new year

Is the Grease 2 Finale the 2020 Fever Dream We All Need?

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Listen, I think we were all hoping for a “Cool Rider” kind of year and instead we ended up freezing on stage, taking off our star crowns, and hallucinating out of our fucking minds from the stress of it all.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the deliciously campy Grease 2, the girls of Rydell High’s talent show decide to perform something akin to the “Calendar Girl” song but with more of a home-spun “Chicken Soup with Rice” feeling to the music.

Our protagonist, Stephanie, is supposed to be the big December finale. But she’s distraught over the fate of her love, who has been attacked by a motorcycle gang (a much meaner version of the original Grease’s mostly lovable T-Birds) and is presumed dead. Yeah it’s a downer. This causes Stephanie to enter a fugue state. Fortunately, her disassociation also involves some off-the-cuff song-writing abilities, which gives us “(Love Will) Turn Back the Hands of Time.”

I thought this was powerful stuff when I first saw it at 8 years old. In the years since, it’s felt pretty ridiculous. But I’ve come back around. I love it again. I think this is the kind of saccharine shit my cold, cold heart needs right now.

If that doesn’t work for you, this one should. If ever there was a “Hard Candy Christmas,” it’s this year:

For a literal hard candy Christmas, try these stained glass cookies.

Full House: Happy New Year

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Joey hasn’t had a date in while, so Danny and Jesse decide to set him up with a lady. Really this shouldn’t be shocking because he’s a grown man who randomly lives in the basement of his friend’s house. On top of that, I’m not even sure that he has a job at this point in the show. But fine I’ll pretend to care about Joey for this episode.

But first, I’m obsessed with Stephanie’s outfit here, so please leave me a note in the comments if you see this jacket in an adult size. Thank you in advance.

Joey spends the afternoon calling everyone he’s been out with that year to see if anyone is free for New Year’s Eve. This is the 1990 equivalent of getting a “hey” text several months later from a guy you regrettably hooked up much earlier in the year and have since forgotten about. NOT that I’m speaking from experience.

Joey — sad that he has no date but apparently unaware of the negative effect his denim shirt with Babar appliqué has on his relationship status — offers to stay home with Michelle and Stephanie on New Year’s Eve, so that Danny, Jesse, and DJ can go to parties. This prompts Danny and Jesse to find Joey a date. This also marks the last point in the episode in which there is any semblance of ethical or personal boundaries between these three grown-ass men. Should be a fun episode!

The two of them decide to sign Joey up for a video dating service without him knowing. To trick him into sitting for the video, Danny calls Joey up to the attic, where Jesse has hidden a secret camera in an ad for toothpaste. (So I guess this is the point in the series where Jesse and Joey are writing jingles. My bad for calling Joey unemployed earlier on.) 

Danny and Jesse act super strangely, which freaks Joey out. He notices they’re “talking to the easel” but doesn’t see the big circular cutout in front of the camera lens. He endures the weirdness just long enough for Danny and Jesse to get what they need on tape. When they come clean, Joey is made for literally two seconds. When Jesse tells Joey there are plenty of women who want to meet him, Joey gets over the massive violation of his privacy pretty quickly.

The prospects aren’t great though. And what follows is a PG version of the club scene from Coming to America. But then we get to Christine’s part of the video. Her friends have signed her up for this for Christmas and she’s kind of skeptical about the whole thing. She seems cool, so Joey invites her over to the house for New Year’s Eve dinner. I mean, I would have told DJ that she couldn’t go to Kimmie’s party, but I guess it’s fine to bring a first date over to dinner when you’re a grown man babysitting…(And just so you know I’m not a total jerk, Joey only agreed to babysit in the first place because DJ wanted to bail on her babysitting plans and go to Kimmie’s party next door instead). 

Unfortunately, Joey’s gotten a little obsessed with the idea of Christine. He’s decided she’s “the one” based on a five second video in which she said literally nothing about herself. But they do appear to hit it off pretty quickly. She’s even fine with babysitting three kids.Oh yeah, I should mention that Danny’s date also left her son behind for babysitting. He’s creepy and has breath spray even though he’s like eight years old. Please see below: Steph has a pro-tip for dealing with this and I’m happy to share it with all of you – 

Everyone arrives home in time to ring in the New Year, and Joey proposes to Christine. Even more bizarrely, she says yes. They decide to pack and go get married in Tahoe. In the time it takes Christine to go home and pack, they both decide that they don’t want to get married.

