Nervous about meeting his girlfriend’s parents, Max enlists help from Phoebe, whose charms ultimately backfire and leave Max banned from ever seeing his girlfriend again.  (Source: imdb)  Meanwhile, Hank has the super hiccups and Billy & Nora decide Hootie the Owl is much better than Cutesy Cow.

Sometimes episode work and sometimes they don’t.  This one is 50-50.  I’m not sure I understand the ongoing fascination with MMA action on Nick shows (its showed up in iCarly before).

One benefit of this episode is we once again see Max’s conflict about being a villain and his love for Allison.  Allison humanizes Max in a way that Max never expected.  We know Max is a top notch prankster; we also learn that when he is around adults, he can’t help but insult them.  So when Max is invited to the opening of Allison’s parents’ new business, he gets Phoebe in on his plan.  She’ll do all the speaking.

Naturally, things don’t go as planned.  Phoebe’s pretty good about carrying on the conversation and Max is pretty good about avoiding the conversation.  But one ill-time karate kick to a dummy causes someone to be pushed into the wall.  All of the shelving comes down and apparently this is enough to cause all of the customers to leave.  One customer says “This is a weak gym” but I don’t buy it.  A stronger, more believable reason is needed for Allison’s parents to ban her from dating Max.

After the break, Allison works diligently to get Max to “make up” with her parents.  He brings Phoebe along again.  She ends up in the MMA ring with Debbie (this is completely unnecessary).  While Phoebe’s being tossed around, Max finally admits his feelings for Allison to her parents and the story ends happily ever after.  To me, it seemed like a tired plot with a tired resolution.

Meanwhile, on the Cutesy Cow front, Billy and Nora decide to introduce Chloe to Hootie the Owl.  They soon realize that Hootie is not the nicest owl in the world, especially when Chloe starts acting out some of Hootie’s poor lessons.  In the end, Billy & Nora accept Cutesy Cow and, apparently, Hank’s super hiccups go away.