Supernatural: Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie
September 30, 2021 5:26 AM - Season 7, Episode 14 - Subscribe

Sam and Dean discover that after children visit a pizza and playground place called Plucky Pennywhistle's, their personal fears sometimes become a reality and kill off their lacklustre parents.

Quotes

Dean: Seriously, Frank, pay phones? I mean, come on. I'm getting the clap off this thing just touching it.

Sam: So, we got dick on Dick?
Dean: That's a vivid way of putting it.

Dean: A few simple rules, okay? No babies. In fact, no baby mamas. No bars. No booze. No hot chicks of any kind.
Sam: Wait, wait, wait. Did you just say --
Dean: Hey. You spawn a monster baby, see how quick you want to dive back in the pool.

Dean: Mom, dad, nanny. Boy, that is a love triangle right out of Casa Erotica. 'Course, in those, the jealous wife tends to channel her feelings more productively.

Sam: All right. I'm on the nanny.
Dean: No, I'm on the nanny.
Sam: I thought you said no hot chicks.
Dean: We don't know that she's hot.

Dean: [after Sam suggests an angel might be behind the killings] Little imaginative for the Godsquad, don't ya think?

Dean: So what are we looking for? An octovamp? A vamptopus?
Sam: That's crazy even for us, right?

Sam: So now unicorns are evil?
Dean: Yeah. Obviously.

Dean: Great, so whatever we're looking for can literally fire off childhood fears at will. Wow. Watch out for evil lunch ladies.

Dean: Well, what's my cover?
Sam: I don't know. Just hang back. Act normal. [goes into bathroom and closes door behind him]
Dean: [to himself] Yeah, yeah. Guy in his 30s hanging out at Plucky's alone -- that's normal. That's not pervy at all.

Sam: Kid therapy. You draw your worst nightmare -- poof! -- Plucky fixes it. They hang them up on this big wall.
Dean: [looks at picture] Well, can't argue with this. Leprechauns *are* deadly.

Tyler: [to another kid] Stop cheating!
Dean: You heard him. Knock it off!
Other kid: [runs away]
Tyler & Dean: Jackass.

Dean: [about Tyler's mom] She's working a tough gig. You know? She's exhausted. You should take pity on the old. [looks at plate]
Dean: And, hey, free grub.
Tyler: That stuff tastes like butt.
Dean: Come on, it can't be that bad. [takes a bite]  Let's see here. [spits it out] That is butt.

Dean: You scared of robots?
Tyler: They have laser eyes!

Sam: Any idea what he drew?
Dean: Robot.
Sam: Robot?
Dean: Yeah, about the size of a house. Shoots destructo beams out of its eyes.
Sam: [sighs] At least I'll see it coming.

Dean: [trying to buy a giant slinky] How much?
Howard: Oh, we don't take cash here at Plucky Pennywhistle's. Only tickets won through hard work and determination.
Dean: You mainlined the Kool-Aid, huh?

Cliff: If this is about the meth lab that fireballed up in Butte, it wasn't me. Okay, it was my brother... but we got the same fingerprints!

Dean: You're not using kids' nightmares to smoke people, are you, Cliff?
Cliff: I don't... think so.

Dean: Cops have a theory?
Sam: Yeah, they think the ball washer did it.
Dean: The what?
Sam: The ball washer.
Dean: The what?
Sam: The ball--- [realizes what Dean is doing]

Dean: That's a shark bite.
Sam: Yeah.
Dean: And, judging from the radius, I'd say a 20-footer, at least.
Sam: ...
Dean: "Shark Week", man. How do you not watch that? Whole week of sharks.

Dean: Seriously. Dractopus. Seabiscuit the Impaler. Land shark. What's next?

Howard: Plucky helps kids. It's all I ever wanted to do. And when the management slot opened up, I... but they passed me over.
Dean: Shocker.

Sam: [covered in glitter after fighting clowns] Okay, just say it.
Dean: Ha! I'm sorry, you look like you got attacked by some PCP-crazed strippers.

Dean: Sam, I'm sorry for psychologically scarring you.
Sam: Which time?

