The shift in focus to Tiffany takes another step as the character of Maureen disappears with no explanation, and a new recurring character, Sable, is introduced to serve as her nemisis. It is Tiffany and Ryan's senior year of high school, although Ryan is repeating his. The character of Mr. Montelleone, who becomes another one of Tiffany's nemisis, is introduced towards the end of the season.
It is the start of the new school year, and Tiffany needs to pick the freshman representative to fetch cappaciano for her, Barry, and Amber. While they are teaching him the hand signals they will use to communicate with him, Sable O'Brian struts into the lunchroom. Tiffany sense that her position of leadership is in danger, while Ryan immediately gets the hots for her.
Mean while, Ross returns from Camp Sew-A-Knock-Off, which turns out to have been a sweat shop that makes clothes for the Kathy Lee Gifford Collection.
Tiffany asks Jack for advice about Sable. She is upset because now she will actually have to try to become the class president and prom queen. Jack tells her that she should never trust girls because just want to maker her less of a threat, and to never trust boys because they only want one thing. Jennie interrupts and suggests that Tiffany and Sable exchange secrets, because secrets make people close.
Sable agrees with Tiffany's plan to exchange secrets. Tiffany tells Sable that she was potty-trained to "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," and now she has to go to the bathroom whenever she hears it. Sable tells Tiffany that she was alone in a hotel room with Bill Clinton and he didn't make a pass at her. The next day at lunch, Sable has the lunchroom sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and Tiffany has to run from the lunchroom.
Tiffany isn't sure that she can expose Sable's secret.
Mr. Floppy tells Jack that "Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays, when that sweet network The WB is on," are the only nights worth watching TV. "Now there is a little network that tries." Jack and Floppy sing together, but no one can hear Floppy's part.
School Reporter, Paul Zimmerman, interviews Tiff about "The Twinkle Incident." She tells him that everyone has secrets: Paul stole his prize-winning cafeteria story from the Van Buren High School paper, Lou Goldman is really Lou Goldstien, and that Barry is only pretending to be gay to be popular. (Barry claims it isn't true, and asks Paul to back him up.) Tiff turns the school against Sable for exposing her secret, but Sable says she'll be back because she has a contract for 7 out of 13 episodes.
Tiffany thinks that the students need a ditch day, but she does not want to abuse he position as the leader of the student body. Sable overhears her and calls for a ditch day. The student body agrees, and Tiffany is left in the position of "authorizing" a ditch day for the following day, so as not to be shown up by her rival.
The next morning Ross is upset that Jennie is letting Tiffany and Ryan skip school. Jack is at home sick, so Jennie wants him to take her to the beach so that she does not have to home when the maid comes.
At the beach, Tiffany gets the hots for surfer-dude Moondoggie. Sable gets to him before her, becoming the most popular girl in school in the process. Ryan tells Tiffany that she has to get the guy, because in beach movies the good girl always gets the guy. Tiffany breaks out in song in a send up of 60's beach movies. An agent appears and wants to sign her, but it will cost her $500 for studio time. Ryan shows her a sign for a surfing contest, $500 prize. Of course, Tiffany wins the contest, gets the guy, and becomes the most popular girl in school again. Then everybody flees because some "geezers" are coming to the beach. As they scatter, Jack and Jennie set up camp.
Jack and Jeannie catch Tiffany leaving sexy messages on many different guys' answering machines. She says she's just doing it for the money, and Jack and Jennie think she is having sex with them. In order to convince them otherwise, Tiffany tells a story that starts a year ago.
Tiffany gets the Princeton application in the mail. She tells her parents that she can get a scholarship for the tuition, but will need $62,000 for textbooks. Jack and Jennie don't have a college fund for her. Through a discussion with a geek Tiffany learns that geeks will pay money to have a fake prom picture with a beautiful girl so that they can bring it to college, and then other girls will try to make them be unfaithful. Tiffany starts a business posing in fake prom pictures for $50 a photo.
