“I Heart Connecticut”

Synopsis

Liz and Kenneth try to find Tracy's whereabouts before "TGS" can be cancelled. Meanwhile Pete, feeling emasculated, challenges the writers and crew to a contest of strength. Philip Rosenthal guest stars.

Episode Details

Episode
S05E019 (519)
First aired
14-Apr-2011
Transcript
View full dialogue
Writer
Vali Chandrasekaran & Jon Haller
Director
Stephen Lee Davis
Frank's Hat
Plumber College, Busy Signal

This episode had a ton of scenes. Just a whole huge assload of tiny scenes.

0:00
Liz
We need to talk. Right now. [grabs book from Dotcom and throws it] We know that Tracy’s not in Africa. He’s hiding somewhere in New York.
Dotcom
What?
Liz
Don’t play stupid, Walter.
Kenneth
We have ways of making people talk… [opens switchblade] …by giving them fresh apple slices. [starts cutting apple]

What book is Dotcom reading? I can’t tell from my SD recording of the show.

Tracy started “hiding” in “Africa” in S05E14 “Double-Edged Sword.” Speaking of tons of quotes, check out the “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks. Hilarious. They even have a book.

Dotcom’s full name is Walter “Dotcom” Slattery.

I dunno about the Kenneth joke. Moderately funny, but not funny enough to put in the first scene. Or maybe that’s the perfect place to put the less funny jokes, cuz maybe people missed the first minute of the show or they aren’t paying attention. You don’t want the good stuff in there!

0:16
Liz
Listen to me very carefully. This show is my life. I need Tracy back. Where is he?
Dotcom
You think we don’t walk him back? Do you know how much our cobra payments are? And he’s the only one who knows the combination to the candy safe.
Griz
The worst part is being able to see the candy.

“Cobra payments??” Is that what he said? Does Tracy have a cobra? Are they paying off Cobra so they don’t kick G.I. Joe’s ass? What’s going on?!

[Update:] Reader @conceived points out there’s a government program called COBRA (very cool acronym, government!) designed to provide health benefits to those who have temporarily lost their jobs. Like Tracy’s entourage with Tracy gone;)

0:36
Liz
All right. But if I find out you’re holding out on me I will no longer allow you to use my office for your history club.
Dotcom
That’s ironic cuz next week’s topic is fascism.

Cuz Liz is being fascist. Is it “being fascist” or “being a fascist?” You may recognize fascism from previous hits such as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

1:08
Jack
What about Griz and Dotcom?
Liz
They don’t know anything. Neither does anyone Tracy’s close to. His wife, Charles Barkley, Edward James Almost, who is an Edward James Olmos lookalike who Tracy is friends with.

1:18
Jack
Kenneth talks to Tracy on Skype, doesn’t he? Just call him.
Liz
It doesn’t work that way. Tracy only contacts Kenneth on special occasions like Bastille Day.
Jack
I’m going to go ahead and assume Bastille is a stripper.
Liz
As well you should.

Bastille Day is a French national holiday on July 14th, which started in 1790 and celebrates the post-revolution birth of modern France.

I can’t find anyone hot named Bastille. I looked.

1:42
Liz
For now our only lead is the pizza box that we saw Tracy eating from. We traced the phone number to a pizzeria in Queens. Listen to me, I sound like Cagney & Lacey but without the slutty clothes.

They discovered this last episode, S05E18 “Plan B,” and there is a real Federici’s Pizza but it’s in New Jersey.

Cagney & Lacey?? I haven’t heard that in forever. It was a TV show that was on from 1981-1988. They wore decidedly unslutty clothes.

2:00

Do you know how the business model works in the entertainment industry? Make ten shows and hope that one of them works. We produce more failed pilots than the French air force.

Ha! [high fives Jack]

Hmmm… I don’t really get this one. Are they making fun of the French air force in Libya? They seem to be doing all right. Though Americans do love to hate the French. Despite the Statue of Liberty gift. They seem to like that.

Though on April 11 an Air France Airbus 380 clipped a much smaller jet at the JFK International Airport on April 11. That was pretty funny. There’s a video.

3:03
Reggie
Uh, we’re not laughing with you, we’re laughing at you, you bald bitch. [crew laughs]
Pete
Yes, Reggie, I am bald. I lost my hair at a very early age when I hit that Gypsy’s kid with my car, but I am still your boss.