Trivia

Dean discourages Sam from returning to Plucky's, saying, "The one guy who was gonna rat, he got Bruced." He is referring to the mechanical shark Bruce from the 1975 horror classic Jaws.

The theme music/song heard while Sam is at Plucky Pennywhistle's is the same music used in the Season 7 Gag Reel.

Before Sam shoots one of the clowns he says, "If it bleeds you can kill it." This is a reference to the 1987 movie Predator.

When Cliff confesses about the meth lab and Dean says he doesn't care if he "broke bad", he is referring to the AMC series Breaking Bad.

Plucky Pennywhistle's is obviously a play on the Chuck-E-Cheese's chain of child-centred pizza play parlours.

When Sam suggests that something on a horse killed Billy's dad, Dean says, "Close but no Seabiscuit." He is referring to the thoroughbred racehorse, Seabiscuit, an unlikely champion and symbol of hope in the Great Depression.

Among the children's drawings of their worst fears is one resembling the character Mike Wazowski from Monsters, Inc. Ironically, in that movie and its prequel Monsters University, Mike was always considered as someone who could never be frightening to a child.

When Dean answers the phone call from Frank he says, "I am the eggman." This is a reference to the Beatles song "I Am The Walrus".

A fear of clowns is known as "coulrophobia", from the Greek word "colobathristes", meaning "one who walks on stilts".

Sam references getting beaten up by Juggalos at the end of the episode. Juggalo(s) is the term fans of the Horrorcore Rap group's ICP (Insane Clown Posse) & Twiztid (Psychopathic Records & Majik Ninja Entertainment) choose to go by. They are known for dressing up in face paint and drinking/throwing Faygo.

While examining the drawings of children's fears, Dean makes an off-hand comment about leprechauns being deadly (presumably, one of the drawings was of a leprechaun). Dean seems to have a slight phobia of leprechauns, because in "It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester" (ep. 4.7), he suggests the case might involve leprechauns and says, "Those little dudes are scary. Small hands." The boys later actually encountered a leprechaun in episode "Clap Your Hands If You Believe" (ep. 6.9).

After killing a child's father by impaling him with its horn, the unicorn gallops off, farting rainbows all the way. By the early 1980s rainbows and unicorns were, separately, oddly popular with American children under 10 years old. Within a few years unicorns were associated directly with rainbows, and by the 1990s the image of unicorns farting rainbows was well established. At the time this episode came out, Dooky the animatronic unicorn was making commercials in which he pooped rainbow swirl soft-serve ice cream.

After the cold open in which Sam is seen being pursued by murderous clowns, instead of the usual black ink explosion at the title of the show, there is an explosion of rainbow colors and glitter.
posted by orange swan (2 comments total)
 
I had to cringe at the sight of Dean hanging out in Plucky's by himself, and chatting up the kids. Just as he said himself, he looked disturbingly out of place and he surely would have been asked to leave or at least approached and questioned. And he was being an asshole when he called Tyler's mom a "bitch mom". She was clearly exhausted and overwhelmed and doing her best.

Sam's fear of clowns is a funny concept, but Jared Padalecki doesn't have quite enough comedic ability to really carry it off. Those psycho clowns were freaky though. And that little wink Sam's discarded clown doll gives at the very end!

It's nice that Dean gets his giant slinky from Sam.
posted by orange swan at 5:31 AM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]


This was dopey but pretty fun after the last few. Ballpit shark attack, magnificent.

Sam’s clown phobia goes like 60% too over the top for me, in this instance it baaaasically worked okay but yeah, not playing to anybody’s strengths there.

I hope somebody had all the fun in the world making fucked up children’s drawings and coming up with names like Seabiscuit the Impaler. (Also octovamp, vamptopus, and Dractopus, and I don’t know they strictly needed three different names for that one thing but somebody cared enough to make sure we heard all three and you know what, I respect that.)

“If it bleeds you can kill it” is also what Dean tells himself while he’s in a coma getting chased by a reaper in 2x01. I had no idea it was a reference to anything, but it cracks me up that in extremity Sam and Dean both draw emotional support from Predator.
posted by jameaterblues at 9:28 AM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]


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