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Written by Murray Miller & Judah Miller
It's PXJT/NMSQT season again, but Abe Lincoln is losing sleep running errands for his beloved Cleopatra. Joan's concern about Abe's fatigue uncovers her own dark secret regarding sleep depravation. Gandhi, overwhelmed by the pressure of the PXJT/NMSQT, decides to spurn the test and become a trucker instead. And Mr. Butlertron meets an old foe: a cocksure test-grading machine. (Scrubs' John C. McGinley guest stars as the creepy trucker.)
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How about this episode, huh? Good stuff. Murray and Judah, the dudes who wrote it, are two of the funniest people I’ve ever met, despite their old-man names.
THE GREATEST JOKE EVER WRITTEN
This week’s Greatest Joke Ever Written is actually three jokes in one. Is that cheating? Am I allowed to choose three jokes? I don’t know, bro. But who’s gonna stop me? Not you. Anyway, the three jokes are so compact, squished into one sentence, that you probably didn’t laugh at any of them when you first watched the episode. It’s funny how that happens sometimes. If we had just chosen one joke, then paused for laughter, you would have laughed. But instead, we cram in the funny, and you don’t laugh at all. What’s wrong with you, humanity? Why are you so fickle, laugh-wise?
Anyway, here’s the joke. After Joan, Gandhi and Abe have met the Creepy Trucker in the Grassy Knoll, Gandhi looks out the window and sees his rig. Then, daydreaming, he says, “Man, trucking must be the life. Whizzing in a bottle, solving mysteries, not having to take the PXJTs all the time...”
Let’s break this down. First of all, it’s Gandhi’s reasons for believing trucking is such a fun profession that make this joke The Greatest Joke Ever Written. First: “whizzing in a bottle.” I must admit, this does sound kind of cool. Truckers don’t need to stop to pee, they just let loose right there in their seat. Last weekend, I was driving to Vegas with a friend, and honestly, I would have benefited from one of those apparatuses that you strap to your penis to a hose that connects to an external bladder. Eventually, after a long conversation about this, we stopped at a Flying-J to pee and envied the truckers carrying their giant plastic bottles of golden whiz into the bathrooms. It did raise the question, however: what do women truckers attach their hose to?
Second: for some reason, Gandhi believes truckers “solve mysteries.” Why? I don’t know. Maybe he’s watched too many episodes of the 1970s mystery-solving trucker television drama “Movin’ On.” Or maybe it’s just common knowledge that truckers solve mysteries. (By the way, if you ever need someone to sing the theme song to “Movin’ On -- you know, for a birthday party or something -- I suggest you ask Clone High writer Tom Martin.)
Third: “Not having to take the PXJTs all the time.” Okay, let me stop right here. Within this joke, there are actually two jokes. Which, I guess, brings the grand total of jokes within this joke up to four. But I still count it all as one joke. Let’s just say there are two “funny things” about this phrase, and that way, our clever use of semantics will allow us to avoid further discussion of whether this four-joked joke is actually eligible for The Greatest Joke Ever Written. Okay. The first funny thing is that, inexplicably, Gandhi associates trucking with not having to take an aptitude test. In terms of storytelling, it’s a great example of blending one subplot (the PXJTS) into another (Gandhi’s trucker plot) seamlessly, using Gandhi’s mixed-up logic to explain his story without giving away the surprise twist that happens at the end of the episode. The second funny thing about this third part of the joke is that Gandhi says “all the time,” implying that if he stayed in school, or did any other profession, he would indeed be taking the aptitude test often.
Before you ask: yes, I understand how sometimes not explaining a joke makes the joke funnier. And conversely, I also understand how explaining a joke takes away from the joke. And to that, let me say: I don’t care.
DAY OF MORNING
In early outlines of this episode, the first scene was a typical 1980s teen movie montage of Abe waking up and going to school, set to the tune of an ‘80s song like “Don’t Get Me Wrong.” It included snippets of Abe waking up; brushing his teeth and blow-drying his hair at the same time; picking out his jeans (choosing between faded blue and slightly-more-faded blue); grabbing a piece of toast as it pops out of the toaster on his way out the door; helping an old lady across the street (“See you tomorrow, Mrs. Walker!”); picking up Gandhi as he rolls out of bed and through his window, onto a trampoline, and into Abe’s car; and sitting down in class right as the bell rings. The idea was that Abe had everything in his life worked out perfectly, and then later in the episode, when Abe is missing sleep because Cleo has him running her errands, we would show the montage again, and Abe would do everything wrong. Ultimately, there was so much stuff in this episode that there wasn’t time for this, and it was cut.
AUTHOR MILLER
In this episode, another one of the Clone High writers makes his voice-acting debut. Judah Miller, who co-wrote this very episode, plays the deep booming voice of the Scangrade machine, and the deep soothing voice of the radio DJ when Abe is about to hit the truckload of pandas. Judah’s deep booming Scangrade voice made all the writers laugh so hard in the writers’ room that it was a no-brainer for Phil and Chris to cast him in the role. (Actually, technically Judah’s acting debut was made in Episode One when he played the deep voice of Waylon Jennings, but that scene was eventually cut.) In any case, he is a very versatile voice actor, whose range extends from “deep booming voice” to “deep soothing voice.”
