Gimmick episodes on television shows (Supernatural, Fringe, X-Files, etc.)

Jan 2, 2013 | Fiction/Lit/Movies

I’m binging through Supernatural on Netflix, and I just got to Season 4, episode 5, “Monster Movie.” (Slight spoilers for jokes ahead.) I just wanted to let everyone know that this episode includes the 1931 version of Dracula (corny accent and all) driving off on a moped to escape the main character, Dean, and as Dracula is driving off you hear a little *beep beep*! That’s pretty much all, though. That’s the meat of this post. I’m just mentioning a joke that happened once. Everything that follows is all filler.

Anyways. This show does gimmick episodes really well. Here’s a later exchange from the same episode:

*ding dong*! [Dracula opens the door]
Dracula: Good eee-vening!
Bored Pizza Boy: [pause] Uh, pizza… delivery.
Dracula: Ah! You’ve brought a repast! Excellent! Continue to be of such service and your life will be spared.
Bored Pizza Boy: Uh huh. That’ll be $15.50
Dracula: Tell me… is there… garlic on this pizza?
Bored Pizza Boy: [pause] I don’t know. Did you order garlic?
Dracula: [offended] No!

The jokes are obvious, but they work.

I want to put together a binge list of just multiple shows’ gimmick episodes, including shows like The X-Files, Supernatural, Fringe, etc. (Though what that “etc.” includes is up for debate.) The hard thing would be determining precisely which gimmicks to include. Options for breaking it down would be something like this:

  • All the gimmick episodes for a few specific shows.
  • All the Halloween or Christmas episodes (although in this case just doing every, say, Simpsons Halloween special would be, like, 23 episodes or whatever just by itself).
  • Multiple variations of “the episode in black and white” (i.e. the “riff on old movies” episode).
  • Multiple variations of “the episode that’s a cartoon” (possibly the “everyone takes drugs” episode).
  • Multiple variations of “the Rashomon episode.”

And, since this post is basically just an ad for Supernatural, I’ll mention that the next episode features a wishing well. It includes a kid who wishes for super strength then uses it to terrorize the other kids who were bullying him, at one point screaming, towards the sky, arms upraised, “Kneel before Tod! KNEEL BEFORE TOD!