Recap / Full House S 7 E 15 The Test

"The Test" is an episode in the seventh season of Full House.

On the day before the scheduled SAT test, D.J. is stressed out over potentially failing the exam. Attempts to get her to de-stress do nothing to relax her, while Michelle's safety inspections exacerbate her further, culminating in a host of trouble befalling her the next day, right as her SAT test commences, which ends up actually being a nightmare D.J. had over the test itself.

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Tropes in the episode:

• All Just a Dream: The entire scenario of the SAT test, with a myriad of absurdities, turns out to be a nightmare of D.J.'s.
• Assurance Backfire: In an attempt to calm D.J. down, Danny tells D.J. that SAT "is just a test", but this only gets her more stressed out, which she mentions to Danny late in the episode.
  Danny: OK, so that part didn't work out.
• The Cameo: Vanna White makes an appearance in this episode, both as a co-host of Wheel of Fortune (though only by herself this time) and as Mrs. Moffatt, the teacher for D.J.'s SAT test^note  — the real one, that is.
• Eye Scream: A "safety violation" Michelle chides D.J. for has this trope in mind.
  D.J.: What did I do?
  Michelle: Sleeping too close to a pencil. You could poke an eye out.
• Felony Misdemeanor: Played for Laughs. Joey acts like Jesse is committing a major crime for reusing a stamp they didn't put a stop on. As Jesse points out, no one's gonna care since that's the equivalent of 39 cents. Even then it's not like they can prove it.
• Four Is Death: Downplayed for comedic effect when one of the latest changes of the rules about the SAT tests requires the #4 pencils instead of the #2 ones.
  D.J.: Number 4 pencils? I thought we were supposed to use #2 pencils.
  Kimmy: Wake up and smell the changes. *shows a cluster of pencils, with D.J. taking one*
• Get Out!:
  • D.J. says this to Michelle, Nicky, and Alex over their "safety inspections".
    Michelle: There's always time for safety.
    D.J.: Well, for your own safety, get out.
  • Gertrude Twitchell, the teacher for the SAT test, tells Joey to leave after he barges into the classroom to hand a replacement "calculator" to D.J., and Joey's attempt to cheer up Twitchell with a potato with the image of Joe Pesci fails.
    Mrs. Twitchell: Joe Pesci is... somewhat taller. Now get out.
• Humiliation Conga: The entire SAT test is one such sequence at D.J.'s expense. It's a good thing that whole incident is All Just a Dream.
  • First, she oversleeps, causing her to be late for her test, and it's only because of Michelle waking her up by blowing a whistle (literally) at her ear due to sleeping too close by a pencil that she wakes up as early as she does.
  • In her rush to get to the classroom as quickly as she can, she ends up arriving there... in her slippers.
  • Her tardiness causes her to have completely missed out on the notifications of last-minute rule changes, leaving her without a pencil she's allowed to use for the test, requiring Kimmy to give her one — unfortunately for her, the pencil breaks soon upon use.
  • Joey arrives to give her a calculator for her math test, but it turns out to be an older, heavier type, as the result of him accidentally stepping on and breaking the one she meant to bring but forgot in her haste. Worse yet, the addition key doesn't work.
  • Next, Jesse barges into the classroom to bring her a burrito — one with a cell phone contained within. D.J. eventually resorts to stuffing it inside her backpack, which she proceeds to throw out of the window, to not risk being caught for cheating^note  (or, as Jesse would insist on claiming it as, "hinting").
  • Then, Stephanie shows up, allegedly to "help" D.J., but she turns out to be unhelpful, as her knowledge about Latin (which turns out to be a test subject that very day) amounts to telling her "you're dead meat". Worse still, despite claiming to be there as a repairman for the chair D.J. sits on, her "repair" only ends up making the chair even more uncomfortable for her.
  • This is then followed by Danny and Rebecca entering the classroom for a segment of "Wake Up, San Francisco", and everyone in the Tanner family, with Steve in tow, appears there to welcome Vanna White, who turns the test-score reveal into a word puzzle in the fashion of Wheel of Fortune. Kimmy gets "perfect score", with the reward being "Stanford", whereas D.J.'s test ends up shredded and her being assigned to "Clown U" because of her failure to produce any correct results, her name included, due to abbreviations being banned in the test as a new rule. Steve then kisses Kimmy for getting everything, including her own name, right, while D.J. tries in vain to break them apart.^note  It's only at this point that the scene fades away to Danny waking D.J. up to show that D.J. dreamed all of this.
• Ironic Echo: During Steve's consultation to D.J. stressing out over the SAT exam, he claims that he would still love her even if the only thing she gets right is her name. The premise comes back to haunt her late in the episode, when everything she wrote down in her test is ruled as wrong, her name included, because it turns out one of the changes to the rules is that "abbreviations are strictly forbidden". Kimmy then flirts to Steve that she got the perfect score and her own name right, prompting Steve to kiss her, as D.J. futilely tries to break them apart.^note  The scene then fades away to D.J. being woken up by Danny, indicating that the whole SAT sequence has been All Just a Dream.
• Less Embarrassing Term: Jesse insists on using a less accusatory term when Joey calls his stunt at the time as "cheating".
  • The episode starts with Jesse cutting a postage stamp off an envelope with the intent of reusing it. Joey calls it "cheating", whereas Jesse calls it "saving money".
  • During the SAT exam, he pilfers the answer booklet at one point and relays the answers through the cell phone he had hidden in the burrito he gave to D.J. Joey accuses him of "cheating", while he insists on claiming it "hinting", and the back-and-forth goes on until D.J. stuffs the burrito, cell phone and all, inside her backpack and throws that out the window.^note  The SAT exam teacher is absent throughout the whole scenario due to taking the boy behind D.J. out of the classroom at the time.
• Misblamed: An In-Universe example that is Played for Laughs. Jesse's attempt to help D.J. with her SAT test via cheating (or, as he would insist on claiming as, "hinting") by reading off the answer sheet he pilfered from the desk and relaying to her through the cell phone hidden inside a burrito he gave her ends up getting a boy sitting behind D.J. accused of cheating and taken out of the classroom for it — to top it off, the boy in question speaks with a squeaky voice, a far contrast from Jesse's lower-pitched one.
• Shout-Out: To The Wizard of Oz. When Mrs. Twitchell insists on asking Joey to leave the classroom while the exam is ongoing and Joey's attempt to cheer up Twitchell with a potato in the image of Joe Pesci fails, Joey reacts with a retort on his way out.
  Joey: Boy, what got into you? Somebody drop a house on your sister? *imitates the Cowardly Lion laughing*