Xandir and Tim, Sitting in a Tree
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"Xandir and Tim, Sitting in a Tree" is the eighteenth episode of the animated series Drawn Together.
Storyline
Captain Hero announces that his "friend", Tim Tommerson, is coming for a visit and asks Xandir to look after him. Xandir is annoyed, but agrees to do so, but when Tim shows up, Xandir becomes even more irritated. Tim appears to be just like Captain Hero, except that he wears glasses. Xandir is certain that Tim is actually Hero himself playing some kind of game with him. However, when Xandir realizes that Tim is much nicer than Captain Hero, and more sensitive and open-minded, a romance begins to blossom between the two. Xandir decides that Tim is actually Hero's homosexual side which Captain Hero is in denial about. Xandir tries to encourage Tim to be open about who he is, and to tell Hero about how he feels. Tim tries, but Captain Hero proceeds to get extremely violent when the topic is addressed. Finally, Tim tells Xandir that the only way to reconcile the situation is to shoot Captain Hero; this will symbolically kill off the Captain Hero the world knows, and allow the true person, Tim, to take over. Xandir walks into Hero's room, sees Hero standing in the shadows, and shoots him. Unfortunately, he does not realize until it is too late that it was actually Tim he shot. Hero/Tim then tells Xandir that since it was Tim that was killed, this must mean that Hero isn't gay after all. Xandir gets fed up with the whole charade and leaves.Meanwhile, the other housemates watch the conclusion of a show featuring a flying British kangaroo, and they all agree it was terrible. If only, they sigh, there was some way to know ahead of time what TV shows are worth watching. The answer to their prayers then comes wafting down the chimney: an issue of Entertainment Weekly. They are as excited as kids in a candy store as they flip through the pages; that is, until they come across the magazine's review of Drawn Together. EW declares that the show is disgusting and offensive and just basically worthless, and gives it a letter grade of "F". Everyone is devastated except Spanky, who continues with his disgusting fart jokes, figuring that Entertainment Weekly just doesn't know what they're talking about. However, he reads some of their other reviews, and finding them to be fairly accurate, he comes to the horrible realization that EW is right. Spanky blames himself and his toilet humor for dragging the show down, and leaves the house. He goes back to his old life in the suburbs, which includes a wife and child, and gets a regular 9 to 5 job as a hostage crisis negotiator.
Spanky misses being on Drawn Together however, so when he discovers that despite what Entertainment Weekly said, a lot of people still love his toilet humor, this gives him new reason for being, and he returns triumphantly to the Drawn Together house. Spanky convinces the housemates that the time has come for taking action, so the group pays a visit to the EW offices. While the rest of the group cause general chaos in the office, Spanky searches for the person who wrote the review. When he finds them, he immediately realizes why they gave the show such a bad review: the TV critic is a Jewish conservative pro-life born again overweight Asian (Indian) homophobic lesbian broad who cuts herself—in short, everything the show makes fun of every week. Spanky doesn't succeed in getting the critic to change her mind about the show, but he does realize that since she's not the kind of person they're making the show for, the bad review isn't so bad, and accepts that one person's opinion isn't necessarily indicative of the show's actual worth. The critic, wanting to be constructive, tells Spanky that one of Drawn Together
Musical number: "Morning Train", which accompanies a montage of Spanky's new life in the suburbs. The song was originally sung by Sheena Easton, but here it is performed by the episode's guest star Jimmy Kimmel.
Notes and inside references
- As the creators mention in the DVD commentary for "The One Wherein There Is a Big Twist," Entertainment Weekly actually did give the show the rating of "F". In fact, the review shown is the actual review EW originally gave the pilot episode. Once the plot of this episode became known to EW, they took the opportunity to review the show again. Not surprisingly, they ended up giving this episode an "F" as well.
- *The actual text of the original review in EW reads as follows. **:"Drawn Together (Comedy Central, TV-MA) It's what happens when women call each other nasty names or rappers drop the N-word like spare change: Everyone starts to think it's ok. Taking offensiveness to new levels, Drawn Together uses the Surreal Life conceit of B-list celebs thrown into a house, but with Z-level cartoon characters. Sample dialogue: "Nothing reminds me of my first time like a chick crying." Sample Scene: A vote to keep the black girl in the house devolves into a mock slave auction. This is TV that's so bad, it's bad for you, and more appropriately belongs in What Not to Watch. F."
- *The text of the review EW wrote in response to this episode reads as follows:
- *:"Drawn Together (Comedy Central, TV-MA) When Tonight's Best TV overlord Alynda Wheat reviewed this bawdy cartoon series in 2004, she gave it an F. For fun! (Or... funless? I can't recall.) Apparently, this grade wedgie snagged the attention of the Drawn scribes; this week, the gang wreaks bloody revenge on EW after reading the aforementioned critique. (What's most shocking is not the grisly body count but that the show's animators think we actually wear suits to work.) Based on Spanky Ham's uncorking of a (precisely) 60-second fart, we could award this episode an A. But we don't want that first F getting lonely, so here's another one. F."
