The Other Cousin

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“The Other Cousin”
Drawn Together episode

Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 5
Guest stars	Sarah Silverman as Bleh
Written by	Reid Harrison
Directed by	Peter Avanzino
Production no.	105
Original airdate	December 1, 2004
Episode chronology
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"Requiem for a Reality Show"	"Dirty Pranking No. 2"

"The Other Cousin" is the fifth episode of the animated series Drawn Together.

1 Storyline
2 Notes and inside references
3 Goofs
4 Animated cameos
5 Cultural references

[edit] Storyline

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Clara's mentally retarded cousin Bleh arrives, much to the consternation of the housemates and Clara's annoyance. She always wears a football helmet, drools, can't look anyone in the eye, and speaks almost exclusively in blurbs derived from critical reviews of the film I Am Sam. The housemates' attitudes change quickly, though; as Captain Hero and Spanky sit in the hot tub preparing to throw eggs at Bleh, she takes off her helmet to reveal long, cascading locks of red hair, and then takes off her clothes to reveal a perfectly sculpted body and enormous breasts. After Bleh and Clara leave, Spanky and Captain Hero enter into a bet over whether the latter can get Bleh to have sex with him. Hero scoffs that the challenge is too easy, but the next night on their date, he realizes he has developed real feelings for her. He decides to forget the bet and respect her chastity, but when Bleh sneaks into his room that night, he figures that since Bleh is initiating it, he wouldn't be taking advantage, so he sleeps with her.

The next morning, Clara discovers what happened, and becomes infuriated. Captain Hero tells her that he actually loves Bleh, but just as Clara's anger dissipates, Spanky ruins everything by showing up to congratulate Hero on winning the bet. Clara forbids Captain Hero to see Bleh anymore, but Hero decides his feelings are too strong to let go, so he chases Bleh down just as she boards a bus back home and says goodbye to her. Once Bleh boards the bus, we discover that she had a bet with one of her friends in the mental institute to have sex with a television celebrity.

Meanwhile, Toot, Xandir, and Wooldoor become addicted to licking Ling-Ling when they discover that he secretes a powerful hallucinogen when disappointed. They finally abuse him to the point that Ling-Ling goes quasi-catatonic. In order to alleviate Ling-Ling's condition, Toot, Xandir, and Wooldoor invite his father to the house to cheer him up; but when the latter arrives, he expresses his disappointment about his son being in a reality TV show - and guess what happens!

Musical number: "Girl Girl", sung by an unseen chorus as a theme to Captain Hero and Bleh's courtship. The song is a parody of "There She Goes" by The La's. Also, Captain Hero sings a version of "Wind Beneath My Wings" to Bleh on their date.

[edit] Notes and inside references

In the DVD release, there is an extended version of the episode that fills in a few plot holes:

The retarded Drawn Together cast (TV version).

The retarded Drawn Together cast (DVD version).
- Clara shoots Hero with a poison dart, promising that she'll give him the antidote when he brings Bleh home safely; however, in the aired version, the plot thread is left dangling with no explanation. In the DVD version, she gives him the antidote.
- In the episode aired on TV, two Wooldoors suddenly appear to lick Ling Ling's father. In the extended version, there is a scene moments before where we see Wooldoor split himself in two to give himself a hug.
- We see that the people on the bus are actually retarded versions of the cast (minus Ling-Ling, who is not represented), with Bleh being the retarded Clara. The aired version replaced the retarded versions of the cast with generic retarded people, but a brief shot of retarded Toot, Foxxy, and Captain Hero was accidentally left in, causing a bizarre discrepancy where it appears that they are going shopping with Bleh during the closing montage. (According to DVD commentary, Comedy Central demanded that the scene be changed because they felt the joke did not make sense. In the televised version, the generic characters on the bus are depicted as retarded, but with perfect well-built bodies, similar to Bleh.) The retarded dopplegangers of the cast would finally make their television debuts in the last episode of Season 2, "The Drawn Together Clip Show."

Ling-Ling says his prayers to L. Ron Hubbard had come true. This implies Ling-Ling is a Scientologist.

In the scene right before Wooldoor becomes the Professor, both Xandir and Toot have very visible penile erections while licking Ling-Ling, suggesting that Toot is supposed to be a hermaphrodite. This is the first of many gags in the series involving one of the housemates taking on intersexual characteristics.

The legendary Monkey Man clip makes it first appearance in this episode, during the scene where Clara is trying to decide whether to believe Captain Hero's statement that he has real feelings for Bleh.

[edit] Goofs

Right before panning up to reveal Bleh's body for the first time, the camera opens on a shot of Bleh's feet; in this shot, Bleh has six toes on her right foot. Though Bleh might possibly be polydactyl, this appears to be an error on the part of the animators, as she can be seen with a normal foot elsewhere in the episode, most noticeably during the scene where Clara catches Bleh in bed with Captain Hero. (At one point in this scene, there is a closeup of Hero with Bleh's legs wrapped around him; in this shot, Bleh's right foot can be seen clearly with the normal number of toes.)

