A Very Special Drawn Together Afterschool Special

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“A Very Special Drawn Together Afterschool Special”
Drawn Together episode
Image:dtafterschoolspecial1.jpg
Episode no. Season 2
Episode 13
Written by Valerie Ahern and Christian McLaughlin (story by Stacey Majers)
Directed by Peter Avanzino
Production no. 213
Original airdate March 1, 2006
Episode chronology
← Previous Next →
"The Lemon-AIDS Walk" "Alzheimer's That Ends Well"

"A Very Special Drawn Together Afterschool Special" is the twentieth episode of the animated series Drawn Together.

Contents

[edit] Storyline

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Xandir looks to his housemates for help in telling his parents he is gay. They do a little roleplaying, and as usual, things get out of hand.

[edit] "Cast" and plot

  • Xandir: Himself
  • Captain Hero: Xandir's father, who soon role-plays Xandir's mother.
  • Toot: Xandir's mother, who soon role-plays Xandir's father.
  • Clara: Xandir's old girlfriend, Mary Lou Slutski.
  • Wooldoor: A pedophile priest.
  • Spanky: A pimp called "Daddy".
  • Foxxy: A prostitute named Chocolandra Love.
  • Ling-Ling: A Japanese businessman named Mr. Nagasaki.

Xandir considers coming out as gay to his parents, and asks his housemates, Toot and Captain Hero, to play the roles of his parents. When Xandir begins by saying simply, "Mom, Dad... I'm gay," Toot and Hero, playing the part of his parents, respond, "Uh, duuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh!", much to the amusement of everyone except Xandir, who runs to his room crying. The housemates, seeing how upset Xandir is, decide to begin role-playing in earnest. Xandir begins by telling his parents he is gay again, causing them both to become furious with him. They summon his high school girlfriend Mary Lou (Clara) to the house in order to seduce Xandir and prove he isn't gay. Xandir resists her advances, and states loudly that he is gay and nothing will ever change that. Mary Lou runs away crying. Realizing the problem is too big for the two of them to handle alone, the parents then call a priest (Wooldoor) to help. The priest suggests a role-playing exercise (ignoring Xandir telling him they already are doing one), causing Captain Hero and Toot to end up switching roles. A fight ensues, with Xandir's father Stan (Toot) kicking Xandir out of the house. Xandir then meets a pimp called Daddy (Spanky) and becomes a prostitute. After another prostitute, Chocolandra (Foxxy), shows him the ropes, Xandir is set up with his first client, a Japanese businessman named Mr. Nagasaki (Ling-Ling). After Mr. Nagasaki is killed in an incident involving Xandir defecating on a glass table, Chocolandra tells Xandir that Daddy will be furious as Mr. Nagasaki was his best customer. After he and Chocolandra dispose of the body, Xandir packs his bags to leave, but just as he is about to make his escape, Daddy comes home and catches him. Daddy tells Xandir that nobody leaves Daddy's stable, and holds Xandir at gunpoint. Just as Daddy is about to pull the trigger, Chocolandra smashes a vase over his head to stun him, and then tries to hurry Xandir out of the house before Daddy wakes up. Xandir convinces Chocolandra to escape with him, but as the two are making their exit, Daddy wakes up and shoots Chocolandra. Xandir flees with Daddy in hot pursuit.

Spanky as Daddy and Ling-Ling as Mr. Nagasaki.
Spanky as Daddy and Ling-Ling as Mr. Nagasaki.