Ahhh the old Gypsy curse! If folk tales, horror novels, and movie adaptations have taught us nothing it’s don’t eff with a Gypsy. For instance, the wicked Drag Me to Hell (2009) or Steven King’s Thinner (1996).

3:26
Jenna
Listen up, fives, a ten is speaking. As you may have heard, the Jenna Baby dolls I was selling on QVC have been recalled. Apparently they were just being used to smuggle cocaine into the country from Mexico. And that’s caused some problems.
Little Girl 1
[bedroom cutaway] Let’s just go to soccer practice now! I mean right now!
Little Girl 2
[bedroom cutaway] Yes! It’s four in the morning! Let’s do it!
Little Girl 1
[bedroom cutaway] We own this town!

Jenna showed this off last episode: S05E18 “Plan B.”

I love the coked up little girls. So sweet.

3:56
Jenna
That’s right, Frank. I booked a movie. It’s called “Take My Hand.” It’s kind of an artsy character study about a young woman who has a lot of holes drilled into her head by a deranged veterinarian named Slaughterface.
Frank
Oh, so you’re doing a torture porn thing, like “Saw.”
Jenna
Exactly! In fact, the producers of this movie rented Saw and watched it. So let me know if Tracy comes back. Until then I’ll be in Stanford, Connecticut. We’re shooting there for tax reasons. On a unrelated matter, does anyone know where I can get intimate bleaching done in Stanford, Connecticut. Anyone? [leaves at Pete enters] I’m leaving to do a movie, Pete.

Slaughterface! Very nice. Kind of a (even more) twisted version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s Leatherface.

The Saw series is up to 7 films, the last being Saw: The Final Chapter. They revolve around a deranged serial killer who puts people in no-win situations where they have to choose being doing nothing and dying or horribly mutilating themselves but living.

I’m pretty sure “intimate bleaching” is anal bleaching. It’s totally a thing. There are whole websites devoted solely to anal bleaching. The internet truly is our greatest invention.

4:45
Frank
Can we order lunch from Ikea?
Pete
No! I’m the producer, I’m picking lunch today!

Can you actually order lunch from Ikea?? How fun! Their meatballs are pretty tasty. And of course the lingonberry jam and herring. I was just there last week. They have frozen pizza. Which doesn’t strike me as particularly Swedish, but who doesn’t like pizza? C’mon.

5:14
Liz
Kay. Good. My son is currently studying at a local pizza academy –
Enzo
Really? Which one?
Kenneth
New.. York.. Pizza Academy.
Enzo
Well then I hate you. Because I’m a Pizza Academy of New York man.
Liz
[laughs]
Kenneth
[laughs] Wonderful.

Not a thing.

6:07
Pete
[montage of arm wresting victories] [beats Toofer] [beats Cerie] Yeah! Eat your weakness! [beats Subhas while reading a magazine] [beats Jack]
Jack
Congratulations. According to the transitive property you just defeated Muammar Gaddafi in arm wrestling.

The janitor Pete beats is Subhas, who is actually the janitor in real life.

Muammar Gaddafi has been the leader of Libya since 1969 when he overthrew the king. He’s crazy and has recently been… talking more. Which sort of highlights the crazy. Oddly enough it’s close to the same time Charlie Sheen started babbling on publicly. He’s also crazy, but funnier about it. If you want five minutes of hilarity, check out this guy on YouTube who put together a game of “guess who said the crazy quote.” Gaddafi or Sheen? You decide!

Btw, if you’ve ever wondered why you see Muammar Gaddafi spelled Moammar Gadhafi or Mummar Goddafi or a variety of other spellings, it’s because it’s an Arabic name and Arabic has no direct translation to English. You just kind of spell it out like it sounds, so the transliteration will vary on who is spelling it and what sort of accent they have. That’s what you also see Mohamed and Muhammad or Mohamed or Muhammad. Hebrew is similar along with a lot of languages that don’t use the Roman alphabet.

The “transitive property” is if A is greater than B and B is greater than C, then A is therefore greater than C. Or how whenever you sleep with someone you’re sleeping with everyone they’ve ever slept with. Which can be hot or super gross, and you’ll probably never truly know which.

6:39
Frank
Pete! Lunch is your pick!
Pete
Take out from Hooters!
Frank
That makes no sense!
Pete
We’ll know they touched it!

I find Hooters hilarious. They were sort of risque in the 80s with all of the waitresses wearing low-cut tight white shirts and high-cut orange shorts, but now it’s just sort of throwback bizarre. And they wear pantyhose under the shorts. Which, unless that’s your fetish, is simply wrong.