When Clara bursts into the room to confront Captain Hero about sleeping with Bleh, her nightgown reaches down to her ankles. When the shot changes to her sitting on the bed fuming at him, the gown stops at her thighs. When the camera cuts back to her a third time, after Clara's anger has dissipated, the gown reaches down to her ankles again.

[edit] Animated cameos

In the scene where Xandir, Toot, and Wooldoor come down from their high and discover Ling-Ling has gone dry, Homer Simpson can be seen passed out in the background, scratching himself.

Bamm-Bamm Rubble from The Flintstones appears during the episode's Trainspotting parody (see below).

[edit] Cultural references

Bleh and Hero on their date.

This episode is a parody of an episode of The Facts of Life called "Cousin Geri" where the princess-like Blair was believed to be ashamed of her handicapped cousin (but was actually jealous of the attention her cousin received for overcoming her handicaps). The name Bleh is a reference to Geri's speech impediment, which made her pronunciation of "Blair" sound like "Bleh."

Bleh arrives at the house in the "short carriage." This is a reference to the short bus that takes disabled children to school.

All of Bleh's I Am Sam quotes are real, taken from actual reviews of the movie by the critics and publications mentioned. Interestingly, she always uses the word "raves" when quoting the critic, even though some of the reviews she quotes are extremely negative (like the one from Peter Travers of Rolling Stone).

One of Wooldoor's relatives is named Promqueen Dumpsterbaby, a reference to Melissa Drexler, who gave birth during her prom and threw the baby away in the trash, and Amy Grossberg, who gave birth at a Comfort Inn and then threw the baby away in a dumpster.

Clara says that she once had the chance to kill Foxxy, but she didn't. There is then a brief scene of Foxxy dangling from a precipice over a river of lava; Foxxy begs, "Give me your hand!" while Clara demands, "First give me the ring!" This is a reference to The Lord of the Rings:The Return of the King. Clara later puts on a ring worn around her neck by a string (as Frodo does) and vanishes in the episode "The One Wherein There Is a Big Twist", implying that it is indeed is the ring from The Lord of the Rings.
- The dialogue between the two in the flashback is actually taken near verbatim from the scene in Disney's Aladdin in which Aladdin is similarly dangling over a pool of magma with Jafar (in disguise) looming over him. The word "lamp" is replaced by "ring."

Bleh slowly undresses and takes the top off her bikini to the melody of The Cars' "Moving in Stereo". This is a parody of Phoebe Cates's famous pool scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Fast Times at Ridgemont High is one of two Sean Penn films referenced in this episode, the other being I Am Sam.

Ling-Ling's proclamation of being able to reach "Level Shma" upon defeating the disguised "monster" is a likely reference to the Shema Yisrael, a highly important prayer in Judaism.

In one scene, as Captain Hero and Bleh eat a funnel cake together, Hero ends up accidentally eating Bleh's drool. This is a parody of the spaghetti-eating scene from Disney's Lady and the Tramp.

During their carnival date, Captain Hero plays a carnival game, where he throws a baseball at a target using his superhero strength; the ball misses and bounces back, almost hitting him in the head, but Bleh's hand reflexively catches it as she continues eating her cotton candy without notice. This is possibly a reference to the movie Awakenings, in which brain-catatonic people can still catch objects that are thrown at them.

In the scene where Captain Hero and Bleh run to enter the Monster Rollercoaster, we can see a signpost reading "You must be this special to enter". The image on the sign is that of Chris Burke, an actor with Down syndrome who gained fame playing Charles "Corky" Thatcher in the TV series Life Goes On. Spanky also uses the term "Corky" to refer to Bleh when she approaches the hot tub as he and Captain Hero are preparing to egg her.

Captain Hero's date with Bleh ends with them flying back to the house. This is a reference to the first Superman movie, where Superman takes Lois flying with him.

Wooldoor's hallucinations.

While having his hallucinations in the room, Wooldoor sees a baby crawl across the ceiling and turn his head 180 degrees. This is a parody of a heroin withdrawal scene in the film Trainspotting. In this episode, the baby on the ceiling is Bamm-Bamm Rubble from The Flintstones.

When Bleh enters Captain Hero's bedroom with the lights off, she bends down and begins performing oral sex on him. The DVD version of the episode includes subtitles (which did not appear in the televised version) with the words, "slurp, slurp, drool, drool". This is a reference to an episode of Joe Millionaire where Sarah Kozer, the eventual runner-up on the show, takes Evan Marriott behind the bushes and allegedly performs oral sex on him, a scene which is accompanied by slurping sound effects and subtitles similar to those displayed here.

The title of the episode is a reference to The Other Sister, a film about a mentally retarded young woman trying to integrate into society after spending years in a mental institution.

Ling-Ling's father is drawn to look like the Pokémon Raichu. Raichu is the evolved (higher level, older) form of Pikachu (whom Ling-Ling is based on).