In the present, Tiffany has an appointment with a Princeton recruiter. Jack says that he will take care of her, so she should stop her business. She keeps it going anyway ($89.95 for a multipicture pack), which of course is a good thing, because Jack doesn't have any money.
Tiffany goes to see the recruiter, and it turns out that his son was one of her customers, and he has one of her pictures on his desk. He is ready to give her an early admission, when Jack comes by to help. He tries to bribe the recruiter. He then tells the recruiter about Tiffany's business enterprise, and makes fun of the "sample photo" on the recruiter's desk. The recruiter rejects her because of Jack's immorality and irresponsibility. In response, Tiffany lectures the recruiter on the irresponsibility of turning loose social misfits like his son into the world.
Tiffany is upset because she got an A on report, but Sable got an A+, but even worse, Ryan brings Sable home for dinner as his girlfriend. Jennie is excited to meet the girl who has been causing Tiffany such unhappiness. Tiffany tells Ryan that he isn't Sable's boyfriend, he is her slave. Tiffany tells Jack that she hates Sable, so he hates her too.
During dinner, Ross complains that he always has to sit with his back to the audience. Everyone looks around with questioning glances. Ross asks Jack why he is afraid of mom, and all other women? What can they do to you that is so horrible? When Jennie starts in with the "difficult birth" story, Ross says he gets it.
Tiffany makes Jack go over the Sable's house to tell her mother to spend more time with her daughter. Her mother, Morgana, invites him in, and doesn't care why he is there. She feeds him oysters and booze, and he never gets around to talking to her about Sable. Jack continues to go over to Morgana's to fix this around the ouse, and dance around. Mr. Floppy finds a hair from Mr. Pooch Pants (Morgana's stuffed dog), and feels cheated on.
Because of Ryan and Jennie, Sable's been spending a lot of time around the house. Ryan drives Sable around during her dates with Michael, whom he really hates because he makes out with her even though he knows that Ryan is her boyfriend. She says he's just trying to make him jealous.
When Jack goes to Morgana's to fix her VCR, he says he won't do it with Mr. Pooch Pants in the room. Then she wants him to fix her "rack", but he doesn't see that there is anything wrong with them. Jennie marches over to Morgana's to kick her ass, but when she gets there, the pizza boy comes out instead of Jack.
In yet another example of Mr. Floppy replacing Jennie, Jack tells Mr. Floppy that he couldn't do it; he couldn't cheat with Mr. Pooch Pants.
The high school has been selected to build a float for the Rose parade, and they are being sponsored by the "great tobacco companies of america", who have approved use of the slogans: Smoke don't toke, Helping kids lose weight, and Cigarettes: They're not healthy, but they're cool. No one wants Ryan to help with the float. He's upset because he is left out of everything. Tiffany tells him that he can help by saving them seats in Pasadena (even though the parade is two months away).
While saving seats, Ryan is hit by lightning when he takes refuge from the rain under a metal garbage can. He thinks that has now destined to receive special powers, and becomes the super-hero Lightning Boy. He thinks that no one knows that Ryan and Lightning Boy are the same person, and the family exploits this to their own amusment. He wants Ross to be his side-kick Sparky the Electric Pirate. Ross helps Ryan test our his powers. Ryan finds out that he is not invisible and that he can't run through walls. Tiffany suggest the following theme song:
Mild mannered Ryan
Was sitting in the rain.
But he got hit by lightning,
And now he's still the same.
He's Lightning Boy!
Mr. Floppy says it's time for a new kind of super-hero: Captain Handout and his side-kick Methadone Boy: "No need to work Jim, Captain Handout will take money from a person with a job. Another kid? Have some more money from Captain Handout. And Mr. Drug Addict, it's not your fault that you buy smack with your kids' lunch money. You have a disease, caused not by your own stupidity, but by an uncaring society. Captain handout ... is a little busy, but Methadone boy can help." Jack says his satire might offend somebody. "No need to worry! We'll just call Politically Correct Man. Uh oh, somewhere in the world, someone is making an ethnic joke. I shall try and show them that why it is never funny to make fun of others, unless they are thieving gypsies. Uh oh, I'm a victim of my own free speech. When, oh when, will they take that away from me?"
