Only Urkel Matters, Episode 3.14: Some Day Your Prints Will Come
“A Test of Friendship”
Original Air Date: January 10, 1992
Previously on OUM: It was revealed that Urkel was terrible at singing, even though he sang perfectly fine in the episode before that.
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(Family Matters)
Cold Open:
The Winslow family is heading out to go ice skating, but Carl isn’t going with them. NLR reveals that Harriette thinks he’s a “lazy sack of potatoes” for not joining them, which wounds Carl to the core. This is understandable after Carl reveals that he just finished a double shift at work. The family heads out, and Carl settles down on the couch for his nap. We jump forward in time a little bit, and Carl is still fast asleep, but he is no longer on a couch. He’s still on the cushions, but the frame is gone, as is everything else in the room. The rest of the Winslows return, and they wake Carl up to inform him that they’ve been robbed. Most of the family heads off to their own rooms to see if their stuff is missing, but Rachel is keeping her wits about her, and declares that she is going to call the police, which should have been everyone’s first instinct. Carl asks her not to do this, because he is the police, and would be super embarrassed to have to admit to his cop buddies that he slept through a home invasion. I have to give the writers credit: this is a fantastic idea and I’m looking forward to see how Carl deals with this anguish. Before Rachel can respond, Hurricane Urkel blows in, and he immediately thinks that the family is trying to move without telling him, as his parents have tried to do before. I know I’ve said this before, but I love the ongoing joke that Steve’s family just wants him to go away. It makes me laugh, but also makes me a little sad, and what is television if it’s not making me feel all the emotions?
The Story:
It turns out that Carl came to his senses, because after the opening theme, one of his fellow officers is dusting for fingerprints. Carl asks the officer if he’s found any, and the man tells him, “No, but don’t worry Sleeping Beauty, some day your prints will come.” The officer cracks up, and he’s not alone. That’s one of my favorite jokes of the series so far. This entire scene is basically just Carl’s fellow cops making fun of him, and it’s fantastic. Murtaugh comes in, putting the finishing touches on a police report. He calls Carl “Rip Van Winslow,” which causes Carl to become so angry that he tells them that he “will have the last laugh.” Then he tells them, “And do you know why I will have the last laugh?” The officer who dusted for prints says, “Because you’re so well rested?” and I again lost my mind laughing. There were more well-constructed jokes in this scene then all of the last episode combined. Carl pledges to find the criminal(s) responsible for the robbery, and Murtaugh tells him that he’s misjudged him. “You’re not the kind of guy who takes things lying down. You’re the kind of guy who lies down while other people take things!” This is another great line, and Officer Fingerprints apparently agrees, because he laughs so hard that he spills the fingerprint powder (actually what it’s called, I looked it up) all over Carl’s shirt.
The next scene is almost as funny, which is saying something. This show could be extremely good when it tried, which makes me frustrated, because why didn’t they just try all of the time?! In trying to find a pattern, I looked up the director of the episode, Rich Correll. From now on, I’ll be excited any time he directs an episode, because most of my favorites are ones that he directed, including “Man’s Best Friend,” “Laura’s First Date,” “Rock Video,” “Rachel’s Place,” “Boom!,” and “Robo-Nerd.” That’s doesn’t even include some episodes that we haven’t tackled on here yet (cough, “Stevil,” cough). Eddie is in the kitchen, trying his best to cram for a chemistry test. Waldo is trying to do the same, but he’s doing so in a goddamn miner’s hat. Never change, Waldo Geraldo Faldo. Eddie asks Waldo to quiz him, but he’s stumped by the very first question, which is about inert gas. I’ll spare you the fart joke that they try to make. I almost never laugh at gross-out comedy. Also, as I typed the word “fart,” Microsoft Word warned me via blue underlining that you might be offended by it. I don’t think you’d have made it this far into these recaps if that were truly the case. Steve comes in, and Eddie tells him, “I’m so glad to see you!” Steve is shocked, because according to him, no one has ever said that phrase to him before. I’m not about to go re-watch over a day’s worth of television to confirm this, but I’m inclined to take his word for it. Normally when someone says that they are glad to see him, they also include the word “actually” so that he won’t get excited and think that they always feel this way. Eddie tells him that he’s definitely going to fail the test, and the Urkman replies, “Don’t be a fuddy-duddy, I’ll be your study buddy,” which I shamefully laughed very hard at. Eddie tells Steve that even an all-nighter won’t help him pass, and asks Urkel to help him cheat. The rest of the scene isn’t remarkably written, but the three young actors knock it out of the park:
Highlights include:
Waldo’s aversion to cheating, and the assertion that he might get F’s, but he earns those F’s. He’s come a long way from the days of being Willie’s lackey.
Eddie convincing Steve that he’ll actually stick to his promise of studying day and night after the test. Has Steve ever met this guy before?
Urkel’s “foolproof” plan that involves pretending to be sick over and over again. It would take Sherlock Holmes to crack that code.
