Today we start with various scenes of Dudd moving around the city with his portfolio, generally annoying the public. ["Ooh! This is the episode featuring Dave 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius' Eggers, when he was editing Might! Incidentally, that book contains a good chunk of material about Judd generally (Eggers also tried out to be in the cast that year and figures that Judd took the 'middle-class white guy with curly hair' slot that would have otherwise gone to Eggers himself), and about The Real World generally (including an anecdote about meeting Puck and being very afraid of him)." -- Wing Chun] At lunch with an unidentified man, Judd says that he needs some help to get his foot in the door. "Persistence," replies his companion. I would just like to say that persistence is not always the best tactic. For instance, I had a run-in with an applicant the other day who took the concept of persistence a little too far.
Sep: Good afternoon, Sep's company's name.
Applicant: Yeah. Hi. My name is Joe Blow and I got a letter from you stating that my 'skills did not match [your] current personnel needs,' and I just don't see how that's possible. I am a college graduate.
He neglects to mention that he has his A.A. in Applied Sciences (whatever that is. Shop?) and not in a field relating in any way to graphic design.
Sep: [looking at the worst-designed résumé to land on her desk all year] Unfortunately, you don't have the two years of day-to-day graphic design or production experience that we require.
Applicant: [yelling] How can you say I don't have experience? I have been working in the field for five years.[at a rate of one freelance project per year]. Are you even qualified to make that judgment? What's your background? How can you come to a decision about me without even seeing my portfolio? How late are you open? I'm going to come down there and make you look at my portfolio.
Sep: Sir, I'm sure you're really strong in the Force or whatever, but I'm looking at your résumé right now and I see four typos. One of them is the name of the software package in which you profess to have "expert level knowledge."
Then he threatened to kick my ass, which pretty much guarantees that I won't hire him now. So think twice about how persistent you want to be.
Apparently Dudd didn't threaten to rearrange any faces at the Examiner, because he has an interview there for a position as a weekly cartoonist.
In the kitchen, Cory and Pedro are reading a cartoon of Dudd's. "Honey, we've got minstrels again"? reads Cory inquisitively from the strip as the camera zooms in on the cartoon in question, showing minstrels coming up from the toilet. Pedro and Cory don't get it even after Dudd explains what minstrels are. Judd is incredulous that two people could find his work unamusing and defensively says, "It's just funny...it's funny. That's comedy." Hmmm. If you have to explain it and afterwards people still don't get it, maybe it's not so much comedy and more like a missed joke. Trust me, I know whereof I speak. One Christmas, I got a free cassette tape of Christmas carols courtesy of the Paralyzed Veterans of America. The title on the tape's sleeve was, "The Paralyzed Veterans of America presents: 'I'll be home for Christmas'" which caused me no end of laughter because, of course they'll be home for Christmas -- they're the Paralyzed Veterans of America. Now, before you write me off as a cold-hearted bitch please let me say that I did send them a donation and that I don't walk around with the belief that the disabled to were put on this earth for my personal amusement. I just think that someone in their organization should have pointed out that the title was open to numerous interpretations. (And they still need to hire someone to do this because I just got a shopping list from the Paralyzed Vets titled, "Things I need at the store.") My point was that everyone to whom I tell this story doesn't find it as unintentionally hilarious as I do. Obviously, I just have a sick sense of humour.
Dudd and Mo are discussing the size of Dudd's swelled head. This segues into Mo's storyline about his music. We learn that Midnight Voices had a "really bad distributor." And they decided to just "do the music and whatever happens, happens." This is necessary so Mo doesn't go "crazy." Then we immediately cut to Mo walking through the house half laughing, half screaming in what one might deem a "crazy" manner, as Puck yammers in the background. Hey, check out that Tulsta tub chair from IKEA in the background. Wow, that's been a part of their line forever. This IKEA archeology moment was brought to you by the letters D-O-R and K. Mo's interview helpfully provides a framework for his and Puck's pending discussion. Puck had been stereotyping all rap artists as wearing "big pants" and "big jackets" and "people trying to go out and steal women's purses. And these were his exact words." Back to the argument at hand where Mo tries to explain that if Puck makes assumptions based on other people's appearances then he can't get offended when others do the same to him. Puck asserts that his "image does not violate anyone else's rights." Yeeeeaah, but then what's good for the goose is good for the rapper, right? But no, Puck continues talking about how a rap artists' image is "negative for a kid that doesn't know." Because drunk driver, sociopathic, recidivistic Puck is such a pillar of the community.
More Dudd walking, more Dudd hanging up the phone receiver over and over and over. The scent of desperation is almost palpable. The Dudd voice-over complains of eating pasta five nights a week and all he asks are for "simple pleasures." Simple pleasures like living in a great house in one of San Francisco's most desirable neighborhoods RENT-FREE for five months? Well, colour me unsympathetic. Dudd has invited Pedro to his pity party in the living room. Dudd, in a mix of interviews and the Pedro footage, talks about how everything was fine when he was in school; everyone loved his comic strip and the book that he put out, and he had signed a contract with Universal. Then, wonder of wonders, Judd discovered that the actual real world things are a little different than the insular university community. Universal dropped his strip with "no warning," and he had to move back home. Could someone tell me why he couldn't just get another job? Maybe not something as glamorous as having your own comic strip, but certainly enough to pay the bills. The tone in which Dudd says these things suggests that we are to feel a great level of sympathy for him as if he was the first person in the world to move back in with the folks. At least he HAD folks to move back in with. Personally, I feel greater sympathy for his parents.
