PRODUCTION/CULTURAL REFERENCES (written 5/14/19-5/15/19)

5/14/19

-I originally came up with the idea for this episode a long time ago. It involved Wade attempting to get the guys to stop using their phones so much and start playing outside again. The concept was still the same, but I don't know if it would have went in the exact same direction as this one. I was thinking about making this episode last season, but it just didn't happen because there were other ideas I had more interest in. There was another episode that I had planned to be #724, but I couldn't get the story to work and this was the second time that I had to put it on hold, so I replaced it with this episode. Hopefully, I'll figure out what I want to do with it next season.

-I replaced the guys with Sanna and made her the main focus because of all the characters on the show, she felt the most likely to be obsessed with social media and her phone. It was interesting because this is one of the few episodes where she has ever had this much screentime, other than cases where she was around to accompany someone else's story ("Worst Election Ever," "The Birthdays from Hell," "The Secret World of Buster Newman").

-I used the season five technique for the subplot, but honestly, I don't know if the original idea would have even been an actual episode. The idea was called "The Great Cat Rescue," where RK and KG find out that Mrs. Tuxedo Pants is missing and they go on a road trip to find her. I decided to incorporate that into the subplot with Santa's Little Helper getting kidnapped, which served as the reason for the Jennings Detective Agency returning. I really liked writing "Buster Loves Ashley" last year because of the subplot, but I felt like I didn't do enough with it. I was originally going to make an entire episode around the agency until I decided to turn it into a subplot. That might have been the reason it felt short, so I wanted to go back to it. Even now, I still feel like the Jennings Detective Agency could carry an entire episode. It's not something I'm completely done with.

-Because Social Media Freaks Anonymous was meant to be a parody of Alcoholics Anonymous, I chose Anna Faris to play a character because her character on Mom (2013-) is a recovering alcoholic that frequently attends AA meetings. I was thinking about having more Mom references, like having Catherine complain about her mother and a scene where the girls eat at a bistro similar to the bistro in the show, but I felt like it would have been too much. The connection is already there without the references.

-This episode was originally scheduled for last week, but I was procrastinating and I barely did any work on it so the episode that was originally meant for this past Sunday also had to be held back. Because of that, this coming Sunday is going to have two episodes (including the season finale). The original script ended up being less polished than usual, with certain things not adding up like the events of the JDA so I was still doing rewrites up to yesterday morning. I have less than a week for the last two episodes of the season, but I'm going to try and take my time with both of them.

5/15/19

-Buster references the fictional kid detective character Leroy "Encyclopedia" Brown.

-RK references the Jonas Brothers' 2019 comeback and the lead single ("Sucker") to their upcoming album Happiness Begins reaching #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming their first ever number one hit in the process.

-There are a few references to "Buster Loves Ashley" in this episode: Sparky talking about the actor for Billy Rocket Man (the show Billy Rocket Man, Detective for Hire was the inspiration for RK and KG starting the agency) being a racist, the agency not actually solving any cases in the episode, RK getting the tape recorder he didn't have in the original episode, and using detective slang/cadences.

-KG's line "I used to pray for times like this" is a reference to the song "Dreams and Nightmares" by Meek Mill.

-Jaylynn references the season five episode "The Trouble with Feminists" where she ends up joining a radical feminist club called the Sisterhood.

-Sanna's new outfit and her way of speaking was inspired/influenced by professional wrestler Daniel Bryan, who turned heel in November 2018 and introduced an environmentally conscious, eco-friendly extremist character known as "The New Daniel Bryan."

-RK references comedian Roseanne Barr forcing the cancellation of the revival of her sitcom Roseanne (1988-1997; 2018) after making a racist tweet on Twitter, comparing former Obama administration senior advisor Valerie Jarrett to Planet of the Apes. The show was initially renewed for an eleventh season after the success of the season ten premiere, but the decision was reversed by ABC. A spinoff was later produced called The Conners (2018-), involving every character from the original sitcom except for Roseanne's (her character was killed off).

-KG references the following lyrics from the Eminem song "I'm Back": "I used to get punked and bullied on my block/'Til I cut a kitten's head off and stuck it in this kid's mailbox."

-Halley compares Sanna's new attitude to the title character of the children's television series Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1990-1992, original run; 1993-1996 as the sequel series The New Adventures of Captain Planet).

-The girls looking at Jaylynn after she questions talking about Sanna behind her back is a reference to an episode earlier this season called "Master of Her Universe." In the episode, the Masters of the Universe decide to stop being a group, which frustrates Jaylynn into making a video recorded by Lynne, criticizing the girls for the decision. Lynne ends up sending the video to a group chat on Jaylynn's phone while Jaylynn is sleeping, causing conflict between her and the girls.

-Sanna references direct quotes from R. Kelly's CBS interview with Gayle King back in March, when he goes on a rant talking about people trying to kill his public image and his career.

-The Perfetti Ice Factory is named after the Italian candy manufacturer Perfetti Van Melle, known for making candy such as AirHeads, Mentos, and Chupa Chups.

-The kidnappers' new name for Santa's Little Helper is a reference to the 1993 film A Bronx Tale, where the name of Lillo Brancato, Jr.'s character is Calogero, or "C" for short.

-When I originally wrote the outline for this episode, the idea was that the people who kidnapped Santa's Little Helper would be his original owners. It didn't occur to me at all until I started writing the ice factory scene that this didn't make any sense because Santa's Little Helper was adopted by Sparky right after Mrs. Tuxedo Pants gave birth to him. I decided to have the characters acknowledge that the motivation made no sense and the kidnappers were just looking to take the cat away.

-There was always going to be a fight scene in the episode, but I didn't know what song to use. Right after I wrote the line "Oh, you're gonna pay for that," I decided to use "You're Gonna Pay."

-I liked writing the conflict between Sanna and Anja. It's never been established before that they had any problems, but since they have rarely shared scenes together, I decided to create longstanding tension between them. It was also because it was really funny to keep bringing up.

-This episode is dedicated to legendary director John Singleton, who died on April 28 at the Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles after being taken off life support. Singleton had been placed in intensive care after having a stroke almost two weeks prior to his death. Singleton was known for his films highlighting the lives and issues of people in the African-American community. His first film Boyz n the Hood (1991) earned him nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Director at the 1992 Academy Awards. At 24, he became the youngest person to ever be nominated for Best Director and the first African-American to do so. Singleton went on to make movies such as Poetic Justice (1993), Higher Learning (1995), Rosewood (1997), and Baby Boy (2001). He also directed the music video for "Remember the Time" by Michael Jackson. In recent years, Singleton was the co-creator and executive producer of the FX crime drama Snowfall (2017-), and directed episodes of shows such as Empire (2015-), American Crime Story (2016-), Rebel (2017), and Billions (2016-).