- The line, "Grapes are fun!" was originally spoken by Xandir in "Hot Tub." The clip played from that episode, which features Xandir saying the line while Ling-Ling is in the background playing with Xandir's sword, was originally shown in black and white as part of a flashback sequence, but here, the clip appears in normal color and shown in the opposite direction.
- After Tim finishes talking to Xandir at his window, when Xandir turns around, Captain Hero is back in the bed next to him, with an erection.
Clara copes with the shock.
- When we first see her after the shock from the bad review has taken effect, Princess Clara is barefoot and clad in a ragged, primitive-looking dress, and is kneeling while reciting the Lord's Prayer. In this instance, she is practicing a medieval form of penance, furthering the notion that she is Roman Catholic. Wooldoor is nude and flagellating himself, practicing a more extreme version of this same practice.
- *Also in this scene, Toot repeatedly stabs a knife between her fingers, a feat frequently attempted by characters in movies to show either courage or manual dexterity, but instead of a table, Toot's hand rests upon her own leg, resulting in another instance of self-mutilation on her part. Foxxy dons a long veil and chants "Entertainment Weekly" over and over in a quasi-hypnotic trance, while Ling-Ling prepares to commit seppuku again.
- Spanky, already a confirmed Muslim, makes an interesting reference to "Allah Herself!" (grammatically speaking, though, the -ah sound usually represents the feminine in Arabic). Islam actually considers Allah to be genderless, but as the Arabic language contains no gender-free pronouns, Allah is usually referred to in the masculine.
- Spanky first calls his son Todd, and his wife corrects him, saying the child is named Randy. Later he calls the child Randy and is told his name is Todd.
- When Captain Hero is glaring out the window musing what Xandir and "Tim" could be up to, he starts bumping up against the glass repeatedly, implying that Xandir is simultaneously taking him from behind.
- The bespectacled man from "Ghostesses in the Slot Machine" and "Super Nanny" makes a cameo appearance as a person in the crowd at the hostage crisis.
- When Spanky first encounters the EW critic, he refers to her as "Asian", among many other things. The second time he refers to her, the word "Asian" is changed to "Indian", and a red dot suddenly appears on her forehead. The pocketknife stuck in the EW critic's thigh also appears and disappears between shots.
- Spanky's wife in this episode is voiced by Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel and Adam Carolla (who voices Spanky on Drawn Together) are best friends in real life, and have done numerous works together including The Man Show and Crank Yankers.
- *This is the second time Kimmel voiced a guest character opposite Carolla's usual role. The first time was in the Family Guy episode "Mr. Saturday Knight", when he portayed the Death Dog, alongside Carolla's more frequent role as Death.
- *Jimmy Kimmel is also the older brother of Drawn Together writer Jonathan Kimmel.
- In a running gag in this episode, whenever Xandir speaks about homosexual love, the scene cuts to the confessional chair with Xandir saying, "Right, Craig?" Craig would appear to be a former lover of Xandir's who would not come out of the closet.
- There are two gags in this episode referring to the closet as a metaphor for being open or quiet about one's sexuality. After Spanky convinces everyone that the show's humor is worth defending despite its questionable taste, several of the housemates proudly proclaim "stereotypes" as something to defend, and then proceed to immediately embody their personal stereotype. Xandir, the show's gay stereotype, delivers his line while literally stepping out of the closet. In another scene, when Tim tells Xandir that Hero is sending him off for good, he is literally walking into a closet.
- Xandir states that shooting Captain Hero will only serve as a symbolic gesture since, as everyone knows, superheroes are impervious to bullets. However, this didn't seem to help Captain Hero during Bob the Cucumber's shooting spree in "Clum Babies."
Animated cameos
- The characters involved in hostage situations include Pluto and Goofy of Walt Disney fame, and the family from The Family Circus.
- *Pluto holds a gun to Goofy's head and demands to be allowed to be the one to wear the pants. Pluto and Goofy are both dogs created by Walt Disney, but Goofy is anthropomorphized while Pluto remains just a regular dog, creating a strange dichotomy within the Disney universe. Also oddly enough, Pluto and Goofy are shown in full design while back in "Terms of Endearment," Mickey Mouse was drawn in the shadows, as precaution since Disney is litigious about their characters.
- *Little Billy of The Family Circus goes on a killing spree complete with a dotted line marking his path of destruction, one of the trademarks of that comic strip. The newspapers being read on the subway after the incident indicate that "Not Me" is being blamed, Not Me being the name of an imaginary ghost to whom all of the children's mischief is attributed. Not Me's burning corpse can be seen in one of the rooms, next to a mirror with redrum written on it in blood. Also, in the comic strip, Billy has blond hair while his mom has black hair, but in this episode, Billy is depicted with dark brown hair while his mom has light brown hair.
