The BEST episodes written by Howard Adler
#1 - The Lottery
Perfect Strangers - Season 4 - Episode 1
Balki insists on buying a lottery ticket but Larry thinks that it is just a waste of money for something that can't possibly win. But during the draws, Larry realizes that Balki picked the right numbers and won 28 million dollars but Balki can't remember where he hid the ticket.
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#2 - Up a Lazy River (2)
Perfect Strangers - Season 4 - Episode 7
After the river takes them on a wild ride, The four end up lost in the woods. Hoping that Larry can regain Jennifer's respect, he talks Balki into letting him lead them back to the camp site but they end up walking for five hours in a circle. Later, Larry and Balki almost drown in quicksand and in the evening, they get attacked by a bear.
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#3 - Just a Gigolo
Perfect Strangers - Season 4 - Episode 19
Lydia is miserable when her boyfriend dumped her so Balki uses his match-making skills to fix Lydia up with a man who turns out to be a gigolo who married wealthy women, takes their money and leaves them.
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV#4 - Putting Two 'n Two Together
Two of a Kind - Season 1 - Episode 1
Mary-Kate and Ashley work as matchmakers to get Mrs. Baker and Mr. Fillmore together so that Carrie, a student of Kevin, will be hired as their new baby-sitter.
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#5 - Just Desserts
Perfect Strangers - Season 3 - Episode 16
After Balki serves Larry, Jennifer, and Mary Anne some ""bibi-bobkas"" (Mypoian cream puffs), Larry suggests selling them but baking them cannot be rushed.
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#6 - Your Cheatin' Heart
Perfect Strangers - Season 3 - Episode 6
Jennifer is planning on buying a surprise typewriter for Larry and asks Balki for help barganing at a clearance sale. Larry gets suspicious after he sees Balki and Jennifer sneaking around, and thinks they're having an affair.
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#7 - Snow Way to Treat a Lady (2)
Perfect Strangers - Season 2 - Episode 19
The quartet are trapped in a cabin buried alive by an avalanche and they try to dig a tunnel to the outside world.
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV#8 - A Foster/Lambert Production
Step by Step - Season 4 - Episode 24
Carol finally goes into labor. Frank rushes everyone to the hospital while Cody is taping everything on videotape. Carol had decided to have the baby without any anesthetic, but every time she has a contraction, she changes her mind (changing it back after the contraction, of course). The doctor convinces her that it is just as healthy for the baby to take drugs. JT, who was supposed to drive the kids, leaves the Foster kids at home. When the Fosters arrive, they begin fighting again with the Lamberts. Cody steps in and shows them how they have been happier when they have assisted one another. Lilly Foster Lambert is born!!
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#9 - You Gotta Have Friends
Perfect Strangers - Season 3 - Episode 22
While Larry is doing some important research, Balki goes out to the races and when he gets back, he tells Larry about meeting Carl Lewis but Larry doesn't believe him since he has taken Balki's money and left.
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV#10 - Getting Organized
Step by Step - Season 1 - Episode 13
JT and Cody become engrossed with the idea of aliens while Dana and Karen make fun of them, but then try to make the boys look foolish by pretending to have a UFO fly over them. Cody and JT find out about their plan and turn the tables on them. Frank's office is extremely disheveled. Carol sees this and in an effort to help him and organizes his office. She even puts his records that were in shoe boxes into a computer before throwing them away. Just as Frank gets excited about the new system he will have, Carol loses the information that was in the computer. They end up having to go rooting through a dumpster to find the boxes. Just their luck as a dump truck comes by and picks them up for even messier results, Low and behold though, they do recover the missing boxes.
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#11 - Come Fly with Me
Perfect Strangers - Season 4 - Episode 14
Larry and Balki are flying to Hawaii with Jennifer and Mary Anne serving along the way. But after eating a Myposian snack the wrong way, Jennifer and Mary Anne get sick. So Larry and Balki decide to cover for them but didn't know they weren't suppose to serve through turbulence.
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#12 - Frank & Son
Step by Step - Season 1 - Episode 5
JT agrees to go to work with Frank because he needs extra money, something ""Frank is more excited about then JT."" After failing miserably there, JT ends up helping Carol out as a shampoo boy, a job he only likes because he gets ""to touch girls without getting sent to the principal's office."" Meanwhile, Dana needs to build a good birdhouse or her entire GPA will drop and Al needs to write a book report on Tom Sawyer. They decide to switch assignments until Brendan points out that it is cheating. After the disappointment with JT and Brendan telling him that working for him would be a punishment, Frank is delighted to see Al's birdhouse. Frank and Al walk off talking construction.
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#13 - Dog Day Mid-Afternoon
Perfect Strangers - Season 5 - Episode 5
Larry writes an expose of a money laundering scheme that gets him his first front page story but he's upset when he realizes that Marshall & Walpole too all the credit for his article. Also, Marvin Berman, the money laundering scheme's accountant, is also upset because his boss took all the credit for the scheme that was really his idea. So he shows up at the Chronicle with a bomb and demands a printed retraction.
