page_title: Un-American Graffiti
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: Un-American Graffiti / Production
caption_attribution_description: English: Enrico Colantoni at the 2013 San Diego Comic Con International in San Diego, California.
context_page_description: "Un-American Graffiti" is the sixteenth episode of the third season of the American mystery television series Veronica Mars, and the sixtieth episode overall. Written by Robert Hull and directed by John T. Kretchmer, the episode premiered on The CW on May 1, 2007. The series depicts the adventures of Veronica Mars as she deals with life as a college student while moonlighting as a private detective.
  In this episode, Veronica is hired by an Arab couple who own a Middle Eastern restaurant because their restaurant has recently had the word "terrorist" spray-painted on it. Meanwhile, Keith, as acting Sheriff, looks into underage drinking regulations in local bars after the case of a drunk 19-year-old getting hit by a car comes to Keith's attention, eventually finding that Veronica is handing out convincing fake IDs to her fellow students. In addition, Veronica attends a birthday party run by Logan for his new girlfriend Parker.
  "Un-American Graffiti" was the first episode of the series not to be part of a larger story arc.
context_section_description: "Un-American Graffiti" was written by Robert Hull and directed by John T. Kretchmer, marking Hull's second and final writing credit (after "Show Me the Monkey") and Kretchmer's fourteenth and final directing credit for the series. "Un-American Graffiti" introduces a romantic storyline between Mac (Tina Majorino) and Max (Adam Rose). Max had appeared in two previous episodes—as a suspect in "Hi, Infidelity" and as the main client in "Poughkeepsie, Tramps and Thieves". From the very beginning of his appearances, Max was planned to begin a romantic relationship with Mac. Rose was roommates with the other main love interest for her, Bronson Pope (Michael Mitchell). When Rose received the call that he would be appearing in more episodes for a romantic storyline with Mac, Rose stated, "But I thought that's what my roommate was doing."
  "Un-American Graffiti" is the first episode of Veronica Mars not to be part of a broader story arc in the form of a mystery that Veronica solves over several episodes. The crew's plan at the beginning of the season was to have the two-part murder mystery of Hearst's basketball coach, encapsulated in "Postgame Mortem" and "Mars, Bars", to stretch over the rest of the season beginning with this episode, but this idea was changed around the airing of "Spit & Eggs". Series creator Rob Thomas gave two rationales for the creative change. The first was that he believed that the story arcs alienated new or casual viewers, meaning that the change would solve the series' low Nielsen ratings, while the other reason was that he noticed that after the first season, the show had garnered the most narrative criticism about the story arcs. On trying the new narrative structure, Thomas stated, "It seems like a good time to do it—a good fun test balloon. Try it over five [episodes] and see how fans and non-fans react." However, Thomas also commented that the show would continue to exhibit a degree of serialization through Veronica's romantic and personal life. In addition, the new story formula was a way to have episodes focus on Veronica's personal life instead of devoting most of the episode time to advancing rushed mysteries.
  The episode also features the first kiss of the characters of Piz (Chris Lowell) and Veronica, creating a love triangle between the two and Logan (Jason Dohring) that would last for the rest of the series and the Veronica Mars movie, dividing fans into "Team Logan" and "Team Piz", depending on which relationship they preferred. The song "Rally" by alternative rock band Phoenix plays during Veronica and Piz's kiss. Thomas highlighted the scene in Veronica returns home to find Keith reading classified ads as one of his favorite moments between the father/daughter pair in the season, stating that they both fulfilled the writers' initial vision for the scene and that Kristen Bell in particular interpreted her lines well.
  The episode was the first to air after nearly a two-month hiatus, during which Thomas came up for the idea for season four to take place in the FBI Academy. Possibly done as a last-resort attempt to save the show from cancellation, the series was very much on the brink of cancellation at this point in production. Prior to the airing of "Un-American Graffiti", Enrico Colantoni stated that The CW had seen the filmed first ten pages and reacted negatively. However, Thomas denied this testimony and commented that The CW had not yet seen the FBI pitch and would on May 2, the day after the series' return, a statement that was confirmed to be true by a representative for the network. Prior to the episode's airing, information was released stating that middle school students would be involved in the episode, leading BuddyTV to speculate that Logan's young friend from "Postgame Mortem" would make an appearance.
caption: Enrico Colantoni stated prior to the airing of the episode that The CW had seen Thomas's FBI pitch for the next season and rejected it, a comment that was denied by both Thomas and a network representative.
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