Jack tells Ryan that he is worried that he is having trouble separating fantasy from reality. When Ryan almost sits on Mr. Floppy, he yells at him, "Can't you see he's sitting there." Ryan tells him that he thinks being struck by lightning makes him special, but Jack says that we already special because being ordinary is worshipped in America.
Ryan is down because he doesn't have any powers. To boost his self-esteem, the family makes a cardboard 10,000 pound weight, and "traps" Ross under it. Lightning Boy doesn't think he can do it and wants to know how that weight got in here anyway. Now he thinks he is super-strong, and tries to stop an asteroid from crushing a town outside Tucson.
Jennie wants to spend more time with Tiffany. Tiff finally gives in because Jennie is being so annoying. Jennie takes her to Bingo, and Tiff is bored out her mind until she wins a round..
Mr. Floppy wants to break up with Drew Barrymore. She isn't responding to his love and letters, so he decides to stalk Alicia Silverstone to make Drew jealous.
Tiff keeps going to Bingo with Jennie. Jack is jealous. He wants to take Tiffany shopping, but she'd rather go Bingo hopping with Jennie. He needs Tiff because she is only one who makes him feel special. Jack says that TifF doesn't like Jennie, it's just that the old demon Bingo has a hold of her.
Jack tries to bond with the boys. They flee to Bingo because Jack tries to make them be like Tiffany, and drives them insane. Jack puts a red wig on Mr. Floppy. Jack keeps saying "Ahh, Well." Floppy wants to know what makes him mad, what makes him say "Aw, Hell." He wants him to fight for Tiffany, because he lost everything else to Jennie. He wins her back by putting a crap table in the basement.
"The Hair Hacker Whodunit"
We witness the third time during October that a girl's hair has been cut short. Barry always comes to the rescue to try and give them a good hair style afterwards.
Jack and Jennie are very excited about decorating the house for Halloween. They have always terrorized the neighborhood kids on the holiday. They are giving out candy cigarettes from the tobacco companies. Ross tries one, and his parents say he looks very sophisticated and cool. He says the candy cigarette relaxes him.
Tiffany is going as Jessica Rabbit to the school dance and wants to borrow Mr. Floppy to use as Roger. Mr. Floppy wants to go so he can flirt and be desired; "I want some girl to go home and sleep with her teddybear and dream about the stranger with the enormous ears." Jack lets him go, but he should call him if Tiffany and Ryan get drunk, and he'll pick him up.
At school, the Halloween Hair Hacker is still on the loose. Tiffany has a mace she swings over her head. Sable, Tiffany, and Amber are the only girls left in the school with long hair.
Jack dresses up as Frankenstein and Jennie as Elvira. Ross ate all the candy cigarrettes, and now he's edgy because Jack and Jennie won't get him any more. Jack and Jennie get hit with trash, spray string, flaming-dooty, and TP as revenge for all the terrible things they have done to the kids over the years.
Ryan goes as a football player to the dance--- "The Half-Back of Notre Dame" The hair-hacker comes after Tiffany, and she whacks him with Mr. Floppy. It turns out to be Barry, who having been rejected by the Diller School of Beauty, wanted to show the world he was talented. "I just wanted to make the world a beautiful, where everyone looks like men."
Mr. Floppy is very excited to have been the hero.
Jack wants to know why he always loses a sock in the dryer, and wants Mr. Floppy to check it out. He throws him in the dryer. Mr. Floppy screams a lot, and then comes out of the washing machine while Jack watches. Floppy said a hole appeared, and he went through, and found Sock Heaven, but came back because he had to go to the bathroom.
Ryan sold his little red wagon to buy an electric guitar so he can get chicks. The Ryan Malloy Band consists of Paul Zimmerman, Stoney (I'm not stoned, I'm just stupid), and Bernie (whose in the band because he has long hair). Bernie gets seizures when the lights blink, so they put him on drums.
