Running gags on Drawn Together

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Like most television comedies and comedic film series, Drawn Together has a number of running gags it makes regular use of throughout the series. Many of these gags are parodies of various clichés from film and television; frequently, Drawn Together will even parody its own gags.

For running gags specific to individual characters, see either the individual article for that character or Characters in Drawn Together.

Contents

[edit] Verbal jokes

The donkey gag.
The donkey gag.
  • After one character says something extremely obvious, another will respond with a drawn-out "Duuuuuhhhh!", during which the character's face and mouth will take on the appearance of a donkey. This gag debuted in "Clara's Dirty Little Secret", and was used most prominently in "A Very Special Drawn Together Afterschool Special" and "The One Wherein There Is a Big Twist", in the latter of which Toot holds the "Duuuuuhhhh" for about fifteen seconds after Foxxy concedes that she was right about the competition.
    • In a similar gag, a character will demonstrate ignorance by suddenly displaying a horse-like face with a severe overbite. Often, these effects are accompanied by the character drooling or making a braying sound.
  • After a pun or corny joke, the show will cut to an island native with a drum kit who plays the classic sting of two beats and a cymbal hit to signify the "humor" the character is trying to create. This joke began in "The One Wherein There Is a Big Twist, Part II", the episode in which the island natives were introduced. This character has come to be known as "Rim-Shot Guy."
  • Several episodes feature an offscreen voice yelling disparaging remarks at the characters. The voice is that of creator Matt Silverstein, and would seem to be the producers' way of directly criticizing their own characters. This gag was first used at the end of "Ghostesses in the Slot Machine", when Captain Hero is told that he sucks following his fixed fight.
  • Alzheimer's disease serves as the punch line to a joke in several episodes. In "Clum Babies", Farmer Alfalfa has the disease until he is cured by Wooldoor's clum baby. In "Ghostesses in the Slot Machine", Ling-Ling remarks that Captain Hero's fixed fight against the League of Heroes is more boring than his grandmother's extended battle with Alzheimer's. In "Terms of Endearment", Wooldoor even mentions suffering from it at one point, though in this instance, it is clearly a joke. The joke hits its climax in "Alzheimer's That Ends Well" when it is revealed that the disease is completely fake (in the show's world), and seniors only pretend to have the disease in order to receive preferential treatment.
  • When Foxxy talks about people in tragic situations, the show cuts to a clip of a tearful Foxxy in the confessional saying, "Hold up, Timmy, Mommy misses you." Timmy is Foxxy's oft-mentioned (but never seen) child, who appears to have had quite an unfortunate life. In "Dirty Pranking No. 2", Foxxy hinted that she'd sold him on the black market to pay bills, but in "A Tale of Two Cows", she implies that she shot him because she thought he had contracted rabies. After a brief, random mention in "The Lemon-AIDS Walk", Foxxy elaborates further on Timmy in "A Very Special Drawn Together Afterschool Special". In that episode, Foxxy's role-playing character, a prostitute named Chocolandra, pleads with Xandir to find Timmy in an orphanage in Kansas City, Missouri, and tell him she's sorry and that she misses him (though since she is role-playing, this information doesn't necessarily reflect hers or the child's actual history).
  • A joke that has been frequently used involves Spanky and Hero. One of them will make a joke about someone or a situation (usually a sexual remark or a joke about Xandir's homosexuality, for example, "I guess this really is Gay Over"), and the other will respond, "Nice!" and give them a high five. This was first used in "Clara's Dirty Little Secret".

