Only Urkel Matters, Episode 3.8: Steve Got Game
“Making the Team”
Original Air Date: November 8, 1991
Previously on OUM: Urkel created a robot replica of himself, and then was shocked when it tried to steal his dream girl.
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Cold Open:
Carl is sitting down at the kitchen table, and he’s got a box of Oat Bran with him. This seems peculiar (because he’s fat), but all is revealed when he opens the box and pulls out a powdered donut. Just as he takes his first bite:
(Family Matters)
NLR immediately jumps into blackmail mode, and coerces Carl into giving him $20. It’s a scene that you have to see for its blatant awfulness (and also a testimony to America’s horrendous sugar addiction):
Bryton James is still acting, and I’m sure he’s brilliant, but shitty childhood acting (which is designed to be shitty, so no offense meant to the actors) requires a certain level of sincere purity (see Tanner, Michelle or Brewster, Punky) that Bryton just didn’t have, at least at the beginning. I’ve made a big deal out of his “serial killer eyes,” but in truth I think he’s just too aware that he’s acting, and his eyes are weirdly unfocused, almost dead. I hope that he outgrows that in future seasons. Anyway, this kind of scene demonstrates as good as any other how cancelled this show would have been if they hadn’t discovered Jaleel White.
The Story:
Eddie is on the way out the door when he gets hit in the face with it, courtesy of Hurricane Urkel. The Urkman wants to play a friendly game of hoops, but Eddie tells him that he can’t be seen playing basketball with a nerd like him, because it would hurt his reputation. Is the rest of the school blind? Steve is always around the entire Winslow family. Surely someone would have noticed this by now. Carl comes downstairs in a tiff, and Steve assumes that this is because he’s constipated. The real reason is that LT Murtaugh has convinced him to carpool to work every day, but always comes up with excuses so that Carl has to drive. Eddie asks what today’s excuse is, and Carl tells him that Murtaugh accidentally got stuck in his electric tie rack and almost slapped himself to death. Steve tells Carl not to scoff, because freak accidents do happen. He tells them about a mishap that his uncle suffered, and Carl and Eddie leave. They make sure to go separate directions, which is smart. He can’t follow both of them.
Estelle, Harriette and Rachel are sitting in the living room reading magazines when Laura walks in. When she walks by Estelle, who is reading a Victoria’s Secret magazine, Laura asks her, “Am I old enough to see that?” Estelle, sharp as ever, tells her that she isn’t old enough to see it. You gotta watch out for that hardcore pornography section of lingerie magazines. Laura asks Harriette to sign her permission slip, so she can tryout to be a cheerleader. Rachel (as always) makes it about herself, telling Laura that she was such a good cheerleader that when she graduated, they retired her pom-poms. Harriette, channeling Mother Winslow’s sassy vibes, tells her that they had to retire her pom poms because they were starting to sag. That’s probably the hardest I’ve ever laughed at a Harriette joke. It’s not because JMP isn’t funny, they just don’t give her enough material. Harriette is worried about Laura, because she knows her Type A-ass daughter will freak out if she doesn’t make the team. Laura tells her that she doesn’t have to worry, because she already made the team! Harriette’s celebration when she hears the news is heartwarmingly adorable.
The day of basketball tryouts arrive, and the Urkman has a hard time keeping up with the rhythm of even the most basic of exercises. The coach of the team arrives, and I would have loved the coach to be the gym teacher from Episode 3.2, but this guy is just as good. I mean, look at him:
(Family Matters)
If there’s one thing that Family Matters knows, it’s that gym teachers should have a mustache. We also find out here that the name of their High School is Vanderbilt, and that their mascot is the muskrat. The coach tells them to show him what they can do, and that starts a montage of Urkel trying as hard as he can to show what he can do. The problem is, no one will pass him the ball. This montage is most famous for creating a popular meme, but I also enjoyed the continuity of his free throw form being similar to that of his bowling stance from Episode 1.21. The coach brings the tryout to an end, and Steve goes up to him and tells him that he wasn’t given a fair shot to prove how good he is. The coach (not a tall man himself, mind you) tells the Urkster that he isn’t tall enough to be on the team, and names him equipment manager.