The Ryan Malloy Band has the single song:
I pick up the phone
There's no dial tone
I'm so alone,
I'm so alone.
I can't pass a stone.
My favorite actor is Syvelster Stallone.
I'm so alone,
I'm so alone.
There's a hole in the ozone.
I like to read on the throne.
When I'm alone
When I'm alone
After five minutes of practice, they decide they are ready to film the video. The only problem is that Stoney would rather film Tiffany folding the laundry instead of filming the band.
David Mandel wants to manage Ryan's band. He saw Tif on the tape, and wants her in the band. Ryan says the message of the band is "The lonely and alone are not alone." Tiff doesn't like that message; she agrees to join the band, but wants artistic input. She changes the song to:
It's great to be alive.
It's great to have a phone.
When people hang together
Only losers are alone.
Alone alone alone.
Good girls party standing up.
Bad girls party prone.
But everybody parties
except whose are alone.
Alone, alone, alone.
It's to be alive.
It's great to have a phone.
When people hang together.
Only losers are alone.
Alone alone alone.
And trades in their leather look for white tuxes.
Ryan's mad because the family is behind Tiffany and not him. Ryan tries to talk to Mr. Floppy, but doesn't know why he bothers because Floppy isn't responding. Ryan wants to quit the band because he doesn't feel like he is being supported.
Mr. Floppy keeps going into the dryer because he is addicted to socks. "And it's the doorway to lots of other worlds of lost things: there's sun glasses world, car key village, and of course, virginity city."
The video gets played on a Beavis & Butthead rip-off show, and they say it sucks. Tiffany quits because she doesn't want ot be criticized.
In the end, Ryan is playing at a coffeehouse in a Bob Dillaneque manner:
I'm drowning in cologne
And Testoserone.
Alone, Alone
Alone, Alone
If you people weren't here
I'd Be
Alone, Alone
Sable is being recruited by colleges because of her athletics. Tiffany is upset because she is no good at sports and she needs it fill up her college applications.
Ryan thought Tiffany sports when they were kids. He always made her goalie and pounded the crap out of her.
Ryan tells Tiff to join the volleyball team because they are the state champs, so she won't have to play. It turns out that Sable told Ryan to get her on the team, so that Sable could force her to play and make her look bad. Ryan tells Tiff that there is an art to sitting on the bench. You have to look like you really want to get in the game, but now too much, because you don't want the coach to take pity on you and put you in. Ryan has her practice her cheers, and when she screams "yes, yes, oh god yes," Jack storms out of the basement with a shotgun.
Jack video tapes Mr. Floppy dancing to see if the camera works. Jennie sees it and Floppy is just sitting there.
Sable wants to put Tiff in the game, so that she can feed her the ball in front of the recruiters and humiliate her. She is repeatedly hit in the head and back by Sable, until she makes the winning play, and loses a nail that stabs Sable in the face.
It's Jack and Jennie's anniversary. Jennie wants to go to "House of Hollywood" to see the stars for dinner. Mr. Floppy wants to go because he might meet Drew (whom he still jones for). At dinner, Jennie complains that there aren't any celebs around, which prompts Erik Estrada to camp it up at the table next to them, but they don't recognize him. Later, Erik comes back in his CHiPs outfit, but no one recognizes him. Even later, Jennie is still upset that all the people there are just people looking to see stars. The family teases Ryan by playing "Hey Ryan," during which they tell him that girls with big guys want him.
When everyone is in the bathroom, Jack brings Mr. Floppy out of his jacket. Everyone is looking at Jack because he is talking to his bunny. While feeling down about not seeing drew, Floppy falls for a teddy bear at a nearby table, that he ravages.
After yet another complaint from Jennie, Erik Estrada walks up and tells her who he is. When they ask for is autograph, he tells them to leave him alone.
Ryan goes home with a sexy redhead by telling her that he is David Carouso.
