Episode 1x07 "Grandma Was a Rolling Stone"

Mr. Feeny, the sly fox that he is, has tricked Cory and Shawn into cleaning snails out of his garden but Alan rescues them. They all talk about fishing and Mr. Feeny tells a boring old story, prompting an interesting insight into Alan's character:

This is the sort of thing you only see in hindsight, and there's no way the writers were thinking far enough ahead, but there are a solid amount of episodes further in the series in which Alan struggles with getting older and with his children moving on. And those are fantastic episodes. So this clip gave us a little precursor to some of the trials Alan will be facing as time goes on. It's fun to see things like that, even if they're not deliberate. Alan really is one of the stronger characters in the early episodes and William Russ is a great actor. He's guest starred on The Mentalist, Leverage, and Criminal Minds (among other things), which I love, so it was exciting to see him pop up on those shows. 

The titular Grandma (Alan's mother) arrives at the Matthews house and we're treated to the worst thing you can ever do in a sitcom ever. 

                                      

That's THIRTEEN seconds of clapping while the actors look around at each other without saying anything. That is what I would do if I were trying to parody a bad sitcom. Poe's Law, I guess. I don't even know who this actress is. Let's look it up. Oh okay, her name is Rue McClanahan and she had a lead role on Golden Girls which concluded the year before this episode aired. I guess that's a pretty big deal. Still, this is an obnoxious thing to do. 

So Grandma Matthews gives everyone gifts and promises to buy Morgan more clothes than she'll know what to do with. Morgan's unusually eloquent response is that she'll "wear them and then throw them on the floor." That is far and away the most brilliant thing Morgan has ever said and I don't think she'll be able to top it. I'd like to put the video here but my software is incapable of dealing with clips that short. 

Yes that's right folks, I'm test driving the actual text tool in Paint instead of writing them with the paintbrush. The paintbrush adds a layer of silliness to the reviews, but hopefully I can convey the silliness through tone and diction, allowing pictures such as this to give off a sort of mock-seriousness. If that makes any sense, congratulations. Moving on. 

Corey makes plans with his Grandma that weekend, bailing on the fishing trip with Shawn and his father. 

Mr. Feeny's niece is coming to town so he asks Eric what girls in his age group do for fun. This is the first time I've laughed in this episode (9 minutes in) and both Will Friedle and William Daniels show their aptitude for timing and facial expressions so it's worth showing the clip.  If you watch the bite marks on Eric's pizza, it looks like they had to do some of these shots multiple times and/or in a weird order.

                                       

Eric hits on Feeny's niece. I wouldn't, but it's 1993 and people like big hair for some reason. Grandma Matthews is MIA so Cory's stuck at home while Shawn and his dad are being manly ass men on the fishing trip. Eric pretty much owns the spotlight until Shawn and Alan get back. I'm going to award a Humor_Eric Badge (read: humor-sub-Eric badge) now because he's carrying this episode on his back. I think the writers have a stockpile of high quality Eric jokes that they're only allowed to bust out when everything else in an episode is doodoo. They probably spent the whole budget for this episode on Rue McClanahan's 4 or 5 lines and couldn't afford to do anything interesting.

Eric seals the deal despite his jeans+jean jacket and tucked in shirt, a quite serious faux pas, and claims that she's the most incredible girl he's ever kissed. This is absurd since Heather was a red-haired Aphrodite, but again it's the early 90's so no one knows what they're talking about.

You know, she actually kind of looks like the girl from the music video for Mr. Brightside. Compare her face/hair at the beginning of the gif to this:

They are not the same person, but it turns out that Feeny's niece, played by Keri Russell, has had a pretty decent career. The only role that I know of though is on Scrubs, where she played Elliot's sorority sister Melody, who showed up when Elliot was about to marry Keith. (I love Scrubs.) So J.D. and Eric Matthews are Eskimo brothers, sort of, which is awesome. YOU'RE NOT GONNA GET THIS LEVEL OF INSIGHT ANYWHERE ELSE, FOLKS. 

Alan consoles his son by explaining that Grandma Matthews has always been a huge flake, but when she does follow through, she does so in spectacular fashion. Interestingly enough, this describes 95% of the women I've dated in the last few years. Is Alan telling us that that's acceptable behavior? Or just that sometimes you have to deal with it? It's not very clear. Then Granny Maffyoos shows up because what else was going to happen. She tries apologizing to Cory and makes an empty promise about "next time", but words are wind folks, and it doesn't sound like Cory buys it. Good for you Cory, that's a genuinely important lesson to learn, that flakes are gonna flake. That's pretty much the end, but I want you guys to look at Mr. Feeny's outfit here for a second, does it look familiar? 

He looks like Walter White! Walt was always wearing his beige jacket and beige pants, which I only remember because it looks so stupid. 

Irrefutable proof that Walt's wardrobe is based on Feeny's. 

So yeah. I wish I could give negative points for plot. I liked that part at the beginning with Alan, and Eric is becoming more of a ladies' man, so .5 for character development. 1 for humor_Eric, and .25 for life lesson since Cory might not expect things from flaky people anymore.

1.75/4 with a Humor_Eric Badge. Pretty awesome badge, honestly. 

Thanks for reading, see you Wednesday.

All clips and images used under Fair Use.