S01E04: An Inappropriate Dinner with "The Rumor Chick" Lacy Jones (Betsy Sodaro)

**Synopsis**

Mr. Cravy and mayoral hopeful Mr. Levi's  are mired in scandal, Mr. Weatherman makes some headway with his new limo company, and Mr. Padre  finds a new love. Then, The Rumor Chick (Betsy Sodaro) stops by to drop some school gossip, including a couple of bomb shells that the teachers may never be able to come back from.

#### **Notes**

##### **Bill Cravy**

* Bill has been fired by the school board for negligence and incompetence, relating to the following issues:
	+ "taking the basketball team's record in to the toilet", as Todd puts it: Mr. Cravy had initially promised that his appointment would instigate a turnaround in the team's fortunes but, in fact, their results have worsened since he became coach.
	+ claiming he knew how to speak Spanish, thus making him a suitable fit for the vacant Spanish Teacher's position (a vacancy he himself necessitated as the former Spanish Teacher was fired so the school could afford Bill's exorbitant wage demands), when in fact the only Spanish word he knows is 'baño' (Bill believes baño is Spanish for 'hello' which may explain why he has been screaming 'bathroom' at Mexicans around Hamilton, albeit with a smile and a wave, and why, in return, they have been throwing toilet seats at him).
	+ sneaking the men's basketball team in to the strictly 18+ Cooters restaurant in what has since been described as an 'inappropriate dinner'.
* Mr. Cravy, in disguise as his alter ego Bethany Hart, has been rehired by the school as a lunch lady. Bill is hoping that, like Mrs Doubtfire, he will regain his employer's trust and be given his old job back after impressing as Bethany.
* Todd, unaware that she was Bill in disguise, had been heavily pursuing the new lunch lady, even going so far as to take Miss Hart out on a date to Scrotes where they used Mr. Weatherman's limo service and got 'hot and heavy' in the back of the cab. Bill enjoyed the date, as did Todd who generously fellated Mr. Cravy's penis still failing to see through his disguise. It was only when Mr. Cravy's wig came off that Bethany Hart's true identity was revealed, a fact made more tragic by Todd's revelation that, up until this point, it had been the best date of his life.
* In a bid to make her jealous, Todd paraded Bethany outside his ex-wife's house, in defiance of the restraining order he had received for urinating over her in public (see below). Sensing an opportunity to gloat over Leslie, Todd shouted "Look who's out of jail and over you!" but was met by derision from his ex who repeatedly told Mr. Padre his new girlfriend was simply Bill Cravy in a dress. "Shut your mouth! He's got no idea I'm a man" replied BIll, using the voice of a British woman as he was in character as Bethany Hart.
* To the surpise of no-one, Leslie's boyfriend came out with a microphone and began performing one of his trademark roasts on Todd, the same roasts which have led to him signing a development deal with Comedy Central to produce 'Middle-aged Man Roast', a show Todd is not applicable for as he is 72.
* If you listen closely in this episode, you can hear Bill offer Sam a large sum of cash to endorse him as the best lunch lady during his limo rides.

##### **Howard Levi's**

* As part of his mayoral campaign, Mr. Levi's has pledged to track down all of the missing Wemberly children (this may or may not have something to do with the "big chunk of cash" Todd is seen passing Mr. Levi's in this episode).
* Howard's campaign was plagued by a scandal, described as a 'beat-for-beat' recreation of the Anthony Wiener scandal in which Howard tweeted images of 'Anthony's Wiener' (a much bigger penis than his own) to a young woman. He found the image by googling 'famous dick pic' and originally planned to print it out and send it to the woman through the mail.
* Mr. Levi's reveals his personal goal, sexually, is a "long intense build up with a quick disappointing end. I don't want a huge climax". Mr. Levi's identifies that this is part of the online phenomenon 'ruined orgasms'.
* Howard was outed by the Rumor Chick as a Kenyan, which legally disqualified him from office Hamilton's town charter prohibits anyone born in Kenya from being mayor.

