The Other Cousin

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“The Other Cousin”
Drawn Together episode

The housemates meet Bleh, Clara's cousin.
Episode no. Season 1
Episode 5
Written by Reid Harrison
Directed by Peter Avanzino
Guest stars Sarah Silverman as Bleh
Production no. 105
Original airdate December 1, 2004
Episode chronology
← Previous Next →
"Requiem for a Reality Show" "Dirty Pranking No. 2"

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

Contents

[edit] Storyline

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, and receives $50, which she is pleased about. She finally waves to Hero, who is despondent, Spanky offers to play Spin the Bottle to cheer him up, but Hero declines, then immediately accepts a few seconds later. The two talk off together.

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. However, when Ling-Ling's father arrives, he expresses his disappointment about his son being in a reality TV show. Toot, Xandir, and Wooldoor promptly jump on him and begin licking him to their hearts' content.

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.[citation needed] Also, Captain Hero sings a version of "Wind Beneath My Wings" to Bleh on their date.

[edit] Bleh's movie review quotes

Bleh and Hero on their date.
Bleh and Hero on their date.

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).

  • "I Am Sam is a well-written exceptionally well-acted tearjerker," raves Adam Nayman of Eye Weekly.[1]
  • "I Am Sam is played like a made-for-TV weep-"(Clara stops her from talking further.) This one is from a review by Richard Roeper.
  • "I Am Sam works magic 'cause of Penn," raves Lou Lumenick of the New York Post.
  • "I Am Sam's Dakota Fanning is worth the price of admission." (The critic is not cited, but the quote comes from Robin Clifford of Reeling Reviews.) [2]
  • "Contrived, manipulative, and shamelessly sentimental," raves Peter Travers from Rolling Stone.[3]
  • "I Am Sam reduces Penn to a mugging embarrassment," raves Mike Clark of USA Today.[4]

[edit] Notes and inside references

  • The Season One DVD contains an extended version of this episode that fills in a few plot holes:
    The retarded Drawn Together cast (TV version).
    The retarded Drawn Together cast (TV version).
    The retarded Drawn Together cast (DVD 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. In the aired version, this plot thread is left dangling with no explanation; in the DVD version, she gives him the antidote.
    • In the version aired on television, two Wooldoors suddenly appear to lick Ling-Ling's father. In the extended version, there is a scene moments before where the viewer sees Wooldoor split himself in two to give himself a hug.
    • The viewer sees 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 doppelgangers of the cast would finally make their television debuts in the last episode of Season 2, "The Drawn Together Clip Show."
  • 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.
  • 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; this is a one-off joke that is not played upon in the rest of the episode (eg, in a later shot, Bleh's number of toes returns to five).

[edit] Goofs

  • 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.
  • When the camera shows Wooldoor, Toot and Xandir in a dull grey room before they discover Ling Ling is out of Hallucinagetic Fluids, we can see Wooldoor's crotch, which is not covered by his blue trousers, but in the next scene, it is covered again.

[edit] Animated cameos

  • When Captain Hero and Bleh are on the roller coaster at the amusement park, seated behind them are a Jakovasaur and a character with the same style hat as that worn by Kyle Broflovski from South Park. The only similarity, however, is the style of the hat- the character does not physically resemble Kyle to any great degree; possibly the artwork was changed for copyright reasons (despite the fact that South Park also airs on Comedy Central). Seated behind them are characters resembling Thundarr the Barbarian and Ookla the Mok.
  • 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.

[edit] Cultural references

  • 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.
  • 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.
Foxxy begs Clara to save her.
Foxxy begs Clara to save her.
  • 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."
  • 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 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.
    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).
Preceded by
Requiem for a Reality Show		 The Other Cousin
December 1, 2004		 Succeeded by
Dirty Pranking No. 2
v • d • e
Drawn Together
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 • 30 • 31 • 32 • 33 • 34 • 35 • 36
Cast and creators