Danny's mother who had been living with the Tanner's for a few weeks leaves. She was there because Danny's wife Pam died in a car accident. Danny has arranged so his brother and law, Jesse Cochran would come and live with the Tanner's. He also made arrangments so that his friend Joey Gladstone would help out and live with the Tanner's. This causes Stephanie and DJ to have to share a room which angers DJ and causes her to move into the garage.
Danny is scheduled to do the 10pm sports at the TV station, Joey is scheduled to perform his comedy routine at the Laugh Machine at 10pm, and Jesse is scheduled to hold rehearsals with his band, Jesse and the Rippers, at 10pm, but one of the guys must sacrifice what he is scheduled to do and stay home with the girls. Danny and Joey choose Jesse to make that sacrifice, but Jesse finds a way to be with the Rippers anyway -- he invites the band over to the house for rehearsals in the living room, and of course D.J. and Stephanie don't want to miss it. That's why Danny is not delighted by what he sees when he gets home. Not only are Stephanie and Michelle still up, but their hair has also been colored purple.
It's time for the new school year to begin. Stephanie is going into kindergarten, and D.J. and her best friend Kimmy Gibbler are going into 5th grade. Stephanie has a severe case of the kindergarten jitters because she's afraid her new classmates will reject her, so it's up to D.J. and the guys to help Stephanie. Later, D.J. also wants to avoid school when she and Kimmy are placed in separate classrooms.
In the kitchen, Jesse shows Danny and Joey a turtle named Bubba, which Jesse brought home because Bubba saved Jesse's life while Jesse was on his way home from a gig. Jesse then leaves the kitchen to get his guitar and bring it inside the house. By the time Jesse returns to the kitchen, the girls have noticed Bubba, and they talk Danny into letting Bubba stay -- then Stephanie says that Danny's mother Claire is coming to visit from Seattle. It turns out that Joey forgot to mention this to Danny after Claire called and said she would be over. Joey tells Danny that Claire will be arriving at the airport at 5:12pm. A now frantic Danny wants the messy house cleaned up as soon as possible so he can prove to Claire that he can handle things on his own, now that Pam is gone. The guys take the girls out shopping for cleaning supplies with them. When they get home, it's still about 5 hours away from Claire's arrival time. Minutes later, as the guys are about to start cleaning, Claire shows up a
While the girls are staying home with their visiting grandmother, the guys decide to go out for a day of all male bonding, fishing on a yacht. It turns out that the captain of the yacht is a woman named Caroline, and there is also an all woman band on board the yacht, led by Jesse's former girlfriend Roxanne. Jesse is still angry because Roxanne's band, which Jesse put together for her, has made it big while Jesse and the Rippers are still playing dives, and Danny feels uncomfortable around Caroline because he's scared that he is becoming attracted to her at a time that he thinks is too soon after Pam's death to become attracted to another woman.
When baby Michelle calls Jesse and Joey "da da" instead of saying it to Danny, Danny realizes that his job at the TV station is causing him to spend too much time away from home, so Danny introduces a father/daughter day in order to spend more time with the girls. Meanwhile, Joey has noticed how easy it is for Jesse to attract women, and Joey wants to attract women just as easily, so he starts trying to be like Jesse.
Danny is having a tryout as a cable TV boxing announcer. Just before a big match begins, Danny tells boxer Reggie "The Sandman" Martin that Reggie's wife has left Reggie, and as a result, Reggie is promptly knocked out in the second round. Meanwhile, at home, Michelle has caught a cold, and it's up to Jesse and Joey to give her some baby cold medicine...easier said than done, because Michelle refuses to take the medicine.
On a stormy night, Danny finds Jesse and Joey in the living room, and Jesse is holding a baseball bat that Jesse was going to use on who he thought may have been a burglar, and Danny senses that Jesse has a problem with Joey. Jesse and Joey tell Danny why: Jesse was giving guitar lessons, and he ended up falling for Corinna Spicer, one of his students. Later, Corinna watched Joey perform "The Wizard of Oz" in the living room for D.J., Stephanie, and Michelle after the TV went blank before the showing of "The Wizard of Oz" on TV, and Corinna ended up falling for Joey, much to the jealous dismay of Jesse.