##### **Todd Padre**

* Despite Todd's protestations that hiring cleaners was an uncessary expense when he could do it by hand, the school had the soiled pull-out couch cleaned.
* In order to stop him losing everything he holds dear, Todd is marking his territory on all his valuable items, including his ex-wife, by urinating on them. Leslie was at the grocery store when Todd peed on her. Like many of his other misdemeanours, this made the local news where they played the security footage, which showed Todd screaming "Don't play that!" at the camera, as well as his 911 call in which he was heard yelling "Baba Booey" (as well as being Gary Dell'Abate's nickname, Baba Booey is also the name of Todd's grandfather. Todd had called the police to tell them that they could not use the security tape footage and that he would be issuing them with an order to cease and desist. The police informed him that they were not the right people to contact about this, which has given Todd some perspective about what it is like to mistrust law enforcement.
* Todd remains adamant that Jimmy and Joshy Wemberly did not die in his theatre class. He is still working on tracking down the 'missing' children and has cultivated a large number of blurry, Big Foot-esque photos (Todd suffers from a disease known as 'Shaky Hands' which is a byproduct of his paint addiction), including a picture that looks remarkably like Arthur the bespectacled aardvark seen on the PBS Kids channel. As it turns out, Todd was "halfway through a bucket of Baby Blue" and watching Arthur when he was taken aback as he spotted what he believed to be one of the Wemberly twins inside the cartoon. Taking a picture on his 1973 Nikon camera as evidence, Todd called the FBI, who he has on speed dial, and when they picked up he blew a horn down the phone, saying "You're on the horn. I've got the Wemberly Twins. One of them is starring on a PBS show". Sadly for Todd, the FBI have been even less helpful than the local police department and refuse to take his case seriously.
* Todd has added a section for him to do stand-up in his one man show. After complaints by the parents about their children being cast as audience members and then trees, Todd's students will now prepare five minutes each of stand-up material which will serve as the warm up for Todd's big performance; this means he will have 24 opening acts.
* After being accused of being a homosexual several times by his now ex-wife, Todd reveals he took a test to determine his sexuality and was found to be "not gay". Despite this, two years ago Todd's daughter wished, on her birthday, that her father would tell the truth for a whole day. After blowing out the candles on her cake, the first thing Todd said to his daughter was "I think I'm gay" and, despite trying to prove his heterosexuality by writing down "I am straight", his hand kept forcing him to write "I am gay". Todd later framed the paper on which this declaration was made and wrote a script about this episode called 'Gay Man, Gay Man' which he sent to 'Rubberface himself', Jim Carrey.
* Todd reveals that his favourite films to rent from Blockbuster were 'Rubberface' or Dom DeLuise's 'Silence of the Hams', which he was drawn to by their arresting covers.
* Todd has a website from the early days of the internet called 'I Am D' where he categorises movies and has funny trivia and goofs about them. This is very similar to the website IMDB, who Todd believes stole his intellectual property. "If the cops would call me back, we'd have a trial on our hands" says Todd, to which Mr. Cravy responds "You've got to call a lawyer, not the police." Unfortunately Todd's lawyer, much like his therapist, will not return his calls.
* After much speculation in the previous episode, Mr. Padre admitted that he was indeed behind the lucrative merchandising business which sprung up as a result of his public therapy sessions with Howard Milton after continuing to tell the truth as per his daughter's half birthday wish. Owing to the fact he did not have the proper permits, and a complaint from a whistling man on 4th street with no legs whose space he was taking up and  who did have the proper permits, Todd has now shut down this enterprise.

##### **Sam Weatherman**

* Mr. Weatherman is now "getting good" at driving and, after impressing on his date with Bethany, Todd, possibly swayed by the wad of money Sam hands him, endorses Mr. Weatherman's limo service as "almost ready to give [17 year olds] rides at prom night." Despite Todd's endorsement, Sam recently hit two women wearing red dresses who he mistook for fire hydrants and who turned out to be the sisters of the Wemberly twins, as confirmed by the obituaries in the local paper. Despite overwhelming proof to the contrary, Todd is insistent that Sam did not run over any women and suggests it's simply a coincidence that "the very night we hit those two fire hydrants those women were killed by a limo".
* Married couple Thomas and Mary Wemberly have now had six sets of their twin children die. However, many people, most notably Todd,  believe that most or all of the Wemberly children faked their deaths.
* Mr. Weatherman reveals that he enjoys printed out 'nudie pics' as they're much easier to grasp than a slippery phone.

