Drawn Together Babies

"Drawn Together Babies"

"Drawn Together Babies" is the thirty-third episode of the animated series Drawn Together.

Storyline

We finally meet the Drawn Together Babies - our eight housemates living together as little tots. When Mommy and Daddy leave them with a mean babysitter, the babies plot against her and then accidentally kill her. They have to get rid of the body AND fool the babysitter's boyfriend into believing that four babies in a trench coat is actually the love of his life. The babies learn lessons about life and love as they work together to get themselves out of the mess they've made. And the whole while, a distinguished Gentleman narrates the story and points out each individual baby's life-altering event that turned them into the sick characters they are today.

Musical number: "Drawn Together Babies", the show's theme song, a parody of the Muppet Babies theme.

Canon issues

Although this episode humorously explains how the Drawn Together housemates came to be the way they are, it cannot be counted as canon, given that the premise of the episode, along with certain character details, directly contradicts the premise of the regular series. It should be noted that Executive Producer Bill Freiberger once said, "Very little on Drawn Together can be considered canon. If you try to find continuity on this show you'll drive yourself nuts. The only thing that's consistent is we try to make the show as funny as possible. And we'd never let a little thing like continuity get in the way of that."

• In this episode, the housemates are all roughly the same age, which is not true in the series.

• In this episode, the housemates are all siblings on their mother's side (since Clara mentions a "black daddy"), except for Captain Hero, who was adopted; in the series, none of them are related to each other, and did not even know each other until moving into the house as adults.

• In this episode, Captain Hero is an Earthling child with Earthling parents, and he has no superpowers, he just wears a cape and calls himself Captain Hero, all of this suggesting that he is a little boy playing at being a superhero, rather than actually being a superhero. In the series itself, it is established he is an alien from the planet Zebulon, as are his parents, he does have powers, and he is represented as indeed being an actual superhero, albeit a rather lame one.

• Wooldoor is a human toddler named Walter Saggett until the internal trauma he endures on the Sit 'n Spin turns him into a Sockbat. In the series, it is established that Sockbats are a separate species from regular humans.

• The episode suggests that Clara dislikes blacks because the group chose to listen to Foxxy instead of her; in the series itself, it is established that her father was responsible for her racist attitudes.

• The episode suggests that Xandir realized he was gay when he was kissed by Chad's Rebellious Brother Chase; in the series itself, Xandir's discovery comes about because of a ritual involving the ancient Wood Beast.

Notes and inside references

• This episode aired Sunday, September 2, in Latin America, over a month before its debut in the US.

• Tara Strong voices "Mommy," while Jess Harnell voices "Daddy."

• When she thinks the group is going to get in trouble for killing the babysitter, Toot cries, "I can't go back to time-out room, I won't go back!", then jumps through the window of a playset of a house. This is a reference to "Little Orphan Hero", when Clara screamed, "I can't go back to jail, I won't go back!", then jumped through the window of a hospital room. The gag was also used with Spanky in "Charlotte's Web of Lies", when he screamed about not wanting to go back to rehab.

• Hero tells Walter that if he tells what happened to the babysitter, he'll "talk to the DA about extenuating circumstances". This is a reference to "Gay Bash", when Clara tried to get Wooldoor to divulge the location of the lamp by making him the same offer.

• Foxxy sees Toot munching on a bag of Funyuns and says, "Them ain't yo' Funyuns! Them's Foxxy Funyuns!" As well as being a continuation of the show's running gag about Foxxy's love of the crunchy, onion-flavored snack food, this is a direct reference to "Little Orphan Hero", when she made the same complaint about her housemates stealing her Funyuns.

Animated Cameos

• During the opening credits Xandir is riding a toy car that resembles one of the automobiles from the movie Cars.

Cultural references

• This episode spoofs many cartoons that feature their characters as children, most prominently Muppet Babies.

• During the opening sequence, a baby named Sid states that he sleeps on his stomach; when he is shown moments later in the episode, he is dead (represented by the sound of flies buzzing around his bassinet). Sid's name is an acronym for sudden infant death syndrome, which is often caused by babies sleeping on their stomachs.

• After Ling-Ling declares that if he wanted to support three assholes, he would have bought a Color Me Badd album, the show cuts to Ling-Ling in the confessional singing their hit "I Wanna Sex You Up"; this is the only confessional segment in this episode.

• Near the end of the theme song, the housemates are pictured in a 3x3 grid, with a different housemate in each box (except for the lower right hand corner, which features baby Sid), mimicking the way the cast appeared in the credits of The Brady Bunch. This is the second time Drawn Together has used a shot like this, the first time being in "The Drawn Together Clip Show".

• Before she flings her used diaper, Foxxy declares that she is shy, and asks the others to "pretend that I'm the genocide in Sudan and turn your head", a reference to the Chadian-Sudanese Conflict and the Darfur conflict. The war is referenced again a few minutes later, when after Foxxy announces that the group must get rid of Chad (Charlotte's boyfriend), Clara, Xandir, Spanky, and Ling-Ling assume she means the country of Chad and take up arms.

• Stuck in his crib, Ling-Ling shouts, "Attica! Attica!", a reference to the Attica Prison riots.

• After Spanky says he has a plan to keep the group from having to go to bed, the screen spins around while music resembling the introduction to the Batman theme song plays, a reference to the 1960s Batman TV series. The gag is repeated later on in the episode after Chad discovers Chase and "Charlotte" together.

• When he is showing the babies the plan for catching the babysitter, Xandir uses toys as stand-ins for each of the characters; the toy figure he uses to represent Captain Hero is a Fisher-Price Little Person dressed up as a superhero.

• The subplot involving the Chad/Charlotte/Chase love triangle, as well as the tension between Chad and his family, is a general parody of soap operas.

• After each character performs an action which foreshadows their adult personality, a man in a smoking jacket (who is voiced by James Arnold Taylor) appears and says that is how that person ended up taking on this particular quality. This character, who previously appeared in "Captain Hero's Marriage Pact" and "Captain Girl", is a reference to Masterpiece Theatre.

• After telling "Charlotte" that pants would go well with her trench coat, Chad turns to the camera and says, "Pants- they're not just for chimps anymore!", after which a musical cue plays. This is another parody of NBC's "The More You Know" series of public service announcements.

• Foxxy, Toot, and Walter try to dispose of the babysitter's body by dumping it in the pool. This is a parody of the way characters in gangster movies get rid of corpses by dumping them in the nearest body of water.

• One of the friends who helps Foxxy retrieve the babysitter's body is Flipper the dolphin. Foxxy is also aided by a seahorse whom she calls "Tori Spelling", continuing the show's running gag of insulting Spelling (who had been previously compared to a dog in "Spelling Applebee's").

• The refrigerator in which the babies lock Captain Hero is labelled "My First Abandoned Refrigerator". This is a reference to a trend (which an episode of Punky Brewster helped bring to the public consciousness) during the 1980s where playing children would unintentionally lock themselves in abandoned refrigerators and suffocate.