PRODUCTION/CULTURAL REFERENCES (written 1/24/18-1/25/18; 1/30/18; 2/1/18)

1/24/18

-This episode was inspired by the WWE Network show Table for 3, where three wrestlers have dinner and talk about their careers and experiences in the ring. I thought it would be interesting to write an episode where the kids sat down and had a dinner where they could reflect on previous experiences. I'm surprised the episode turned out so similar to my original idea.

-I came up with this episode near the end of the fourth season, and I wrote the first two scenes (which were the same as the first two scenes here, but with different dialogue) but never went past that and I moved on to other ideas. When I was thinking about episodes to do for the second half of season six, this was one of the ideas that stood out and I decided to give the episode another chance. I felt like it was a simple enough story to start off the second half.

-Initially, I struggled to write anything past the scene where Sparky hands out the protocol because of how small the story was. It was at that point that I came up with the conflict between RK and Sparky, which helped move the episode forward and gave RK more of a motivation for the dinner to go well.

-Because the episode is based around the kids having a dinner, a lot of the dialogue during the scenes where they eat wasn't rewritten. I didn't put much thought into the lines, but just came up with stuff that sounded conversational and loose. I did add more jokes in the scene where Jaylynn is trying to defend the "orange in a bottle of Poland Spring" saying.

-The opening scene was inspired by the fact that at the time, the Mexican place I was ordering food from always sent a delivery man who would go to the house next to mine and then force me to get the food from there, or I would have to leave the house and meet the guy at the stairs. I still order from that place and the problem stopped eventually, but I thought it would make good comedy.

1/25/18

-Sparky is hesitant to go to another fancy dinner because of what happened in "The New Sparky MacDougal" (#TYH408), where RK and Jaylynn ended up coming to blows at Trattoria Molto Denaro, and got the kids banned from the restaurant.

1/30/18

-I made that joke about Wade wanting to kill Camila Cabello because I was thinking when the year started that by the time it was over, I would be sick of her. I felt like she was starting to get overexposed. The month isn't even over yet and I'm already sick of her, especially after certain things I've found out about her.

2/1/18

-"The New Sparky MacDougal" came out on January 31, 2016. Season two of Rick and Morty ended in October 2015.

-RK's line about Sparky needing to respect him as a young Caucasian man was originally going to be used once, but I thought it was really funny so I made it a running gag.

-The original name of the restaurant was the Chateaux Marmont, but I knew that name didn't mean anything so I came up with Le Château de la Nourriture, which is French for "The castle of food."

-At the restaurant, the manager makes a reference to the Fox drama series Party of Five (1994-2000).

-RK references professional wrestler Brock Lesnar and his manager Paul Heyman.

-Episodes mentioned during the dinner scenes include "Papa Crazy" (#TYH317), "Wade's Birthday, Jaylynn's Bitch-day" (#TYH204), and "KWWE" (#TYH508).

-When KG tries to keep Sparky from finding RK, he references two Eminem songs: "Say What You Say" (featuring Dr. Dre) and "Kill You."

-Jaylynn makes a reference to Goodfellas in the scene where she talks about her old love for Neopets.

-Sparky comes back to the dinner and refers to the guys as "sports fans," which is something he used to do back in season two as a Who's the Boss reference.

-Sparky and RK refer to each other as the "tag team champions," a reference to professional wrestlers Daniel Bryan and Kane calling themselves the "tag team champions" after they won the WWE Tag Team Championship in 2012.

-I felt like the kids dancing to "Havana" was a non-ending, so that's what made me write the scene where they're still dancing outside the restaurant.