The One Wherein There Is a Big Twist

Infobox Television episode
Title=The One Wherein There Is a Big Twist
Series=Drawn Together
Season=1
Episode=7
Airdate=December 15, 2004
Writer= Dave Jeser, Matt Silverstein


Caption = The housemates attempt to escape from the show's Jewish Producer.
Director= Ray Claffey
Production = 108
Guests = Chris Edgerly as the voice of Bucky Bucks
Prev=Dirty Pranking No. 2
Next=The One Wherein There Is a Big Twist, Part II

"The One Wherein There Is a Big Twist" is the seventh episode of the animated series "Drawn Together".

toryline

After several months in the house, life under the intense scrutiny of the cameras has finally begun to take its toll on the housemates, who find themselves at each other's throats. Foxxy manages to calm everyone down, but when Toot makes everyone realize that there isn't going to be a prize awarded at the end of the series and that everyone is in the house just for other people's entertainment, they decide enough is enough. Toot wants to destroy all the cameras and blow up the house, but Foxxy persuades the housemates that peaceful resistance is the answer, and leads them in a sit-in. The producer finally gives in to their demands for a material prize of some sort, and to this end, he turns the show into a rip-off of "The Apprentice".

Toot still wants to blow up the house, but agrees to play along for the time being. Billionaire Bucky Bucks splits the housemates into two teams, the guys versus the girls, and issues them a series of business-related challenges. After each challenge, Bucky fires someone on the losing team, causing the terminated party to run out of the room crying, and causing Bucky to have an orgasm. As the others are eliminated one by one, Toot enlists their help in her plan for a more forceful revolt. Finally, the contest comes down to two people, Foxxy and Toot, with the winner to be determined by a Jell-O wrestling match. Toot tries to get Foxxy to go along with her plan, but Foxxy refuses to give up, being as close to the prize as she is. Foxxy wins, and Bucky reveals her prize—nothing. He then rips off his mask to reveal that he is, in fact, the Jew Producer. The whole contest was a lie that he told everyone in order to get them to end their sit-in. Foxxy is initially crushed, but then she declares that she won't be made a fool of anymore, and tells a gleeful Toot that the time has come to take action. The housemates steal the producer's helicopter, and with Wooldoor at the controls, they blow up the house and attempt to escape the producer, who pursues them on the back of a giant missile. As the first season comes to a conclusion, the producer flies the missile into the helicopter, causing it to spiral out of control. The scene turns grey and the words "To be continued..." pop up on the screen.

Musical number: "Cash Cash Cashety Cash", a parody of "The Apprentice" theme song, "For the Love of Money" by The O'Jays.

Reality show criticism

Of all the episodes "Drawn Together" has produced, this one deals most extensively with the show's reality show setup. The episode is both an homage and an attack on reality television; in particular, it's an attack on shows which manipulate, deceive, or otherwise mistreat their participants. All of the housemates' complaints and frustrations in this episode can be connected to those of participants on actual reality shows. The beginning, where the housemates find themselves cracking under the strain of being cooped up together, mirrors the situation faced by contestants on "Big Brother" or "Survivor". The constant "twists" that are introduced into the episode parallel those in just about any reality show; nearly all modern reality shows contain twists or sudden developments that the producers introduce over the course of the series solely to make things more exciting. However, some shows are more up front about it than others, and it is those who orchestrate their twists in a particularly deceptive or unfair manner that this show targets. After the producer in this episode deceives Foxxy in such a manner, she becomes the voice of reality stars everywhere and rallies the housemates to action. First she recites a list of other reality show "victims" (see below), then tells her fellow housemates that they must make a stand, not only for themselves, but for all reality show participants everywhere, and declare to reality TV that they won't be made a fool of anymore.

Interestingly, the parody of "The Apprentice", which forms the backbone of this episode, is actually the least critical toward its subject matter.

