Drawn Together, Episode 3: When There's Nothing to Parody

We're nearly halfway through this series now (with only five more to go), and I having some second thoughts about our covering this series. Before I get into that, however, a look at Episode Three is in order.

The episode starts in the kitchen, with Captain Hero destroying the room with the power of his toenail clippings. As Xandir dodges the deadly shrapnel, Toot comes in with a gold ring in her hand. She asks who left "their golden ring of Qwelldar in the (bleeping) crapper." Obviously a token video-game power-up like this can only belong to one person and Xandir asks to have it. When Toot realizes it belongs to him, she stuffs it down her dress and tells Xandir to get it himself. While hesitant, Xandir finally reaches in and grabs it, making a complete 100 of the rings now for him (told in typical video-game style) and with the power-up he can now jump and spin. Xandir thinks the maneuver is cute, but everyone else just laughs at him.

The producers announce from a speaker system that there is a gift for the group in the living room. It is mentioned that since it has been five days without a hate crime, the group gets a present. Captain Hero is hoping for a television set, but instead the gift turns out to be a sewing machine. Hero is disappointed, until Ling-Ling makes him a television set with the sewing machine. Such a skill with the sewing machine by Ling-Ling causes Spanky to get Yen signs in his eyes and see a potential money-making scheme in the works.

Xandir is happy to see the sewing machine, as he wants to finish his tea cozy. Hero calls him gay and Xandir tells everyone that he is hurt by the insults hurled at him. Since he only ran into two in the first episode and nowhere else, all the insults must have come from scenes not "shown" in the program. Also, curiously, until this episode Xandir had really not been so blatantly portrayed as some type of crude limpwrist gay stereotype. Sure, he had no interest in Toot, but Toot was portrayed as too awful there for anyone in the house to be interested in, but Xandir was always talking about his girlfriend before. Beyond a gag with him reading Cosmopolitan in the hot tub, there's been little indication that the character is supposed to be actively gay. Then, bizarrely, Xandir is changed into a stereotype for this episode. Bad character development there, really.

Although the audience may have not really had much to see this side of the character beyond being told about it in dialogue, all the other characters seem to believe Xandir is gay and won't admit it to himself. To prove it, Wooldor pulls out an Acme Gay Test game from his mouth and Xandir is given a series of tests.

While this is going on, Spanky and Ling-Ling talk about making bootleg shoes, and Ling-Ling goes to work on them. Back downstairs, Foxxy reads off the results of the game and it says Xandir is gay. However, since the game is only for kids between the ages of 6 and 13, Xandir feels the results don't apply to him.

To try to help, Clara turns to the Bible (which means she's a fast learner, as we saw in Episode Two that she had just discovered the Bible for the first time, thanks to Wooldor). She finds a method there that will prove one way or another if Xandir is gay: sticking his hand inside the honeycombed home of the woodbeast. This then cuts directly to a parody of a similar scene in the 1980 remake of Flash Gordon, only with the predictable results of Xandir's whole hand being bitten off in the process. He is of course upset about losing the hand, but also upset about the results of the test proving he is gay.

Because Xandir is upset, the rest of the household decides to give him a "Gay Bash" - actually a coming-out party, with lots of invited guests. This leads to a scene where two cartoon characters are shown with their faces blurred, although it is obvious from their state of dress and voices that they are Snagglepuss and Elmer Fudd. This was a cute idea in the show. Too bad it had been done four and a half years ago on The Simpsons in the "Behind the Laughter" episode where Huckleberry Hound confessed to being gay (and in a more humorous manner as well).