Foxxy vs. the Board of Education

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Drawn Together episode
“Foxxy vs. the Board of Education”

Episode no.	Season 2 Episode 2
Writer(s)	Elijah Aron
Director	Raymie Muzquiz
Production no.	202
Original airdate	26 October 2005
Episode chronology
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"The One Wherein There Is a Big Twist, Part II"	"Little Orphan Hero"

"Foxxy vs. the Board of Education" is the ninth episode of the animated series Drawn Together.

1 Storyline
2 Lyrics to "Board of Education"
3 Notes and inside references
4 Animated cameos
5 Cultural references
6 External links

[edit] Storyline

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Spanky, being an internet character, is suddenly downloaded with a virus one day. He goes to a doctor for assistance, but the doctor won't give him the life-saving medication because Spanky doesn't have health insurance. Xandir, trying to console Spanky, points out that if he were in the questing business like himself, he would have great health insurance which would even cover his wife and kids. Spanky immediately realizes that if he "gay marries" Xandir, he would automatically get the insurance he needs. Xandir has some doubts, but after Spanky takes him to an ice show and romantically proposes to him there, Xandir agrees, and the pair are promptly married. Clara, believing that "If gays get married, the institution of marriage will be destroyed! Societies will crumble! Rivers will run with blood! Nazis will once again ride dinosaurs!", vows to put a stop to Spanky's scam. To this end, she summons the King of Insurance to have the pair busted. Once the King shows up, Clara challenges Spanky to prove he is gay by having gay sex with Xandir. Spanky is unable to do this, and the King cancels Spanky's health coverage. Spanky responds by making a passionate, if somewhat strange, speech, which moves the King to grant Spanky health insurance for life. Seeing the newfound respect Spanky and Xandir have for each other, Clara decides that perhaps she was wrong, and one gay marriage isn't going to destroy the world. At this point, the house- and presumably the entire world- is promptly besieged by Nazis riding dinosaurs.

Ling-Ling agrees to take Foxxy's SAT's.

Meanwhile, it is discovered that Foxxy has been solving crimes without a license. She decides to try to finish college to get the license, but has a difficult time with the SAT, discovering the test to be racially-biased. After realizing that Ling-Ling, being Asian, excels at standardized tests, Foxxy convinces him to take the test for her. Unfortunately, the test administrator realizes immediately that Ling-Ling, despite his disguise, is not a black woman. Ling-Ling is caught and is made an offer: fail the test for Foxxy, or have a goon come over and walk around the house without taking off his shoes. Ling-Ling fails the test, so Foxxy decides to solve the mystery of why black kids do so poorly on the SAT.

When she tries to snoop around, Foxxy is caught by the Board of Education, an anthropomorphic wooden board who is based on The Bill from Schoolhouse Rock!. He explains that since there is no money in education, educators have conspired with manufacturers of bling to keep black kids from getting an education so they will continue to waste money on frivolities like spinner rims and car mounted DVD players. He tries to eliminate Foxxy by trapping her in a cave with a hideous monster, but Ling-Ling, wanting to atone for letting her down before, shows up to save Foxxy from it (unfortunately getting killed in the process). With help from Ling-Ling's ghost, Foxxy is able to uncover the Board's new secret weapon — grape-flavored mentholated pencils which would tempt black kids to eat them and distract their attention from their exams — and turn the Board of Education over to the police, who re-license her to solve crimes.

Musical number: "Board Of Education," as sung by the Board of Education to Foxxy while explaining his plan to keep black people dumb. Another song, "Weather Front", an 80's style synth pop song filled with double entendres relating to anal sex, plays during the ice show and again over the end credits.

[edit] Lyrics to "Board of Education"

Board of Education: (singing) I am the Board of the Education

I'm here to serve the interests of our nation

But keeping kids learning doesn't fetch much of an earning

So to make some decent money something had to be done.

(speaking) Being the genius that I am, I combined two time-honored American methods of achieving wealth: selling stupid stuff to suckers and exploiting the black man.

(singing) Now we make countless millions off the worthless crap that black folks buy

From their very first gold tooth down to their pimped out rides

Huge medallions, tacky blings

No one would buy those things unless there was a way to keep them gullibly dumb

So we keep them out of college. It's what needs to be done.

(speaking) So you see why we can't let blacks pass the SATs? No educated person would spend money on gold rims, purple leather seats, and flip-down LCD screens for $3,000 Geos.