Foxxy's speech

The reality stars Foxxy mentions as having been "screwed" by reality TV include the following:

*Zora Andrich and Linda Kazdova of "Joe Millionaire": Zora and Linda were led to believe they were competing for the heart of a wealthy businessman, but at the end of their respective series, each found out her bachelor was actually a low-income working class type.
*Rob Campos of "For Love or Money": Rob was unaware that the women who were competing for his affections had a standing offer, upon being chosen by Rob, to either stay with Rob or take a million dollar cash prize. The woman he chose, Erin Brodie, took the money.
*Matt Gould of "The Joe Schmo Show": Gould was led to believe he was a regular participant in a "Big Brother"–type reality show, but the whole show was a joke at his expense, as the other participants were all actors, and all the plot twists were deliberately manipulated by the producers just for the entertainment value of his reactions.
*Melana Scantlin and Larissa Meek of "Average Joe": Melana and Larissa were led to believe they would be romanced by many handsome suitors in a "Bachelorette"–type scenario, but their suitors turned out to be decidedly unattractive "average joes" (or as Foxxy described them, "jive dogs"). Several weeks into the series, in a further act of manipulation, a group of legitimately attractive suitors were brought onto the show.

Notes and inside references

* Not knowing if the show was going to be renewed, the creators made this episode to function as a possible series finale were it to be cancelled. Had the series not been renewed, it would have ended with everyone dying when the helicopter crashed (and a silent Double Hemm logo, in memory of the cast). Since the series was renewed, however, it would be revealed in the following episode that the housemates survived the explosion.

* During the standoff, Spanky calls Clara "my girl," implying that they are still a couple after hooking up in the previous episode. However, after this, their relationship is never mentioned again.

* In this episode, we learn that the producer, and presumably his associates, are all Jewish. In reality, the "Drawn Together" producers (Dave Jeser and Matt Silverstein) are Jewish.

* In this episode, it is revealed that Ling-Ling is male when he is placed on the guys' team during "The Apprentice" challenge; previous episodes had been ambiguous as to Ling-Ling's sex.

* When Xandir is fired after the ATC challenge, he protests that he is "a certified air traffic controller with ten years of experience". Since Xandir is 19 years old, he would have to have been certified at the age of nine; however, this can be explained by applying the principle that cartoon characters don't really age (and thus, Xandir is 19 no matter how long he has actually lived).

* When Xandir first joins Toot and Wooldoor in the confessional after being fired, he is holding a baseball bat. Later, he is shown wielding a crossbow.

* The Season 1 DVD features two outtakes from this episode: an extended version of the jelly wrestling scene, and an alternate scene from "The Apprentice" parody in which Foxxy and Toot transport Mexican immigrants across the border by disguising them as road flares and car accessories. (In the aired version, Foxxy stuffs them in balloons which Toot consumes and later passes, a spoof on ingestive drug smuggling.)

* This episode was played as part of Comedy Central's "Secret Stash", a Comedy Central feature in which R-rated films are shown uncensored after midnight, alongside "". However, at one point during the Jell-O wrestling scene, the screen abruptly went black, and a title card appeared reading "DVD ONLY! Too hot for the Stash!" The scene in question featured Spanky hanging off the side of the cage masturbating. This marks a rare instance in which "Secret Stash" has edited a program; in this instance, the editing was done as a way of promoting the DVD release (which the network doesn't hesitate to point out is uncensored).

* When the cameras are attacking the housemates, Ling-Ling is shown shooting lightning from his eyes. In every other episode, Ling-Ling's primary attack is a sphere of energy shot from his hands.

*The "Goodbye" whisper at the end of the credits is from the episode "The Other Cousin."

Cultural references

* The episode title is a reference to the TV show "Friends", the episode titles of which almost all begin with the words "The One With" or "The One Where", followed by a brief phrase describing some element of the episode's plot.

* At one point, several of the characters pull guns on one another in an homage to "Reservoir Dogs". When Wooldoor enters the fray, he produces over a dozen arms, each of them holding a different weapon. Early artwork for the scene included a Needler weapon from the video game "", though this did not appear in the aired version. When Wooldoor produces an additional revolver that he aims at his own head, everyone abruptly shifts their arms so that their guns are pointed at Wooldoor. Toot refers to the scenario by its slang term, a Mexican standoff.

