Written by Tom Martin

When Gandhi is diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (A.D.D.), everyone thinks you can catch it from toilet seats. Abe Lincoln must decide whether to stand up for his best dude or join Cleo in ostracizing him. Meanwhile, Principal Scudworth borrows Mr. Butlertron's sweater vest, which he believes gives him the power to relate to the Clone High students. Also, Joan of Arc hears the voice of God. (Basic cable's Tom Green guest stars as A.D.D.'s most famous victim, Tom Green.)


THE GREATEST JOKE EVER WRITTEN
This episode will always hold a special place in my heart, because it was the first episode of Clone High not written by Phil and Chris. Not that I don’t like Phil and Chris. They’re great and all. But I already knew what they could do from the first two episodes. And while those episodes were rewritten and polished in the writers’ room, they basically came from Phil and Chris’s brains. This time, however, Tom Martin pitched the idea, the entire writing staff fleshed out the story together, and Tom wrote the script.

I remember wondering whether or not the rest of the episodes would be as good as the first two episodes, once other people started writing them. And then Tom handed in his script. From the very first line (GANDHI: “Check it out! I’m the guy with two french fries up his nose. Get it?”) I knew everything was going to be juuuust fine. But it was about halfway through the script when I read The Greatest Joke Ever Written. There was so much goodness packed into one speech by Toots. I was laughing so hard, I actually put the script down, walked out of my office and down the hall to Tom’s office to tell him how funny it was. Here it is:

TOOTS: Folks, you all know me. I’m Toots, Joan of Arc’s foster grandpa. Now I may be blind, but I can see certain things loud and clear. This is a room full of scared people making a decision based on fear and ignorance. Now when I left the house this evening I intended to go to Giovani’s Italian Restaurant. I can tell I’m in the wrong place. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave and let you get on with your meeting.

Where to begin? First of all, this is the first time Toots is introduced on the show, so Tom had to describe who he was. The phrase “foster grandpa” is completely ridiculous, but it totally makes sense. Second, this is the first time we hear Toots utter the phrase “Now I may be blind, but...” which would turn into his catch phrase. Third, the flip joke works so subtly that I had finished reading the entire paragraph before I really took in what he was saying.

Later, Donald Faison was cast as Toots, and brought another dimension to the basically one-dimensional character with his terrific voice acting. As the episodes have progressed and we’ve used more and more of Toots, Donald always goes back to this speech to “get into character.” At the mic, he stands there and recites parts of this speech to get the voice right before he starts in on the new material. This paragraph is Toots.

On a side note: this paragraph stayed exactly the same from Tom’s first draft to the screen, except for one word. The name of the restaurant was changed from DiFiore’s to Giovani’s because of legal reasons. (DiFiore is the name of Tom’s friend who’s the bassist in the band Cake, but apparently it’s also the name of a real Italian restaurant.) Not wanting to rerecord the entire speech because it was done so perfectly the first time, only the word “Giovani’s” was replaced.

And unless I told you, you would never know that it was Phil saying that word with his best Toots impression.

PUPPY LOVE
JFK and President Dog’s love life was more explicit in the early drafts of the script. Here’s the scene as written originally:

JFK: I’m tired of playing second fiddle to our new president! I used to be your frisbee partner! I bet you let him poop in your backyard too! What happened to us, Cleo?
CLEO: There is nothing going on between me and President Dog! We’re just a girl and a dog who happen to enjoy each other’s company.
JFK: Poppycock! You’re going out with that dog for the power he possesses! My other girlfriends are all powerless victims. You make me sick.
JFK walks away.
CLEO: Wait. JFK! President Dog means nothing to me! He only makes out with me when I have peanut butter on my lips! Oh...
A squirrel runs by with a jar of peanut butter. President Dog runs after it.
CLEO: President Dog! Stay! Stay! Stay...

ATTENTION DEFICIENCY DISEASE
There was a point during the brainstorming of this episode when A.D.D. was a more obvious metaphor for AIDS. All the kids spread misinformation about the disease, such as “I heard Tom Green had sex with a monkey with A.D.D., and that’s how it started.” The line Paul Revere sings in the A.D.D. song “You get it from toilet seats/ Use a protective seat” is leftover from that idea.

THE SAY-HAYZOOS KID
Jesús Cristo is played by Jeff Garcia, a great stand-up comedian. He recorded his scene so many times. And because he talks so fast, each time he said his lines, they came out totally different. Nobody in the studio could stop laughing.