Very Special Lesson for the New Year: Eh I mean honestly, it’s just one day. 

Fuller House: Happy New Year Baby

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Fuller House was not messing around with the holidays this year! They covered the 4 major Fall/Winter holidays, so this year I bring you a New Year’s episode.

We FINALLY Get to see Kimmy Gibbler wearing her pizza sweater from the promo shots in this episode. (Please, people of the internet, tell me where I can get one of these. If you own an Etsy shop, link me to it in the comments!) She also has a pizza topping scarf and a pizza bow, but I’m not as excited about either of these. Her pizza earrings are pretty sweet though.

DJ is throwing a big New Year’s party. And Steve tells her that he wants to propose to CJ at DJ’s party. (CJ is Steve’s girlfriend this season and she’s eerily similar to DJ not only in name but also in personality.) He also wants her to write his proposal for him…ugh weird.

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Shortly after Steve makes this big announcement, Danny, Jesse, Becky, and Joey and the freaking woodchuck puppet show up. (Insert loud crying emoji here). Beck and Jesse are apparently in town to adopt a new baby. This came up briefly in a previous episode, but I still don’t understand it to be perfectly honest.

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fh_212_unit_01445_r_crop-minWe also get to hear Joey do a very poor Marlon Brando impression when Jesse asks him to be the baby’s godfather. Danny gets pretty touchy about not being offered the godfather-ship. So the three guys start arguing about how much Danny saved them in rent over the years vs. how much they saved him in baby-sitting. (It’s San Francisco real estate dudes, you got the much better deal.) But Danny goes for the jugular when he tells Jesse that Forever is “not [his] favorite song.” Well, we were all thinking it… Joey (who is also upset because Jesse tried to placate Danny by telling him he could be the godfather instead of Joey) agrees with Danny. So Jesse tells Joey that Mr. Woodchuck sucks. THANK GOD WE ARE FINALLY ADDRESSING THIS! Then Joey tells Jesse that the only reason people watch “Wake Up USA” is because they want to watch Becky. Ouch. I mean. Hm. This one feels hurtful where as the others were like things that NEEDED to be said. This is Danny’s whole career! It’s not one dumb song or puppet!

But out of the mouths of babes, DJ’s middle child saves the whole situation when he comes outside looking for advice on how to forgive his older brother for being a jerk to him at the New Year’s party. The three grown men say that nothing is more important than loving your brothers. (But like…they’re not actually brothers…okay fine…ugh Jesse even hugs Mr. Woodchuck…oh wait it’s just a fake out to throw him over the fence. YAHOO!)

As predictable as this show is, I’m sure you could all tell as soon as I mentioned that Steve needed DJ’s help his proposal that CJ would mistakenly think that Steve was involved with DJ. BUT I be you didn’t guess that DJ would ultimately propose to CJ on Steve’s behalf and that a very confused Matt would enter the party in the midst of this.

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The next morning, Jesse and Becky bring their new baby to see everyone. They name her Pamela after the girls’ mother and Jesse’s sister. All of the actors of varying talent seem to genuinely tear up over this. Maybe they felt like Pam was a real character on the original show even though we only saw her for like 2 seconds in a home video in the show’s original run. But honestly, I teared up too because dammit it’s a sweet sentiment.

Also, DJ reveals that she was going to pick Steve before he got involved with CJ, but now she’s happy with Matt. Something tells me we haven’t seen the ends of this love triangle…

A Very Special New Year

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I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and has successfully recovered from food-drink-merryment-hangovers. I’ve been very busy! I’m about to move and start a new job. It’s all exciting and horrible at the same time. I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to post with all of the moving related crap I’m dealing with, but I do have some lofty very special goals for 2015.

I’d finally like to roll out the long awaited second bracket challenge: The Very Best Disney Vacation. Obviously, this will be emotionally challenging for me because I usually cannot handle visual representations of Disney World without wanting to immediately shirk all of my duties and run away to Central Florida a.k.a. Morocco/Fantasy Land/Future World. However, my journalistic integrity requires that I throughly and accurately cover all your favorite Disney episodes and then pick the most awesome one in a throughly objective manner. I’m hoping to have all of that ready to go by February (or hopefully sooner). We shall see! 

There will be more to come from the Very Special Blog in 2015 but right now I’m visiting with the dust bunnies under my bed while I try to talk myself out of keeping 3 boxes of art supplies and clothes I haven’t worn in over a year.