PRODUCTION/CULTURAL REFERENCES (written on 9/25/16-9/26/16)
-This was the very first episode idea I came up with for season five.
-The main plot went through a couple changes. The original idea was Sparky and Buster using the tree house as a way to get away from the stress in their life. Next, it involved them turning the tree house into a nightclub, eventually getting into a power struggle. Then for a brief period, it became them turning it into a study hangout spot. Finally, I settled on them being party planners.
-Originally, RK was going to be Sparky and Buster's business partner while trying to create the show with Wade, but I decided to just keep him in the subplot since it would have been too messy to have him in both stories.
-The B-story was actually supposed to be its own episode called "The RK & Wade Edutainment Hour." I even considered writing it as the second episode of the season. However, I decided against it due to its similarities to "Slice of Fantastica" (the two-parter in season three where Sparky and Buster get their own television show on Nickelodeon) and made it the subplot.
-I was a little concerned with how the episode would turn out since the plot goes in a different direction, but the editing process went well and I had no problems with it. I didn't want to have a repeat of "That's Why They Call Her Sanna Q." where I barely understood what I wrote.
-The episode title is a reference to Sparky and Buster's respective middle names, Morton and Carlisle.
-The theme song for Midgio was actually something one of my friends in elementary school came up with, and when he rapped it, RK's description of the TV show was the exact same description I came up with in my head so I thought it would be a great gag to use in this episode.
-The barbershop quintet cutaway was inspired by how much I like "Any Kind of Guy," and my belief that it sounds like something a barbershop quartet would perform.
-This episode is one of the few to show Sparky's tree house, which I used back in season three and just stopped for no specific reason. I then used it in "The Code" last season. I might use it again in a future episode involving Sparky and Buster.
-Wade makes a reference to Al Jean and Mike Reiss, who are most famous for their work on The Simpsons as writers and co-showrunners in seasons three and four (1991-1993). Jean currently runs The Simpsons by himself, and has been doing so since 2001.
-RK's idea for an ABC sitcom is actually a show that I came up with in ninth grade called Alicia & Sanna, starring two ninth grade girls I was friends with. I even submitted a short story based on the show for a contest, which I won. I was actually going to treat Alicia & Sanna like Thank You, Heavenly and write episodes, but I abandoned it before I even finished the pilot. One of the episodes I came up with ended up being the season one finale of Thank You, Heavenly.
-The number of ideas RK had (91) is the number for this episode.
-When talking to Ashley and Sanna, Buster references "The Roommate from Hell" from season three.
-For a split second, I was considering having Ed Asner as Mr. Benjamin's boss. I'm actually going to use Asner in an upcoming episode.
-There was a scene I came up with but never used where Sparky and Buster have a fantasy sequence about being party hosts, with Snoop Doggy Dogg's "Gin and Juice" playing in the background. I couldn't find a place to fit it into the episode.
-When Sparky is sleeping in the tree house, he sings lyrics from "Workin' Day and Night."
-Because RK and Wade's plot was very similar to Sparky and Buster's plot in "Slice of Fantastica," I knew I had to reference it directly.
-One day when I was working on the script, I was thinking about the Boy Meets World episode "Sixteen Candles and Four-Hundred-Pound Men" where Cory has to be in two places at once, and for a split second, I was going to have Sparky and Buster go through the same problem.
-I was a little concerned with how the episode would incorporate its lesson because it was mostly just Sparky and Buster getting into shenanigans so I added the meta joke of them immediately forgetting it.
-RK the Villainous' letter references the intro to "Diamond Eyes (Boom-Lay Boom-Lay Boom)" by Shinedown, and was inspired by the very first Superman cartoon back in 1941. In fact, the whole newspaper scene is a tribute to the cartoon, and one of RK's sentences ("Total disaster..." instead of "Total destruction...") is taken directly from the Mad Scientist's letter in the cartoon.
-Wade makes a reference to the line "Don't cry for me. I'm already dead" from the Simpsons episode "A Star is Burns."
-When RK first meets Wade at Dairy Queen, he poses a question in the style of The Riddler, a supervillain from the Batman comics.
-When RK is kicked off the roof, he references the Detroit-based soft drink Faygo, which I put in as a jab at product placements.