[edit] Visuals

"The Monkey Man".
"The Monkey Man".
  • Several episodes use a piece of stock footage known as "The Monkey Man", which comes from the 1925 film version of The Lost World. It is often inserted into scenes where a character is supposed to be thinking deeply, or during moments of tension. It was first used in the episode "The Other Cousin". The Monkey Man clip may have made its final appearance in the Season Two finale "The Drawn Together Clip Show"; it has yet to be featured in any Season Three episodes.
  • When there is a shocking disturbance of some sort, such as a character coming to a horrible realization about something, he or she will scream, and the scene will cut to a long shot of the house, where a large flock of birds will suddenly fly away from the house in an extremely agitated fashion. This is parodied in "A Tale of Two Cows" when the birds are shown to have been released from a truck when Wooldoor accidentally shot the trucker.
  • On more than one occasion the show has used a grotesque up-close oil painting of a character's personal appearance or hygiene with a sound of a foghorn in the background. For example, when Toot places Xandir's gold ring between her cleavage in "Gay Bash", Xandir hesitates because her chest is hideous in appearance. In "Super Nanny", Captain Hero reveals that he has eaten all his vegetables and opens his mouth to prove it. A similar closeup is shown of Wooldoor going through puberty in "Clum Babies". Jokes like this were commonly used on The Ren and Stimpy Show.
    • In "A Tale of Two Cows", Foxxy uses grotesque but undoctored photographs to explain why animation and live action don't go together, citing obviously false images of her feet and teeth. The foghorn sound does not accompany these images. Both of the photographs are running gags in themselves; the feet and teeth previously appeared in "Hot Tub" and "The One Wherein There Is a Big Twist", respectively. The teeth would appear a third time in "The Drawn Together Clip Show".
  • Throughout the series, there have been several instances of housemates taking on transgender characteristics. The most common instance of this is Toot being shown with a penile erection, but occasionally the gag is made about other housemates as well. On more than one occasion, Foxxy has been depicted with fully developed beard stubble ("Captain Hero's Marriage Pact" and "Spelling Applebee's" are two prominent examples), while in "Unrestrainable Trainable", Xandir is shown in the confessional breastfeeding a baby that he presumably gave birth to. Similarly, in "Ghostesses in the Slot Machine", a pregnant Captain Hero is denied an abortion while throwing the "Hero vs. Wade" fight, and moments later is shown with the baby that presumably resulted from the situation; he is also seen with a baby in his womb after being shocked by Toot's force field at the beginning of "Spelling Applebee's" (these are single frame shots showing his skeleton). These moments are completely non-canon and are simply intended to be humorous; the "Ghostesses in the Slot Machine" example is largely used to make a pun on Roe v. Wade.
  • Like many animated shows, Drawn Together frequently reuses the same background characters over and over again for the purposes of saving money. Of the many characters they have recycled in such a fashion, two particular figures are worth pointing out.
    The star of many episodes.
    The star of many episodes.

[edit] Music and sound effects

  • In moments of happiness, the show very often uses the classic song "An die Freude" ("Ode to Joy"), familiar to listeners as part of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah has also made multiple appearances in this type of situation. Often the situation is not as happy as it seems. When Farmer Al Falfa recovers his memory in "Clum Babies", he is able to remember the death of his wife, as well as his being abused in a nursing home and abandoned by those close to him; however, he does not seem disturbed by these realizations.
  • The song "I Wanted You To Know" is often played during poignant moments. The song is performed by Brooke Ramel, and originally appeared on her 2000 album Make Tomorrow Up. Usually, Ramel's original recording is used, but in "N.R.A.y RAY", Toot sings the song at a few points.
  • The show often uses the sound effect of cats screaming during a commotion of some kind. It was first used in "Hot Tub" during the "catfight" between Foxxy and Clara, and is generally employed whenever characters fight, or when something gets thrown, smashed, or blown up.
  • Every time something mildly surprising happens, there is always a quick, dramatic "dun-dun" tone. This is common throughout many of the episodes, especially those of Season 2. Sometimes, during an especially surprising or climactic moment, a more drawn out "dun-dun-dunnnn" tone plays followed by the background turning red and the camera slowly zooming in. Both of these gags come from old-time radio dramas, which always punctuated sudden story twists with dramatic music cues. The latter gag is parodied in "Ghostesses in the Slot Machine" when Spanky Ham plays the tone on a tape recorder he has with him, and in "Alzheimer's That Ends Well" when Toot sings the phrase.
  • Moments of high drama are sometimes punctuated by the sound of a horse's whinny. A notable occasion occurs in "N.R.A.y RAY," as the house is filling up with enraged deer.
  • When a character delivers a moral of some sort, the screen will briefly freeze while a children's show-type musical cue plays. This is a parody of TV public service announcements, particularly NBC's "The More You Know" series. It was first done in "Requiem for a Reality Show" where the musical cue was accompanied by a caption reading "What You Already Know". Future instances of the gag would eliminate the caption and just play the musical cue. The caption returns in "Alzheimer's That Ends Well" in a segment called "The More You Don't Know When To", and even uses the NBC spots' star background.
  • When Captain Hero says or does something idiotic or surprising, a short, heroic tone plays. This can be heard after Hero reminds Xandir that he had his scrotum removed in "Unrestrainable Trainable," when he responds to Xandir asking "Don't you have superpowers or something" by resolving to buy a gun in "N.R.A.y RAY", and after showing off an extensive collection of pictures of his sister's breasts from his wallet in "Mexican't Buy Me Love."