Later, at cheerleading practice, the cheerleaders are finishing…cheering, I guess. I never liked cheerleaders. Sure, they are very often extremely good looking, but I genuinely don’t see the point. I love spectator sports, and I find that the person most likely to get me hyped to cheer is the guy with numbers painted on his beer belly, who yells, “LET’S FUCKING GOOOOO!” at random intervals. The coach, Miss Gherkin*, and the head cheerleader, Cassie Lynn (#whitetrash), kiss each other’s ass for a moment, and then Laura tells the coach that she wrote some new cheers and she’d like to share them with her. Cassie Lynn tells her that she can tell them to her instead of wasting the coach’s time, something the coach agrees with, for some reason. Maybe she’s mentally checked out. Cassie Lynn tells Laura to never do that again. I know she’s supposed to be a bully, but damn it if I’m not on Cassie Lynn’s side here. I played hockey in high school, and if I had walked up to the captain as a freshman and told him I had ideas on how to win more face-offs or some shit, he would have smacked me in the face. What’s more, I would have deserved it. Then again, I was also not very talented. I digress. Laura threatens Cassie Lynn (again, so ballsy for a freshman) and Cassie Lynn gathers the rest of the girls to leave. Laura offers to bring them to Rachel’s Place on her dime, and Cassie Lynn shuts that down too. Because this is a sitcom in the nineties, one girl lingers long enough to say, “Sorry, Laura,” and then runs to catch up with the other girls. I get why Cassie Lynn turned Laura down, but why would the other girls go along with her? If someone offers you a free meal, you eat that free meal.
*I can’t hear the word gherkin without thinking of the edited-for-TV version of “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.” If you know, you know.
Later that evening, Laura is pajama clad in the kitchen. She’s feeling rejected by society, so she calls the only person she knows who has experience in the matter: Steven Q. Urkel. As so often happens on this show, Steve bursts through the door barely after she asks him to come over. He’s wearing an apron, because he was busy washing the basketball team’s uniforms. Laura asks him how he handles everyone treating him like shit all the time, and Steve tells her that he just doesn’t let it bother him. She asks if that means he doesn’t show anyone he’s hurt, but Urkel legitimately does not let anything bother him. That’s how I want to live my life. I feel like I’m 80% there, but sometimes somebody says something to me that sets me off. Steve tells Laura that he hasn’t taken getting cut from the team personally, and that he’s going to work as hard as he can as the equipment manager, and hopefully make the team the following year. Sounds like someone else from Chicago’s story, doesn’t it? Laura tells Steve that she’ll work as hard as she can at cheerleading, and thanks him for his help. That’s when Steve, for the first time but definitely not the last, asks her, “You love me don’t you?”
Conclusion:
On the day of the big game, Vanderbilt is getting beat down. I mean that in both senses of the word: they are losing by more than twenty, and most of the team has been injured by dirty tactics. LT Murtaugh shows up, and he reveals that Vanderbilt’s arch-rival, Willow Glen, is his alma mater. The two of them talk some pretty weak trash to each other for a moment. Another Vanderbilt player gets hurt, and they send Urkel out to collect the body. Urkel does ”just an awful job of stabilizing his spine.” The coach, down to just four players (Did the refs call no fouls? How did this many players get hurt with no consequences?) decides that they’ll have to forfeit. Urkel (with some help from Eddie) convinces the coach to put him in instead, and proceeds to put on an absolute basketball clinic. He starts dribbling through his legs and draining shots from everywhere. You have to think that Jaleel White had some actual game, and that’s why they decided to make this episode.* Steve’s success inspires Laura, and she demonstrates one of the cheers she had written. It’s fine, but not any better than the cheers she was shitting on earlier. All cheerleading is hot garbage in my mind (Emphasis on hot [but also an emphasis on garbage]). Moments later, after a few more slick moves by Urkel and some killer rebounding by Eddie, the Willow Glen lead has been reduced to one. Laura gets back up to do her cheer again, and this time she is joined by the other cheerleaders (sans Cassie Lynn). They do a remarkable job of keeping with the rhythm considering they’ve never done this routine before. At least they saw someone else do it before they attempted it themselves, unlike the “Do the Urkel Dance”, which was perfectly choreographed despite no discussion or demonstration. As you might think, the game comes down to the final moments. Urkel pump fakes, and then throws up a prayer:
Everyone in the bleachers files onto the court and mobs Urkel and Laura (who I guess is also a hero somehow). I suppose no one besides Murtaugh was here to root for Willow Glen. Steve and Laura get hoisted up into the air like they were celebrating their bar mitzvah, and the episode ends.
*I Googled, “Was Jaleel White good at basketball?” and stumbled upon this article. The grammar is abhorrent, but it’s definitely an amusing read.
Join me next week, when I break down Episode 3.9, “Born to Be Mild,” which is one of my favorite episodes of all time.
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