If you’re like me, you fondly remember the ‘80s sitcom “Full House” as a heartwarming comedy about a gay throuple trying to raise three girls after the grizzly death of their mother at the hands of the infamous Zodiac Killer.
If you’re also like me and have a dogshit memory thanks to your hard-living past, you eventually realize that that’s not what the show was about. We’re not here to state facts that you can google yourself, so instead here’s a list of long-forgotten occasions when characters from this TV classic made questionable jokes about the world’s worst nuclear disaster. Oh, Mylanta!
S1E: “Our Very First Show”
After Danny mentions that his wife actually died tragically in a car crash, Joey tries cheering him up by using one of his creepy hand puppets to say that at least she didn’t suffer like “those poor saps near nuclear reactor unit 4 whose skin melted off while their insides boiled,” which he delivered in his signature Popeye voice. WTF?
S3E7: “And They Call It Puppy Love”
Danny tells his girls that they can have a puppy as long as they promise to clean up after it, to which Michelle combatively quips, “No way, Jose!” Upon hearing this, Aunt Becky bizarrely responds, “At least we didn’t rescue him from the Pripyat region of Ukraine, otherwise you’d be picking up glowing green turds!” Rumor has it Laurie Loughlin improvised this line and threatened to quit if she couldn’t say it.
S5E10: “Happy Birthday, Babies”
Everyone visits Becky in the hospital after she gives birth to twins. Just as the family is enjoying a nice moment together, the precocious neighbor Kimmy Gibler rushes in and feverishly starts counting the fingers and toes on each baby, relieved that they didn’t get “Chernobyl-ed” as she put it. Stephanie then drops a well-timed, “Oh, puh-lease!” which the laugh track absolutely eats it up.
S7E17: “The Last Dance”
When Uncle Jesse’s grandfather visiting from Greece dies in his sleep, the adults must teach the youngsters about grief. But what most people forget is Jesse being embraced by everyone while proclaiming that the death of his patriarch will always be known as his family’s “Chernobyl,” before adding a lighthearted, “Watch the hair.”
S8E24: “Michelle Rides Again”
The emotional series finale ends as Michelle finally comes out of her amnesia. As the credits roll for the last time, the words “Our Thanks, Our Love, Chernobyl was a hoax” appear on the screen for some reason, delivering one final unnecessary jab to the victims of the 1986 disaster. How rude!
Photo by Joker 345.