DE BEAUS
Two of our writers made their voice-acting debuts in this episode: Gene Kelly’s one line of dialogue is spoken by writer Murray Miller. The man in the space suit is played by writer Eric Kentoff, who held his hand over his mouth to imitate an astronaut’s helmet.

WITH OR WITHOUT JEW
Gandhi’s Orthodox Jewish parents were supposed to make their first appearance in this episode, during the PTA meeting scene, but their lines were cut for time. You can hear their dialogue by clicking on this link.

MUST STASH AWAY FOR LATER
Initially, the idea for Scudworth’s subplot in this episode was for him to wear a giant, fake, Spanish-style moustache and call himself “Señor Counselorioso” while counseling the students. The writers outlined his entire story with this in mind... and then someone brought up the fact that we had another giant, fake moustache story planned for Joan in episode 6. Phil and Chris decided that the moustache was more important for Joan’s story, so the writers room was given the task of coming up with a different angle to Scudworth’s counseling subplot. Thus, the magic sweater vest was born.

ALTERNATE ENDING: OVER WRITTEN OR OVER WROUGHT?
The Clone High writers always write too many endings to the stories. For this episode, at one point, an idea was kicking around that everyone would realize that A.D.D. was okay... in moderation. (See episode 10 for more on “in moderation.”) Another idea was that everyone would realize that they all had a little bit of A.D.D. themselves. Cleo would say she had A.D.D. Of The Heart, which is why she can’t decide between Abe and JFK. JFK would say he had A.D.D. Of The Vagina, which is why he can’t decide who to have sex with. And so on. This idea was quickly discarded. A third idea was to end the show with this voice-over narration by Tom Green: “Over a bazillion American children suffer from A.D.D. This episode of Clone High is dedicated to those brave, squirmy youngsters who liven up boring classrooms everywhere. I’m Tom Green and I make more money than a doctor.” (You can hear Tom recording different versions of this ending by clicking here.)

GUESS STAR
Tom Green ended up being the perfect spokesman for A.D.D. But did you know the writers had another celebrity guest in mind when they first wrote the episode? Of course you didn’t. How could you? You’re not part of the Clone High inner sanctum.

But yes, it is true. The first draft of the script was written with Tom Arnold in mind. Instead of being obsessed with shaving dogs and cheese and taking dumps like Tom Green, the Tom Arnold A.D.D. spokesman was obsessed with once being in “True Lies” and asking Abe to go dutch on a hooker. But unfortunately, Mr. Arnold was unavailable due to his schedule on “The Best Gosh God Damn Darn Diggity Sports Show Ever Made Ever Show,” so the writers were given the task of brainstorming other possible A.D.D.-inflicted guest stars. Names such as David Arquette and Regis Philbin were tossed around before everybody decided that the funniest option was Tom Green.

And thank goodness, because Tom Green was amazing. He came into the recording studio and ad-libbed almost all of his lines. He even made up the “albatross” scene on the spot. (For lots of audio outtakes of his recording session, click here. You can even hear Phil and Chris cracking up in the background.)

(I don’t think Tom Green knows he wasn’t our first choice, so don’t tell him. And Tom, you if happen to read this, don’t be mad. We love you, as proven by the Clone High T-shirt we sent you.)

HISTORICAL JOKE GRAVEYARD
Here’s two historical jokes in one scene! Guess how many of them made in into the episode? If you guessed one or two, you haven’t been paying attention.

KARL MARX/GROUCHO MARX: Hey, Mr. B.
MR. BUTLERTRON: Karl and Groucho, my two favorite Marx brothers. How’s the class struggle?
KARL MARX: More like “struggle” to get to class. Hey-o!
GROUCHO: I thought we talked about this. I do the jokes, you write the manifestos.
They continue on.
DR. SCUDWORTH: Mr. B, I’m the principal and you’re a mere butler-slash-vice principal-slash-dehumidifier, yet every student says hello to you and ignores me. How can I get close to the students?
MR. BUTLERTRON: All you have to do is reach out and show them you care.
Just then, ISAAC NEWTON skateboards by. Scudworth pins him against the lockers.
DR. SCUDWORTH: Newton! Equate this: A body in motion tends to have his skateboard shoved up his ass! (TO GUARD) Have this boy killed.


XOXO,
~Pun Dog