My Name is Earl Fodder

My Name Is Earl: Harassed A Reporter

Watch the full episode here.

A new episode of My Name Is Earl is better than free Buffalo hot wings. Throw in a splash of Joy, a shot of Catalina, and a side order of Darnell and you've got a fiesta! We've been waiting weeks and weeks for a new ep, and Amigos de Garcia did not disappoint. Let's have at it!

The episode opens with Earl and Randy in bed. Randy is not a good sleeper: he grinds his teeth, punches Earl, and stops breathing a dozen times per night. This time, Randy's apnea wakes Earl just in time for him to catch the four A. M. Up Before Dawn news. The lovely anchorwoman is about to give the traffic, but -- well...there is none.

Seeing her on TV reminds Earl of # 29 - Harassed a Reporter.

Flashback to those wondrous days of yesteryear when Earl and Joy were still united in pre-cuckoldian bliss. A loud explosion upsets the idyllic tranquility of Pimmit Hills Trailer Park. Seems another meth lab has blown up, and another trailer park resident has gone to that special place in Hell reserved for meth cookers, subway gropers, and panty stealers.

The local newsies invade like a horde of seventeen-year cicadas, and Earl and Randy are quick to figure out that their fifteen minutes of fame is knocking on their trailer's aluminum door. The boys waste no time in getting behind the features reporter and acting like a couple of trailer park goofballs behind a features reporter at a blown up trailer park meth lab. And when Randy makes pretend that his arms are Earl's arms and calls it Crazy Arms, well, a comedy legend is born. Watch out, 2000 Year Old Man. Who's on First? Never heard of it.

Editor's Note - Crazy Arms Motel would've made a good name for Earl and Randy's motel.

Earl and Randy are assured of their place in history the very next day when the features piece is aired on the local news. The gang at the Crabshack gives Earl and Randy a standing ovation. It's the funniest thing to hit Camden County since a minister went into a gorilla's cage and tried to convert it. The boys enjoy the limelight, and they decide they gonna get themselves some more of it.

Cue celebrity cameo extraordinaire, none other than Mr. Tim Stack, still in Son of the Beach attire (he changes his outfit about as often as Claire Bennet), seven sheets to the wind and twice as handsome. He's at a ribbon-cutting ceremony, but Earl and Randy crash the festivities with another thrilling episode of Crazy Arms. Then there's the quick cut to an outdoorsy feature that Earl and Randy (dressed as a bear – could he be any furrier?) crash to the consternation of the same features reporter. Catalina and her fellow Latina maids watch the boys on TV and christen their act "los brazos locos".

Soon, however, all good things must come to an end, and Crazy Arms is no exception. Newsworthy events don't happen nearly often enough in Camden County – difficult as that may be to believe – so the boys decide to start generating their own.

Coincidence of coincidences, Joy's baby turns up missing. Our favorite features reporter is Johnny-on-the-spot, and like a harp seal on the beach, Joy's finely tuned ears detect the mournful wailing of her errant offspring. Joy leads the reporter over to an abandoned refrigerator where, gasp, her baby is locked inside! Joy opens the door to save her wayward child, and in the fridge is Earl, dressed in an oversized pair of Dr. Dentons, bib, bottle, and mustache. The reporter has had enough. She throws down her mike and exits stage left a la Snagglepuss.

Back to present day, and Earl heads over to the TV station to make things right. He finds the reporter – her name is Nicole Moses (played by Leigh-Allyn Baker, who was in Yes, Dear with Greg Garcia; also, she's been in several other of my favorite shows including In Case Of Emergency, Boston Legal, and House) – and she's been demoted to the oh-dark-thirty news because of the stunts that Earl and Randy played on her. Randy, meanwhile, has discovered the chroma blue screen used by the weatherman.

Earl explains his list, and Nicole feels that this is an opportunity to do a great features story – maybe not as good as the Siamese twins at the shoe store wanting to buy only three shoes, but pretty darn good nonetheless. Earl is perfectly willing to help so long as he doesn't have to memorize anything. Earl's memorizations skills only go as far as Polish jokes and Judas Priest songs. If his screaming like a sissy is any indication, Randy, over by the blue screen, is shocked and dismayed to find the weather on his blue shirt. A high pressure system moving across his generous midsection he did not foresee.

The next scene opens with Earl putting on a jacket and tie. I've said this before and I'll say it again: There is no good whatsoever that can come from Earl J. Hickey donning a jacket and tie. Earl is excited to be an actual invited guest on the news. Randy wants to know if he should comb his hair or not. After all, he wants to look good on TV, but he also wants people to recognize him, presumably without a placard with numbers on it on his chest and height lines behind him. "Being a TV star," Randy tells Earl, "is complicated."

Nicole tries to interview Earl, but Earl is not very good at that sort of thing. He even grabs the boom mike like a hungry bass going after a Rapala. Nicole, frustrated, is all but ready to throw in the towel and go back to doing Cock-a-doodle mornings and discussing boll weevils with the sock-puppet rooster.

Nicole finally gets Earl to open up a little bit about his list. She even finds an item on Earl's list that they can feature – Cost A Woman A Valuable Client. Turns out the woman was Patti the Daytime Hooker and her Valuable Client's name was John. Earl and Nicole find Patti servicing a patron of the fleshy arts in the backseat of a sedan. Nicole fears that her journalism college tuition may have been misspent after all. She can't do a story about a hooker -- she's looking for heartwarming. Earl, ever the helpful soul, tells her, "I can do heartwarming!" Patti does heartwarming, too. She's just takes a more hands-on approach, so to speak. Randy, meanwhile, is once again relegated to second, no, make that fourteenth fiddle.