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#14 - All the News That Fits
Perfect Strangers - Season 3 - Episode 1
Larry gets a job at the Chicago Chrinicle local newspaper as a reporter and brings Balki to find a job. Mr. Burns the city editor hires Balki in the mail room but Mr. Gorpley the mail room boss doesn't want him there and tries everything to fire him.
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV#15 - Aloha (2)
Step by Step - Season 2 - Episode 19
The second half concludes the exciting story. JT's girl, who always disappears when he sees her, turns out to be connected to Cody's treasure. JT and Cody discover the treasure is not monetary but is the sunset from where there digging that is the real treasure. Mark,Al and Brendan win the sand castle competition and get a helicopter tour of the island. Carol tries to get Dana to not accept the engagement by telling her absolutely no. Then in using logic she says Dana is too young, but Dana says Carol was younger when she first married. Then Carol says that marriages where the people spent one week together on a tropical island didn't work, but Dana again reminded her of her marriage (this time the one to Frank).In the end Dana decides she has to many dreams to pursue to be tied down.
Watch Now:Amazon#16 - The Boss
Step by Step - Season 2 - Episode 6
JT and Karen get jobs at a 50's cafe as while Cody gets a job there as a DJ. Dana gets a job as Assistant Manager and is extremely bossy. Therefore JT and Karen quit and the cooks quit (they only put up with Dana so they could look at Karen). Dana ends up getting Frank and Carol to help her and Cody works in the kitchen. Frank and Carol end up correcting Dana. Mark and Al play with a truth telling machine that helps reveal, among other things, Frank's middle name (Delano), where Cody's keys are (in his car), what kind of job Frank had while in school (a paper route), and a very interesting fact about Cody.
Watch Now:Amazon#17 - Read All About It
Step by Step - Season 3 - Episode 14
Cody reads so much that he ruins the stories (by telling the ending) for JT, Al, and Carol and desserts (by crushing it with a big box of books) for Dana. However, it does yield him a job as a story time reader for the little kids at the library. He makes the reading time tons of fun and even teaches one of Brendan's friends to read. While filling out their taxes, Frank realizes Carol made more money than he did the previous year. He gets frantic over not being the ""provider"" of the family so he looks for a part time job. He looks everywhere but ends up passing out coupons for a local fried chicken restaurant while dressed as a chicken. Carol is, however, able to convince him that he is a great companion and father and she is perfectly satisfied with that.
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#18 - He's the Boss
Perfect Strangers - Season 5 - Episode 19
When Mr. Wainwright hires a personal assistant Mr. Glover, Balki gets promoted to the executive staff, but is unaware that it is a scheme that Mr. Glover has to try and implement the American Dream Program. And Larry may lose his job if he doesn't go along with it.
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV#19 - Spoiled Sport
Step by Step - Season 4 - Episode 4
When a part time Sportscaster job becomes available, Frank's old visions of being a great announcer come back. He chokes and Carol gets the job which bums him out seeing himself stuck in an endless life of average. He snaps out of it when Carol tells him that to her he is a superstar. Ironically, when Carol denies the job, Cody ends up with it. Carol's health food kick has the kids buying their own junk food. This causes JT and Al to patrol the kitchen and endless fights over stealing each other's junk food. Finally, a food fight breaks out and when Cody tries to break it up, he is attacked from all sides. As a funny side note, in the middle of all this JT put glue in Dana's conditioner.
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#20 - Because They're Cousins
Perfect Strangers - Season 5 - Episode 13
Balki's cousin Bartok come to visit from Mypos via Los Angeles for the last six months. Bartok looks just like Balki except after being in LA, he lost his accent and got a cool attitude, and he has a money-making scheme and tries to take Balki's money.
Watch Now:Apple TV#21 - A Day in the Life
Step by Step - Season 1 - Episode 11
Frank gets ""America Up Close"" to do one of their 'blended family' segments on the Lambert/Foster clan. Carol is disappointed, because now the whole world will see them acting nasty toward each other, and when it happens she gets mad at Frank and makes him sleep on the couch. Dana leads the kids in a mission to save their parents, by everyone being nice for the cameramen. When they do, Carol and Frank make up, just before the act fades away.
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#22 - Snow Way to Treat a Lady (1)
Perfect Strangers - Season 2 - Episode 18
Jennifer and Mary Anne are going skiing and invite Larry and Balki. Larry thinks he can impress Jennifer by being an expert skier without much luck. So he decides to fake an injury to get sympathy from Jennifer.
Watch Now:Apple TV#23 - Aloha (1)
Step by Step - Season 2 - Episode 18
The whole family wins a trip to Hawaii and Cody decides to buy a ticket to go with them. Carol irritates everyone by trying to tour EVERYTHING. When they convince Carol to loosen the reigns, Dana meets the man of her dreams, JT finds the girl of his dreams but can't seem to meet her, Cody finds a bottle with a message and goes in search of a lost treasure, and Al, Brendan, and Mark enter a sand castle building contest. Dana's rich dream man soon proposes to her with a six carat solataire in a Tiffany setting.While Carol flips out and demands Dana say no,she considers her option.