7:07
Shawn
Cut! I just got a text from the studio. We’re shutting down production.
Jenna
What?
Slaughterface
But I turned down Carousel at the Goodspeed for this.

We’ve seen Shawn a few times before. He’s played by Seth Kirschner and was first seen in S04E02 “Into the Crevasse” where he was the director of Jenna’s Icelandic werewolf movie, then in S04E21 “Emanuelle Goes to Dinosaur Land” when he was the director on Garfield 3, and last in S05E05 “Reaganing” when he directed Tracy in a commerical for the Boys & Girls Club.

Slaughterface/Dana’s reference is to Carousel, the musical, which first premiered in 1945. The Goodspeed is an opera house in East Haddan, Connecticut.

7:41
Liz
This must be it.
Kenneth
Yes ma’am. There have been several deliveries to this address of Mr. Jordan’s signature order: large cheese pizza with one slice taken out so I can pretend I’m eating Pac-Man, like my hero Blinky the ghost.

Okay everyone knows who Pac-Man is. But do you know the names of all of the ghosts? Blinky is the red one, Pinky is… pink, Inky is blue (“cyan,” actually), and Clyde is orange.

7:57
Liz
[rings bell]
Tracy
[looks up]
Liz
[rings bell]
Tracy
[gets off couch]
Tracy
I hear someone coming.
Tracy
[opens door] Well, well, well. You found me. After I ordered Thai food and gave you this address. [to delivery man]
Foreman
[opens door to Liz and Kenneth] Yeah?

This is a common trope. I remember a duplicate of this scene in The Silence of the Lambs when they were coming up to Buffalo Bill’s house. Oh my God! They found Tracy! He’s coming to the door! OH MAN THEY GOT ME! It’s totally some random dude and Tracy ordered Thai food. Oh, you writers!

8:33
Foreman
No, no one living here. At least not since we moved in two weeks ago.
Kenneth
Wait a minute. Was that stuff here when you moved in? [goes through garbage bin] A copy of Black Yachts magazine and a Rubik’s cube that has been smashed out of anger! Mr. Jordan was here!

Not a real magazine. I know, you’re shocked. You were all like “where can I order a copy??” Sorry. You’re SOL.

9:18
Jenna
Jack, can we talk? One ten to another?
Jack
I’m an eleven, but continue.
Jenna
Me, my ass double, and a drill that once appeared on Home Improvement are currently starring in a feature film called Take My Hand.

Ahhh Home Improvement. 1991-1999 sitcom starring Tim Allen. And it was Pamela Anderson’s first recurring character role. It was too small, though, so she went on to do Baywatch.

9:28
Jack
Really? Years ago Universal had a project by that name. It was a romantic comedy with Reese Witherspoon and Patrick Dempsey.
Jenna
Reese Witherspoon’s just a likable version of me.
Jack
Then she dropped out and it was rewritten as a buddy comedy with Dempsey and Josh Hartnet but everyone fell asleep during the table read, so we moved it over to Telemundo where they tried to turn it into a variety show hosted by a supermodel and a soccer ball with a mustache.
Jenna
I met that soccer ball once at a no-hands-allowed sex party.
Jack
Then after another round of rewrites it was picked up by our low-budget-thriller/high-budget-porno-division Spider Flicks and now it’s a horror movie starring “any blonde actress.”

Reese Witherspoon is an actress most famous for Pleasantville (1998) (love that movie), American Psycho (2000) (just watched that; so good), Legally Blonde (2001), and Walk the Line (2005). Family Guy also had a hilarious bit where they use her chin to cut into a bank vault.

Patrick Dempsey, actor, recently famous for the TV show Grey’s Anatomy and the movie Enchanted (2007).

Josh Hartnet, recently famous for Black Hawk Down (2001), Pearl Harbor (2001), Lucky Number Slevin (2006), 30 Days of Night (2007).

Telemundo is an American network that broadcasts in Spanish. Apparently it does this weird thing where is starts shows three or four minutes after they’re supposed to start and goes the same amount over into the next time slot to keep people from changing the channel to something else, seeing as they’ve now missed the start of it. Well screw you, Telemundo! The DVR is putting an end to your shenanigans!

I love that the role is for “any blonde actress” and that Jenna’s super proud.