[edit] Notes and inside references

Ling-Ling impersonating Foxxy.

A curious detail is that in this episode, Spanky goes to an actual doctor; in most cases, the show uses Wooldoor whenever a doctor is needed. Of course, Wooldoor presumably would not have refused Spanky treatment without health insurance, a major plot point of this episode.

When Clara tells Foxxy that you don't need sunscreen if you're wearing your Klan hood, Clara has tan lines around her eyes, openly suggesting that she went to a Ku Klux Klan rally with a hood over her head and the sun tanning her through the eye holes.

In the background of the wedding, the Genie can be seen, implying that he is no longer captured by Lord Slashstab, nor is he apparently still with Xandir. Assorted guests from Xandir's gay bash can be seen attending the wedding as well.

The voice of Xandir and Spanky's Paper Baby is provided by Tara Strong. Despite Paper Baby's declaration that it will grow up to be an origami swan, it can later be seen crumpled up and stuck to Ling-Ling's bottom along with various other pieces of refuse.

This episode reveals that Foxxy's middle name is "Shaquafa". The exact spelling of the name is debatable. Here it is pronounced "Shaquafafa", but in "Captain Hero's Marriage Pact", she writes it as "Shaquafa"; however, given that Foxxy is known to be a poor speller, it is not certain this is the actual spelling.

The term schwoogie is used again when Foxxy breaks into the Board of Education building and sets off the alarm. The strobe alarm shows a sign saying "Schvoogie Alert", a phonetic spelling of the word. Foxxy had been called a schwoogie in two previous episodes: by Clara in "Hot Tub," and by Strawberry Sweetcake in "The One Wherein There Is a Big Twist, Part II."

Wooldoor is the photographer taking pictures of Xandir and Spanky's fake honeymoon; a second Wooldoor is moving the backdrops.

When Spanky throws an aluminum can at the Jumbotron scoreboard, the sound of cats screaming can be heard, even though there are no cats around. This would become a running gag on the show, utilized whenever an object is thrown or smashed.

Though she screams a couple of times, Toot does not have any actual dialogue in this episode. This is the only instance where a housemate other than Ling-Ling appears in an episode with no speaking role.

[edit] Animated cameos

Bubbles in the hospital.

Visible in the hospital waiting room (between both visits) are a pregnant Powerpuff Girl Bubbles, Ariel the Little Mermaid being choked by a plastic six-pack ring, Bambi and his wounded mother, Rocky and Bullwinkle with Rocky stuck in Bullwinkle's anus, Sonny the Cuckoo Bird in a straitjacket asking for puffs (like a drug addict), and Joe Camel in an iron lung.

Elroy Jetson is one of the children kidnapped by Hans the six-armed child molester (see below).

In the sequence where a depressed Foxxy watches other famous animated mystery solvers in action, we see Josie from Josie and the Pussycats (voiced by Tara Strong) and Daphne Blake from Scooby-Doo (voiced by Cree Summer). This is a dual in-joke; Foxxy's character is largely based on the Pussycats' Valerie Brown, while her story in this episode is modeled after a typical episode of Scooby-Doo, complete with similar-sounding musical cues. The removal of a person's mask to reveal the villain's true indentity was another Scooby-Doo trademark.

In the scene where Ling-Ling disguises himself as Foxxy to take the test, the teacher does a student roll call. Just before the scene focuses on Ling-Ling, we see several students. One of them resembles Parappa, the titular character from the musical videogame PaRappa the Rapper. Next to him is a girl that resembles Hello Kitty. In the shot where we see Ling-Ling badly disguised as Foxxy, we see Totoro's feet (from My Neighbor Totoro), and even though her face is not shown, a girl that resembles Usagi Tsukino, the protagonist from Sailor Moon. The teacher isn't based on any particular character, but resembles the dogs in Disney's DuckTales, Darkwing Duck and Goof Troop. The show would seem to be implying that all of the students in the class have hired Asians to take the test for them.

[edit] Cultural references

The title of this episode is a reference to the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, which forced public schools in the United States to desegregate.

Spanky proposes to Xandir at an Ice Capades-type arena show entitled Queenie McHomoslurp in Analsville on Gay Ice Part Gay, a spoof on the stereotype that ice show patrons are primarily gay. Indeed, the audience is primarily comprised of gay couples.

Dumpy the Medical Waste Man.

While frolicking around in the waste bin, Spanky and Xandir meet a character called "Dumpy the Medical Waste Man," a parody of Frosty the Snowman.

