Neither wants to deal with him. They're both being very adult here, buying multiple copies of the newspaper so they don't have to share, coming up with lame excuses for why they can't take him, completely ignoring their newborn baby as it wanders about the room. Fortunately, Judy offers to drive him.
I really hope this newspaper is free. I appreciate the headline joke, though.
Everyone is shocked. Theda tells Judy there's no need to be sarcastic. She replies, "who's sarcastic? You guys are busy. I'm not. I'll drive him. Keys?"
Judy leaves the house. Doug shrugs at his useless parents, and follows her. Phil and Theda drop their papers, stand up, and hug.
"After 16 years of parenting!"
"It's like a dream!"
Notice how they are still ignoring the newborn?
When Doug and Judy sit in the car, Doug asks her, "what's the catch?"
She says she's just doing him a favor. He accepts this and she immediately reveals that the catch is that she wants to make one quick stop first.
"It all started on a Friday afternoon..."
So now we're going back two days to get the story about why Doug needs a ride to Funky Town. He really should just leave this part out.
Patti asks if anyone has any plans for the weekend. Skeeter says he'll be doing the usual, which is comic books and dirt biking. Beebe is also doing the usual. For her, this means a little polo and a little hiking in the Bahamas. She yawns as she says this. Doug says, "hey, I know. What do you say we go to Funky Town?" Patti dismisses this idea because they went there last weekend. Enter Guy Graham.
"Listen. How would you guys like to have a blast this weekend? Kick out the jams!? Blow out the stops!? Really soup things up!? KNOW WHAT I MEAN!?"
His suggestion is that they go to Funky Town. Of course. Everyone is excited about this idea now, except Doug. Doug points out that he just suggested that and they shot him down. Patti says, "somehow the way Guy said it, it sounded like fun." Doug has a fantasy.
He's flying a plane past his friends and asks, "wanna come surfboard-skydiving through the eye of a hurricane?"
They are not enthused. Guy approaches them and asks, "how's about staring into a corner and slobbering like a baboon?" This is an idea they can get behind.
Because Doug has a low opinion of Guy and also his friends apparently. He just doesn't get it.
Walking home, Doug continues moaning about the situation. He has taken this one instance as the new rule. He thinks his friends think all of his suggestions sound boring. If Guy excitedly told them all to jump off a building, they'd do it.
Tired of trying to get Doug to understand, Patti walks away. Doug says he's not even going to go to Funky Town.
On Saturday, Doug and Skeeter are at an arcade playing a game called Death Golfer.
Skeeter asks him what he plans to do tomorrow. Doug says he was thinking about getting some people together to play basketball. He reasons that not everyone will be at Funky Town. "I mean, I know Al and Moo will be around."
Actually, they won't. They climb out of the Death Golfer cabinet talking about the type of processor the game uses. One is sure the games at Funky Town use the same processor and the other is sure they don't. They're planning to find out tomorrow.
Realizing the futility of putting together a basketball game, Doug has a fantasy about all the fun things he could do alone on a Sunday afternoon. Sitting on the couch, he turns on the television.
A news pundit says some things that are political and vaguely boring until his speech turns into "blah blah blah" and Doug falls asleep.
Doug has a dream about all the fun his friends are having. Guy and Patti run off a ride laughing. Guy suggests they stuff cotton candy down their shorts, pour ketchup in their hair, and run around squawking like chickens.
The dream within the fantasy ends, and then I guess, so does the fantasy. Doug is making this harder to write than it has to be....
On Sunday morning, Doug finally stumbled on the solution to his problem. He jumps out of bed shouting, "YES!"
He says he decided to change his mind. He gets dressed and runs downstairs and, well, we've already seen what happens there.
Finally, we get to see where Judy needed to stop. Why did she need to drive Doug to Funky Town? What was it she needed that apparently couldn't be explained to the parents? Was it drugs? No. It was Snord Gruppen.
Basically what we have here is Ikea. Judy needs a new bookshelf. Doug knows what's up though. He points out the incomparable size of Snord Gruppen and she dismisses his concerns.
Why didn't she just drop him off first? Doug doesn't ask this. He asks why can't she do her shopping some other time. She says, "you know mom and dad never give me the car to go shopping." A reasonable answer to a reasonable question that completely ignores the fact that "after you drop Doug off" is included in the phrase "some other time."
Judy approaches something that doesn't look like a bookshelf and says that it looks like a good bookshelf. She says, "what I love about this stuff is it's all interlocking and stackable." She spins a piece of the not-a-bookshelf and water pours on her from something that looks like a shower head.
A salesman approaches them and asks if they need help. Judy says, "this bookshelf spat on me!"
"This is sink, madam. You're in kitchens. Living room is that way."
