Talent Night

### Starring the Voices of

Michael Benyaer, Kathleen Barr, Matthew Sinclair, Tony Jay, Shirley Millner, Michael Donovan, Phil Hayes, Garry Chalk, Louise Vallance

"Talent Night" is the eleventh episode of Season 1 of *ReBoot,* and the eleventh episode overall. It originally aired on January 7, 1995 on YTV and August 12, 1995 on ABC.

## DVD Log Line

Dot auditions acts for Enzo's surprise birthday party show while Bob tries to keep Enzo busy until the party starts. —*ReBoot: The Definitive Mainframe Edition*

## Glitches

* Bob and Mike the TV both say that it's Enzo's first birthday, but he increments from 01 to 10 (2 in binary), which should mean it's his *second* birthday. This is supported by his appearance at age 00 in the Season 4 flashbacks. (For a more in-depth analysis of sprite ages, see Units of Measurement.)

## Cultural References

* Emma See's voice and accent, and her lines "Are you dumb or somethin'?" and "'Cause I can't stand him!", are references to Lina Lamont in *Singin' in the Rain*.
* Sal and Harv ("the Dires") are from the "Money for Nothing" music video, animated and directed by Gavin Blair and Ian Pearson. According to Gavin, they were sick of being known for that video to the exclusion of all else, and that scene was their way of venting. Not featured: Daniel the spaniel.
* Phong *would* sing "Unforgettable" by Nat King Cole, if he could only remember the words.
* The Smalltown Binomes are, of course, the Village People, and their song "BSnP" is a parody of "Y.M.C.A.".
* Captain Quirk's performance is a combined parody of William Shatner's iconic character Captain Kirk, and his musical career based on spoken word covers of popular songs (including "Rocket Man", performed live when hosting the 5th Saturn Awards in 1978).
* Megabyte's guitar volume going up to 11 is a tribute to the rock mocumentary *This is Spinal Tap*.
* "Glitch: BFG!" The most obvious BFG in a computer context is the BFG 9000 weapon from the *Doom* games (with BFG standing for Big [expletive] Gun). There *is* a guitar of the same name, the Gibson Les Paul BFG electric guitar (in which context it stands for Barely Finished Guitar), but it was first made in 2007. (Also, Glitch takes a form more closely resembling a Stratocaster, although the two are not dissimilar.)
* "Megabyte has left the building!" is a variation on "Elvis has left the building!", which was often announced over the public address system after Elvis Presley concerts to inform audiences that there would be no more encores and they could go home already.

## Non-Canon

* Neither of the games-with-a-small-g Bob and Enzo play are named in the episode, but the trivia game on the CD-ROM that came with the Series 2 Wave 2 action figures declares them to be circuit racing and jetball. According to Gavin Blair, this means that they did refer to them as such during production and pass the names on to the people making the quiz, although it's still not full-fledged canon if it's not stated in-show. While the game with the jetpacks makes sense as jetball, the game on the cube, with its right-angled movement, is difficult to reconcile with Enzo's description of circuit racing in The TIFF as involving hairpin banks and loop-the-loops (although it is certainly possible to wipe out).

## Trivia

* The last three episodes of Season 1 were instead aired as the first three episodes of Season 2 on ABC, making this the first.
* Matthew Sinclair replaced Jesse Moss as the voice of Enzo at this point.
* At no point is it indicated what interval a birthday represents for sprites.
* Johnny O'Binome's joke is Henny Youngman's famous one-liner "Take my wife... please!" translated into A1Z26 substitution cipher and from there into binary. (TAKE = 20 1 11 5 = 10100 1 1011 101, and so on.) It is *not* ASCII code, which, while apropos, would have been considerably longer.
* **BSnP gag:** An entire chorus!

## Music

"Alphanumeric" by Bob Buckley, performed by Kathleen Barr

"Alphanumérique" (en français québécois) de Bob Buckley, chanté par Rafaëlle Leiris

Also in this episode: "BSnP"

## External Links

* episode at Shout!Factory TV
* Québécois episode on YouTube

## References

1. ↑ *Singin' in the Rain* clip 1 on YouTube
2. ↑ *Singin' in the Rain* clip 2 on YouTube
3. ↑ "Y.M.C.A." official music video on YouTube
4. ↑ William Shatner performing "Rocket Man" on YouTube
5. ↑ *This is Spinal Tap* clip on YouTube