There are multiple references to The Powerpuff Girls in this episode.
- As previously mentioned, a pregnant Bubbles appears in the hospital waiting room. Although she doesn't speak here, her voice on The Powerpuff Girls was provided by Tara Strong, who voices Toot and Clara on Drawn Together.
- The giant heart that appears on the Jumbotron right after Spanky proposes to Xandir is the same one that appears in the end credits of The Powerpuff Girls.

Hans the six-armed child molester is shown wearing a priest's collar, a reference to the Catholic Church molestation scandal. After the police let him go, he carries several children away with him, including Elroy Jetson. Hans's "monster god" costume is based on various Hindu deities, most prominently Vishnu and Kali.
- In the Season One DVD release, in the deleted scene introducing the cast, Foxxy unmasks a culprit who looks exactly like Hans before he is carried off by the police (although this character does not have six arms).

Spanky distracts Princess Clara by pointing outside and saying, "Look! There's a Jew poisoning a well!" This is a reference to anti-Semitic rumors during the Black Death that Jews were poisoning wells with the plague. This was used as a justification for burning Jews during the plague when in reality it was a ploy by nobles to escape their debts (as the charging of interest on loans was considered usury and therefore a sin by most Christian authorities of the time, leaving banking one of the few professions open to Jews).

The Hebrew writing on the container of tablets the Orthodox Jew is putting in the well is the word Kosher, a label usually applied to food products to indicate to Jewish consumers that the product has been prepared in accordance with Jewish law.

The scene where Clara stands silhouetted against a red sky and proclaims defiantly, "As God is my witness, I'll put an end to this gay marriage, I swear!" is a parody of Scarlett O'Hara's "I'll never be hungry again" speech from Gone With the Wind.

The Board of Education's plan was to keep blacks from passing the SAT's by giving them grape-flavored mentholated pencils. The students would not be able to resist eating their pencils and therefore would not be able to finish the test. When the Board of Education was in police custody, Foxxy herself couldn't resist eating the pencils. This is a reference to a conspiracy theory regarding the popularity of mentholated cigarettes in the black community, causing some to speculate that they were created to do away with blacks.[1]

The floating ghost of Ling-Ling helping Foxxy is just like Obi-Wan Kenobi helping Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars trilogy.

In the scene where Ling-Ling's ghost shows up to help Foxxy, he calls her Oprah, referring of course, to Oprah Winfrey. This may also be a reference to "The One Wherein There Is a Big Twist", when after winning the Jell-O wrestling match, Foxxy proudly proclaimed, "I am Oprah!"

Spanky and Xandir reenact the Elián González photograph.

Some of the pictures from Xandir and Spanky's "honeymoon" depicted famous events and people, including V-J Day, Muhammad Ali/Sonny Liston, Kerri Strug, and Elián González.

During one part of the sequence where Spanky tries to have gay sex with Xandir, the tops of Xandir's feet are covered in fur, much like a hobbit. It appears to be a visual joke created specifically for this episode, since he has been shown on numerous other occasions (including the rest of the sequence in question) with normal feet.

In order for him to be able to get intimate with Xandir in front of the King of Insurance, Spanky tries to arouse himself by thinking of some of sexiest things he can bring to mind. One of the images he thinks of is David Hasselhoff from Baywatch.

The King of Insurance's appearance contains several visual references to real insurance companies. He carries a Blue Shield, with a Blue Cross at the top of his staff. His medallion (two hands held palms up) is the Allstate logo, and his crown is a grey peak which resembles the Prudential mountain logo.

Every time someone pulls a lever in this episode, a trap door opens and drops the victim into a pit with a Rancor Beast (which Ling-Ling calls a Zalganout beast) from Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. The joke is taken one step further in one instance when the Beast itself pulls another lever, dropping the victim into yet another location. Also, after Ling-Ling has prevailed over the Beast, we see its keeper crying about the death of his charge just like in the movie.

In the ambulance, Spanky tells Xandir that he's as "kind as a three dollar bill". This is a play on the phrase "queer as a three dollar bill", a slang expression for homosexual.

As mentioned above, the Board of Education is based on The Bill from Schoolhouse Rock!. The train delivering the Board's secret weapon is the one from the Schoolhouse Rock! song "Conjunction Junction". Although Foxxy recognizes her enemy as "from the Schoolhouse Rock! gang," the Board is not a pre-existing character but a new character created for the show.