On the day of the test, Steve has come down with an actual cold. When the test begins, he is unable to give Eddie the answers in the manner they discussed, because he legitimately can’t control his bodily functions. A desperate Eddie passes him a note begging for him to write the answers down and send the note back. Urkel does this, but he’s busted by the teacher, who is one of those high school teachers that circles the room trying to catch cheaters in the act. The teacher reads the first few answers that Steve wrote down aloud, and the rest of the class scrambles to make sure their answers match his. This seems implausible, but teachers accidentally giving away answers is a thing that has happened many times in my life, especially in college for some reason. The teacher demands that Steve tell him who he was trying to help cheat, but Steve stays silent. Good job kid. Snitches get stitches. Steve is sent to the principal’s office, where his teacher says that he will have to convince the principal to not expel him. This seems a little extreme. Getting caught cheating (for the first time, too) hardly warrants a suspension, never mind expulsion. I’d say that he deserves a week of detention or less.
Later, Harriette is in the living room trying her best to relax, but all she has to sit on are one of those shitty chairs they have near every public pool. She falls backward as soon as she puts her weight on the back of the chair. The chair manufacturers must’ve figured out why this was happening and fixed the problem, because I remember this happening to me thousands of times in the nineties, and then never again afterwards. When I saw Harriette fall, I got the smallest tinge of pool chair PTSD. Carl enters through the front door, and it’s clear that he’s had a rough day. He asks Harriette not to bring up their stolen furniture, but since she almost just got a concussion from the only furniture she does have, she understandably wants an update. Carl confesses that he can’t find the furniture, and that it makes him feel like he’s slipping as a cop and a man.
In the kitchen, there’s so much going on that I’m gonna hit you with a picture and a sweet bullet-pointed list:
My eyes are up here. Just kidding, check out my crotch! (Family Matters)
What in the hell are these children wearing? Like, I want to comment on what Laura’s wearing, but Eddie is wearing what appear to be jeans that are painted red so that they don’t resemble a pair of jeans (hereby known as “The Reverse John Cena”). That would be enough for me to write about, except for the fact that the crotch area was left blue. Someone made a pair of jeans and decided that the bulge needed to be accentuated more than it normally is, as if to say, “It’s not the pleats.” Weird flex, but okay. Also, his jacket is a map of the world. Someone buy me one, please. It’s only FIFTY FUCKING DOLLARS.
For the second scene in a row, we get to see what the Winslows would do furniture-wise if all of their stuff were stolen. Again, it doesn’t disappoint. They have two folding chairs, a small table, three milk crates, a cooler, and what appear to be those blocks that people in gyms jump on.
Why are there Cheetos all over the floor? It’s never mentioned. Are we to believe that the robbers left a big ol’ pile of DNA evidence on the ground, or did the Winslow children have a small Cheeto fight before getting into the serious subject of cheating on tests?
Speaking of the cheating, Laura is pressing Eddie to go to the principal and confess that he’s the other party in this scandal. Eddie makes a weak argument that there’s no point to two of them being in trouble instead of one, and Laura tells him that the only reason Steve is in this mess is because Eddie forced him to cheat. After her monologue about doing the right thing for friendship’s sake, Urkel falls even more deeply in love with her, which I get. A girl with convictions? Sign me up, especially if she’s wearing an entirely neon outfit. Meow. Eddie has been moved by his little sister’s passionate speech, and he tells them that he’ll confess in the morning. Steve claps him on the back and tells him that he knew he’d come through.
We see a rare shot of outside the Winslow’s front door, and two very white burglars approach. I swear to God, I did not know this was a Home Alone rip-off until just this moment. Great Value Harry takes a few moments to explain to Great Value Marv why they’ve come back to rob a house that they’ve already successfully burglarized, and then Great Value Harry uses the Winslow’s mail slot to let loose a gas that makes people drowsy. As he’s doing this, Eddie comes in (with Urkel in tow), and confesses to cheating on the test. Carl is furious, but he has a hard time conveying that because the gas is making him so sleepy. Eventually, all three of them fall asleep, but never fear, because our Sam’s Club Wet Bandits have been caught red-handed by Harriette, Rachel, and Estelle. To cap off the bastardization of Home Alone, the women are all carrying shovels. I wonder if they also have a son who they’ve had a falling out with.
*For those of you keeping track, Estelle is an elderly woman who plays hockey, does karate, hula dances, beats the bag out of women half her age in tennis, goes on solo fishing expeditions, makes impossible pool shots, plays the trumpet like a long-time jazz musician, was the Rosa Parks of her small-town library, and thwarts robbers with the common snow shovel.*
Conclusion:
A few days later, Eddie and Steve are helping to move the furniture back in. Apparently, the thieves didn’t think it would be a good idea to immediately sell their stolen goods. Steve has to teach Eddie the entire periodic table of elements, because their insane teacher won’t let either of them back to school until they can both recite it from memory. This punishment is way too severe for the crime. This is like if someone was caught stealing so they cut off his dick. Rachel and Harriette come in, carrying a couch that to be honest doesn’t look too heavy. They’re struggling, and Carl comes in behind them carrying a lamp. After they put it down, he tells them, “That looks heavy!” and they chase him out of the room, ending the episode. You hate to see them stumble to the finish line like that, but otherwise this was a fantastic episode.
Join me next week, when I break down Episode 3.15, “Jailhouse Blues.”
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