel to read lines with the girls, and Daniel says this douche-chilling line:
Laura certainly does have a type. After Maxine can’t keep it in her pants long enough to read any lines (somebody grab her a towel), Laura steps in and absolutely crushes it. She and Daniel have such palpable chemistry that Ms. Steuben and Urkel declare her the winner after about four seconds. When Laura and Wallace kiss (as the scene stipulates that they do), Urkel loses his mind, bellowing “CUT!” into the megaphone and getting right up in Wallace’s face. Love the forearm at the end.
Back at the Winslow house, Carl is pacing in the living room, and he’s dressed to the nines. Harriette comes downstairs, and Carl apparently decides that the way she looks was worth the wait, because he launches into a borderline racist “fiiiiiiiiiiine” that was even uncomfortable to me, the “white guy that thinks all black people talk like this” that the writing team is pandering to (I do love that the closed captioning people didn’t even bother to write more than one “i,” in “fine” though). Harriette looks so good, in fact, that Carl has a mind to skip dinner all together (bow-chika-wow-wow). Harriette reminds him that if they do that, they’ll miss an all-you-can-eat special at Chez Josephine’s. Carl’s look of indecisiveness as he tries to choose between sex and an all-you-can-eat meal is priceless. Ultimately, he decides on the food, and he and Harriette start to head out, before being rudely interrupted once again by Carl’s beeper. Harriette begs Carl to ignore it, but Carl tells her that he has to at least call Murtaugh and let his commander know that he and Harriette have special plans. As Carl makes the call, Rachel and Laura enter, and Rachel is pestering her niece about how actors must access pain deep within themselves in order to give a truly worthy performance. Laura implies that her aunt is being a pain to her right now. Carl gets off the phone, and Murtaugh has given him a fast food order to pick up. Harriette is furious with Carl, and Rachel points to her pain as an example for Laura. Harriette smacks her with a pillow and exits. On his way out the door, Carl remarks about how this night can’t get any worse. True to form, that’s when Urkel shows up. He rushes over to Laura and tells her that Daniel has a case of appendicitis, and that Steve will be playing the role of Romeo instead. I love how many times that appendicitis crops up in early nineties sitcoms. In real life, it only affects about seven percent of the US population yearly, but I feel like a main character in every TGIF show got appendicitis at some point. Urkel puckers up for a kiss, and Laura tells her aunt that she’s able to access that pain now.
When we next rejoin the Winslow clan, it’s the night of the school play. We’re smack dab in the middle of things, which we know because Carl is standing and applauding his daughter after one of her scenes. If you’ve ever been to a play before, you know that this is something you do not do. Estelle, who apparently is not done raising her son yet, admonishes him for his actions. Carl’s beeper goes off, but he’s not going to miss his a second of his daughter’s play, so he smashes it to bits. Harriette approves, and tells Carl that she’s proud of him. The play resumes, and Carl stands and applauds again, because he is only capable of learning one lesson at a time (and is only able to remember those lessons for roughly six or seven episodes). Urkel prances onto the stage, and he and Laura begin Romeo and Juliet’s most famous scene (unless you count the double suicide one). When they kiss, Urkel loses his shit, and causes a chain reaction that rivals PeeWee’s Breakfast Machine:
(Family Matters)
This entire episode happened because someone thought of “Didst I do that,” didn’t it?
Conclusion:
Ms. Steuben is surveying the damage caused by her production’s Romeo, when Urkel walks in and tries to apologize. She knows he’s sorry, because he’s always sorry. She tells him that she’s retiring from the school’s theater program, and asks him if he’s taking Home Economics next semester. When he confirms that he isn’t, she decides that she’ll teach that. If this is the last time we see Ms. Steuben, it’s a damn shame, because she’s really good in this role. Laura walks in, and she tries to make Steve feel better about fucking everything up yet again. The Urkman tells her that the reason he feels so bad is because Laura was doing such a great job, and he made her look like a fool. Laura tells him that no one thought she was a fool, and Steve is relieved at the thought of that. Laura convinces Urkel to go to the wrap party with her, and as they go to leave, Steve asks her why she bothered to come cheer her up. Laura tells him that it was out of pity, and Urkel tells her that “the seeds of pity can blossom into love,” and promptly walks into the door that she’s rightfully slammed in his face. This ends the episode.
Join me next time, when I break down Episode 3.4, “Words Hurt,” which is about how if you say pathetic shit like, “The seeds of pity can blossom into love,” you deserve to get hurt.