That is a pretty shitty sink. They find something that looks a little more like a bookshelf. Doug points out that this extra stop is taking longer than she said it would. She pulls a knob on the presumed bookshelf and it turns into a car.
Another Snord Gruppen employee tells them bookshelves are on the second floor. Doug continues complaining, and after failing to find something else to mistake for a bookshelf, Judy asks a group of Snord Gruppen employees about bookshelves. They don't know what she's talking about. She says, "a bunch of flat, interlockable, stackable surfaces on which to place BOOKS!" They are still confused, so she pulls a book from her bag to show them. They laugh.
They says there's nothing like that here. All of their books are interlocking and stackable, so they have no need for bookshelves.
Big fucking waste of time. In the car, Doug says he has 20 minutes to get to Funky Town. She says they'll make it, but first they have to go back home. Incredulous, Doug asks why. She says she doesn't know the way to Funky Town from Snord Gruppen. She only knows how to get there if she leaves from the house. Judy is the worst.
Doug checks a map and gives her very simple directions for the fastest route. She follows his directions until they get to the exit they need to take. She makes no effort to slow down and just zips right past it.
Next, she drives through a roundabout, pointlessly driving around it a couple times.
They drive through an industrial area and Judy starts yelling about how they're lost. When they find a tollbooth onto the interstate, Doug insists they aren't lost. They're almost there.
He says Funky Town is just on the other side of the tollbooth. Unfortunately, it's actually the border crossing into another country. This guy wants to see their passports.
Meanwhile, Patti and Skeeter are having a blast and wondering why Doug isn't there yet.
Back in the car, Judy is berating Doug for his navigational incompetence. Because apparently it's his fault she didn't listen to him when he told her to take that exit. And it's his fault she doesn't know how to get to a place unless she leaves from their house. Anyway, now she has to make another stop. Doug begins to protest but it's a rest stop and she says she has to stop. For some bizarre reason that I'm just going to blame on their parents, neither of them wants to say "bathroom." She doesn't say, "I have to use the bathroom." He doesn't say, "oh, you have to poop? Okay, yeah. Better you drop poops in a toilet than in your pants." They're both embarrassed.
While waiting for Judy, Doug turns on the radio and pulls out the map. A news story on the radio freaks Doug out a little.
"The couple was found stranded on a deserted island in the middle of Lake Aukamaga. They said they had gotten lost on the interstate and had been kidnapped by a gang of bikers. The bikers are still at large and dangerous."
At the mention of bikers, Doug looks up from the map to see a group of cyclists stopping to sit at a picnic table.
A stereotypical biker pulls up next to Doug and asks if he needs directions. Doug turns blue and declines the help.
Then he has a fantasy about all the fun his friends are having. Al and Moo get on a ride while Skeeter makes two comments about how much fun they're having or how much fun Doug is missing. Beebe is riding bumper cars and telling her chauffeur who to hit. Patti wonders out loud where Doug is and Guy tells her to forget about him.
"Hey, let's take a boat through Suck Face Tunnel!"
"Suck Face Tunnel? What's that?"
"I don't know. Doug made it up."
His fantasies are having dreams and becoming more self-aware.
After the fantasy, Doug is fuming about Suck Face Tunnel and asks Judy if she can go faster. She says no and she needs another rest stop.
If you were wondering if Doug was the only Funnie kid with apparent bouts of crippling social anxiety, well, apparently Judy couldn't find the fucking bathroom and didn't want to ask somebody where it was because then they'd all stare at her. Doug points out that everyone is at the rest stop for the same reason. Growing more impatient, he tells her to just stop at a gas station. She says it looks disgusting, but pulls over just the same. She says, "I don't see one. Do you see one?"
"One what, Judy? SAY THE WORD!"
"Forget! Let's go!"
Doug asks these two assholes if they have a bathroom because his sister needs to go. They laugh and Judy blushes.
When they're back on the road, Judy is so furious, she threatens to tell Patti that Doug is in love with her. They get to their exit only to find it is closed due to construction.
The workers, especially the asshole working one of the bigger machines, are terrible.
Judy asks if there's a detour to Funky Town and the guy goes on and on about how much he loves the place until the tractor operating asshole drops a huge slab of concrete right next to the car. Doug and Judy are scared for their safety, and should probably call OSHA. Instead, they reiterate their need for directions to Funky Town.
Unfortunately, another worker starts using a jackhammer right next to their car at the same moment they are getting directions.
Immediately after finishing the directions, the guy tries to ask Judy out. They hastily drive away without proper directions, because old man construction worker couldn't just be helpful to the 16 year old. Naturally, they become more lost.
Doug is trying to navigate with the map, and I'm starting to wonder if he can actually read a map.