Meanwhile, the fight between Xandir's parents has left Xandir's dad angry and depressed. After his attempts to drown his sorrows at the bar lead to a barroom brawl, Stan hits the road in his pickup truck. He encounters Mary Lou walking by the side of the road, and gives her a ride. The two eventually end up going back to the house and sleeping together. However, Xandir's mom catches them in bed together and becomes horrified. (At this point, Clara breaks character to ask, "Can someone explain to me why we're doing this when Xandir's not around?") Xandir's mom flips out and murders Mary Lou by throwing her through the bedroom wall into a tree, then turns on Xandir's dad. As the two are arguing, Stan suddenly realizes that the only reason he is behaving in such a fashion is because of the problems he's having accepting Xandir's homosexuality. He makes up with Xandir's mom, then after a romp in the sack, they set out to find Xandir. As fate would have it, they get to Xandir just as Daddy is about to shoot him. Stan manages to save Xandir from being killed, but ends up being shot himself. As the police engage Daddy in a shootout (which moments later would end with Daddy's violent death), Stan tells Xandir with his last dying breath that he has come to accept Xandir for who he is and loves him all the same. After Stan dies in Xandir's arms, the role-playing ends. Xandir thanks everyone for showing him what it will be like when he tells his parents he is gay, then goes back into the house while the camera pulls out to reveal the episode's carnage. The scene then cuts to the Wifflebottom house, where Xandir utters the same words he uttered at the beginning of the episode, "Mom, Dad... I'm gay." His parents respond with a hearty "Uh, duuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh!"

Musical Number: Glenn Frey's "You Belong to the City" and Starship's "We Built This City" serve as a soundtrack to the special, although both songs appear in rerecorded versions rather than by the original artists. Continuing with the "very special" theme of this episode, both of these songs were hits from the mid-1980s. Although very special episodes had already been around for some time, they tend to be associated with the 1980s because that is when they achieved their greatest prominence.

[edit] Canon issues

This episode seems to reveal a great deal of information about Xandir's life before the show, but since the characters are just role-playing, it's debatable how canonical this information can be considered to be. For example, as Xandir's parents, Toot and Captain Hero reveal that he had a girlfriend named Mary Lou, that he was breast fed until he was five, and that his father's name is Stan, but they may have been making it up rather than really knowing it. In fact, when Xandir's real parents are shown, and Xandir tells his mom and dad he's gay, they respond like Hero and Toot did when they were just joking around, rather than the way they responded when they were taking the role-playing seriously.

The role-playing exercise also suggests that Xandir's father is Jewish and that his mother is an anti-Semite. Ironically both of these assumptions stem from actions by Toot; as Xandir's father, she recites the Mourner's Kaddish, and as his mother, she makes anti-Semitic remarks. It is uncertain whether or not this information accurately reflects the beliefs of Xandir's parents. Xandir's religion has not been clearly established, but he mentions Jesus in "A Tale of Two Cows", implying he is Christian and not Jewish. Given that Toot is implied to be Jewish elsewhere in the series, it is possible that in the former instance, she was stating her own personal beliefs, but the possibility also exists she was simply making everything up, and the information is not reflective of anyone.

Similarly, this episode includes the most specific information yet given about Foxxy's lost son Timmy. Previous episodes mentioned Timmy as having been sold on the black market, and shot because Foxxy thought he had rabies. This episode suggests not only that Timmy is alive, but that Foxxy even knows his whereabouts (an orphanage in Kansas City, Missouri); however, given that she is role-playing when she reveals this, unless future episodes confirm the information given here, it cannot be known for certain if Foxxy was truly speaking of her own son or improvising a fictional one for the role she was playing.

In any event it should be noted that Drawn Together has a very loose continuity anyway, as characters have been shown, for example, dying in various episodes, only to reappear later in the episode or in the next one.