[edit] Themes

  • The Star Wars movies are parodied in a large number of episodes.
Foxxy begs Clara to save her.
Foxxy begs Clara to save her.
  • Similar to Family Guy, Drawn Together will occasionally do a random cutaway gag about something only tangentially related to what is happening in the episode. Examples:
    • In "The Other Cousin", when Clara becomes annoyed with Foxxy, she says, "I should have killed her when I had the chance." The show then cuts to Foxxy dangling from a cliff over a river of lava screaming at Clara, "Give me yo' hand!", to which Clara responds, "First, give me the ring!" This a reference to both The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Disney's Aladdin.
    • When the housemates decide to start a suicide hotline, Foxxy claims they'll only get bored with it, reminding them of what happened when they decided to adopt some pit bulls. Foxxy then states she ended up having to find the dogs a home with the Muppet Babies, upon which the scene cuts to Kermit and Gonzo being viciously mauled by said dogs.
  • A running theme on the show is that the characters will often learn a moral, but not the moral they should be learning; for example, in "Ghostesses in the Slot Machine", Captain Hero endangers the lives of thousands in order to win rigged bets, but all he is able to learn from the experience is that Indians shouldn't have casinos. In "Unrestrainable Trainable", Clara force feeds Wooldoor an entire bottle of drain cleaner- a situation which comes back to haunt her when the drain gets clogged and she has no way to unstop it.
  • The fourth wall is constantly broken on the show. A few of the numerous examples:
    • Toward the end of "Captain Hero's Marriage Pact", after being absent the entire episode, Clara and Toot suddenly appear, and Clara quips, "Have you noticed we haven't been getting any screen time this week?". Toot explains that this is because the two of them were "in the basement all week making this awesome potato gun!"; she then shows off said gun, and the two of them fire it off.
    • In "A Tale of Two Cows", having been absent from the scene until that point because she is involved in her own story, Toot suddenly appears on screen during the fight between Live Action Cow and Live Action Squirrel, and with an expression of disgust says, "Thank God I'm in the other story!" This refers to Drawn Together episodes often having two stories that come together at points; in this case, Toot's taking Xandir to her fat camp reunion while Wooldoor befriends Live Action Cow.
    • In "The Lemon-AIDS Walk", Captain Hero elbows Wooldoor Sockbat out of his way and says, "Move over B-story, main plot coming through!", referring to their respective roles as the star of the A- and B-stories in that particular episode.
    • In "Freaks & Greeks", when Ling-Ling's subtitles are covered up by the Comedy Central logo, Xandir says he can't understand what Ling-Ling is saying because he can't read his subtitles. Elsewhere in the episode, characters look at the Comedy Central bug advertising The Daily Show and comment on it.
    • In "Mexican't Buy Me Love", Captain Hero lists ways in which each of his fellow housemates, despite his or her "coolness", is really a dork on the inside. For Spanky Ham, the reason he gives is that Spanky is voiced by Adam Carolla.

[edit] Housemate deaths

One of the distinguishing features of Drawn Together is the way the show kills off its own characters with great frequency. In addition to numerous guest characters getting killed, the show even has its main cast die quite often. However, in the case of the main cast, the deaths are never permanent. This is a parody of an animation cliché in which countless cartoon characters either are killed and later seen living again, or survive situations that would realistically certainly result in death. South Park mocks this formula extensively with the way they continually kill off the character of Kenny McCormick; Happy Tree Friends does the same with its characters.

Drawn Together is notable for taking the idea of discontinuity even further than most other cartoons (which typically have very loose continuity as it is). On South Park or Happy Tree Friends, though they come back to life in the next episode as if nothing had happened, the characters who die at least remain dead for the rest of the episode in which the death occurs. The Drawn Together housemates, however, are usually brought back alive and well in the very same episode (on occasion, the character comes back immediately). Some episodes even feature the same character dying multiple times. Interestingly enough, however, when characters are in great danger as part of the episode's plot (Wooldoor in "Wooldoor Sockbat's Giggle-Wiggle Funny Tickle Non-Traditional Progressive Multicultural Roundtable!", Toot in "Alzheimer's That Ends Well", and Xandir in "A Very Special Drawn Together Afterschool Special"), they generally survive. Here is a list of the episodes featuring the temporary demise of one or more of the eight housemates. Bold type indicates housemates who perish in an episode.