Earl tells Nicole a sorrowful tale of the wanton destruction of two little boys' beloved playhouse. It's just one of those quirky coincidences of fate that the two boys were Dodge and Earl Jr., and that the playhouse was run over by an overserved Earl in a playhouse-hating El Camino. Cue # 40 – Wrecked a Kid's Playhouse. Nicole's nose for news perks up: this could be the big one. Randy tells Nicole that he wants to be on camera too, but Nicole tells him that the story is about Earl. Randy's sorrow is palpable.

Randy tries to drown his sorrows at the Crabshack. Joy, ever the empath, asks him what's gotcha down li'l buckaroo? Randy tells Joy that he is feeling neglected because Earl and his list are getting all the attention. Joy tells Randy that if he wants to be noticed he needs to break away and be the opposite of Earl. "When Earl zigs," Joy tells Randy, "you zag." The fifteen watt bulb over Randy's head goes on. He's going to make his own list of every good deed he's ever done, find those people, and screw 'em over. He's going to do all those things that Earl doesn't do. And he's going to wear a sombrero because Earl doesn't. He is going to be one dapper son of a bitch.

Earl and Catalina are watching Nicole on TV. Catalina is working on her American accent by watching the news and repeating what she's just heard, only deeper, sultrier, and breathier. I could listen to hear read the tax code. Earl tells Catalina that if she had been able to speak that way a couple of months ago she wouldn't have been deported. But it's back to the news when who should magically appear but Randy's disembodied head. He's clad in chroma blue from the neck down. Catalina thinks it must be magic. Earl thinks it must be insanity. Randy's doing the Crazy Pacman head when the TV signal is replaced by the "Sorry, We're Having Technical Difficulties" Chill Out penguin.

Earl is sitting on his bed when Randy enters, festively emboldened by a large sombrero. Earl asks Randy what the hell are you up to. Randy replies by ripping a juicy gasser.

Editor's Note – I would never recommend subjecting your loved ones to blatant and sadistic flatulism unless your name is Randy and somebody asks you what the hell are you up to.

Randy tells Earl that he is tired of living in Earl's shadow, and that from now on he's going to be his own man and do his own thing, which one can only hope includes frequent underwear changing. Specifically, Randy tells Earl, he's going to do those things that Earl doesn't. Earl tells Randy that nobody is going to do a story on a gas-passing sombrero-wearing jackass. Randy tells Earl oh yes they will, and that when they do, he's going to make sure that his brother is a part of it because that's something that Earl doesn't do. That's when the penny drops for Earl, and he realizes that Randy is upset and feeling neglected and ignored. Earl tells Randy that he is going to make a point of including Randy from now on.

Cut to Earl and Randy building a new playhouse for Earl Jr. and Dodge. Randy is showing off his enunciating skills he learned in fat -- uh -- I mean drama camp. "Better butter butter -- better butter butter -- " Joy suddenly appears, modestly dressed, toting a Bible, escorted by her two sons. She's trying to present a wholesome image for her potential jury pool. Darnell, being in the witness protection program, hides his face behind a garbage can lid.

The playhouse finished, Randy paints a Little Rascals-style No Girls Allowed sign for the doorway, and all is positively Rockwellian.

Back at the Crabshack, Earl crosses the devastated playhouse off of his list. On the news, Nicole's feature on Earl is about to start. Nicole comes on and says that Earl's story is really the story of two brothers, hood-turned-good Earl Hickey and his sweet-but-meaty mentally disabled brother and man-child, Randy.

Whuh-huh?

Sweet but meaty man-child. Damn, that's good. Wish I'd written that.

Nicole's piece makes Randy look like a babbling fruitcake of a nutball. Nicole edited her piece to use every unflattering shot of Randy from "Better butter butter better butter butter -- " to his enthusiastic imitation of toddler Dodge's "I pooped my pants!" to his spot-on accurate depiction of a singing teapot.

Randy is supremely humiliated. He takes off for the TV station in a full snit, only to be accosted by Joy's, "Run, Forrest, run!"

Randy finally makes it to the station and confronts Nicole. How could you do this to me, he asks her. Nicole tells him that the Earl/Karma piece wasn't very interesting, and that she had to come up with something to make it watchable. (She could have included more Catalina.) And besides, Nicole tells Randy, all she did was make him look stupid just like he did to her. What goes around comes around, Nicole tells Randy, and then she's gone.

Earl catches up to Randy at the TV station to apologize. He's going to make Nicole re-do the piece to make Randy seem not so much the addle-minded slab of slow-witted Canadian bacon. But Randy tells Earl not to bother, that he's okay with the way he was presented because Karma noticed him and paid him back and that's really all he wanted. All's well that ends well, so the boys, using Crazy Arms, cross # 29 off of Earl's list. But not before Randy grabs a handful of Earl's junk. "No berry twisters, no berry twisters!" Earl shouts painfully.

Bedtime at the Pines Motel, and Earl is abed. Randy stuffs a piece of string into Earl's mouth. Earl wakes and idly asks Randy what he's doing. Randy tells Earl that he's after Earl's bad tooth, and he means to have it out. Earl protests that it's usually polite to ask permission before you start removing other people's body parts.

Permission, hell. Randy tells Earl that he's been tidying up a sleeping Earl for years. He clips Earl's toenails, scrapes Earl's corns, Q-tips Earl's ears, and trims Earl's bangs. Earl accepts this information groggily and goes back to sleep. A quick door slam and Earl's tooth is out. Small problem though: it's the wrong tooth. FTB.

---

Posted by Randy Welk on April 12, 2007 11:47 PM
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