Unintentionally Funny 90s Moments: 'Full House' vs 'Saved By The Bell'

We have a 90s smackdown today between two unintentionally funny Television moments. In one corner, the episode of Full House where DJ (Candace Cameron) develops an eating disorder and faints in the gym. In the other corner, the episode of Saved By The Bell where Jessie (Elizabeth Berkley) becomes addicted to caffeine pills. Both of these episodes aired in November 1990, perhaps they were trying to one-up each other?

Full House: "Shape Up" (Season 4). Full House is known for having many episodes where a valuable lesson is learned. By the end of the episode, everything is back in order along with the same corny background music to put an emphasis on what we all learned. And in this episode, we learned: Starving yourself is bad. Its even worse when your snot-faced little sister is there to tattle on you. And you'll partially faint after using a StairMaster. (Really though people, don't starve yourself, food tastes so damn good.)
Best Line: "Doesn't anybody care about dental hygiene around here?!?"

Saved By The Bell: "Jessie's Song" (Season 2). Between midterms and the demands of her singing group, Jessie was really feeling the pressure. So she turns to...caffeine pills! Instead of passing out like DJ, she has a hyper-nervous breakdown in front of Zach (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) that has become the stuff of legend. Once YouTube started to take off, this was one of the first sitcom videos to go viral.
Best Line: "I'm so excited!...I'm SO EXCITED...I'M SO...scared."

The winner: Jessie Spano! The clip has been remixed into various forms on YouTube, and has become one of the most quoted moments from any 80s/90s sitcom. You can even buy t-shirts that reference this classic TV scene. I'll never understand how it was ignored by the Emmy Awards.

The Office, Parks and Recreation Season Finales

First, The Office. I knew we wouldn't be finding out who the next manager is until next season. I would have to say the most likely person seems to be Catherine Tate. She played Nellie Bertram and is known to be Jo's friend. So they did manage a little back story with her. Her interview was also the funniest of the bunch. If not her then I think Ricky Gervais is fairly possible to bring his character from the original British version, David Brent, as the manager. Gervais also helped with the script for this episode. Still, Tate seems like the front runner if it's not one of the current cast members. I was hoping we'd see a return from Jan for an interview, but we didn't. We did find out that Erin is not Phyllis' daughter that she gave up as a teen, but Phyllis isn't telling her that yet. And Angela got engaged to her secretly gay senator boyfriend! That is obviously going to be a big theme during next season. Angela is one of the better characters, so her having more screen time is a good thing.

Parks and Recreation dealt with the funeral of Li'l Sebastian, everyone's favorite mini horse. Megan Mullally was back as Tammy Swanson, or Tammy Two. We find out from Donna that Ron's first wife, Tammy One is also there, but we didn't see her, thus leaving a good cliffhanger for next season. It does cause Tammy Two to run away in fear though. At the memorial for Li'l Sebastian, Andy's band Mouse Rat is given the task to create a song five thousand times better than Elton John's "Candle in the Wind." The result: "Five Thousand Candles in the Wind." The great Jean-Ralphio was back as well, and should definitely become a regular character next season.

New Fall Lineup Preview for ABC

I was invited to view exclusive trailers for the new version of Charlie's Angels and Once Upon A Time, which are both new shows slated to debut on ABC in the fall. I got a quick take on them and where they may be headed.

Charlie's Angels needs no introduction. This new version is being Executive Produced by Drew Barrymore, so I'm feeling pretty good about it not going the way of the failed Wonder Woman show. This version is set in Miami, which seems to fit the style perfectly. This time the Angels are Abby (Rachael Taylor), Kate (Annie Ilonzeh) and Eve (Minka Kelly). It's obvious from the preview that Rachael Taylor will be the Farrah Fawcett/Cameron Diaz of the group. 

It looks to be more mature than the original version. While it doesn't seem like an award winner of a show, the action is definitely worthy of checking out when the show premieres in the fall. There seems to be a lack of shows with good action on TV right now. It would be nice if Barrymore or one of the originals made an appearance to tie it into the franchise, as well as giving fans something to talk about.

The next show is Once Upon A Time from the writers of Lost. They are obviously going to try and tap into that audience a bit. It's a fantasy show based on fairy tales that exist for real in an alternate universe. It's an interesting concept, and while it can be hard to judge from a preview, the trailer showed some promise. It seems to be geared towards adults, with a darker style similar to the recent Alice in Wonderland. 

The main character is Anna Swan, who was abandoned as a baby. She comes from the alternate world which was frozen by the Evil Queen's curse. Anna is really the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. It seems this Fall is the season for more theatrical television shows. We'll see if they work out.

The Office After Steve Carell

So how has The Office fared without Steve Carell as Michael Scott the past two weeks? The episode two weeks ago, Will Ferrel's last episode was good but a bit awkward. Probably because it was the first one without Carell. Last night's episode titled "Dwight K. Schrute (Acting) Manager" was much better, and seeing the regular cast members just interact with each other created some great laughs, courtesy of Dwight being the acting manager of Dunder Mifflin. There were a lot of fresh laughs, so if you stopped watching after Carell left then you missed plenty of great laughs last night. We'll see what they do with the one hour season finale next week.

Parks & Recreation had two new episodes last night. The first introduced Tom's drink that got everyone wasted, Snake Juice. Leslie and Ann's drunken fight was spot on, mimicking many you may have seen before. The second episode featured Ron teaching a 9 year old girl about the horrors of the government and how they steal tax money. And he gave her a land mine to protect her property. This show keeps churning out hilarious material. Watch it!    http://www.nbc.com/parks-and-recreation/

And let's give some love to the always funny Donna:

Tina Fey on SNL

Anytime Tina Fey returns to host Saturday Night Live you're bound for some great laughs. Her latest hosting gig was no different. I know you don't want to read about them, so here are some clips, featuring her always great and spot on impersonation of Sarah Palin. Another is of Bill Hader playing his original character, Stefon. If you've never seen Stefon you really are missing out. He shared his must see Mother's Day tips! In the political sketch a host of possible Republican candidates get spoofed. Darrell Hammond was back and playing Donald Trump, which he has many times in the past.

If these YouTube versions get taken down I'll post the Hulu ones.