Lots of nonsense occurs.
Some cows get involved.
Finally, they're just arguing. Doug takes the whole trip as good reason why their parents never let her drive. She says, "well maybe YOU'D like to drive then!?"
He says he would and reaches for the keys. She grabs them and hangs them out the window, threatening to throw them into the woods.
After she throws the keys, they both realize how fucking stupid that was and scream. Doug says that all they have to do is walk straight into the woods until they find the keys, then walk straight back.
After about 10 steps, Doug trips and despair takes over. He clutches at grass and dirt and says, "it's no use! They're gone! We're gonna miss Funky Town! We're gonna starve to death! We're gonna be stuck here together for the rest of our lives!"
If you were wondering if it was worth your child's time to join the Bluffscouts, it is not. They will be prepared for nothing. Anyway, Judy finds the keys. They were on the ground at her feet, a few feet in front of where Doug gave up.
They somehow become lost on their way back to the car. Some wildlife freaks them out and they start running. They run until they find a mysterious village. The citizens are dressed mostly like Pilgrims and they have weird accents.
Doug asks this guy if there's a phone they can use. He doesn't know what a phone is, so Doug describes it as a box you use to talk to people. The guy tells him, "leave off your foolery, ye young rapscallion." This is apparently Pilgrim for "fuck off, shithead."
Doug asks if it's possible they drove through a hole in the time space continuum. Judy tells him to not be ridiculous. She grabs another person and asks for the date. The Pilgrim girl says it is June 14, 1683.
Doug and Judy gasp, but then Judy realizes she knows the girl. The girl panics and runs away. They chase. They're too busy chasing her to notice the other people dressed in modern clothes and taking pictures.
When Judy finally catches the girl, Doug realizes they accidentally wandered into an area next to or part of Funky Town. Judy's friend warns her that they have to pretend it's the 17th century. Judy catches on and takes up the accent and speech patterns while Doug asks for instructions to the entrance of Funky Town.
The asshole Doug asked about the phone points them out to the parson as witches. So they have to be punished.
It makes no sense. They aren't employees of this shitty place. If they're putting all their apparent customers in the stocks for blasphemy or witchcraft or whatever, how are they still a business? They received this punishment because Doug asked for a phone during a minor emergency. How many emergencies have these employees ignored for the sake of their fake authenticity? You've had a stroke? What is this phone thing you speak of? Uh huh, and ambulance? What sort of spell is that? Are you the devil?
Doug takes this moment to reflect on all the times Judy has embarrassed him. The first example he thinks about is when she redesigned his soccer team's uniforms.
She cast him as Ear Wax in her hygiene play.
After the recollections, a woman tells her son to stand by the witches in the stocks so they can get a picture. This doesn't make sense. I hate how much this doesn't make sense.
I don't want to transcribe their whole fight, but basically Doug blames Judy and vice versa. Obviously. When Judy says Doug was too eager to meet up with "that little chicken leg blonde," he blushes and pretends he doesn't know what she's talking about. She points at Patti who has just arrived with Doug's friends, and Doug says, "Chicken! I mean, Patti! Am I glad to see you!"
Doug's friends let them out of the stocks. Patti asks where they've been and he tells her to forget it. Right after he suggests they go on some rides, a man announces that Funky Town is now closed.
So Doug tells them the story of their ridiculous day and realizes it's actually pretty funny. They all think it's very funny that Doug thought he actually traveled back in time. Al and Moo are laughing so hard they're crying.
Doug asks about all the fun they had with a somewhat accusatory tone.
Skeeter points out that all the rides are the same so, y'know...
Guy creeps up on Patti, putting his hands on her shoulders, and says, "I don't know, guys. Patti and I had a fantabulous time! It was kickin'! It was slammin'! It wa..."
"Hey, Guy, cut the hype."
After shoving him away, she says, "can't you admit it was just a little dull? You always make such a production out of everything."
In the parking lot, Judy is the first to realize they left the car out in the middle of nowhere. Doug's friends and Guy help them look.
Doug asks Patti what Guy meant when he said they had a fantabulous time. She says, "nothing."
He asks, "never heard of Suck Face Tunnel?"
"Doug, what are you talking about?"
"Nothing."
I don't know why Doug made up a ride called Suck Face Tunnel. It doesn't make sense. He's been to Funky Town before. According to the beginning of the episode, he was there last week. If it's a place where middle school kids hang out, there's almost certainly a part of it where they are sucking each others' faces. Doug apparently doesn't know about this area, and so made up his own idea of what it would be. It's a shitty Tunnel of Love with a shittier name.
I currently have no theories on the apparent widespread shame the citizens of Bluffington apparently feel when they have to use the bathroom.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.