##### **The Rumor Chick**

* The Rumor Chick is known for anonymously spreading gossip about Hamilton's students and faculty on the internet. She claims that she spreads rumors because people need to know the truth and not because she has low self-esteem. She is also unfamiliar with the television series Gossip Girl and resents being compared to it.
* To conceal her identity, she wears a mask of a zombie with a hatchet in its face. She also wears a "pussy mask," which is a crude paper mache vagina (also with a hatchet in it) that she wears over her pants. Despite this disguise, the hosts of the Teacher's Lounge have figured out the Rumor Chick's identity of Lacy Jones, which she paid them to keep secret.
* She refers to all her rumors using fast food terminology and calls them such things as "big beefies," "McNuggets," "double downs from KFC," "pretzel-crust pepperoni pizzas from Pizza Hut," "spicy Chic-Fi-Lay sandwiches with sides of waffle fries and all the dipping sauces you want and a soda." She claims to do this because her rumors are fun, greasy, and will make you shit your pants. However, it is believed that she may be receiving monetary compensation from the companies she names her rumors after as she has a great deal of hush money and claims to receive a brick of gold for every rumor she spreads. She even forced Sam Weatherman to read McDonald's ad copy at knifepoint.
* She gathers her information through large microphones that she's placed all throughout the school that are in no way hidden. She also uses a smoke machine to sneak around people's houses in order to collect rumors, but most of her victims can see both her and the smoke machine while inside the house. Former President George W. Bush works for Rumor Chick as part of her "rumor mall," which combines her two favorite things: rumors and malls. She is unfamiliar with the term "rumor mill."
* When not in disguise as the Rumor Chick, Lacy is the only student at Hamilton High School who likes malls and is frequently in the local mall raving about the Villa Pizza.
* There are rumors that Rumor Chick is "very good at sex" and "loves to please other people." However, these rumors did originate from the Rumor Chick website and were likely created to impress her classmate Brad. The Rumor Chick seems to be infatuated with Brad and she frequently watched him and his then-girlfriend Tina walking around the school.
* At the end of this episode, Lacy revealed that she was an "upside down woman" with her face where her vagina should be and vice versa. She also revealed that she was an an alien from a planet where computers are crazy and have vaccums attached to him. With her goal of spreading rumors on Earth fulfilled, she attempted to leave the planet in some sort of space pod, but was only successful in hovering slightly off the ground.
* Rumor Chick's Double Down KFC was that Rebecca Stevens doesn't have cancer, she just has bad periods.

##### **General**

* We learn that Hamilton is an extremely sexual town ("The women and men of this town are perverts equally" says Todd), which is exemplified by the popularity of The Fifth Street Perverts, a local barbershop quartet. They were once scheduled to sing backup for Bruce Springsteen, but it ultimately did not come to fruition because Steven Van Zandt couldn't handle anyone else sharing the microphone with Springsteen. There is even video of Van Zandt attacking one of the band's members, Petey Pervert.
* This episode sees the first mention of Scrotes, a restaurant where all the waiters walk around wearing only shirts and nothing below the waist. The restaurant is very popular, especially with Bethany Hart, and every seat is filled most nights. Scrotes has a Japanese theme and all costumers sit on pillows on the ground so that the waiters' scrotums are at eye level. All the waiters at Scrotes are on 'downers' to ensure that they remain flaccid their entire shift. Scrotes employs a Hamilton High School student named Marcus and has a very similar business model to Cooters.

#### **Segments**

* The Junior Class, comprised of 432 kids, will be going on a school trip to Washington DC. Three adults will be accompanying the class and 16 students have been appointed as team leaders who are responsible for their 24 buddies. The plan is to hire Uber drivers to ferry the students around but Todd suggests that actually making the kids work for Uber is a more cost effective and sensible idea.
* Todd wanted to attend the trip so he could "take some of [his] concerns straight to the top" but unfortunately he is currently not allowed to leave state lines.

**Characters Mentioned**

* Baba Booey
* Brad
* Compliment Chick
* The Fifth Street Perverts
* Howard Milton (Todd's Therapist)
* Leslie Padre
* Leslie Padre's Boyfriend
* Marcus
* Mary Padre
* Ray Coufus
* This Is Gay
* Tina
* The Wemberlys

#### **Quotes**

* *"It's 2016 and the definition of a woman or a man is beyond me. Whatever I see downstairs I go to town on and I don't ask questions"* - Todd Padre

* *"Good grief, y'all!"* - Sam Weatherman

* *"Do we want to talk about my search for the Wemberly twins or do we want to talk about my paint addiction because both of them are consuming my every moment?"*- Todd Padre

* *"The wings were bad but the scrotes were beautiful. [...] Of course the feminine figure is beautiful, but compared to a man's scrotum...on God's green earth I can't think of a more attractive thing to see all around you while you're eating food"* - Todd Padre on Scrotes

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