Episode Report Card Sara M: F | 2 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Jingle Hell
By Sara M | Season 3 | Episode 10 | Aired on 12.13.1998
In the garage, RevCam is looking through boxes creatively labeled "Christmas Stuff." Matt comes in, and RevCam asks him if he needs money for some winter dance he wants to take his new girlfriend to. Matt says he does, and how awesome of RevCam to just give him money. RevCam says there's no lesson to be learned in that, to which Matt counters that he would learn a lesson about how generous parents can be at Christmas time. RevCam says that parents are generous "all year long, year after year! Until you reach that year when they cut you off completely and you get a job." And they send you off and Buffalo and steal your car, but who's keeping track, right? Speaking of jobs, RevCam got one for Matt. It pays a hundred dollars a day, so Matt only has to do one full day of work to get enough money for the dance. Matt looks all put out, but a hundred dollars for one day of work is pretty damn good. Plus, his sisters aren't getting paid at all. RevCam gives Matt the uniform for his job, which comes with a Santa hat.
Today's Very Merry Opening Credits Timewaster is Annie blasting some more Xmas oldies and writing her kids' names on green pieces of paper. I guess when you've got so many damn kids, you need to make cheat-sheets every once in a while. Oh, crap. Tim "Dorf Goes Fishing (i.e. Falls Off A Boat Twenty Unfunny Times)" Conway is guest-starring. Wow, so is Ruth Buzzi! It's a late '60s/early '70s comedy sketch show extravaganza! RevCam enters, fresh from taking Happy for a walk and spying on the neighbors, and watches as Annie puts special folds in the papers that say "Annie" and "Eric," then puts all the papers in a bowl. Then they make out. All the kids comes downstairs (Simon still in his male prostitute PJs, I'm sickened and disgusted to report), and watch the hot parent-on-parent nose-smushing action until Ruthie makes a comment about how they had better stop, because Annie can't fit any more babies in her belly without exploding. The radio was so horrified by that visual that it seems to have automatically shut off. Annie shoves the bowl o' names towards the kids while Lucy clumsily exposits the rules of the Camden Christmas. Everyone picks one name, and then either does community service, gives his/her person a gift s/he made him/herself, or gives the person something s/he already owns. Annie and RevCam pick cards first, being sure to take out the marked cards with their own names on them. Then it's Ruthie's turn. Behind her, the rest of the kids cross their fingers obviously and mouth "not me, not me," probably because they're terrified of what kind of horror from the very pits of Hell Ruthie would give out as a Christmas present. When Simon picks, everyone "silently" hopes that he'll get him or her. As the name-picking concludes, the doorbell rings. Lucy sing-songs that it must be Jordan, her elderly fish-faced boyfriend, and runs off to answer it. Everyone else goes upstairs, leaving RevCam to blather on to himself about the spirit of Christmas. Loser.