I AM LUUKING FOR MY KOZZEN LARRY!

In an episode originally aired August 6, 1993, Mary Anne gave birth to their son, Robespierre-Boinki Bartokomous.

Two of my housemates are immigrants and our inherent cultural differences lead to a lot of taxing shenanigans around the house. At first, I kinda let it get under my skin, but lately have taken to muttering "Balki, Balki, Balki..." under my breath. It helps.

Oh man, Balki was already doing a comic for the Chicago Chronicle at age 28. I'll be outdone by a man who wears brocade vests. : (

The lyrics to the Dance of Joy song are approximately:

Dai-dai-dai-dai
Dai dai, duh dai dai dai
Hey
Hey
Hey
Hey
Dai-dai, duh dai duh
Hey!

HAHAHAHA

My brother and I would do the dance of joy any time we were fucking happy, and (jesus) my high school boyfriend and I did too.

1993 ???

PERFECT STRANGERS

1986-1993

R.I.P.

Oh god, a whole Wikipedia section on Mypos:

Mypos is the fictional island country which Balki Bartokomous is from. Its exact location is never specifically stated, but it is clearly modeled on the Greek Isles and so is presumably located near Greece in the Aegean, Ionian or Mediterranean seas. It has some customs which are unusual by American standards. In one episode Balki wears a traditional necklace that is in the shape of the island, which resembles Cyprus.

Mypos neighbors the also fictional island of Skeptos to the west and the fictional island of Pathos to the east. Together the three islands form the Tri-Island Area.

Cuisine includes:

* Halkidiki: A Myposian travel food which consists of milk, eggs, flour, honey, and goat spleen set out at room temperature until it gets that "little green fur" (as Balki described it).
* Booglie muzacman: Pig bladder stuffed with cheese.
* Dingding makhmud: Pig snout with saffron.
* Bibbibabka: A Myposian delicacy which must be prepared very carefully or it will explode. As Balki puts it, "If you don't make the bibbibabka in the traditional Myposian way, The bibbi in the babka... goes boom." Balki has a mnemonic device to aid in the preparation of bibbibabka in the form of a song (to the tune of "Limbo Rock"): "When you're rolling out the dough, just make sure you roll it slow. If you make the dough too quick, bibbibabkas make you sick...", etc.

Customs include:

* At bed time: in the middle of the day, someone rings a bell, and each person lies down to take a nap wherever they happen to be. On Mypos when it is a person's birthday, the person whose birthday it is gives presents to other people.

Misc facts:

* The king of Mypos was King Ferdinand, who was king until 1991. It is not known when he became king, but it was prior to 1986. After King Ferdinand died in 1991, the queen of Mypos was Queen Cookie. The royal family of Mypos were the only people on the island who had indoor plumbing.

* From the episode "The Lottery", if Balki won the jackpot he would pay off the Mypos national debt of $635.

* According to Balki, Mypos has only one phone on the entire island, located in the country's single 7-11 store. ("But it has Call Waiting.")

* The national sport of Mypos is long-distance spitting.

* In the episode "Ladies and Germs," it is established that Mypos has developed a cure for the common cold, a horrible-tasting potion brewed from herbs and fish parts. Balki makes the potion for Larry, who has a cold. But Larry drinks too much of the potion and falls asleep for three days.

* Other than during the opening credits when Balki waved goodbye, Mypos was only shown in one episode "Citizenship" in Season 7. Including convincing the travel agent that there was such a country, Larry traveled there to convince Balki's mother that her son, who had become a U.S. citizen, was happier back in Chicago.

DVD FORTHCOMING:

Warner Home Video will release the first and second seasons on a four-disc DVD set in Region 1 for the very first time on February 18, 2008.

Wow:

In the German dubbing, Balki was said to be an actual Greek and Mypos a Greek island. Even the show was called Ein Grieche erobert Chicago (A Greek captures Chicago), and in the opening credits Balki said that he became bored with his sheep in Greece, so he went to America to visit his cousin.

I'm sorry, the title in America so should have been A Greek Captures Chicago. It would still be running today.

Is it "captures" as in "beguiles", or...