Tiffany lost a bet with Ryan (she bet for the Raiders), and now she has to get him a date. Ross tells Ryan that he repels women because they can sense his desperation. Ryan dismisses him with a "what do you know," but then Ross goes off with twins. Tiff comes through, and gets Ryan a date with a Chechnian rebel, Galina, who needs to marry him in order to stay in the country. Afraid of being nervous and sweating, Ryan wears gobs and gobs of deodorant. When Galina tells him that there is nothing more exciting than the real smell of a man, he takes out handfuls of deodorant from under his shirt and leaves it in the car. This causes Galina to leave him because he is so gross.
Jack and Jennie watch a news special "Are your kids on drugs?" Based on a survey with really superficial questions, they suspect that Ryan is on drugs. When they find the deodorant residue on the dashboard while cleaning sweat out of the car, they think it is cocaine. After tasting it like they do on TV, their mouths go numb, and they are convinced it's drugs. Then they get concerned because the drugs are in their car, and that they are might to hauled to jail forever.
Mr. Floppy tells Jack it's Jennie's fault that Ryan's on drugs because she is the one who got pregnant, Jack was just doing what he was told. He says there is nothing more popular than going into rehab, so it should actually help Ryan.
Jennie find more "drugs" on Ryan's towel. They confront Ryan with the "drugs", and he says he isn't abusing it, he's just using what he needs. It's not his fault he needs more than the other kids. He says he doesn't enjoy using it. Jack and Jennie say he is subject to peer pressure. Ryan says he gets it from Tiffany. Jack and Jennie confront Tiffany, and she says she wouldn't do drugs because they would ruin her brain AND her body, and she would never do that.
When Ryan gets hit by a Bus, Tiffany realizes that she is going to die some day. When she gets straight A's yet again, she is upset that no one is surprised, not even herself. She wants to do something dangerous, something bad.
When a saleslady won't sell he some "bad girl scarlet lipstick" because it is out of stock, Tiffany steals it. Ross can tell that something is different with Tiffany. He tells her it is okay, because he went through a bad faze himself. Tiff got a high from stealing the lipstick. Though she later went back to pay for the lipstick (because it is wrong to steal from a big faceless corporation), she says she is now "Tuffany," and goes to school in leather.
In an act of rebellion she doesn't study for a test. But when she learns that everyone else copies from her, she is distraught because it isn't right that everyone else should suffer because she didn't study. She saves the day by having Ryan pull the fire alarm.
Tiffany can't stand the cafeteria food anymore, and complains to the lunchlady about the mashed potatoes.
Jack has not been able to sleep for the last few nights. He has become very tense, and nuttier than usual. Mr. Floppy kicks him out of the basement and tells him to do something constructive, because he is keeping him up. Jack makes a dog-hair sweater for Ross, builds a tower out of cards, carves a family of jack-o-lanterns, builds a popsicle-stick bridge, and writes a song "The No Sleep Blues" (which evolves over the coarse of the episode):
I got the no sleep blues.
I'm seeing by twos.
I can't see my clothes.
Or feel my toes, oooh.
I just built a shelf.
I'm going to kill myself. I gots the no sleep blues.
Yeah I got the delusiontating,
Debilitating,
Heart a fibulating,
Gonna kill my self
Yeah, I go the no sleep blues.
I lay me down on the bed.
Eyes dancing in my head.
I be better off dead.
But I'll torture you instead.
I say the no sleep blues.
Everybody, I say it 1,000 times again.
I got the no sleep blues.
Still got those low down, no account,
Pills don't work, beer don't help,
Yeah, but it don't hurt neither,
Insomniac no sleep blues.
The cafeteria food isn't getting any better. Tiffany wrote a letter to the board of education, but they can't help her. Ryan doesn't understand what the fuss is about, because he likes the potatoes.
Jack is making wine, learning Spanish and Portuguese from tapes. Even watching Late Night with Conan O'Brian didn't help him sleep.
To help Tiffany in her fight against the bad food, he writes a protest song:
Men in the back rooms
Making the rules,
Can no longer poison
the lunches at schools.