Not included in this list are instances where a character appears to die, but is later shown to have survived the ordeal, such as Wooldoor's apparent death by suicide in "The One Wherein There Is a Big Twist, Part II" (he reveals that he was alive when he was buried). Also not included are instances where mass destruction is implied, but the housemates' deaths are not actually shown (such as "Unrestrainable Trainable" or "Mexican't Buy Me Love").

[edit] Season One

  • Hot Tub
    • Toot dies four times in this episode. First, she hits her head on the coffee table, splitting her skull open and breaking her neck. She dies again in a flashback sequence when she cuts her own head off after failing to get Xandir to notice her. She dies a third time during the tequila brunch when she hits her head again, duplicating her first death. Finally, she is eaten by Ling-Ling after accidentally accepting combat with him. Toot is also heard squeaking from Ling-Ling's mouth when he smiles after Clara mentions that Ling-Ling helped her realize that she was being racist.
    • Although none of the deaths are seen, Xandir refers to the millions of lives (not counting quad-forces or power-ups) he has used on his never-ending quest to save his girlfriend. A DVD outtake shows him falling into a lava pit several times while on his quest, but this did not appear in the episode itself.
    • The extended DVD version of this episode contains a sequence where Wooldoor escapes from the bubble he became encased in when Spanky farted in the hot tub while he was underwater, but discovers he cannot live outside the bubble, dries up and dies instantly (a reference to boy in the bubble syndrome).
  • Gay Bash
    • Xandir, trying to commit suicide, stabs himself to death 49 times. However, as a video game character, he has many lives in reserve, and eventually gives up before exhausting all of them.
  • Requiem for a Reality Show
    • Toot, Clara, Xandir, and Ling-Ling suffocate after losing an oxygen competition. This event is described by Toot in a flashback; the housemates are all alive in the main part of the episode.
  • The Other Cousin
    • Wooldoor shows Xandir and Toot a filmstrip about the hallucinogenic secretions of the psychoactive toad and Ling-Ling, using his eyes as the projector. At one point, the film melts, and Wooldoor's eyes burst into flames; the filmstrip continues, however, and proceeds to show Wooldoor dying, being buried, and ascending to heaven.
      Ling-Ling's first death.
      Ling-Ling's first death.
  • Dirty Pranking No. 2
    • Ling-Ling suffocates when Xandir and Captain Hero leave him in an unventilated car on a hot day. He is seen half-decayed and crawling with maggots.
    • Ling-Ling dies again, along with Clara, Spanky, Foxxy, Captain Hero, Xandir, and Wooldoor, when alien robots vaporize the entire cast. Toot is not shown dying in the episode, as she is not in the house when this occurs, but as the episode suggests that the aliens destroyed all humanity, she must be considered to have died as well.
  • The One Wherein There Is a Big Twist
    • During their challenge in the Apprentice parody, the guys accidentally crash the plane they are trying to land on top of Ling-Ling. Ling-Ling, although pronounced dead and out of the competition by Bucky Bucks, is alive again by the time of the Jell-O fight, and even serves as Toot's second during the match.