* In the standoff scene, Captain Hero calls Toot "Fatty Fupa", a phonetically similar reference to her character's prototype, Betty Boop. FUPA is an acronym for "Fat Upper Pubic Area". [http://www.aboutlanguageschools.com/language/slang/navy-slang.asp#f U.S Navy Slang ] ]

* Captain Hero calls Toot "the Pillsbury Doughbroad" at one point. This is a reference to Pillsbury mascot Poppin' Fresh, popularly known as the Pillsbury Doughboy. When Hero pokes Toot in the stomach, she giggles, just as Poppin' Fresh always giggles when he is poked in television commercials.

* The producer, Bucky Bucks, is a pastiche of Richie Rich and Donald Trump. Bucky's associates, although their names aren't mentioned, are modeled after Carolyn Kepcher and George H. Ross from "The Apprentice". Bucky has an orgasm whenever he fires someone, suggesting that Trump takes extreme pleasure in firing people from his reality show.

* Several of the fade-in and fade-out scenes show an exterior shot of the house with a voiceover of Xandir exclaiming "What is going on?!". This is a reference to "The Joe Schmo Show" (which aired on Comedy Central's corporate sibling Spike TV), which featured repeated shots of the house with series star Matt Gould asking the same question.

* When the bars come down on all the windows and doors, the Producer says, "Now youz "can't" leave." This is a reference to a scene in "A Bronx Tale" where Sonny says this line after locking a gang of bikers in his bar.

* When the Producer powers up the helicopter near the end of the episode, it makes the "time circuits on" sound from the "Back to the Future" trilogy.

* Clara's invisibility ring is meant to be the One Ring from "The Lord of the Rings". The way Clara puts on the ring is a mockery of an obscene gesture referring to sexual intercourse.

* After Princess Clara is fired for being tardy during "The Apprentice" parody, the scene cuts to a shot of the fired cast members and Toot, all snapping their fingers and dancing in time to catchy, jazz style music. This is a reference to the musical "West Side Story".

* When the Jell-O wrestling match is announced, Spanky says, "Bill Cosby would crap his pants if he could see this!" This a reference to the fact that Cosby was a spokesman for Jell-O for many years.

* The music played during the Jell-O wrestling competition is similar to the music from "Rocky".

* Two references are made to "The Matrix" film series in this episode.
**Wooldoor calls someone named Tank at the end of the episode and suddenly gains the ability to fly a helicopter. This is a reference to the first "Matrix" film, in which Trinity calls Tank, an Operator, and asks him for the program for a certain helicopter. Tank then downloads the data into her brain.
**The scene where Foxxy and Toot punch each other's faces in slow motion during the wrestling match is a reference to "The Matrix Revolutions", where Neo delivers a similar punch to Smith during their final fight.

* For her project, Clara produces a blatantly anti-Semitic version of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ", parodying the anti-Semitic controversy surrounding the movie.

* During the wrestling match, while most of the other housemates are holding up signs cheering on Toot, Ling-Ling holds up a sign that says, "Legalize It!", referring to a song by reggae artist Peter Tosh, championing the legalization of marijuana.

* During the middle of the Jell-O wrestling match, the crowd shouts out "Sieg Heil", a chant used by the Nazis during World War II.

* In a deleted scene which appears as an extra on the DVD, after Toot sucks up all the Jell-O and grows to enormous size, she toots on a corncob pipe and squints one eye just like Popeye after eating a can of spinach.

* The helicopter used is called the T-1000 Firefox. The T-1000 is a character from the movie "". Firefox is the name of a fighter plane in a novel of that title by Craig Thomas; the novel was later made into a film starring Clint Eastwood.

* Before the Jew Producer fires off the rocket launcher, he says, "Say 'hello' to my little friend", quoting the quite famous line first used by Al Pacino in "Scarface" during a gun battle with rival gang members.

*The scene with the Jew Producer riding the rocket is a reference to "".

References