Hear us as our number grows:
We won't eat no potatoes.
Yeah they take your smokes
And they take your guns.
But don't let them poison
Your daughters and sons.
The halls will run with teachers blood
because we won't eatanother spud
No more spuds, no more spuds,
No more spuds, no more spuds!
Jack is really loosing it. He can see words as he speaks them. He can hear music without playing his guitar. Mr. Floppy suggests that he try sex. Jack goes to Jennie, but she says they must talk first. She bores him to sleep by telling him about her experience in the express line at the supermarket. When she finishes her story, she wakes him up so they can do it.
Ryan won't join the united front against the school food. Ryan finally gives in when he finds brocolli in the potatoes. Rioting and looting ensues. The police are after the author of the protest song, who they call part Mandela and part Hitler, a little bit of Country and little bit of Rock 'n' Roll. As she watches the rioting on TV with Jack asleep next to her, she wishes she could sleep with a man like that just once.
Tiffany is upset because she got a B on her report on The Scarlet Letter, but Amber got an A for parroting back the two sentances Mr. Montelleone told them in class. Amber is the only one who got an A. Apparently Ryan and Tiffany are the only two students in the class who are unaware the Mr. Montelleone wants everything he says parroted back to him. Ryan plans to put this information to good use. Everyone in the class has to give an oral report at the end of the week. Tiffany can still earn an A in the course if she gets an A on the report.
Mr. Floppy says that the entertainment industry could use "a new action hero, Rex Floppy, who takes his women like Noah took the animals, two at a time." Jack thinks they should make an indy film and get rich at the Sundance film festival. Floppy says they should make a movie about two guys in the basement and a lot of naked girls come to visit them. It'll be a a Floppy Prodcution (whose logo is parody of MGM with "Bullutus * Beerus * Breastus", aand Floppy growling in the middle)
Tiffany won't cave in to the "intellectual fascism", and wrote a letter to the school board. Ryan is asked to give an oral report on "Why Herman Melvill is the greatest author of all time and about the novel Moby dick, written in 1851 about a sailor chasing a great white whale." Ryan repeats that back to him and gets an A.
Tiffany gets a response from the school board. They don't like Mr. Montelleone either, but can't fire him because no one else wants his job. Mr. Montelleone hands out a page with summaries of the books he might ask them to give a report about, and says they should read it first, and then maybe glance at the books if they have time. Tiff is upset that he says that Catch 22 is "just a book about World War II." She calls the author, and he agrees with Mr. Montelleone. Ryan feels good about parroting. He says he could be a networkd exec. "We'll make a show like Friends, except with a twist. Instead of having three guys and three girls, we'll make it three girls and three guys, and instead of having take place in a coffee house, we'll make it a juice bar." Jennie is impressed. Tiff calls Norman Mailer about "The Naked and the Dead." The authors don't care about what she thinks of there books, they are just happy she bought the hard cover. Tiff feels that she should just do what everybody says.
Jack and Floppy are filming their movie. Jack is dressed as a cowboy. They are making a movie about two twenty somethings who work at a video store and plan a bank hiest. Jack went to the bus station and passed out fliers "Young girls wanted. Nudity required. Major motion picture. Come to my basement." The police visit the Malloys and beat the snot out of him.
Tiffany is the last one to present her report. Everyone has earned an A by parroting. Tiff echoes his summary of Hamlet, and Mr. Montelleone is pleased. He pressures her about her past beliefs, and she cracks. He gives her a B, ruining her perfect record.
Flash forward. Headlines: "Tiffany Malloy gets PhD at 20," "Tiffany Marries Her Eight Billionaire, 'This time it's love'," "Tiffany Richest Window in America," "Tiffany buys Japan," "Tiffany First Female President," "Tiffany More Powerful than Disney Corporation," "Tiffany Jails Yoko Ono For Breaking Up Beatles," "Tiffany Old." On her death bed, she says "Montelleone" and she drops a snow globe with the letter B in it. Ryan is president of ABC: "We're #7 now!"
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