Watch Now:Amazon#24 - First Crush
Two of a Kind - Season 1 - Episode 4
Ashley gets assigned Pokey Valentine, her crush, as a partner on a history project. She becomes jealous when Pokey and Mary-Kate begin spending time together.
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV#25 - Stuck on You
Step by Step - Season 2 - Episode 3
JT tries to get a date,Al gets a new friend and Frank feels he may be loosing a daughter.
Watch Now:Amazon#26 - This Old House
Step by Step - Season 2 - Episode 23
Frank gets a job, which includes moving a house. Carol convinces Frank to hire Cody for the demolition work, though Cody has never done this precise demolition before. Cody finds out that a family lives in the house Frank is wrecking and has nowhere to go. Cody refuses to demolish the building and gets to know the Emersons. When Carol finds out that the family lives there, she sits beside Cody in an sort of demostration. Cody and Carol find a solution to the problem. Their answer is to move the house and make Frank hire the father. Al, Brendan and Mark get a job licking envelopes. JT says that he can be the manager of the envelope licking and really increase their productivity. JT's management style doesn't work, because he just bosses the others around. So Al, Brendan, and Mark quit, and JT has to lick envelopes all night. Afterward, Dana and Karen suggest a sponge.
Watch Now:Amazon#27 - Daddy's Girl
Step by Step - Season 1 - Episode 20
Grandpa comes to visit with his fiance'. Frank recognizes her as a stripper from a bachelor party he went to a year ago. When Frank tells his dad, he storms off and does not believe Frank. He finds out later that she is an ex-stripper and they postpone the wedding. JT wants Dana to set up a date with a pretty friend of hers' so she makes him run errands for her all week. JT does not get along with her, but to show Dana there are no hard feelings he buys her spaghetti and meatballs. Amazingly, she does not enjoy it that much.
Watch Now:Amazon#28 - The Marrying Dude
Step by Step - Season 3 - Episode 9
After posting an ad in a biker magazine, Cody finally meets his blind date,Bonnie.She turns out to have an adorable 8 year old named, Riley who Cody Immediately befriends.Bonnie and Cody have a great time,but there priorities are different.Bonnie needs a father for Riley so she proposes to Cody. Al is perplexed at her breast size. The rest of the family is busy arguing about the house decor.
Watch Now:Amazon#29 - Goodbye, Mr. Chip
Step by Step - Season 7 - Episode 9
Karen's boyfriend Chip takes Carol's advice to get some backbone and stand up to Karen, but he surprises everyone when breaks up with her. Karen is furious with her mother for interfering. In the meantime, Dana has better luck helping JT and Rich with a relationship problem of their own, with the use of her straight A in psychology - and sock puppets.
#30 - The Ice Cream Man Cometh
Step by Step - Season 4 - Episode 9
The kids kick up a fuss about the baby's room and Cody comforts an old friend.
#31 - Lie-Ability
Perfect Strangers - Season 5 - Episode 2
After a minor car accident, Mr. Gorpley suggests Larry should sue. So Larry has plans to defraud an insurance company to gain money to help his sister Elaine with her tuition. But Balki objects as usual.
Watch Now:Apple TV#32 - Your Cheatin' Heart
Step by Step - Season 7 - Episode 3
Rich begins making stupid excuses for skipping out on Dana. Karen and Al convince Dana that he is cheating on her after they follow him to some girl's house. The three of them see Rich dancing with another woman. Dana barges in, but realizes that he is taking dance lessons to impress her. Frank and Carol are having trouble with distractions in their love life. Finally, they are able to get together for a distraction-free evening but are too sick to make it enjoyable.
#33 - Torn Between Two Mothers
Step by Step - Season 5 - Episode 14
Frank's mom comes to town to see Lilly. She tells Carol how to do everything. While everyone else is enjoying ""Nana,"" Carol grows more and more frustrated with her as her advice becomes more and more personal. Finally because of some advice from Carol (and Cody), Frank stands up to his mother. Then Frank's mother realizes what a terrible mother-in-law she has been. At the same time, JT gets a job as a dummy for a women's self-defense class. Dana, Karen, and Al join the class and after seeing what it is there practicing (shots to the groin) JT quits in the middle. Also, Cody gets a job doing brain experimentation.
#34 - Maid to Order
Step by Step - Season 5 - Episode 5
J.T. hires a beautiful model to clean the house. Carol exposes her competitive nature when Karen competes to be head cheerleader.
#35 - The Case of the Missing Diary
Step by Step - Season 3 - Episode 21
Cody is writing a 40's style mystery for his creative writing class. He gets an idea when Karen proclaims her diary is missing. His pun-filled story is played out by the Lambert/Foster family. Kitty Meow (Karen), who sings in the famous trio the Andrews step-sisters, lost her diary. The suspects are as follows: the other two Andrew's step-sisters (Dana and Al), the establishment's piano player (Brendan), comic (JT), and other singing act, Miss Honey Dew (Carol). With the help of the lab technician (Mark), Sam Spud (Cody) discovers it was Honey Dew. In real life, Al turns out to be the one who misplaced Karen's diary.
#36 - Love at First Byte
Head of the Class - Season 1 - Episode 4
Charlie receives a love note from a secret admirer he suspects is in the IHP.
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