TESTY ABOUT THEIR TEST, OR, THE TEST PEOPLE HAVE NO TESTIES
Okay. Let’s talk about the name ‘PXJTs.’ What does it stand for? Well, that’s a very good question. I’m glad I asked it. The answer is: it doesn’t stand for anything. In fact, when Murray and Judah wrote this script, the test the clones were taking was just the regular old PSATs, the very test that you will or have already taken at some point in your youth. Well, guess what? The people who created that test are stuffy old fogies with no sense of humor. It wasn’t until after the episode had been recorded and animated that the people in the legal department told us that we wouldn’t be able to use the copywrited name PSATs. I suppose the episode does subtly imply that the PSATs are an elaborate scam to get kids to buy number two pencils to feed a test-grading machine who will in turn take over the world. Okay, so maybe “imply” is the wrong word. We actually say that directly. And I guess that was enough for the PSAT people to decline us the use of their brand name. We suggested changing it to “PXAT” or “Pre-SAT” and many other similar names, but in each case, our legal department told us that it was still too similar to the PSATs, and there was the slim chance that they could sue our asses off for slander or libel or something. At one point, we thought that the PSAT company would allow us to use the PSAT name if we said the full, complete name of the test, “PSAT-NMSQT,” every time it was mentioned. (That stands for “Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test, National Merit Scholar Qualifying Test”.) A draft of the script was even written up with that in mind, and sent to the PSAT company... but even that was rejected. That is how we ended up with the PXJTs. And so, dear reader, when it is your turn to take the PSATs, please, please, stick some gum on your scantron sheet or something to jam up their machines and put them out of business.
DIDN’T MAKE THE GRADE
Speaking of copywrite headaches, we also weren’t allowed to use the name “Scantron,” which is how we ended up with everyone’s favorite robot “Scangrade.” Who knew that Scantron was the actual name of a company, not the generic term for those bubble-grade sheets? Not me. But apparently our legal department did. Here is a list of other potential names for the machine that ended up being named Scangrade: Scantest, Testtron, Gradetron, and my personal favorite, Scan-o-ma-tron.
WOULDN’T STAN FOR IT
And while we’re on the topic of names we couldn’t use in this episode (I swear to God™, this episode should have been subtitled “The One That Got Screwed by The Legal Department”), in the original script, the name of the trucker that teaches Gandhi how to take the PSATs was “Stan Kaplan.” But, surprisingly, it turns out the Kaplan Test Prep company wasn’t too keen on this. Or, you know what? I bet the studio never even asked them. Because why would they turn down the free exposure? Sure, we guessed at the first name of their founder, and okay, we turned him into a creepy trucker, and yes, we erroneously say that he died forty years ago -- but ultimately, he passes on the treasure of test-taking skills, which is what the Kaplan Corporation is all about. Shame on you, Kaplan. On the plus side, Phil and Chris ended up coming up with the replacement name “Doug Prepcourse,” which is pretty damn funny. So everyone wins.
COPYRIGHTED, OR COPYWRONGED?
Okay. To recap. Here are the many copyrighted terms that we couldn’t use in this episode: PSAT. Scantron. Kaplan. And of course, Mr. Belvetron, which isn’t specific to this episode, but continues to suck wild donkey ass.
GIVE P’s A CHANCE
If you were paying close attention to the episode, you might have seen a couple jokes about what the “P” in “PSAT” (or “PXJT”) stands for. The writers had a lot of fun coming up with these, which stemmed from a conversation where we actually weren’t sure if it was “practice” or “preliminary.” The ones that made it into the script were arguably the funniest: JFK thinks the P stands for “penis,” and the sign outside the auditorium says it stands for “pageantry.” Ones that never made it into the script include George Washington Carver thinking it stands for “peanuts,” and the Shadowy Figures claiming that it stands for “pencil,” or number two pencils to be specific.
CHOPPED NUTS
Everyone loves nut jokes. Unfortunately, sometimes when the episodes are running long, the nuts are the first jokes to be circumcised. That was the case in this episode. An entire scene was cut between Abe and George Washington Carver. It came after Cleo asks Abe to stay the night at her place. Abe is so worried that he’ll fall asleep that he visits Carver’s Peanut Lab, where Carver gives Abe a bag of caffeinated peanuts. Obligatory nut jokes followed, such as Carver saying, “Starbucks would love to get their hands on these babies, but George Washington Carver’s nuts are not for sale!” and Joan saying, “Your nut sack’s not the answer this time, Abe. Not this time.”
HISTORICAL JOKE GRAVEYARD
When we are in Gandhi’s dining room with his stereotypically Jewish parents, that scene used to start with this:
GANDHI'S MOTHER: Bubbela, you haven't touched your kugel. What's this, another hunger strike?
Ultimately, everyone decided that that joke was a little too obvious, and it was cut.
After JFK’s car flips over, we cut to the crowd, where Nostradamus and Walt Disney are standing together.
NOSTRADAMUS: Abe’s gonna win! WALT DISNEY: (ROLLING HIS EYES) Gee, ya think so, Nostradamus? It’s really amazing, how you can “predict the future.”NOSTRADAMUS: Screw you, Disney.
Disney never even ended up being a character on the show, and we do similar Nostradamus jokes elsewhere in other episodes, so this joke was cut early on.
Well, that’s it for this week. Until next time...
My friends call me Pun Dog.
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