It's the family's first Thanksgiving without Pam Tanner. Danny's mother Claire is expected to come over for Thanksgiving, but a snow storm up north, in the state of Washington, has stranded Claire at her home, so it's up to Danny, Jesse, and Joey to see to it that the girls have a good Thanksgiving, but the feast turns out to be not exactly worth gobbling, and Jesse's feelings about Pam's death resurface.
Joey embarks on a tour, having been scheduled to perform at 16 colleges over a period of 14 days. When Joey arrives home from the tour, he sees that Danny and Jesse and the girls have a big surprise for him -- the garage has been renovated to become a bedroom for Joey, who no longer has to use the living room alcove as a bedroom, and this indicates that Joey is not going to be living anywhere else any time soon.
It's Danny's 30th birthday, so Jesse takes Danny's car "Bullet" to be fitted for the seat covers that Jesse and Joey plan to buy as a gift for Danny. On the way home with Bullet, Jesse accidentally sends Bullet into the bay. Of course, Danny is shocked by this. Later, Jesse and Joey go to a car dealership that happens to have a duplicate of Bullet. As Jesse and Joey name the amount of money that they are willing to pay for the car, someone calls the dealership and bids higher than Jesse and Joey. The Bidding goes back and forth until Jesse and Joey bid too high for the person who is on the phone, and Jesse and Joey buy the car for Danny. As it turns out, Danny was the guy who was on the phone, bidding against Jesse and Joey.
In an effort to boost ratings, the TV station is making promos about the employees and their families. Danny and the family are chosen for the first promo. Problem is, Ronnie, the ratings-minded director of the promo, does not want Danny and the family to be shown as they really are. Meanwhile, the sound of a ferret in the house makes D.J. and Stephanie think that there is a monster in the house.
D.J. makes such a good impression in a play at school that Jesse suggests that D.J. try out for a TV commercial -- an idea Danny is against, because Danny is afraid D.J. will only end up disappointed. Jesse takes D.J. to an audition for a cereal commercial anyway, and Stephanie tags along with them. After D.J. auditions, she and Jesse leave the room, then Stephanie starts pretending to audition while she is alone in the room. The company's president, Mr. Benton, walks in, sees Stephanie, and gives Stephanie the job. This leaves D.J. furious, and willing to do anything to sabotage Stephanie's efforts to practice for the commercial because D.J. is absolutely, positively, fed up with everyone treating Stephanie and Michelle like they're "soooooo cute" while D.J. is always treated like the ugly stepsister just because she's older than Stephanie and Michelle.
At the TV station, Jesse meets Danny's co-worker Robin Winslow, who is also an old friend of Danny's, and Jesse uses Michelle's cuteness to get a date with Robin. When Jesse comes home later that day, Robin is also there -- then Jill, another woman Jesse used Michelle's cuteness to get a date with, shows up. This is when things become complicated, because Robin is now reluctant to date Jesse. Robin is willing to bet that Jesse has never had a relationship with a woman last any more than three or four months, because Robin has dated Jesse's type before and ended up hurt by the quick break-up every time, and she doesn't want that to happen again.
Stephanie has the chicken pox, and it spreads to Jesse and Joey. As part of his TV sportscasting job, Danny is scheduled to be on the bench at a Golden State Warriors basketball game in 40 minutes, and with D.J. going to her first slumber party, Danny is having a hard time finding a babysitter for Michelle, who has never had the chicken pox. With only 40 minutes to find a babysitter, Danny becomes frantic, then he begins to believe that he'll miss his assignment at the basketball game...until someone makes a surprise sacrifice so Danny can go to the game -- D.J. has willingly decided to stay home and not go to the slumber party, so she can take care of Michelle so Michelle won't have to be near Jesse and Joey while they still have the chicken pox. Chicken pox also means that Stephanie will have to miss an appearance at school by a real ballerina, something Stephanie never wanted to miss.