One morning, Dudd gets a call from his friend Greg who works for Greystone Communications, and who has pitched his strip as an animated series like a "Gen-X Simpsons." I'm so shocked at the sacrilege of DUDD thinking that he could come up with anything even one tenth as funny as The Simpsons (last season excluded) that I'm almost left speechless. Luckily, whilst I make sputtering noises of disbelief, my little fingers soldier on. So Dudd has an appointment with these Greystone cats and is flying off to L.A. to meet with them. Over footage of a plane taking off, Dudd tells us, "What I do know is that this is the only thing I can do. I'm supposed to be a cartoonist...I have nothing to fall back on; I either do this or I don't do anything." I'm assuming this is supposed to indicate the importance of this meeting in L.A. and Dudd's commitment to his work but somehow I'm left with a bad taste in my mouth at his overwhelming sense of entitlement.
Establishing shots of L.A. If you've ever seen an episode of , you've seen half of these shots. Dudd is now talking with a bunch of guys who the screen tells me are "Greystone Execs." These guys are so slick I'm surprised they don't slide down my TV screen. Anyway, at a meeting and over lunch Dudd tries to talk the talk. In an interview, he explains that his arrogance is merely a strategy, but that doesn't stop a slow rage from boiling in me when Dudd claims that he could have written Seinfeld "in his sleep." Dudd is squired into a Mercedes (and the editing team makes sure we know it's a Mercedes) to a meeting with "the agent." In said meeting, Dudd reiterates for the thirty millionth time that wants to do a "twentysomethings Simpsons." I'm not going to say too much more about this since nothing relevant was discussed, but "the agent" is by far the most loathsome of the L.A. people we've met so far. I just want to strap him down to a chair and give him a haircut and alter his jacket so it actually fits him. With the sleeves covering most of his hands he looks like he's playing dress-up.
Cory, Puck, and Rachel pick Dudd up at the airport, and Dudd gets all pissy because Puck won't shut up about himself. Big surprise. In a confessional, Dudd pouts that it was his "big day...and nobody is going to care." Nobody but Pam, who finds him at Caffé Greco, drawing. Although, really, this meeting could have taken place at any time after the L.A. meeting. I think the producers are trying to sow the seeds of the eventual Pam/Dudd romance.
"We're getting ready to go to the Bammies," says Cory into the telephone, thus setting up the plot of this episode. Mo tells the viewers at home that the Bammies are a local music-awards show like the Grammies. Everyone gets ready except for Pam, because her boyfriend is in town.
At the Bammies, the cast is mingling. Rachel points out some rock star in the crowd, but since I listen to my music instead of watching it I have no idea who it is. The camera focuses on a boot with the name "Chris" on it. Since Chris Isaak is local, I'm going to assume the boot is his. Mo spends some time talking up his band, Midnight Voices, to some people in the crowd.
Pam and her boyfriend, Christopher, walk down the street talking. In an interview, Pam tells us that they have been together for eight years, since their senior year of high school. That gives me the willies, because whenever I think back on some of my romantic decisions of yesteryear and then imagine still being involved with one of them today...Anyway, they're going to Tosca, which is actually one of my favourite bars in SF because they make a good non-slushy margarita, and because they have sparkly red vinyl booths like the banana seat of my old Schwinn. More shots of Pam and Christopher, who are now rowing a boat in Stowe Lake, which I only recognize because I walk around it every day. I'm so pleased that I recognized two locales in one episode. I guess I'm not as much of a hermit as I thought. In an interview, Pam says that Chris and Judd have a lot in common: "They're both very liberal, they're both funny, and they probably have very similar political views...they are, at base, really nice guys who have let women walk on them." Which I'm sure is going to be very comforting to Chris when Pam breaks up with him for someone JUST LIKE HIM. Pam loses even more points in Sep's America when she says, "Judd is the kind of guy that I would see in a bar and not target but he is the kind of guy who, if he was [sic] my friend, I would probably get involved with him. If I wasn't dating anyone."
Midnight Voices is having a gig on Saturday night. They perform, and all of the roommates attend the show. Poor Cory just has no rhythm. Puck is also in the audience, which makes me wonder if this was before or after the tantrum he threw because nobody went to his soapbox extravaganza. Mo is happy because some A&R person in the audience liked what he heard.
Dudd provides the producers with a convenient segue saying that he "understands" what Mo's doing because he knows what it's like to create something. But he's in a slump right now because he spent the whole day working on scripts, and when he read them over later he thought they were crap. Hey Dudd, maybe you just need to take a nap or something. Didn't you say that you could write Seinfeld in your sleep? The producers have very cleverly inserted a shot of the omnipresent pasta dinner into the footage, just so we get the point that even though he's had a meeting in L.A. and everything, he's still a loser. Later, Dudd is complaining some more to Cory, who tries to reassure him, but he "can't decide whether to watch television or pout." Cut to Judd doing both -- watching TV with Pedro, and pouting. I'm glad he resolved that life-changing dilemma.
Dudd enters the house and Puck asks how his day was. "You are speaking to the new weekly cartoonist for the San Francisco Examiner." Everyone starts yelling congratulations and poor little Cory is all, "What? You got a job?" to Dudd sitting to her. Maybe I should stop making fun of Cory. It's obvious she has some sort of degenerative brain disease.
Shots of the Examiner rolling off the presses. Dudd buys a dozen or so from a vending machine and hands them out to his roommates. Dudd calls home to tell the folks, who are secretly relieved that their son has made it as a cartoonist because now they don't have to go through all that trouble of packing up their life and moving away without a forwarding address so Dudd can't move back in with them. Um, not that they said that outright or anything. I'm just extrapolating from the footage we've seen.
week Rachel's friend Heather is interested in Puck. This isn't going to be a problem at all, because Rachel is in no way interested in Puck. Uh huh.
In a bit of editing spite, over the credits Pedro is reading another one of Dudd's cartoons, which he also doesn't get. Judd: "It's a big fat guy shoving eggplants down a toilet. That's funny. That's comedy."