[edit] Notes and inside references

The episode's title screen.
The episode's title screen.
  • The show's usual opening credit sequence is replaced with a new title sequence playing on the "very special" theme of this episode, which, according to the caption, is called "Secretes in the Closet: A Very Special Drawn Together". This particular set of credits confirms the official spelling of Xandir's last name as Wifflebottom. The music that accompanies this sequence is a mellow version of the Drawn Together theme.
  • When Toot, as Xandir's father, proclaims to Xandir that he is "dead", she tears her garments and recites the first line of Mourner's Kaddish as in Jewish practices of mourning. Though she is role-playing as Xandir's father, the fact that she knows the prayer by heart (coupled with the fact that Xandir's father does not appear to be Jewish, as well as the fact that her last name of Braunstein is a common Jewish surname) is a further indication Toot might be Jewish. Ironically, earlier in the episode, Toot, as Xandir's mother, makes an extremely anti-Semitic remark: "I don't want my son to go to hell—or wherever the gays and Jews end up!".
  • Toot and Ling-Ling each have their first homosexual experiences in this episode, sleeping with Clara and soliciting Xandir's services as a prostitute, respectively. At this point, all eight housemates have had at least one homosexual experience of some sort.
  • When Foxxy and Xandir are showering together, Foxxy is nude but still has her fox tail. This contrasts with earlier episodes, in which she generally only had the tail when wearing certain outfits (except in Little Orphan Hero, where she was shown nude in the beginning of the episode but retained the tail).
  • For the first time ever in the series' run, due to the afterschool-special nature of the episode, no confessional segments with the characters are shown.
  • During the scene where Captain Hero and Toot put up posters in an attempt to find Xandir, several of the men from the poster scene in "Little Orphan Hero" appear.
  • During Spanky's shootout with the police, he is hit at least 17 different times before the final barrage of weapon fire engulfs him in a cloud of gunsmoke. Interestingly, between the seventh and eighth hits, Spanky seems to change clothing, as his outfit no longer seems to show evidence of blood (though he did not heal, as his shot-off ear is still visible).
  • The crime rate in this episode is staggering:
    • Captain Hero and Toot continually assault each other.
    • Wooldoor kidnaps (and presumably sexually abuses) a young boy.
    • Xandir and Foxxy become prostitutes, while Spanky pimps them out and Ling-Ling solicits their services.
    • Xandir accidentally kills Ling-Ling; in this case, it would be considered involuntary manslaughter.
    • Foxxy and Xandir hide and destroy Ling-Ling's body.
    • Captain Hero kills Clara.
    • Spanky kills Foxxy and Toot, attempts to kill Xandir, then kills several policemen in a shootout before finally succumbing to his wounds.
    • The only housemate who does not commit a crime in this episode is Clara; she does, however, commit adultery (in the context of the role-playing).

[edit] Animated cameos

  • When Spanky tells Xandir about how well he is doing with Japanese businessmen, the scene cuts to a door showing Pokémon-like characters role-playing as Japanese businessmen. In this same scene, you can see Totoro, the title character from Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro.

[edit] Cultural references

  • The episode's opening title sequence states that the title of the show is "Secretes in the Closet: A Very Special Drawn Together". This is a pun on the phrase "secrets in the closet", a metaphor for keeping something hidden, such as one's sexuality.
  • The opening credits for this episode list Meredith Baxter-Birney as a guest star, a reference to the large number of made-for-TV movies Baxter has starred in (with a possible nod also to her role in the series Family Ties, which did many "very special" episodes). The listing of Baxter's name is merely a joke; she did not actually participate in the production of this episode.
  • The scene where Ling-Ling commands a tearful Xandir to take his shirt off is a parody of a scene in the movie Fame. After Xandir removes the shirt, Ling-Ling picks it up and tells Xandir that he will have it "ready on Thursday," a reference to the stereotype of Asians being employed as dry cleaners.
  • In the climactic scene in which Xandir tries to escape from Spanky, Xandir is in a car outside the house while Spanky is in front of it holding a gun. Xandir then hits the gas and tries to run over him while yelling. This is a reference to the final scene of the movie The Glass House in which the main character runs over the antagonist. The scene also contains elements of similarity to the final moments of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Xandir's line ("Die, you son of a bitch!") is nearly identical to these scenes.
  • At the end of the episode, in which the characters appear on stage and take one last bow to the audience, actors in cat costumes join them. This is a reference to the popular Broadway musical Cats.
    • The characters also join hands and form a chorus line, then, to a reprise of "You Belong to the City", they do a dance similar to those performed by the Rockettes. In keeping with the way the Rockettes arrange their dancers, the group's tallest members (Hero and Xandir) are placed in the center, while the shortest members (Wooldoor, Spanky, and Ling-Ling) are placed on the ends.
Preceded by
The Lemon-AIDS Walk		 Drawn Together episodes
March 1, 2006		 Succeeded by
Alzheimer's That Ends Well
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