Joey gets a chance to perform in front of an HBO comedy scout at a comedy club, but when Phyllis Diller jinxes Joey's chance by taking over Joey's spot in the lineup and performing for an hour, Joey feels like a failure, so he decides to leave the comedy business and become a dull businessman. The feeling of failure spreads to D.J., who has been taking guitar lessons from Jesse. A talk with Joey proves to D.J. that she and Joey both were frustrated and looking for the easiest way out of that frustration.
Danny wants to date Linda, the hive mother of the Honeybee troop that Stephanie is a member of, but Danny's nervous about asking Linda out and he feels that it may be too soon after Pam's death to start dating, and D.J. and Stephanie don't want Danny to start dating, because they think Danny would be looking for someone to replace their mother Pam. Meanwhile, Jesse and Joey try to assemble a small plastic slide in the living room in hopes that Michelle will play with something else besides "Benny", the old dish rag that Michelle has become so attached to.
D.J. is eagerly expecting a visit from her cousin Steve, whom she hasn't seen in years, but when Steve arrives, everyone notices that he's not the same person that he used to be. Instead of spending a lot of time with D.J. like he used to do, Steve now wants to spend all of his time with Danny, Jesse, and Joey, and it's making a very hurt D.J. wish that she were one of the guys. To top it off, Kimmy has a crush on Steve.
The fact that Danny and Joey and the girls are going to Disney Land in Anaheim delights Jesse, who has been waiting to spend a romantic weekend alone with his girlfriend Samantha, but when Danny and Joey and the girls return home because the airplane couldn't take off in fog, it wrecks Jesse's plans to spend time alone with Samantha. Jesse complains that he has zero privacy in this house. On the next morning, Danny and Joey discover a note on Jesse's empty bed -- Jesse, fed up with his lack of privacy, has left to be on his own for a while, and he doesn't know when he'll be back, or if he'll be back.
Jesse calls to say that he and Samantha have gone to Lake Tahoe, where they have been skiing with friends. When Danny tells D.J. and Stephanie that Jesse has left and may move out, D.J. explains to Danny that when Pam died, D.J. thought that she would never again feel comfortable living in this house, until Jesse and Joey moved in and things got better. That's why D.J. and Stephanie don't want Jesse to move, so D.J. and Stephanie form a plan to make sure that doesn't happen -- they call Jesse and tell Jesse that Michelle is sick, when D.J. and Stephanie know that Michelle is not sick. From Lake Tahoe, Jesse drives his motorcycle behind a cattle truck for 4 hours in the freezing cold and arrives home only to discover that Michelle is really not sick, and that D.J. and Stephanie tricked him into coming home. Danny and Joey talk Jesse into not moving out, and they agree that Jesse needs more privacy than he's been getting.
Joey's mother Mindy has found an old $5000 savings bond in her safe deposit box, and the savings bond has Joey's name on it. When Joey receives the money, he starts spending it left and right. At the same time, Danny tries to collect an 11-year-old debt from Joey -- 11 years ago on March 12, 1977, in Palm Springs, Joey's car broke down yet again, and Danny lent Joey his last $800 to get the car fixed, and now that Joey has come into enough money, Danny asks Joey to fork over $800 of it in order to cover the debt, leading to a feud between Danny and Joey. Meanwhile, Jesse is working as an Elvis Presley impersonator in order to make some extra money because he needs enough money for he and the Rippers to record a demo, but he doesn't want the family to know that he's working as an Elvis impersonator.
When D.J. hears that her favorite singer Stacy Q will be at a local mall to give out autographs, and knowing that it would mean meeting Stacy Q in person, D.J. wants an autograph, and she'll do absolutely anything, no matter what it takes, to make it happen. Problem is, the signings are scheduled to take place during school hours, so D.J. decides to secretly skip a day of school to get the autograph. D.J. gets Jesse to mention how he once secretly and successfully skipped a day from school, and D.J. pulls that same trick on Jesse and Joey. D.J. and Kimmy head to the mall and get in line to get an autograph -- but they never expected Joey and Michelle to show up, because they didn't know that Joey had made plans to get the autograph for D.J. and surprise her with it after school.