[edit] Season Two

Ling-Ling helps Foxxy in ghost form.
Ling-Ling helps Foxxy in ghost form.
  • Foxxy vs. the Board of Education
    • In a parody of unmasking villains in the Scooby-Doo cartoons, Captain Hero rips Toot's head off as she is being arrested for some unspecified offense, leaving him to determine "This is no fat monster... It's a blood fountain!"
    • After saving Foxxy from a beast resembling a Rancor from Return of the Jedi, Ling-Ling is crushed to death by the monster. This is a rare instance in which the character clearly remains dead for the rest of the episode, though he does come back as a ghost.
  • Little Orphan Hero
    • As the housemates try to convince depressed quadruple amputee Jeff not to commit suicide, Toot hangs herself while Foxxy is in the confessional.
    • After Jeff announces to the housemates that he's actually an undercover cop named Jeffrey, Clara, not wanting to go back to prison, jumps out the window.
  • Clum Babies
    • At the end of the episode, Bob the Cucumber snaps and goes on a shooting spree, killing Clara, Foxxy, Spanky, Captain Hero, Xandir, Toot, and Ling-Ling, as well as most of the episode's guest characters and finally himself. The only housemate to survive the carnage is Wooldoor, who presumably will use his Clum Babies to resurrect everyone once he finishes masturbating.
  • Terms of Endearment
    • After Captain Hero accidentally causes Foxxy to turn into a minstrel show caricature, Mickey Mouse has her captured and taken to an erasement camp, where she is erased from existence despite Captain Hero's efforts to save her. Although the housemates mourn her loss (one of the few times a character's death is considered permanent), Captain Hero changes history so that the events of the episode never happened.
  • Captain Girl
    • After losing a game of "Not-it!" to determine who should have sex with Toot to impregnate her, Ling-Ling commits seppuku.
  • Xandir and Tim, Sitting in a Tree
    • As the housemates prepare to confront the Entertainment Weekly critic who gave them a bad review, Spanky tells the housemates that they have one last chance to chicken out. Clara, Foxxy, Toot, Wooldoor, and Ling-Ling run and jump out the window.
  • The Lemon-AIDS Walk
    • After the housemates confront Hero about his steroid use, he flies into a rage and kills them all (as well as the twelve year-old girl and donkey they brought him) in various gruesome ways; their corpses are seen at the end of his rampage. Ling-Ling dies a second time (having previously been smashed like a piggy bank by Hero), and Toot, Foxxy, Xandir, Spanky, Clara, and Wooldoor all die as well. However, the cast returns, as usual, and Foxxy and Xandir later speak with Hero without mentioning his killing them.
  • A Very Special Drawn Together Afterschool Special
    • Captain Hero tries to throw Clara out of a window, but misses the window and throws her through a wall and into a tree. Her mangled corpse is later seen still hanging there.
    • Xandir is asked to defecate on top of a glass table while Ling-Ling lies underneath it. However, the table shatters, impaling Ling-Ling with shards of glass. Foxxy and Xandir then chop his body into pieces with a meat cleaver and feed them to an alligator.
    • Spanky shoots Foxxy when she and Xandir try to escape. He then shoots Toot when she interferes with him while he is trying to kill Xandir, and she soon dies of the gunshot wound. Finally, Spanky is gunned down by the police.
  • Alzheimer's That Ends Well
    • After Toot inadvertently reveals the seniors' secret that Alzheimer's disease is a made-up disease, they try various means to kill her. When all their attempts fail, and Toot escapes, the seniors bring in Boba Fett to track her down. Boba Fett rigs up a car bomb on Toot's scooter to kill "the fat pig", but Spanky is the one who ends up being blown to bits.

[edit] Season Three

  • Freaks & Greeks
    • Toot gets stuck in the door of a rocket during takeoff, which goes off course and later collides with a flying car driven by Captain Hero, causing a massive explosion.
  • Unrestrainable Trainable
    • At one point, Clara hits Foxxy in the head with a glass bottle, causing her head to break into pieces as though it were made of glass.
    • Later, both Clara and Wooldoor get blown up during the explosion Captain Hero's son caused by hugging a nuclear bomb shaped like Winnie-the-Pooh. It is likely that everyone except Captain Hero (who is the only one confirmed alive) is also killed, but their deaths are implied, rather than shown.
  • N.R.A.y RAY
    • After he hunts with assault weapons, Hero brings home all the animals he killed. One of his trophies is Wooldoor dressed as his hunting dog.
    • When Toot wishes for Clara to be removed from the house, Ray-Ray makes her wish come true by killing her and hanging her carcass next to the shower stall.
  • Mexican't Buy Me Love
    • When Ling-Ling talks about the battle to put Toot to bed, the scene cuts to a pajama-clad Toot running around like a child while Ling-Ling chases after her. Toot then jumps over a railing and promptly explodes. She dies again toward the end of the episode when, after rescuing Ling-Ling from the King of Mexico, she crashes the spaceship she is piloting into a mountain. This is the second time Toot has died more than once in an episode, the first being "Hot Tub".
    • At the end of the episode, a giant meteor collides with Earth and crushes the people at the Drawn Together house, including Captain Hero, Foxxy, Spanky, Clara, Xandir, and Wooldoor. Only Ling-Ling, who was in Mexico rather than at the house, survives.
  • Lost in Parking Space, Part One
    • During a confessional scene, Captain Hero demonstrates the show's lack of continuity by saying, "No one really dies," then, to demonstrate it, cuts off his own head and walks back into the confessional unharmed after his headless body collapses to the floor.


Drawn Together
Characters
Captain Hero | Foxxy Love | Ling-Ling | Princess Clara | Spanky Ham | Toot Braunstein | Wooldoor Sockbat | Xandir

Recurring and guest characters
Episodes
Season One: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Season Two: 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22

Season Three: 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29
Other
Running gags on Drawn Together
Cast and creators
Dave Jeser | Matt Silverstein | Adam Carolla | Jess Harnell | Abbey McBride | Jack Plotnick | Tara Strong | Cree Summer | James Arnold Taylor
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