Only Urkel Matters, Episode 3.4: Boogie Knights
“Words Hurt”
Original Air Date: September 27, 1991
Previously on OUM: Urkel ruined the school play with Pee-Wee’s Playhouse style antics, and Murtaugh used his position of power to ruin Carl’s week.
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Before we begin, let’s do an update to our SUBtotal. For various reasons, I did not inform you of shit that Urkel broke in three episodes. Those episodes are:
Episode 2.24: This is the episode where I had you vote on whether or not I should count things that Urkel broke in a dream sequence. The poll results indicated that I should, so here was the damage: Steve broke one chandelier, six bottles of liquor, one railing, and one table, for a total of nine items broken. This brings our total (which was previously 29) to 38.
Episode 3.2: At the end of that episode, Urkel accidentally set off his jet pack in the Winslow’s living room, and crashed through their roof. This brings the total to 39.
Episode 3.3: During the PeeWee’s Playhouse scene, Urkel broke one moon, two trees, two rigged-up sandbags, two castle walls, and the screen that was covering up the next scene in the play. This is a total of eight broken items, bringing the SUBtotal to 47.
(Family Matters)
Cold Open:
This premise of this episode is completely asinine, so obviously I loved every damn second of it. Especially this cold open, which starts with a pajama-clad Urkel (love the stocking cap) entering Carl and Harriette’s bedroom while they are sleeping. He doesn’t wake them, because the door is wide-open for some reason. From the way Steve’s swaying back and forth, it’s obvious that he’s sleepwalking, which (like appendicitis) happens in every 90’s sitcom, even though the odds of someone close to you suffering from that disorder are fairly low. It turns out that Steve is suffering from an even more rare condition (😉), because he not only sleepwalks, but also sleep-beats-the-shit-out-of-his-neighbor-slash-father-figure-using-a-rolled-up-newspaper-walks:
(Family Matters)
A shocked Carl wakes up Harriette, who sleepily and hilariously tells him, “Not on a weekday!” When the big guy explains that Urkel has entered his home, come into their marital bedchamber, and beaten Carl about the head with a newspaper, Harriette convinces him that he was dreaming and tells him to go back to sleep. You would think Carl would go make sure his nerdy neighbor was no longer in the house, but he settles for blocking the door with a chair. He and Harriette go back to sleep, only for Carl to be awoken later when he hears a clang against his window. Predictably, a sleeping Urkel has found a ladder, and is sneaking into yet another Winslow’s room. At least this time he didn’t do it consciously. Carl wakes Harriette again, and this time she can see for herself that Hurricane Urkel has blown in. Urkel strikes Carl on the head again, so Carl leaps out of bed, but Harriette warns him that it is dangerous to wake a sleepwalker. Carl takes the paper from Steve, but when he turns to look at Harriette, Steve takes out another newspaper and clobbers Carl over the head with it. I usually see these kinds of things coming, but this time I did not, and I cracked up.
The Story:
Urkel strolls into the Winslow’s kitchen, and he’s carrying the morning newspaper in his arm. He goes to hand it to Carl, but the big guy has a sleepwalking Urkel PTSD attack, and cringes away from him. Harriette explains to Steve what had transpired the night before, and the Urkman tells them that this explains why he woke up in the dairy section of 7-Eleven. I guess that didn’t strike him as odd until now. Steve tells them that he’s going to seek professional help with his sleepwalking problem.
(What the powers of deduction lead me to conclude is) A few days later, Carl is pacing in the living room. He wonders aloud what is taking so long, and Rachel tells him that Steve is being hypnotized by a renowned doctor, and that though it might be taking a while, she’s certain that the hypnotist knows what he’s doing. At that moment (this show LOVES moments of comedic timing that make someone eat their recently spoken words), Urkel and the hypnotist walk through the door, and Steve is working through the doctor’s psychological issues with him. The doctor, whose last name is Goodrich (no relation, I’m guessing) is played by longtime “That Guy,” Earl Boen. Boen’s list of work includes a myriad of voice-over work on video games, but he’s mostly known for being Dr. Silberman in the first three Terminator films. I, of course, know him as Principal Blumford from the 1992 series, “California Dreams,” which was about the many shenanigans of a teenage rock band in (you guessed it) California. After the Urkman has finished his diagnosis, Dr. Goodrich asks Urkel to sit down so he can begin his hypnosis. Rachel asks Goodrich if he can make Steve quack like a duck. When he tells her that he is a medical doctor and not a carnival act, I expected the obvious punchline of, “of course I can,” but they chose to go the other way, having Rachel pout and whine, “He’s not gonna make him quack” to Harriette. This was funnier to me, somehow. The doctor asks Steve if he’s ready, and Urkel tells him to give it his best shot, but that Steve is too smart to by hypnotized. Of course, the doctor is immediately able to put him under, and what follows is a solid minute and a half of physical acting by Jaleel White:
Can you imagine any actor doing that better? I mean, the growling alone…Jaleel White is a national treasure. Carl can’t remember telling Urkel that he wished he would leave and never come back, so he asks Dr. Goodrich if Steve is making this up. Goodrich tells him that it is rare for someone to lie while under hypnosis, and he instructs Steve to go back in time to help figure this out. The Urkman goes too far back, however, and recounts the story of his birth, which predictably includes his father trying to force him back into the womb. Kid’s parents are a nightmare. The good doctor directs Steve to instead recount the spat he had with Carl, and we enter a flashback.