11:32
Jack
Lemon, you look terrible. And I once watched you eat oysters while you had a cold.
Liz
We had him, Jack, and we lost him. So Kenneth and I had to spend the rest of the afternoon trying to think like Tracy. I ended up eating a swordfish dinner at a strip club and Kenneth grabbed a cop’s gun and shot a blimp.
Jack
Well tomorrow’s another day so go home, have a glass of wine and watch a show about wedding cake disasters.

Wow that sounds exactly like stuff Tracy would do. Nice!

12:00
Jack
Did you make sure that Tracy wasn’t pretending to be his own wax figure at Madame Tussauds?
Liz
Yes. There was some confusion and I ended up punching the real Levar Burton. I’m going to get Jeremy. I hope he’s not still in heat. He has got my top off before.

Madame Tussauds is a series of wax museums all across the world, famous for its incredibly lifelike wax statues of famous people. The part I like is you can touch them. So you can get pictures of you gently caressing Jodi Foster’s cheek. You know, if that’s your thing. You can also give George Bush the finger, which should be most people’s thing.

Levar Burton is an actor most famous for Reading Rainbow! Okay, he may have been in Star Trek: The Next Generation, too.

12:19
Jenna
Did you know that Connecticut is home to the oldest public library in the United States.
Jack
Huh. Could you use that to motivate Slaughterface sewing the sheriff’s mouth to his own anus?
Jenna
[types]
Jack
Of course. Elegent. Uh, should Vaginatorium be capitalized?
Jenna
[nods and types]

Jenna’s reading the book A History Of Connecticut. I can’t find this book anywhere. It would be bizarre if they made it up for the show. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just go out and buy a book instead of getting the art department to make up a fake cover? Maybe there’s legal issues involved.

Sewing the sheriff’s mouth to his own anus, aside from being a wonderful image, is probably a reference to the 2010 movie The Human Centipede, where a crazy German doctor sews four people together, mouth-to-anus. I warn you now: this movie cannot be unwatched. Oddly enough they sort of mention this movie by name a few scenes on.

Vaginatorium?? Fantastic.

12:36
Pete
Oh! I cannot WAIT to humiliate that guy in front of all of his meat head buddies.
Frank
You’re like a new man, Pete!
Pete
Yeah I am. Last night I had sex with Paula and neither of us was wearing a Walkman.

I love that it’s Walkmans. Not iPods or just “music players” or “headphones,” but Walkmans. Excellent image. I had one of the first cassette-based Sony Walkmans in the 80s, which I listened to while delivering fliers. When we explain this to the children of today it will be like when we heard our parents talking about Brownie cameras and gas lamps and the advent of indoor plumbing. So weird.

13:28
Jenna
[panicked, in cage, surveying room]
Slaughterface
[enters room] No one’s coming to save you. Because we’re deep inside one of Connecticut’s thirty beautiful state forests. Thirty!
Jenna
Oh please! Don’t kill me. I still haven’t tried the famous seafood pizza at Sully’s in Newhaven. [screams]

Connecticut actually has sixty-nine state forests. I assume they didn’t bother to look it up, because why wouldn’t you use that number?? Here, count for yourself.

There’s definitely a Sully’s Pub in Newhaven, CT, and they do have a “White Clam” and a “Shrimp Scampi” pizza.

Let’s play Spot the Difference Between The Earlier Scene And This One:

  • There is now a “Visit CONNECTICUT” posted on the wall.
  • Impaled guy’s blank t-shirt is now a “UCONN HUSKIES” t-shirt.
  • Written on the wall in blood is now www.iheartconnecticut.com (not a site) instead of “Welcome to HELL.”
  • When Slaughterface opens the door there’s a Yale flag behind him and a “Greetings from Connecticut” poster beside him.

14:02
Shawn
And cut! Ah! Great, all right. Let’s move on to the scene where Slaughterface centipedes Jenna to the docent of the Danbury Railway Museum.

Centipedes! Here we go. Another reference to The Human Centipede. Sick.

Danbury Railway Museum: real place. It’s in… Danbury, CT. Museum docents are volunteer tour guides.

14:34
Pete
Reggie. I need to show you something. [takes off his shirt]
Reggie
Whoa! Is that your deltoid?

I’m pretty sure that was his upper dorsimus.

15:58
Jack
We’re not done yet. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Phil Rosenthal, the creator of the acclaimed show Everybody Loves Raymond.
Phil Rosenthal
Last great sitcom, still does a three-four share in syndication. I do okay. I have a refrigerator that’s just for soda so I-

Phil Rosenthal was indeed the creator, writer, and executive producer for the ironically named Everybody Loves Raymond (1996-2005). It was a painfully unfunny sitcom that lasted far too long.

