PRODUCTION/CULTURAL REFERENCES (written 12/28/16-12/29/16)
-This was the last episode idea I came up with for the first half of season five. This was the first New Year's episode since season two, and like the Christmas episode, I had a different approach to it than I did back in 2013.
-The day before Labor Day, I watched "Finger Lenting Good" on Netflix and I was thinking that it was a really good plot. It involved every member of the Smith family and they were all losing their minds trying to keep from giving into their bad habits. I started thinking it would make a great Thank You, Heavenly episode so I saved the idea. However, since I had already done "Raging Buster," I was wondering whether or not it should be a cover episode. I started thinking about doing a regular episode with the general idea of "Finger Lenting Good" still in there, but then it stopped making sense to me. With not a whole lot of time left before I had to start writing it, and needing a break after the Christmas one, I kept it as is.
-During the Christmas episode, I was really hoping that the New Year's episode would ease some of the pressure and it did. I started writing it on Sunday night and I finished it tonight. If I really wanted to, I could have had it done by Monday night. Between this and "Raging Buster," it has never been this easy to write an episode of the show before.
-In this episode, RK played Stan, Sparky played Francine, Buster played Steve, Jaylynn played Hayley, Wade played Jeff, and Manny played Bullock. However, in the original episode, Francine's bad habit was smoking, and Jeff's bad habit was hugging everyone he sees. I had to make sure the story fit the characters, so I incorporated their actual traits. Sparky has been rambling for multiple seasons and part of what makes Wade who he is has to do with his intolerance for stupidity, so I knew they were perfect bad habits.
-As another way to make the story fit, I had to change the timeline of the original episode. "Finger Lenting Good" starts out during Mardi Gras which leads right into the Lent period.
-Bitch Clock getting buzzed was originally going to lead to a small subplot where he feels like he's losing his mojo but I had to focus on the main story.
-I found this episode one of the most interesting to work on because it's a cover episode of another adult animated sitcom. The key was in making it work for this show and competing against the original episode in terms of comedy.
-The conversation between RK and Jaylynn at the beginning is an inside joke about me having to change Jaylynn's name in every episode from 2014 onward last month.
-Sparky references the season five Arthur episode "The World Record" when talking to the guys at his house.
-When the ball drops, RK references an ad-lib from "Represent" by Nas.
-Bitch Clock's home alcoholic test is a parody of home pregnancy tests.
-I actually came up with the idea for RK's fake rock band names two days before I started writing this episode. I remembered Electrical Arrogance and the Vagabond Brigade, but I forgot the other two so I had to make up new ones.
-Anja references the season three episode "The Creamy Crack Manifesto," where both her and Jaylynn suffered from the effects of a defective hair growth formula and went bald.
-In previous New Year's episodes, I did a segment where I looked at the past year's most significant events in pop culture. I was considering doing that again this year, but because of the massive amount of celebrity deaths unlike anything I had ever seen before, I devoted the entire segment to that. People like Nancy Reagan and Fidel Castro were acknowledged because of their impact on the world and their status, not because I have a certain opinion on their political affairs. I was looking for a song that came out this year and could be appropriate enough to use, but almost nothing came to mind so I went with "Everything I Am."
-RK referring to his schemes as "signature moments" is a reference to My Wife and Kids,where Damon Wayans' character Michael Kyle would often do the same thing when he wanted to teach his kids a lesson.
-Last season, I had an idea for a New Year's episode involving RK and Wade time traveling. I believe it was an one-hour episode and it also involved them going into the future. However, I ended up procrastinating and failed to even start writing it. To this day, I can't remember the idea.
-During the head shaving ceremony, Manny references one of Chris Jericho's catchphrases when talking to Sparky.
-I used "So Easy" because in part two of the Degrassi episode "Pride," Snake gets his shaved and that song plays in the background so I wanted to find it. It's one of those times where I'm really grateful for the internet.
-Well, that's a wrap for 2016. This isn't the last episode I worked on this year because I still have two more that I started writing in 2016, plus another one that goes all the way back to 2015. But of course, there won't be another new episode until January 22. I'm just glad that season five has pretty much turned out exactly as I wanted it to so far. I'm more productive now than I've been the last two seasons, episodes are being worked on in advance, and I'm currently on track to get to season two in terms of episode count. At this point, there's no use in fixing what isn't broken, so I plan to keep this model for the second half of season five. If all goes well, I could be done with the whole season by March, take some time to rest, brainstorm some more, and come back in June for season six.