Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Where it all began
By Sara M | Season 5 | Episode 23 | Aired on 11.12.1998
Meanwhile, Mary and Robbie are buying food at some roadside stand. Oh, coincidence of all coincidences! Turns out that the roadside stand is right across the highway from where JTT got kicked out of the old ladies’ car! Robbie and JTT spot each other, and Robbie beats a hasty retreat before Mary can see JTT. Robbie almost gets in about five accidents on they way out, but I guess he doesn’t have to worry about that since his car is self-repairing.
JTT is hitchhiking in the middle of what looks like Nevada with a sign that says, “North Pole or bust.” Now, how did he get the marker and the cardboard for such a thing? We will never know, so I’ll just say that it came with the Santa suit. He tries again with another sign that says, “Reindeer on strike,” but still has no luck. I wouldn’t pick him up either because his signs are so lame. Now it’s the late evening and it’s snowing. Um, in the desert. Okay.
Robbie and Mary park at a motel. Robbie tries to sleep in her room, but gets shoved out comically. Except not really comically at all.
JTT ends up sleeping in a sleigh in some Santa display in the middle of a town. He talks to a Santa mannequin and makes jokes that aren’t funny, which just makes him look insane since it’s a mannequin and not a real person. Also, I thought he was in the desert and not in a town.
The next morning, Robbie and Mary set out for the day, and Robbie jokes about how bad Mary looks in the morning. JTT gets kicked out of his sleigh-bed and then walks back to the desert to hitchhike. And now we see a guy driving in his van while trying to eat a nasty-looking hamburger. A tomato falls out of the burger, so the guy searches for it on the floor instead of driving. He swerves all over the highway and then runs over JTT. No, really, he does. I thought maybe JTT had jumped out of the way in the nick of time, but he actually got hit by the car and then flew over the guardrail and down a hill. By the way, the van driver is played by the guy from Caroline in the City who always wore the rollerblades. My whole family watched the show together once and assumed that he was mentally challenged because his character acted and talked that way. And he plays the exact same character in this movie. Right now he’s upset because he thinks he killed Santa. But he didn’t. JTT survived the accident with no injuries, despite being knocked unconscious. Fantastic.