- *In both situations after the hostages are killed, the killer would take his own life by taking a bullet to the head.
- In the background of the Goofy/Pluto scene, Elmer Fudd, Tantor from Disney's Tarzan, and a Sockbat can be seen.
- The redheaded character playing Whac-A-Mole is modeled after Archie Andrews from Archie Comics.
- When the EW receptionist views the carnage the housemates have caused, one of the victims that can be seen is the comic strip character Dilbert, who has been impaled through the eyes with several pairs of scissors.
- During the massacre at Entertainment Weekly, a primitive trap brings out Ewoks, who used a similar attack in . During this scene, Wooldoor can also be seen dressed as Long John Silver.
Cultural references
- The title of this episode is a reference to an old children's rhyme in which two people thought to be in love are said to be "sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g."
- The scene where Pluto holds Goofy hostage takes place in Toontown, Disney's attempt at an MMORPG. Just before the scene takes place, the newspapers on the subway have headlines reading "Toontown Tension", "Toontown Standoff", and "Toontown Terror". The house where the standoff takes place is modeled after the house players receive upon joining Toontown.
- The scene in which the copy of Entertainment Weekly comes gliding out of the chimney is a reference to the first Harry Potter film, including a parody of the musical score.
- The whole Xandir and Tim/Hero subplot is an obvious spoof of Brokeback Mountain. The background music heard during some of their scenes together comes directly from the movie's score. Xandir's line, "I wish I could quit you", is derived from the movie's most famous line, "I wish I knew how to quit you".
- *Comedy Central wanted to ensure that people knew this episode would be a parody of Brokeback Mountain, so in promotional ads for the episode, they interspersed scenes of the Xandir-Tim relationship with captions reading, "When their love goes for BROKE... there's no turning BACK".
- Tim Tommerson is based on Superman's alter ego Clark Kent (for whom the disguise basically consisted of a pair of glasses).
- The final shot of Xandir and Tim's date at the lake brings a cattail and tree s shaped like an anus into the camera view. This is common directoral technique for sexual metaphor, and was also parodied in "Captain Hero's Marriage Pact."
- The back cover of the Entertainment Weekly issue the housemates read shows an ad for an alcoholic beverage called Positiv, a pun on Absolut Vodka, a beverage frequently pictured in magazine ads. The magazine's front cover (which is not a real EW cover) features Paris Hilton.
The housemates in panic after EW' s bad review.- When the housemates read Entertainment Weekly's bad review, they are all thrown into chaos, and eventually deteriorate into a primal state of fear and panic. This is a reference to the novel Lord of the Flies, in which a group of schoolboys become stranded on a deserted island together; in the absence of adult supervision, their primal instincts take over, and they become savages.
- When Xandir and Tim retreat to the bedroom, fireworks appear in the sky that take the shape of a pink triangle and a rainbow flag, two prominent symbols for gay pride.
- When Spanky returns to the Drawn Together house, Foxxy climbs up the wall, twists her head back, and hisses and says, "Sucker". Behavior like this is commonly associated with vampires.
- The scene where the cast trick out a green car in preparation for their commando mission at the Entertainment Weekly office is a reference to The A-Team. The music playing in the background during this scene is almost identical to The A-Team's theme music.
- After cutting off his own finger, Captain Hero is shown with a bandaged, shorter finger; usually, such an injury would just disappear. The bandaged finger, however, is an obvious nod that Hero and Tim are the same guy, save for the glasses and different attitudes. The amputation itself is a reference to a scene in the movie , in which the antagonist punishes a flunky by cutting off a part of his index finger with a cigar cutter, much like Hero did.
- After Tim is "beaten up" by Captain Hero, Tim says, "Look away, I'm hideous." This is a quote from the Seinfeld episode "The Abstinence", in which Kramer says the same thing after his face is deformed by cigarette smoke.
- The idea of shooting Tim in the head to rid him of his other self (Captain Hero) is a reference to the solution taken by the split-personalitied protagonist of Chuck Palahniuk's novel Fight Club.
- After the crew enter the EW building, Foxxy can be seen holding what looks like a Star Trek tricorder in her hand while scanning the office. This marks the second appearance of a tricorder on the show, following Wooldoor's usage of one in "Terms of Endearment".
- When Spanky describes the EW critic as a homophobic lesbian, a photograph is shown of the critic embarrassing her partner by holding a sign which reads, "I Hate Fags". This is a reference to homophobic followers of the Reverend Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church, who openly protests at known gay-related events holding homophobic banners and signs. One such event was the funeral of college student Matthew Shepard, whose murder (which was related to his homosexuality) made national headlines.
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