Last great sitcom?? Are you kidding me? It was kind of a throwback to the pre-Seinfeld era of sitcoms. The blandly amusing 80s dreck that’s incredibly painful to watch now that we’ve been exposed to the genius of Seinfeld, Arrested Development, Better Off Ted, and oh, I dunno, maybe 30 Rock?

I don’t know what “a three-four share in syndication” means.

And I love that there’s now a random blue muppet in the movie.

16:26
Jenna
I never heard back about my audition for Everybody Loves Raymond. I’d wondered if you’d made a decision.
Phil Rosenthal
Yeah, fifteen years ago. We went with Doris Roberts. But thank you for tying your head shot around a brick and throwing it through my window.
Jenna
[nods]

She auditioned for the part that Doris Roberts got? So Jenna auditioned for the part of Ray Romano’s mom?? Nice;)

17:55
Liz
Do you really think I really wouldn’t recognize MY college futon with its trademark absence of sex stains? This is the stupidest idea you’ve ever had.

Because college futons are usually sticky with syphilis. Do not buy a second-hand college futon.

18:49
Tracy
As a time saver I will refer to the two of you as Clemen. I wanted that next level, Clemen. Now remember, to save time, you two are Clemen. It’s a combination of-
Liz
Just keep going.
Tracy
I had everything I dreamed of. Awards. Respect. Justin Long’s autograph. But I also got expectations. People thought I could change the world, and it’s too much pressure. Like the time I got stuck in Temple Granite’s hug machine at the Golden Globes party.
Liz
You pretended to be in Africa so that no one would be disappointed in you.
Tracy
I’m sorry I did this to you, half a Clemen. I had no choice. Sean Penn wanted me to go to Haiti with him and I’m not strong enough for the pain and the human misery of a three hour plane ride with Sean Penn. I’m tried of hiding. I just want my old life back.

Clemen. Ha! Love it.

Justin Long is an actor, famous for playing the Mac in Apple’s I’m a Mac ad campaign, as well as the movies Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004) (funny), Accepted (2006), Live Free or Die Hard (2007) (pretty good), and Drag Me to Hell (2009) (hilarious).

Interesting, hmmm? Pete mentioned being cursed by gypsies and here at the end of the episode Tracy mentions Justin Long who played in Drag Me to Hell which surrounds a character cursed by a gypsy! Amazing. I know. This is why you visit this site;)

[Update:] I just kind of ignored the Template Granite’s hug machine for some reason. Reader @conceived does a great job of explaining it:

Temple Granite’s hug machine refers back to Temple Grandin’s invention, the hug machine. She has high-functioning autism, and invented the hug or squeeze machine to provide sensory pressure, as an alternative to being comforted by other humans (which gave her immense anxiety). The 2010 movie Temple Grandin is based on her life story. Highly recommended!

19:36
Liz
Then you need to get people to stop respecting you and start remembering what an idiot you are! You’re off the leash, Tracy.
Tracy
It’s not a leash! It’s a very long skin tag!

The medical name for a skin tag is an acrochordon or fibroepithelial polyp. They’re benign. You can freeze them off, snip them off, or tightly tie a thread around them and they’ll just fall off.

19:47
Liz
You want your old life back? You’re Tracy Jordan! Hulk Hogan called you a dirtbag! the NAACP once hired someone to kill you! You wore a penis hat to Princess Diana’s funeral!
Tracy
Because I wore it to their wedding! It was special to the three of us!

I swear I remember Hulk Hogan calling people dirtbags, but I can’t find it anywhere. It totally sounds like something he’d say. I also like the word “dirtbag.” It reminds me of the song Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus.

The NAACP is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Apparently they were tired of Tracy setting their agenda back a few decades.

20:59
Voice over
[on TV] To vote for Phil Rosenthal text “PHIL” to 62288.
Liz
“Vote?” For what? Isn’t this supposed to be a movie?
Jack
Again, it doesn’t matter. People will just do it and we get $0.99 a text.
Liz
Well I am not letting Rosenthal win. I am voting for the muppet.
Voice over
To vote for Liz Lemon, text “LIZ” to 62288.

Okay I didn’t try texting to that number. But I live in Canada so it probably wouldn’t work. Anyone want to try it?;)

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