EPISODE 12, SEASON 1

Harriette won’t let 13 year-old Laura attend to a co-ed party! Laura does not find this to be fair at all and has been begging to go for the past month but Harriette says she is too young.  Laura references a date that Eddie was allowed to go out on when he was 13, but apparently ever since that date Eddie has no longer been the same, but the details of that life-changing date are not provided. Laura lays the charms on her father pretty thick and manages to get him on her side and he is able to convince Harriette to allow Laura to attend the party by promising to have the police force use their time to send a squad car past the party every hour on the hour to ensure that she alone is safe. Safety is probably the least of Laura’s problems as she still has yet to find a date. Her friend suggests she go with a Steve Urkel, however Laura is resistant to that idea. Urkel arrives at “Leroy’s” restaurant to ask Laura out, but Laura’s friend, who just minutes earlier suggested Urkel, yells at Urkel, demanding he leave them alone. Urkel won’t give up and informs Laura that his father knows Wayne Newton; this fact does not impress the girls and Laura’s nameless friend throws a French fry at Steven and calls him “goat face”.  Steven then walks into a pole and apologizes to the pole. Laura wants to ask Mark Newhouse out, but her friend insists he will be asking out Jo Beth Hensley but Laura and Mark share a smile across the restaurant and its clear Mark is interested. Back at home aunt Rachel wants to design Laura a dress, but Laura thinks she shouldn’t bother because no one has asked her out yet. Carl insists Rachel make the dress because he is confident that Laura will be asked out; he takes the matter into his own hands and calls Steve Urkles father and arranges the date himself. Eddie later on finds Laura moping on the porch and gives her some brotherly advice and suggests she just call Mark Newhouse herself rather than waiting around; she builds up the courage and despite potential humiliation she calls Mark and asks him to be her date. On the night of the party Rachel debuts Laura’s dress, which she based off of a dress she made for her “Betsy Wetsty” doll some untold number of years ago. Laura is excited about the dress, but Harriette pulls the sleeve off and Rachel has to do an emergency repair job. While the girls are in a rush to fix the dress, multiple non-Mark Newhouse dates arrive for Laura: Steven Urkel as invited by Carl (Steven arrives with flowers he stole, root and all, from a cemetery), and a headphone-clad and possible mute, Tyrone, that Eddie paid ten dollars to go on the date with his sister. In all this mix-up Mark Newhouse shows up and its revealed that Laura’s family has been acting as a quasi-escort service and this drives Laura over the edge of humiliation and she storms off. Harriette finds Laura, once again, moping on the porch; she explains the family’s intentions and how she should relax about having to ask a boy out rather than be asked herself. Mark isn’t dismayed by the evening’s antics, and the two go to the party, but based on Laura’s review it sounds like it was a real lame event. The episode ends with the family retching at the idea of ever seeing Steven Urkel again.

LESSON: Dudes are cool with a woman asking them out. Like, 100% cool with it.

EPISODE 11, SEASON 1

The Winslow's don't own a VCR! In order to raise some extra cash to purchase the machine, Laura organizes a family garage sale. The items for sale are slim pickings and its a struggle to pull anything out of Carl's grasp; whether its an old tennis racquet, catchers mitt, or his bell-bottom pants that he wore to Woodstock ... the movie. Mother Winslow is heading to an elderly sleep-over party at her friend Carletta's and at the last minute gives Laura permission to sell anything out of her large cardboard box of old items, but with one exception, Laura cannot sell the quilt on the top of the box. Bad weather rolls in and puts a damper on the garage sales progress and Eddie and Judy prove to be lackluster supporters and ditch the sale. Desperate to sell anything, Laura caves to a multi-hundred dollar offer for her Grandmothers quilt that had been left out on a table underneath some other sale items. Post-sale its revealed that the quilt is 200 years old and has been passed down six generations and added to by each Winslow family daughter. Laura is gutted by this revelation and commits to searching for the rest of her life to find the woman who purchased the quilt, however, Carl tries to squash her hopes by letting her know that if she doesn't find a lead within 24 hours she may never solve the case. Thankfully Edward had been taking random photos of things when he was outside during a lightning storm and inadvertently captured photographic evidence of the quilt-purchasing woman's car. Carl uses his police force access to run her license plate and track down her place of work at an art gallery where they are displaying the quilt with a price tag of $3,000.00! The woman refuses to return the quilt and offers them a "reasonable" discount price of $2,800.00, but after a quasi-tearful plea by Laura she agrees to return the family their quilt. Carl and Laura return home and present Mother Winslow the rescued quilt. Mother Winslow precedes to explain how that even though she does not have a daughter to pass the quilt onto, she will pass it onto Harriette who can then pass it onto Laura, and when each of them dies the remaining daughter sews in a patch representing the fallen. The episode ends with Laura and Mother Winslow professing their love for each other, and Aunt Rachel rubs Edwards knee for some reason.

LESSON: Take two minutes to put your priceless valuables away, even if you are running late to a sleep-over.













He cracks us all up, Eddie.