It was the best of times, it was the worst of times—but that night, for Dave Coulier, it was Miller Time.
“Chill out, Ki-zool-yay!” cautioned Snoop Dogg. “The ‘hood ain’t no place for your pranksterism and wry wit.”
Suddenly, Dave Coulier realized that no one was laughing anymore. A chill had descended on the orphanage, and in the children’s eyes he saw that the flame of joy his humor had sparked had been snuffed out by a cold wind known only by one, all-too-familiar name: Saget.
“Attention, fellow Martians. Keep your eyeholes open. The Earthling ‘Coulier’ is rumored to be aboard our ship—and, oh God, there he is and he’s killing me with a light-saber-stick made from all the happiness on earth once the people started learning to be happy and to stop trusting in greed and meanness! Our plans to devour the earth are through! May-day! May-day! This is the worst day in the history of May, eveeeerrrr!” […] And so, after six million years of intergalactic struggle, that was how the expression “Mayday” got its name.
When you’re lost out there and you’re all alone, a light is waiting to carry you home, and chances are that light is the beacon of hope and hilarity that radiates from comedian and amateur lighthouse-keeper David L. Coulier.
“No, Mr. Coulier,” said the Mummy, its voice a hoarse whisper. “I believe it’s your turn to ‘Cut. It. Out.’”
No, he’s not former Toronto Blue Jays third-baseman Kelly Gruber—and, to be honest, Dave Coulier is flat-out fed up of being asked that—but that fateful season when Gruber went down with a knee injury and the Jays were on the hunt for a replacement, suddenly the tables turned… all the way to the World Series.
That was it, thought Dave, a hair salon; it all seems so simple now!
“And here I am now, after years of conquering the high seas under the Jolly Roger, one of the tri-state area’s favorite TV weathermen. Who would have thought a simple buccaneer could be trapped in an iceberg in the North Atlantic, thawed 400 years later, and come so far? This is truly a story of rags to riches—I have traveled from the filthy, blood-soaked rags of an Iberian pirate to only marginally less riches here, at Channel 8, than I would have found plundering the virgin coasts of the Americas.” With those final words, Dave Coulier removed his microphone, nodded to Reggie, who had been working Camera One for all five of “Cumulus Coulier’s” years at the Nightly News, and was gone. Many watching the broadcast could have sworn they heard, as he stole into the night, a cry of “Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!” but many others maintain that Dave Coulier was a family man, with more of a propensity for the “softer spirits” (backgammon, prayer) than that sweet, sweet nectar of the Caribbean.
That afternoon when the dame first came into my office she took one long look at the tag on the door—D. COULIER, P.I.—and I could see in her eyes that she knew my kind of business was just what her case needed: efficient, discreet, and downright hilarious.
Dave Coulier was as surprised as anyone when he became coach of the Cincinnati Bears, mostly because he’d misheard “Bengals” and didn’t know the first thing about curling.
The Sheriff gazed across his doorstep at the stranger standing there. “Cool-yay?” he said, through a long, hard blast from a cheap, imitation Cuban cigar. “Never heard a’ ya.” The stranger gazed down at his boots, bashful-like. “Well, sir,” he began, chewing on a plug of tobacco, straightening his Stetson, “if I may be so bold.” At this he dropped into the splits, chaps opening like a breathe-hole, jazz hands fluttering. The Sheriff’s eyes gleamed with delight, and he turned inside, rapping on the doorframe. “Maybelle! I believe we may a’ done found a replacement fo’ Patty-Lou!”
“Babysitting?” scoffed an incredulous Dave Coulier. “Yeah, I think you could say I’ve got some experience.”
As Constable Coulier handed over his badge and gun, Staff Sergeant O’Reilly looked him in the eye. “It’s always tough to lose a guy like you, Coulier,” he said, nodding. “You’re probably the funniest officer to ever walk the beat in this whole precinct.” Coulier shrugged. “That’s just what I do, Chief… That’s just what I do.” O’Reilly dropped the badge and gun into his desk drawer, shut it tightly, and leaned back in his chair. “But the truth is, Coulier, we can’t afford to have someone like you on the force. You’re a bad cop. And by ‘bad cop,’ I don’t mean it in the sense of ‘good cop-bad cop.’” Here O’Reilly paused, trying to find the right words. “I just mean that you’re a really, really, really bad cop.”
Hockey. Humor. Being an uncle. Three ingredients: one great guy.
“My town, homeboy!” screamed the Kazoo, his action pointed straight at the bank robber’s head. “Now take off that Ronald Reagan mask so’s I can get a look at you mano-a-mano.”
The first family of Couliers migrated to modern-day Rimouski in northern Quebec from Normandy in the late-17th century; their patriarch was known as Gaston de Coulier LeBreque, a renowned witticist whose ribald punchlines and titillating physical comedy quickly became the stuff of legend for miles along the St. Lawrence River. In particular, it was his trademark one-liner, “Coupez ça!” that had les habitants in stitches—sometimes literally. And when those stitches became gangrenous, the rifle was handed to one man… to finish what he had started.