A Greek Seduces Chicago

Chicago Gets Greeced Up

Perfect Strangers - The Complete First and Second Seasons

On DVD tomorrow!

Holy shit, the man's gonna have so many more reasons to hate my Netflix abuse! (Yesterday we got "Little Monsters" and a docu called "God Told Me To" about murderers, neither of which I remember even putting on the q, let alone moving to the top.)

I can't sink any dollars into this, but someone out there please tell me that the episode guide descriptions actually fit the episodes. I just need to know.

Oh, they do, but in a really saccharine way. Like how a Library of Congress summary fits a novel.

The first guy I dated, pretty much the only reason I came to his house is because he had some Perfect Strangers episodes he'd taped as a kid.

Thank god, the Balki B video is still on YouTube for instant roffles, so to repost:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F28LW9NWOCk

My brother just emailed me:

I remembered that perfect strangers is on AOL TV. At least some episodes. So I decided to see if that second episode of their winter expedition and cabin avalanche was on there. Of course the episode is not on there but the first part is! Will we EVER find out what really happened? Will I ever forgive mom and dad for taking us from grandma's house the one time it actually comes on tv? What awful torture must I bear?!

I knew you could sympathize. Thanks. I love you!

-Merr1ck

P.S. For torture inducing memories, the first episode is here: http://video.aol.com/video-detail/perfect-strangers-snow-way-to-treat-a-lady-part-1/355878549

Being robbed of watching that second episode has been a lifelong grudge we both share.

Oh good, Balki B video link still works.

This is the greatest thing ever.

http://nothingsgonnastopmenow.com/

hahaha

just to sing the song

oh there are some shitty entries on the dream board

quality video game

dammit, beaten by minutes!

lolling at the tri-island area

beaten by an hour actually

I didn't cotton on to catching stars til about halfway through, I was too busy singing

We've had a few Wikipedia links above but anyway, a further celebration:

http://decanting-cerebral.tumblr.com/post/44323013452/16-ways-of-looking-at-perfect-strangers-via-wikipedia

Oh Balki

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bg80jycIEAAGR1Y.jpg

Who they?

tuomas if there was an embed for getting a thread to slap someone in the face i would paste it in below even if it inadvertently slapped everyone else who loaded this thread in the face because then it would also slap you in the face for asking such a fundamentally dense question about the very thread in which you were asking it, my gawd

why would tuomas even click on this thread?

^zen koan

Because it had a weird title and I was trying to understand what it was about. I read the first 10 posts or so, but I still didn't get it. Who is cousin Larry?

Hey Tuomas, I don't know if you use Chrome, but if you do you can right-click on any pic in the world and click "Search google for this image", which will usually tell you what you're looking at.

or you could just type "Cousin Larry" into Google

i gotta say those two have aged pretty well, it's been like 25 years

mark linn baker looks like Larry David

Oh...oh dear.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/perfect-stranger-things-gives-larry-and-balki-a-new-roo-1820220807

Dancing In The Moonlight

the episode where larry falls asleep for days after drinking a jar of balki’s medicine is the apex of eighties sitcom art

i was watching the first season of Newhart (80s innkeeper one) on Hulu when i had the flu and 80s sitcoms are sort of weirder than today's "weird" sitcoms in a way

one episode literally involved them learning their was a witch buried in their basement and hiring Larry Daryl and Daryl to dig up the bones so they could bury them in the church graveyard, but then Joanna decides she likes having the witch in their basement because she was wrongfully accused so they cancel the job and just keep the witch's bones in their basement

This was a very relatable scenario in the 80s

Nothing beats the "magic cave" episode of Punky Brewster for sheer bugfuck 80s sitcom weirdness.

This is everything. pic.twitter.com/HVtPCkFUd0

— Danny Deraney (@DannyDeraney) August 12, 2022

And in sharing it a friend (a published playwright) makes a case

The writers of that show understood farce, which is really rare - and they could act it, which is rarer - in the beginning when the show was basically two rooms, the newspaper and the apartment, it was like a really fun play from the 30s-50s https://t.co/eUWl6i4an1

— Justin Sherin (@wychstreet) August 12, 2022