"The Rat Dog"
I think Larry David spies on me. Until this week I could have chalked everything up to coincidence (the smoke alarm, "shmo-hawk" and disturbing car rides), but when he devoted every other scene in this episode to a toaster that doesn't actually toast anything, well, I had to wonder where he keeps the surveillance camera. The idea that it could take 15 minutes to toast some bread (and still have it be bread and not toast) hits incredibly close to home, and as funny as it is, I'm starting to get creeped out. On the other hand, maybe these are just the universal truths of the human condition that Shakespeare never got around to examining.
So what kind of mayhem did this so-called toaster cause? Well, in the rush to get out of the house, Larry and Leon accidentally switched up their identical cell phones, and Loretta missed her job interview. But the misfortune didn't end there (does it ever?); Larry rejected Leon's job offer, thinking it was a telemarketer, and Leon insulted the already-incensed Hal (Tim Meadows) by talking about "tapping [Hal's wife's] ass", thinking it was a different Hal, and then proclaiming, "Barack Obama, motherf--ker! Barack Obama! I'm the president of hitting that ass." So in the end, thanks to the toaster, Larry's dream of Loretta and Leon leaving the house ended in a hail of "F--k you"s and inadvertently obscene sign language.
For once though, Larry wasn't solely responsible for the debacle at the middle school's production of
Grease. It was Jeff who recommended Lisa the "masseuse" to Larry (for his dad), and it was his exterminator that invited himself to be Larry's date to the play. Because all ingredients come together just right on
Curb for complete mayhem, Larry's dad invited his "lady love" out for a night on the town to the play with Larry and the exterminator. If that dog hadn't looked so much like a rat (I'm a dog lover and even I agree), perhaps Larry's dad wouldn't have screamed, the exterminator wouldn't have trampled it, and a whole auditorium would have been spared the therapy bills that are sure to follow. Furthermore, let's not forget that it was Cheryl's illness and her subsequent demand for toasted toast that caused the rush out of the door before Loretta's job interview - not to mention that if she had just sucked it up and gone to the play with Larry, a dog might not have lost its life.
JB Smoove's Leon is without a doubt one of the funniest characters on television right now, so it seems only appropriate that the list of this episode's quotables starts with a couple of his lines:
" "You can't pause toast!"
" "How do you know I haven't flipped your ass?"
" "Please tell me you're not coming on to me." "No good?"
" "I guess since she can't hear, she's not able to detect tone."
" "She did things that say 'love.'"
Alright, I'm going to go check for evidence of wiretapping. Please refrain from attempting sign language for the next week, and if you hear of any sales on toasters, let me know.
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