It’s the night of a costume party, and Harriette is hard at work putting the finishing touches on Laura’s “damsel in distress” costume. Carl is doing the same with a model ship, and when he finishes, he yells, “Yes!” NLR and Judy enter, and they announce the arrival of “Sir Steve, the Earl of Urkel!” The Urkster rides in on goddam horse, because of course he does. How quickly does he fall off the horse, you ask? Oh, about twenty seconds in. He asks NLR and Judy to take his horse outside to feed, and then accosts Laura, as he’s wont to do. She tells him that they absolutely won’t be going to this party together, and he tells her that’s fine, as long as she saves him a dance. Then he gives her a demonstration of what that will look like:
(Family Matters)
After he’s done boogying, Urkel goes to grab his lance, which he’s left next to Carl’s model ship. Obviously, he knocks it off the table, smashing it to bits.* You’ve known that would happen since I told you the fucking thing existed. What you might not have expected is that after breaking it, Steve repeatedly (and hilariously) squashes the boat, ruining any chance Carl had of salvaging his work. Carl tries his hardest to calm himself, and tells Urkel that he had better leave. Steve obliges, and this is when Carl drops the “I wish he would move away and never come back” bomb. Urkel had doubled back to apologize some more, so he overhears Carl’s harsh words and walks away glumly.
*SUBtotal: 48
Out of the flashback sequence, Carl’s family immediately turns on him, as so often happens. Just to be clear, if I had been in the room, I would have been completely on Carl’s side. He had every right to be angry; he told Steve to leave before things got ugly, and Urkel only overheard him because he disobeyed Carl’s wishes. The hypnotist (with the help of Rachel) wakes Steve, and asks the Urkman if he remembers what Carl said that evening. Urkel does remember, and he leaves the house sadly. All of Carl’s family members leave the room in disgust, as does the hypnotist, who refuses to take Carl’s “dirty money.”
Conclusion:
Carl hangs up the phone in the kitchen. He tells Harriette that he was just on the phone with Steve, and asked him to come over so that he can apologize in person. His plan is to “lay it on thick” and tell Steve how amazing he is. Urkel comes in, and he’s brought a long a big, hulking contraption with him. It looks like the cart that they used to wheel books around on at scholastic fairs, and it’s got a milk crate filled with electronics and wires on top. Urkel tells Carl that this is a homemade lie detector, which he brought along because he knew Carl would try to bullshit him. He also calls Carl “Sergeant Winslow,” which I thought was a funny addition (so sassy!). The Urkman tells Carl that this lie detector has a special twist: if Carl is caught lying, he will receive an electric shock. Naturally, Carl’s first instinct is to flat-out refuse, but Steve and Harriette convince him that if he has nothing to hide, he has nothing to fear. Personally, I would have told that nerd to go fuck himself. In the case where a normal lie detector would have done the exact same thing, Steve has vindictively added an element of torture for his own sick gratification. Carl agrees to take the test, however, and it goes exactly how you think it might go:
Did you notice that when Carl says that he’s thirty-five, his lips actually say thirty-three? This is the stuff you notice after your fourth straight time watching the same episode of television. Anyway, there was some great physical acting in that scene. I like that RVJ chose to do something different every time he got shocked. Carl tells Steve that his machine isn’t broken; he really cares about him. He said those things out of anger (remember, Urkel wasn’t even supposed to be in the room at the time!), he honestly didn’t mean them, and he’s sorry. The two hug, and Carl begins to take the lie detector off, but Harriette starts asking him questions about how many girls he was serious with before her. He starts lying immediately, and gets shocked repeatedly. He gets all the way up to twelve (HE WAS SERIOUS WITH TWELVE WOMEN?! HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?) before the episode ends.
Join me next week, when I break down episode 3.5, “Daddy’s Little Girl.” I’ll give you +1000 that this will not be about Judy Winslow.
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